The inhabitants of the hamlet are a poor hard-working people, pursuing
their industry after very primitive methods. Part of the Biasse, as it
issues from the defile, is turned aside here and there to drive little
fulling-mills of the rudest construction, where the people "waulk" the
cloth of their own making. In the adjoining narrow fields overhanging
the Gouffouran, where the ploughs are at work, the oxen are yoked to
them in the old Roman fashion, the pull being by a bar fixed across
the animals' foreheads.
In the neighbourhood of Palons, as at various other places in the
valley, there are numerous caverns which served by turns in early
times as hiding-places and as churches, and which were not
unfrequently consecrated by the Vaudois with their blood. One of these
is still known as the "Glesia," or "Église." Its opening is on the
crest of a frightful precipice, but its diameter has of late years
been considerably reduced by the disintegration of the adjoining rock.
Neff once took Captain Cotton up to see it, and chanted the _Te Deum_
in the rude temple with great emotion.
Palons is, perhaps, the most genial and fertile spot in the valley; it
looks like a little oasis in the desert. Indeed, Neff thought the soil
of the place too rich for the growth of piety. "Palons," said he in
his journal, "is more fertile than the rest of the valley, and even
produces wine: the consequence is, that there is less piety here."
Neff even entertained the theory that the poorer the people the
greater was their humility and fervour, and the less their selfishness
and spiritual pride. Thus, he considered "the fertility of the commune
of Champsaur, and its proximity to the high road and to Gap, great
stumbling-blocks." The loftiest, coldest, and most barren spots--such
as San Veran and Dormilhouse--were, in his opinion, by far the most
promising. Of the former he said, "It is the highest, and consequently
the most pious, village in the valley of Queyras;" and of the
inhabitants of the latter he said, "From the first moment of my
arrival I took them to my heart, and I ardently desired to be unto
them even as another Oberlin."
CHAPTER IV.
THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAIN-REFUGE OF DORMILHOUSE.
The valley of Fressinières could never have maintained a large
population. Though about twelve miles in extent, it contains a very
small proportion of arable land--only a narrow strip, of varying
width, lying in the bottom, with occasional little patches of
cultivated ground along the mountain-sides, where the soil has settled
on the ledges, the fields seeming in many cases to hang over
precipices. At the upper end of the valley, the mountains come down so
close to the river Biasse that no space is left for cultivation, and
the slopes are so rocky and abrupt as to be unavailable even for
pasturage, excepting of goats.
Yet the valley seems never to have been without a population, more or
less numerous according to the rigour of the religious persecutions
which prevailed in the neighbourhood. Its comparative inaccessibility,
its inhospitable climate, and its sterility, combined to render it one
of the most secure refuges of the Vaudois in the Middle Ages. It could
neither be easily entered by an armed force, nor permanently occupied
by them. The scouts on the hills overlooking the Durance could always
see their enemies approach, and the inhabitants were enabled to take
refuge in caves in the mountain-sides, or flee to the upper parts of
the valley, before the soldiers could clamber up the steep Pas de
l'Échelle, and reach the barricaded defile through which the Biasse
rushes down the rocky gorge of the Gouffouran. When the invaders
succeeded in penetrating this barrier, they usually found the hamlets
deserted and the people fled. They could then only wreak their
vengeance on the fields, which they laid waste, and on the dwellings,
which they burned; and when the "brigands" had at length done their
worst and departed, the poor people crept back to their ruined homes
to pray, amidst their ashes, for strength to enable them to bear the
heavy afflictions which they were thus called upon to suffer for
conscience' sake.
The villages in the lower part of the valley were thus repeatedly
ravaged and destroyed. But far up, at its extremest point, a difficult
footpath led, across the face almost of a precipice, which the
persecutors never ventured to scale, to the hamlet of Dormilhouse,
seated on a few ledges of rock on a lofty mountain-side, five thousand
feet above the level of the sea; and this place, which was for
centuries a mountain fastness of the persecuted, remains a Vaudois
settlement to this day.
An excursion to this interesting mountain hamlet having been arranged,
our little party of five persons set out for the place on the morning
of the 1st of July, under the guidance of Pastor Charpiot. Though the
morning was fine and warm, yet, as the place of our destination was
situated well up amongst the clouds, we were warned to provide
ourselves with umbrellas and waterproofs, nor did the provision prove
in vain. We were also warned that there was an utter want of
accommodation for visitors at Dormilhouse, for which we must be
prepared. The words scratched on the window of the Norwegian inn
might indeed apply to it: "Here the stranger may find very good
entertainment--_provided he bring it with him_!" We accordingly
carried our entertainment with us, in the form of a store of blankets,
bread, chocolate, and other articles, which, with the traveller's
knapsacks, were slung across the back of a donkey.
After entering the defile, an open part of the valley was passed,
amidst which the little river, at present occupying very narrow
limits, meandered; but it was obvious from the width of the channel
and the débris widely strewn about, that in winter it is a roaring
torrent. A little way up we met an old man coming down driving a
loaded donkey, with whom one of our party, recognising him as an old
acquaintance, entered into conversation. In answer to an inquiry made
as to the progress of the good cause in the valley, the old man
replied very despondingly. "There was," he said, "a great lack of
faith, of zeal, of earnestness, amongst the rising generation. They
were too fond of pleasures, too apt to be led away by the fleeting
vanities of this world." It was only the old story--the complaint of
the aged against the young. When this old peasant was a boy, his
elders doubtless thought and said the same of him. The generation
growing old always think the generation still young in a state of
degeneracy. So it was forty years since, when Felix Neff was amongst
them, and so it will be forty years hence. One day Neff met an old man
near Mens, who recounted to him the story of the persecutions which
his parents and himself had endured, and he added: "In those times
there was more zeal than there is now; my father and mother used to
cross mountains and forests by night, in the worst weather, at the
risk of their lives, to be present at divine service performed in
secret; but now we are grown lazy: religious freedom is the deathblow
to piety."
An hour's walking brought us to the principal hamlet of the commune,
formerly called Fressinières, but now known as Les Ribes, occupying a
wooded height on the left bank of the river. The population is partly
Roman Catholic and partly Protestant. The Roman Catholics have a
church here, the last in the valley, the two other places of worship
higher up being Protestant. The principal person of Les Ribes is M.
Baridon, son of the Joseph Baridon, receiver of the commune, so often
mentioned with such affection in the journal of Neff. He is the only
person in the valley whose position and education give him a claim to
the title of "Monsieur;" and his house contains the only decent
apartment in the Val Fressinières where pastors and visitors could be
lodged previous to the erection, by Mr. Freemantle, of the pleasant
little parsonage at Palons. This apartment in the Baridons' house Neff
used to call the "Prophet's Chamber."
Half an hour higher up the valley we reached the hamlet of Violens,
where all the inhabitants are Protestants. It was at this place that
Neff helped to build and finish the church, for which he designed the
seats and pulpit, and which he opened and dedicated on the 29th of
August, 1824, the year before he finally left the neighbourhood.
Violens is a poor hamlet situated at the bottom of a deep glen, or
rocky abyss, called La Combe; the narrow valleys of Dauphiny, like
those of Devon, being usually called combes, doubtless from the same
original Celtic word _cwm_, signifying a hollow or dingle.
A little above Violens the valley contracts almost to a ravine, until
we reach the miserable hamlet of Minsals, so shut in by steep crags
that for nine months of the year it never sees the sun, and during
several months in winter it lies buried in snow. The hamlet consists
for the most part of hovels of mud and stone, without windows or
chimneys, being little better than stables; indeed, in winter time,
for the sake of warmth, the poor people share them with their cattle.
How they contrive to scrape a living out of the patches of soil
rescued from the rocks, or hung upon the precipices on the
mountain-side, is a wonder.
One of the horrors of this valley consists in the constant state of
disintegration of the adjoining rocks, which, being of a slaty
formation, frequently break away in large masses, and are hurled into
the lower grounds. This, together with the fall of avalanches in
winter, makes the valley a most perilous place to live in. A little
above Minsals, only a few years since, a tremendous fall of rock and
mud swept over nearly the whole of the cultivated ground, since which
many of the peasantry have had to remove elsewhere. What before was a
well-tilled meadow, is now only a desolate waste, covered with rocks
and débris.
Another of the horrors of the place is its liability to floods, which
come rushing down, from the mountains, and often work sad havoc.
Sometimes a fall of rocks from the cliffs above dams up the bed of the
river, when a lake accumulates behind the barrier until it bursts, and
the torrent swoops down the valley, washing 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 Séa. 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 débris 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, illustrative of the perils of daily life in Val
Fressinières, was related to me by Mr. Milsom while passing 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, débris, and boulders, which rolled quite across the
valley and extended to the river. The news of the circumstance 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 mass 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
noble 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 débris 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 passed 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 Pisse 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 Biasse 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 shining
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 worship God 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 establishing
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 identity
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 principal 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 coarse 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 passage 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 destitution 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 destitution. 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 passed 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 curé. But
the people, though they were on the best of terms with the curé,
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 assisted him at mass.
The story is still told of the curé 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 curé 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 petitioned 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 curé 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 worship 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
passage by night across the precipice." And even Neff's ministry, as
we have above seen, only lasted for the short space 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 _éclat_ 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 assembled 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:--
À LA GLOIRE DE DIEU
DONT DE LES TEMPS ANCIENS
ET À TRAVERS LE MARTYR DE LEURS PÈRES
A MAINTENU
À DORMILHOUSE
LA FOI DONNE AUX SAINTS
ET LA CONNAISSANCE DE LA PAROLE
LES HABITANTS ONT ÉLEVÉ
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 châlet 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 God 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 passed 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 assured that God
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 assented, 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 illustrative 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 Biasse. 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 Biasse 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 débris 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 Biasse, and
passing 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 Lesdiguières first gave evidence of his skill and
valour as a soldier. The massacre of St. Bartholomew at Paris in 1572
had been followed by like massacres 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 Fressinières at the head of an army of twelve hundred men.
Lesdiguières, then scarce twenty-four years old, being informed of
their march, hastily assembled a Huguenot force in the valley of the
Drac, and, crossing the Col d'Orcières 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, Lesdiguières distinguished himself in
the same neighbourhood, capturing Embrun, Guillestre, and Château
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 pass 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 passage into Italy by the Guil and the Col
de la Croix.
Guillestre is a small old-fashioned town, situated on the lowest slope
of the pine-clad mountain, the Tête 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 space 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
principal 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 "misérable 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 quantities 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
space 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 Briançon;
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."
* * * * *
The same circumstances which have concurred in making Guillestre the
seat of the principal fair of the valleys, led Felix Neff to regard it
as an important centre of missionary operations amongst the Vaudois.
In nearly all the mountain villages in its neighbourhood descendants
of the ancient Vaudois are to be found, sometimes in the most remote
and inaccessible places, whither they had fled in the times of the
persecutions. Thus at Vars, a mountain hamlet up the torrent Rioubel,
about nine miles from Guillestre, there is a little Christian
community, which, though under the necessity of long concealing their
faith, never ceased to be Vaudois in spirit.[106] Then, up the valley
of the Guil, and in the lateral valleys which join it, there are, in
some places close to the mountain barrier which divides France from
Italy, other villages and hamlets, such as Arvieux, San Veran,
Fongilarde, &c., the inhabitants of which, though they concealed their
faith subsequent to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, never
conformed to Roman Catholicism, but took the earliest opportunity of
declaring themselves openly so soon as the dark period of persecution
had passed by.
[Footnote 106: The well-known Alpine missionary, J. L.
Rostan, of whom an interesting biography has recently been
published by the Rev. A. J. French, for the Wesleyan
Conference, was a native of Vars. He was one of the favourite
pupils of Felix Neff, with whom he resided at Dormilhouse in
1825-7; Neff saying of him: "Among the best of my pupils, as
regards spiritual things and secular too, is Jean Rostan, of
Vars: he is probably destined for the ministry; such at least
is my hope." Neff bequeathed to him the charge of his parish
during his temporary absence, but he never returned; and
shortly after, Rostan left, to pursue his studies at
Montauban. He joined the Methodist Church, settled and
ministered for a time in La Vaunage and the Cevennes,
afterwards labouring as a missionary in the High Alps, and
eventually settled as minister of the church at Lisieux,
Jersey, in charge of which he died, July, 1859.]
The people of these scattered and distant hamlets were, however, too
poor to supply themselves with religious instructors, and they long
remained in a state of spiritual destitution. Felix Neff's labours
were too short, and scattered over too extensive a field, to produce
much permanent effect. Besides, they were principally confined to the
village of Dormilhouse, which, as being the most destitute, had, he
thought, the greatest claim upon his help; and at his death
comparatively little had been done or attempted in the Guillestre
district. But he left behind him what was worth more than any
endowment of money, a noble example, which still lives, and inspires
the labourers who have come after him.
It was not until within the last twenty years that a few Vaudois
families of Guillestre began to meet together for religious purposes,
which they did at first in the upper chamber of an inn. There the Rev.
Mr. Freemantle found them when paying his first visit to the valleys
in 1851. He was rejoiced to see the zeal of the people, holding to
their faith in the face of considerable opposition and opprobrium; and
he exerted himself to raise the requisite funds amongst his friends in
England to provide the Guillestre Vaudois with a place of worship of
their own. His efforts were attended with success; and in 1854 a
comfortable parsonage, with a commodious room for public worship, was
purchased for their use. A fund was also provided for the maintenance
of a settled ministry; a pastor was appointed; and in 1857 a
congregation of from forty to seventy persons attended worship every
Sunday. Mr. Freemantle, in a communication with which he has favoured
us, says: "Our object has not been to make an aggression upon the
Roman Catholics, but to strengthen the hands and establish the faith
of the Vaudois. And in so doing we have found, not unfrequently, that
when an interest has been excited among the Roman Catholic population
of the district, there has been some family or hereditary connection
with ancestors who were independent of the see of Rome, and such have
again joined themselves to the faith of their fathers."
The new movement was not, however, allowed to proceed without great
opposition. The "Momiers," or mummers--the modern nickname of the
Vaudois--were denounced by the curé of the place, and the people were
cautioned, as they valued their souls' safety, against giving any
countenance to their proceedings. The curé was doubtless seriously
impressed by the gravity of the situation; and to protect the parish
against the assaults of the evil one, he had a large number of crosses
erected upon the heights overlooking the town. On one occasion he had
a bad dream, in which he beheld the valley filled with a vast assembly
come to be judged; and on the site of the judgment-seat which he saw
in his dream, he set up, on the summit of the Come Chauve, a large tin
cross hearted with wood. We were standing in the garden in front of
the parsonage at Guillestre late in the evening, when M. Schell, the
pastor, pointing up to the height, said, "There you see it now; that
is the curé's erection." The valley below lay in deep shadow, while
the cross upon the summit brightly reflected the last rays of the
setting sun.
The curé, finding that the "Momiers" did not cease to exist, next
adopted the expedient of preaching them down. On the occasion of the
Fête Napoleon, 1862, when the Rev. Mr. Freemantle visited Guillestre
for the purpose of being present at the Vaudois services on Sunday,
the 10th of August, the curé preached a special sermon to his
congregation at early morning mass, telling them that an Englishman
had come into the town with millions of francs to buy up the souls of
Guillestre, and warning them to abstain from such men.
The people were immediately filled with curiosity to know what it was
that this stranger had come all the way from England to do, backed by
"millions of francs." Many of them did not as yet know that there was
such a thing as a Vaudois church in Guillestre; but now that they did
know, they were desirous of ascertaining something about the doctrines
taught there. The consequence was, that a crowd of people--amongst
whom were some of the highest authorities in the town, the registrar,
the douaniers, the chief of a neighbouring commune, and persons of all
classes--assembled at noon to hear M. de Faye, the Protestant pastor,
who preached to them an excellent sermon under the trees of the
parsonage orchard, while a still larger number attended in the
afternoon.
When the curé heard of the conduct of his flock he was greatly
annoyed. "What did you hear from the heretics?" he asked of one of the
delinquents. "I heard _your_ sermon in the morning, and a sermon _upon
charity_ in the afternoon," was the reply.
Great were the surprise and excitement in Guillestre when it became
known that the principal sergeant of gendarmerie--the very embodiment
of law and order in the place--had gone over and joined the "Momiers"
with his wife and family. M. Laugier was quite a model gendarme. He
was a man of excellent character, steady, sensible, and patient, a
diligent self-improver, a reader of books, a botanist, and a bit of a
geologist. He knew all the rare mountain plants, and had a collection
of those that would bear transplantation, in his garden at the back of
the town. No man was more respected in Guillestre than the sergeant.
His long and faithful service entitled him to the _médaille
militaire_, and it would have been awarded to him, but for the
circumstance which came to light, and which he did not seek to
conceal, that he had joined the Protestant connexion. Not only was the
medal withheld, but influence was used to get him sent away from the
place; and he was packed off to a station in the mountains at Château
Queyras.
Though this banishment from Guillestre was intended as a punishment,
it only served to bring out the sterling qualities of the sergeant,
and to ensure his eventual reward. It so happened that the station at
Château Queyras commanded the approaches into an extensive range of
mountain pasturage. Although not required specially to attend to their
safety, our sergeant had nevertheless carefully noted the flocks and
herds as they went up the valleys in the spring. When winter
approached, they were all brought down again from the mountains for
safety.
The winter of that year set in early and severely. The sergeant,
making his observations on the flocks as they passed down the valley,
noted that one large flock of about three thousand sheep had not yet
made its appearance. The mountains were now covered with snow, and he
apprehended that the sheep and their shepherds had been storm-stayed.
Summoning to his assistance a body of men, he set out at their head in
search of the lost flock. After a long, laborious, and dangerous
journey--for the snow by this time lay deep in the hollows of the
hills--he succeeded in discovering the shepherds and the sheep, almost
reduced to their last gasp--the sheep, for want of food, actually
gnawing each other's tails. With great difficulty the whole were
extricated from their perilous position, and brought down the
mountains in safety.
