armed with muskets and pistols, but the greater number having only slings and flint stones, which they knew very well how to use. Their ambush was well chosen. The column advanced, only to be assailed flank and front with a shower of balls and stones. Again this invisible foe was too much for them to stand. They thought only of escaping from the fatal defile; once more Janavel was victorious.

The Marquis of Pianezza, the Savoy leader, was furious at these repulses. He hastily collected his whole force, sending for his lieutenant, the impetuous and cruel Mario, to bring up the rear-guard, together with some bands of Irish mercenaries, who were specially fit for dashing and dangerous service. Rora should surely be carried this time! Every soul there should rue the hour in which they had dared to oppose Pianezza!

But Janavel and his heroes were armed with a strength on which the foe had little calculated. For the third time victory rested with the weak. For the third time the soldiers were driven down the mountain-slopes, hurling one another to destruction in their mad flight.

But this could not last for ever. Eight thousand soldiers and two thousand popish peasants were marched on Rora, and this time the work of death was done.

Janavel and his friends, who had been decoyed to a distance from the village, escaped with their lives, and for many weeks they carried on the struggle, only to be beaten at last, overpowered by numbers. But the name of Janavel was reverenced far and wide as that of a good man, ‘bold as a lion, meek as a lamb,’ rendering to God alone the praise of his victories, dauntless in his faith and love, while tried as few are tried. His wife and daughter had fallen into the hands of Pianezza,—spared for the time from the massacre at Rora; a letter from the general reached Janavel, offering him his life, and their lives, if he would abjure his heresy, but threatening him with death and his dear ones with being burnt alive if he persisted in his resistance. ‘We are in God’s hands,’ answered Janavel; ‘our bodies may die by your means, but our souls will serve Him by the grace that He gives to us. Tempt me no more.’

And much the same he wrote thirty years after, when he and Pastor Arnaud planned the Glorious Return.

It was no marvel that Rénée, Gaspard Botta’s betrothed wife, blushed as she spoke of fear. The blood of her heroic grandsire ran in her veins. She too could trust in God, and for His sake endure.

There was a time of peace after that terrible persecution. The whole of Protestant Europe had remonstrated against the cruelties and horrors that had taken place. Oliver Cromwell, then governing England, sent an ambassador to Turin to enforce, if possible, his indignant demand for mercy. Holland, Switzerland, the German Protestant powers, and even a large number of French subjects, all sent messengers to the Duke of Savoy. And they sent also large sums—more than a million francs—to relieve the most pressing necessities of the homeless and the destitute.

The Duke of Savoy died, and under the rule of his son, Victor Amadeus II., the Vaudois had some years of peace. They showed their gratitude for this forbearance by loyally defending the frontier against the Genoese, and by eagerly helping to quell the banditti infesting the mountain passes. They sought to prove, with a devotion that borders upon pathos, that they also could be good subjects, that their allegiance to their God only heightened their loyalty to their sovereign.

It was then that Rénée Janavel sang as she sewed the long seams in the linen store that her foster-mother had spun. It was then that Gaspard would whistle as his plane cut through the white plank, and the shavings fell, silky and shining, about his feet.

Even the grim house-master would let the suspicion of a smile lurk under the straight moustache of iron-grey that almost hid his lips. He could remember the times of terror—oh, yes, he could remember them only too well!—but ferns and wreaths of mauve auricula were now growing about the ruins that had then been made so fearsome; and the mulberries were flourishing again; and it was a comfort to see Mother Madeleine about and well after her sharp attack of fever a year or two ago; and Emile and Gaspard had grown sturdy and strong—the finest young men in all Rora; and Rénée—the child—was always singing when she was not laughing: what a gay, sweet heart it was, to be sure! And, all things considered, it was no marvel that Henri Botta now and then forgot all the ghastly doings of the past, and let a smile dawn upon his lips or glimmer in his eyes.

GASPARD AND RÉNÉE.

‘Shall it be in the spring time, dear?’ Gaspard said, as he stood in the house that his hands had builded for his bride, and let his glance rest lovingly on her bright face. ‘Say, dear, shall we light our fire on this hearth when the snows melt on Mount Friolent, and the flowers bloom under the hedges yonder?’

If she did not answer him in words, he was nevertheless well contented. And it was settled that so it should be: for not even the neighbours could disapprove of such a marriage. Were not the two born for each other? he so strong and dark and staunch, and she so fair and sweet! And was not Gaspard the best workman in the commune, with his earnings all safely saved since he came back from Turin?

Why should there not be a marriage procession along the stream-side to the little white-walled church when the flowers bloomed? Why not, indeed? And wide and long should be the festive wreaths woven of those very flowers to do honour to the grandchild of the hero Janavel.

It was the close of the year 1685. There had been twenty years of freedom in the valleys—twenty calm years of liberty and peace. The horrid sounds of massacre had died away before Rénée was old enough to remember, before Gaspard was old enough to understand. And so they looked into one another’s eyes, and thought that life and love and earth and heaven were smiling on their troth.

But far away, beyond the French Alps, beyond the vineyards of Burgundy and the Lyonais, an old man sat in his splendid palace, a wretched and restless man, who had something to say to the plans and the promises of the simple folk in the Savoy valleys.

For he was King Louis XIV., Louis, surnamed the Great, Louis, the husband of the bigot Françoise de Maintenon, trying in his old age of repentance to atone for the guilt of a misspent life. Madame de Maintenon hated heretics as her cold, calculating heart hated nothing else; and she loved the approval and the flattery of her courtier priests far more than she loved the king.

‘Revoke the edicts giving liberty to the Protestants, sire,’ she said to her husband. ‘Crush heresy, and so purchase your peace with God.’

Louis listened. He was aged and ailing; his sons were dead; his friends—such friends as he had—were dead too. He also must soon appear before the Throne that was greater even than the glories of his own. It was time he hearkened to the promptings of the Church. Popes and priests must know best about these things; he would do their bidding, and do it thoroughly, as a king should!

So the edicts were revoked throughout the land of France. All the civil rights of his subjects belonging to the Reformed faith were taken away. The heretics must be converted, or go, or die.

Thus he ordered.

And even then, not quite