. A short history of the Italian Waldenses who have inhabited the valleys of the Cottian Alps from ancient times to the present. t Easter was so crowded that the com-memoration was held in the open air, and formany it was the last time. The fatal order was given on April 22, 1686,and in one month the valleys were depopu-lated. Two armies, the French under GeneralCatinat, and the Piedmontese under Gabrielof Savoy, moved in concert against this martyrpeople. Some were burned alive, some flayed,some hung to the trees, some thrown fromprecipices, some used as targets for the sol-diers. Forty-two m
. A short history of the Italian Waldenses who have inhabited the valleys of the Cottian Alps from ancient times to the present. t Easter was so crowded that the com-memoration was held in the open air, and formany it was the last time. The fatal order was given on April 22, 1686,and in one month the valleys were depopu-lated. Two armies, the French under GeneralCatinat, and the Piedmontese under Gabrielof Savoy, moved in concert against this martyrpeople. Some were burned alive, some flayed,some hung to the trees, some thrown fromprecipices, some used as targets for the sol-diers. Forty-two men and a few women andchildren retired to the heights of one moun-tain, and an equal number to another, wherethey dwelt in caves and fed on wild herbs andthe meat of wolves. But the remainder ofthe population, about twelve thousand — thir-teen thousand having been killed — weredriven like cattle to the prisons of Turin,thirty miles distant. Four thousand babieswere torn from their mothers arms, and dis-persed in convents or Catholic families. Fivehundred adults were presented to Louis the galleys at CATINAT. The Glorious Return in 1689 89 Eight thousand died in the prisons of Turin,where they were heaped one upon another,fed on black bread and foul water, and madeto sleep on the bare bricks, on the earth orwet straw, eaten up by vermin and left allnight without a light, even when the sickwere dying. They were melted by the heatin summer and frozen by the cold in winter,while the priests and nuns sought by everyinfamous means to convert them. When the order came, obtained by theentreaties of the faithful Swiss, to liberatethe survivors and send them over the moun-tains, although it was in the depth of winter,to a refuge in Switzerland, all were impatientto leave those terrible prisons. Weak and sick, they prepared to leave atnight, dressed as they were, in rags. Theorder was read to them at five oclock on awinter evening, and they walked ten or twelvemil
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidshor, booksubjectwaldenses
