The Huguenots in France Part 32

Sometimes a fall of rocks from the cliffs above dams up the bed of the river, when a lake acc.u.mulates behind the barrier until it bursts, and the torrent swoops down the valley, was.h.i.+ng away fields, and bridges, and mills, and hovels.

Even the stouter-built dwelling of M. Baridon at Les Ribes was nearly carried away by one of such inundations twelve years ago. It stands about a hundred yards from the mountain-stream which comes down from the Pic de la Sea. One day in summer a storm burst over the mountain, and the stream at once became swollen to a torrent. The inmates of the dwelling thought the house must eventually be washed away, and gave themselves up to prayer. The flood, bearing with it rolling rocks, came nearer and nearer, until it reached a few old walnut trees on a line with the torrent. A rock of some thirty feet square tumbled against one of the trees, which staggered and bent, but held fast and stopped the rock. The debris at once rolled upon it into a bank, the course of the torrent was turned, and the dwelling and its inmates were saved.

Another incident, ill.u.s.trative of the perils of daily life in Val Fressinieres, was related to me by Mr. Milsom while pa.s.sing the scene of one of the mud and rock avalanches so common in the valley. Etienne Baridon, a member of the same Les Ribes family, an intelligent young man, disabled for ordinary work by lameness and deformity, occupied himself in teaching the children in the Protestant school at Violens, whither he walked daily, accompanied by the pupils from Les Ribes. One day, a heavy thunderstorm burst over the valley, and sent down an avalanche of mud, debris, and boulders, which rolled quite across the valley and extended to the river. The news of the circ.u.mstance reached Etienne when in school at Violens; the road to Les Ribes was closed; and he was accordingly urged to stay over the night with the children.

But thinking of the anxiety of their parents, he determined to guide them back over the fall of rocks if possible. Arrived at the place, he found the ma.s.s still on the move, rolling slowly down in a ridge of from ten to twenty feet high, towards the river. Supported by a stout staff; the lame Baridon took first one child and then another upon his hump-back; and contrived to carry them across in safety; but while making his last journey with the last child, his foot slipped and his leg got badly crushed among the still-rolling stones. He was, however, able to extricate himself, and reached Les Ribes in safety with all the children. "This Etienne," concluded Mr. Milsom, "was really a n.o.ble fellow, and his poor deformed body covered the soul of a hero."

At length, after a journey of about ten miles up this valley of the shadow of death, along which the poor persecuted Vaudois were so often hunted, we reached an apparent _cul-de-sac_ amongst the mountains, beyond which further progress seemed impracticable. Precipitous rocks, with their slopes of debris at foot, closed in the valley all round, excepting only the narrow gullet by which we had come; but, following the footpath, a way up the mountain-side gradually disclosed itself--a zigzag up the face of what seemed to be a sheer precipice--and this we were told was the road to Dormilhouse. The zigzag path is known as the Tourniquet. The ascent is long, steep, and fatiguing. As we pa.s.sed up, we observed that the precipice contained many narrow ledges upon which soil has settled, or to which it has been carried. Some of these are very narrow, only a few yards in extent, but wherever there is room for a spade to turn, the little patches bear marks of cultivation; and these are the fields of the people of Dormilhouse!

Far up the mountain, the footpath crosses in front of a lofty cascade--La p.i.s.se du Dormilhouse--which leaps from the summit of the precipice, and sometimes dashes over the roadway itself. Looking down into the valley from this point, we see the Bia.s.se meandering like a thread in the hollow of the mountains, becoming lost to sight in the ravine near Minsals. We have now ascended to a great height, and the air feels cold and raw. When we left Palons, the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly, and its heat was almost oppressive, but now the temperature feels wintry. On our way up, rain began to fall; as we ascended the Tourniquet the rain became changed to sleet; and at length, on reaching the summit of the rising ground from which we first discerned the hamlet of Dormilhouse, on the first day of July, the snow was falling heavily, and all the neighbouring mountains were clothed in the garb of winter.

This, then, is the famous mountain fastness of the Vaudois--their last and loftiest and least accessible retreat when hunted from their settlements in the lower valleys hundreds of years ago. Driven from rock to rock, from Alp to Alp, they clambered up on to this lofty mountain-ledge, five thousand feet high, and made good their settlement, though at the daily peril of their lives. It was a place of refuge, a fortress and citadel of the faithful, where they continued to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d according to conscience during the long dark ages of persecution and tyranny. The dangers and terrors of the situation are indeed so great, that it never could have been chosen even for a hiding-place, much less for a permanent abode, but from the direst necessity. What the poor people suffered while establis.h.i.+ng themselves on these barren mountain heights no one can tell, but they contrived at length to make the place their home, and to become inured to their hard life, until it became almost a second nature to them.

The hamlet of Dormilhouse is said to have existed for nearly six hundred years, during which the religion of its inhabitants has remained the same. It has been alleged that the people are the descendants of a colony of refugee Lombards; but M. Muston, and others well able to judge, after careful inquiry on the spot, have come to the conclusion that they bear all the marks of being genuine descendants of the ancient Vaudois. In features, dress, habits, names, language, and religious doctrine, they have an almost perfect ident.i.ty with the Vaudois of Piedmont at the present day.

Dormilhouse consists of about forty cottages, inhabited by some two hundred persons. The cottages are perched "like eagles' nests," one tier ranging over another on the rocky ledges of a steep mountain-side. There is very little soil capable of cultivation in the neighbourhood, but the villagers seek out little patches in the valley below and on the mountain shelves, from which they contrive to grow a little grain for home use. The place is so elevated and so exposed, that in some seasons even rye will not ripen at Dormilhouse, while the pasturages are in many places inaccessible to cattle, and scarcely safe for sheep.

The princ.i.p.al food of the people is goats' milk and unsifted rye, which they bake into cakes in the autumn, and these cakes last them the whole year--the grain, if left unbaked, being apt to grow mouldy and spoil in so damp an atmosphere. Besides, fuel is so scarce that it is necessary to exercise the greatest economy in its use, every stick burnt in the village having to be brought from a distance of some twelve miles, on the backs of donkeys, by the steep mountain-path leading up to the hamlet. Hence, also, the unsavoury means which they are under the necessity of adopting to economize warmth in the winter, by stabling the cattle with themselves in the cottages. The huts are for the most part wretched constructions of stone and mud, from which fresh air, comfort, and cleanliness seem to be entirely excluded.

Excepting that the people are for the most part comfortably dressed, in clothing of coa.r.s.e wool, which they dress and weave themselves, their domestic accommodation and manner of living are centuries behind the age; and were a stranger suddenly to be set down in the village, he could with difficulty be made to believe that he was in the land of civilised Frenchmen.

The place is dreary, stern, and desolate-looking even in summer. Thus, we entered it with the snow falling on the 1st of July! Few of the balmy airs of the sweet South of France breathe here. In the hollow of the mountains the heat may be like that of an oven; but here, far up on the heights, though the air may be fresh and invigorating at times, when the wind blows it often rises to a hurricane. Here the summer comes late and departs early. While flowers are blooming in the valleys, not a bud or blade of corn is to be seen at Dormilhouse. At the season when vegetation is elsewhere at its richest, the dominant features of the landscape are barrenness and desolation. The very shapes of the mountains are rugged, harsh, and repulsive. Right over against the hamlet, separated from it by a deep gully, rises up the grim, bare Gramusac, as black as a wall, but along the ledges of which, the hunters of Dormilhouse, who are very daring and skilful, do not fear to stalk the chamois.

But if the place is thus stern and even appalling in summer, what must it be in winter? There is scarcely a habitation in the village that is not exposed to the danger of being carried away by avalanches or falling rocks. The approach to the mountain is closed by ice and snow, while the rocks are all tapestried with icicles. The _tourmente_, or snow whirlwind, occasionally swoops up the valley, tears the roofs from the huts, and scatters them in destruction.

Here is a pa.s.sage from Neff's journal, vividly descriptive of winter life at Dormilhouse:--

"The weather has been rigorous in the extreme; the falls of snow are very frequent, and when it becomes a little milder, a general thaw takes place, and our hymns are often sung amid the roar of the avalanches, which, gliding along the smooth face of the glacier, hurl themselves from precipice to precipice, like vast cataracts of silver."

Writing in January, he says:--

"We have been buried in four feet of snow since of 1st of November. At this very moment a terrible blast is whirling the snow in thick blinding clouds. Travelling is exceedingly difficult and even dangerous among these valleys, particularly in the neighbourhood of Dormilhouse, by reason of the numerous avalanches falling everywhere.... One Sunday evening our scholars and many of the Dormilhouse people, when returning home after the sermon at Violens, narrowly escaped an avalanche. It rolled through a narrow defile between two groups of persons: a few seconds sooner or later, and it would have plunged the flower of our youth into the depths of an unfathomable gorge.... In fact, there are very few habitations in these parts which are not liable to be swept away, for there is not a spot in the narrow corner of the valley which can be considered absolutely safe. But terrible as their situation is, they owe to it their religion, and perhaps their physical existence. If their country had been more secure and more accessible, they would have been exterminated like the inhabitants of Val Louise."

Such is the interesting though desolate mountain hamlet to the service of whose hardy inhabitants the brave Felix Neff devoted himself during the greater part of his brief missionary career. It was characteristic of him to prefer to serve them because their dest.i.tution was greater than that which existed in any other quarter of his extensive parish; and he turned from the grand mountain scenery of Arvieux and his comfortable cottage at La Chalp, to spend his winters in the dismal hovels and amidst the barren wastes of Dormilhouse.

When Neff first went amongst them, the people were in a state of almost total spiritual dest.i.tution. They had not had any pastor stationed amongst them for nearly a hundred and fifty years. During all that time they had been without schools of any kind, and generation after generation had grown up and pa.s.sed away in ignorance.

Yet with all the inborn tenacity of their race, they had throughout refused to conform to the dominant religion. They belonged to the Vaudois Church, and repudiated Romanism.

There was probably a Protestant church existing at Dormilhouse previous to the Revocation, as is shown by the existence of an ancient Vaudois church-bell, which was hid away until of late years, when it was dug up and hung in the belfry of the present church. In 1745, the Roman Catholics endeavoured to effect a settlement in the place, and then erected the existing church, with a residence for the cure. But the people, though they were on the best of terms with the cure, refused to enter his church. During the twenty years that he ministered there, it is said the sole congregation consisted of his domestic servant, who a.s.sisted him at ma.s.s.

The story is still told of the cure bringing up from Les Ribes a large bag of apples--an impossible crop at Dormilhouse--by way of tempting the children to come to him and receive instruction. But they went only so long as the apples lasted, and when they were gone the children disappeared. The cure complained that during the whole time he had been in the place he had not been able to get a single person to cross himself. So, finding he was not likely to be of any use there, he pet.i.tioned his bishop to be allowed to leave; on which, his request being complied with, the church was closed.

This continued until the period of the French Revolution, when religious toleration became recognised. The Dormilhouse people then took possession of the church. They found in it several dusty images, the basin for the holy water, the altar candlesticks, and other furniture, just as the cure had left them many years before; and they are still preserved as curiosities. The new occupants of the church whitewashed the pictures, took down the crosses, dug up the old Vaudois bell and hung it up in the belfry, and rang the villagers together to celebrate the old wors.h.i.+p again. But they were still in want of a regular minister until the period when Felix Neff settled amongst them. A zealous young preacher, Henry Laget, had before then paid them a few visits, and been warmly welcomed; and when, in his last address, he told them they would see his face no more, "it seemed," said a peasant who related the incident to Neff, "as if a gust of wind had extinguished the torch which was to light us in our pa.s.sage by night across the precipice." And even Neff's ministry, as we have above seen, only lasted for the short s.p.a.ce of about three years.

Some years after the death of Neff, another attempt was made by the Roman Catholics to establish a mission at Dormilhouse. A priest went up from Les Ribes accompanied by a sister of mercy from Gap--"the pearl of the diocese," she was called--who hired a room for the purpose of commencing a school. To give _eclat_ to their enterprise, the Archbishop of Embrun himself went up, clothed in a purple dress, riding a white horse, and accompanied by a party of men bearing a great red cross, which he caused to be set up at the entrance to the village. But when the archbishop appeared, not a single inhabitant went out to meet him; they had all a.s.sembled in the church to hold a prayer-meeting, and it lasted during the whole period of his visit.

All that he accomplished was to set up the great red cross, after which he went down the Tourniquet again; and shortly after, the priest and the sister of mercy, finding they could not obtain a footing, also left the village. Somehow or other, the red cross which had been set up mysteriously disappeared, but how it had been disposed of no one would ever reveal. It was lately proposed to commemorate the event of the archbishop's visit by the erection of an obelisk on the spot where he had set up the red cross; and a tablet, with a suitable inscription, was provided for it by the Rev. Mr. Freemantle, of Claydon. But when he was told that the site was exposed to the full force of the avalanches descending from the upper part of the mountain in winter, and would speedily be swept away, the project of the memorial pillar was abandoned, and the tablet was inserted, instead, in the front wall of the village church, where it reads as follows:--

a LA GLOIRE DE DIEU DONT DE LES TEMPS ANCIENS ET a TRAVERS LE MARTYR DE LEURS PeRES A MAINTENU a DORMILHOUSE LA FOI DONNE AUX SAINTS ET LA CONNAISSANCE DE LA PAROLE LES HABITANTS ONT eLEVe CETTE PIERRE MDCCCLXIV.

Having thus described the village and its history, a few words remain to be added as to the visit of our little party of travellers from Palons. On reaching the elevated point at which the archbishop had set up the red cross, the whole of the huts lay before us, and a little way down the mountain-side we discerned the village church, distinguished by its little belfry. Leaving on our right the Swiss-looking chalet with overhanging roof, in which Neff used to lodge with the Baridon-Verdure family while at Dormilhouse, and now known as "Felix Neff's house," we made our way down a steep and stony footpath towards the school-house adjoining the church, in front of which we found the large ash trees, shading both church and school, which Neff himself had planted. Arrived at the school-house, we there found shelter and accommodation for the night. The schoolroom, fitted with its forms and desks, was our parlour, and our bedrooms, furnished with the blankets we had brought with us, were in the little chambers adjoining.

At eight in the evening the church bell rang for service--the summoning bell. The people had been expecting the visit, and turned out in full force, so that at nine o'clock, when the last bell rang, the church was found filled to the door. Every seat was occupied--by men on one side, and by women on the other. The service was conducted by Mr. Milsom, the missionary visitor from Lyons, who opened with prayer, then gave out the twenty-third Psalm, which was sung to an accompaniment on the harmonium; then another prayer, followed by the reading of a chapter in the New Testament, was wound up by an address, in which the speaker urged the people to their continuance in well-doing. In the course of his remarks he said: "Be not discouraged because the results of your Labours may appear but small. Work on and faint not, and G.o.d will give the spiritual increase. Pastors, teachers, and colporteurs are too often ready to despond, because the fruit does not seem to ripen while they are watching it. But the best fruit grows slowly. Think how the Apostles laboured. They were all poor men, but men of brave hearts; and they pa.s.sed away to their rest long before the seed which they planted grew up and ripened to perfection. Work on then in patience and hope, and be a.s.sured that G.o.d will at length help you."

Mr. Milsom's address was followed by another from the pastor, and then by a final prayer and hymn, after which the service was concluded, and the villagers dispersed to their respective homes a little after ten o'clock. The snow had ceased falling, but the sky was still overcast, and the night felt cold and raw, like February rather than July.

The wonder is, that this community of Dormilhouse should cling to their mountain eyrie so long after the necessity for their living above the clouds has ceased; but it is their home, and they have come to love it, and are satisfied to live and die there. Rather than live elsewhere, they will walk, as some of them do, twelve miles in the early morning, to their work down in the valley of the Durance, and twelve miles home again, in the evenings, to their perch on the rocks at Dormilhouse.

They are even proud of their mountain home, and would not change it for the most smiling vineyard of the plains. They are like a little mountain clan--all Baridons, or Michels, or Orcieres, or Bertholons, or Arnouds--proud of their descent from the ancient Vaudois. It is their boast that a Roman Catholic does not live among them. Once, when a young shepherd came up from the valley to pasture his flock in the mountains, he fell in love with a maiden of the village, and proposed to marry her. "Yes," was the answer, with this condition, that he joined the Vaudois Church. And he a.s.sented, married the girl, and settled for life at Dormilhouse.[105]

[Footnote 105: Since the date of our visit, we learn that a sad accident--strikingly ill.u.s.trative of the perils of village life at Dormilhouse--has befallen this young shepherd, by name Jean Joseph Lagier. One day in October, 1869, while engaged in gathering wood near the brink of the precipice overhanging Minsals, he accidently fell over and was killed on the spot, leaving behind him a widow and a large family. He was a person of such excellent character and conduct, that he had been selected as colporteur for the neighbourhood.]

The next morning broke clear and bright overhead. The sun shone along the rugged face of the Gramusac right over against the hamlet, bringing out its bolder prominences. Far below, the fleecy clouds were still rolling themselves up the mountain-sides, or gradually dispersing as the sun caught them on their emerging from the valley below. The view was bold and striking, displaying the grandeur of the scenery of Dormilhouse in one of its best aspects.

Setting out on the return journey to Palons, we descended the face of the mountain on which Dormilhouse stands, by a steep footpath right in front of it, down towards the falls of the Bia.s.se. Looking back, the whole village appeared above us, cottage over cottage, and ledge over ledge, with its stern background of rocky mountain.

Immediately under the village, in a hollow between two shoulders of rock, the cascade of the Bia.s.se leaps down into the valley. The highest leap falls in a jet of about a hundred feet, and the lower, divided into two by a projecting ledge, breaks into a shower of spray which falls about a hundred and fifty feet more into the abyss below.

Even in Switzerland this fall would be considered a fine object; but in this out-of-the-way place, it is rarely seen except by the villagers, who have water and cascades more than enough.

We were told on the spot, that some eighty years since an avalanche shot down the mountain immediately on to the plateau on which we stood, carrying with it nearly half the village of Dormilhouse; and every year the avalanches shoot down at the same place, which is strewn with the boulders and debris that extend far down into the valley.

At the bottom of the Tourniquet we joined M. Charpiot, accompanying the donkey laden with the blankets and knapsacks, and proceeded with him on our way down the valley towards his hospitable parsonage at Palons.

CHAPTER V.

GUILLESTRE AND THE VALLEY OF QUEYRAS.

We left Palons on a sharp, bright morning in July, with the prospect of a fine day before us, though there had been a fall of snow in the night, which whitened the tops of the neighbouring hills. Following the road along the heights on the right bank of the Bia.s.se, and pa.s.sing the hamlet of Chancellas, another favourite station of Neff's, a rapid descent led us down into the valley of the Durance, which we crossed a little above the village of St. Crepin, with the strong fortress of Mont Dauphin before us a few miles lower down the valley.

This remote corner in the mountains was the scene of much fighting in early times between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots, and afterwards between the French and the Piedmontese. It was in this neighbourhood that Lesdiguieres first gave evidence of his skill and valour as a soldier. The ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew at Paris in 1572 had been followed by like ma.s.sacres in various parts of France, especially in the south. The Roman Catholics of Dauphiny, deeming the opportunity favourable for the extirpation of the heretical Vaudois, dispatched the military commandant of Embrun against the inhabitants of Val Fressinieres at the head of an army of twelve hundred men.

Lesdiguieres, then scarce twenty-four years old, being informed of their march, hastily a.s.sembled a Huguenot force in the valley of the Drac, and, crossing the Col d'Orcieres from Champsaur into the valley of the Durance, he suddenly fell upon the enemy at St. Crepin, routed them, and drove them down the valley to Embrun. Twelve years later, during the wars of the League, Lesdiguieres distinguished himself in the same neighbourhood, capturing Embrun, Guillestre, and Chateau Queyras, in the valley of the Guil, thereby securing the entire province for his royal master, Henry of Navarre.

The strong fortress of Mont Dauphin, at the junction of the Guil with the Durance, was not constructed until a century later. Victor-Amadeus II., when invading the province with a Piedmontese army, at sight of the plateau commanding the entrance of both valleys, exclaimed, "There is a pa.s.s to fortify." The hint was not neglected by the French general, Catinat, under whose directions the great engineer, Vauban, traced the plan of the present fortifications. It is a very strong place, completely commanding the valley of the Durance, while it is regarded as the key of the pa.s.sage into Italy by the Guil and the Col de la Croix.

Guillestre is a small old-fas.h.i.+oned town, situated on the lowest slope of the pine-clad mountain, the Tete de Quigoulet, at the junction of the Rioubel and the Chagne, rivulets in summer but torrents in winter, which join the Guil a little below the town. Guillestre was in ancient times a strong place, and had for its lords the Archbishops of Embrun, the ancient persecutors of the Vaudois. The castle of the archbishop, flanked by six towers, occupied a commanding site immediately overlooking the town; but at the French Revolution of 1789, the first thing which the archbishop's flock did was to pull his castle in pieces, leaving not one stone upon another; and, strange to say, the only walled enclosure now within its precincts is the little burying-ground of the Guillestre Protestants. One memorable stone has, however, been preserved, the stone trough in which the peasants were required to measure the tribute of grain payable by them to their reverend seigneurs. It is still to be seen laid against a wall in an open s.p.a.ce in front of the church.

It happened that the fair of Guillestre, which is held every two months, was afoot at the time of our visit. It is frequented by the people of the adjoining valleys, of which Guillestre is the centre, as well as by Piedmontese from beyond the Italian frontier. On the princ.i.p.al day of the fair we found the streets filled with peasants buying and selling beasts. They were apparently of many races. Amongst them were many well-grown men, some with rings in their ears--horse-dealers from Piedmont, we were told; but the greater number were little, dark, thin, and poorly-fed peasants. Some of them, dark-eyed and tawny-skinned, looked like Arabs, possibly descendants of the Saracens who once occupied the province. There were one or two groups of gipsies, differing from all else; but the district is too poor to be much frequented by people of that race.

The animals brought for sale showed the limited resources of the neighbourhood. One hill-woman came along dragging two goats in milk; another led a sheep and a goat; a third a donkey in foal; a fourth a cow in milk; and so on. The largest lot consisted of about forty lambs, of various sizes and breeds, which had been driven down from the cool air of the mountains, and, gasping with heat, were cooling their heads against the shady side of a stone wall. There were several lots of pigs, of a bad but probably hardy sort--mostly black, round-backed, long-legged, and long-eared. In selling the animals, there was the usual chaffering, in shrill patois, at the top of the voice--the seller of some poor scraggy beast extolling its merits, the intending buyer running it down as a "miserable bossu," &c., and disputing every point raised in its behalf, until the contest of words rose to such a height--men, women, and even children, on both sides, taking part in it--that the bystander would have thought it impossible they could separate without a fight. But matters always came to a peaceable conclusion, for the French are by no means a quarrelsome people.

There were also various other sorts of produce offered for sale--wool, undressed sheepskins, sticks for firewood, onions and vegetable produce, and considerable quant.i.ties of honeycomb; while the sellers of scythes, whetstones, caps, and articles of dress, seemed to meet with a ready sale for their wares, arranged on stalls in the open s.p.a.ce in front of the church. Altogether, the queer collection of beasts and their drivers, who were to be seen drinking together greedily and promiscuously from the fountains in the market-place; the steep streets, crowded with lean goats and cows and pigs, and their buyers and sellers; the braying of donkeys and the shrieking of chafferers, with here and there a goitred dwarf of hideous aspect, presented a picture of an Alpine mountain fair, which, once seen, is not readily forgotten.

There is a similar fair held at the village of La Bessie, before mentioned, a little higher up the Durance, on the road to Briancon; but it is held only once a year, at the end of October, when the inhabitants of Dormilhouse come down in a body to lay in their stock of necessaries for the winter. "There then arrives," says M. Albert, "a caravan of about the most singular character that can be imagined.

It consists of nearly the whole population of the mountain hamlet, who resort thither to supply themselves with the articles required for family use during the winter, such as leather, lint, salt, and oil.

These poor mountaineers are provided with very little money, and, to procure the necessary commodities, they have recourse to barter, the most ancient and primitive method of conducting trade. Hence they bring with them rye, barley, pigs, lambs, chamois skins and horns, and the produce of their knitting during the past year, to exchange for the required articles, with which they set out homeward, laden as they had come."