Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/398

414 the now peaceful town of La Torre, lay a fortified tower, whence issued troops to devastate the valleys, and carry the inhabitants to prison. It seemed as if the little flock could not long stand against these desolating persecutions.

Holland, England, and the whole of Protestant Europe, raised a protest against the treatment which the Waldenses received. Then came the year 1655, which brought with it the foulest misdeeds against the people of the valleys. On promise of perfect amnesty and freedom of faith, signed by the Duke of Savoy, the people laid down their arms. On which followed a perfect raid and plundering, by the banditti of the Popedom. Great numbers of the poor people were killed, and the rest cast into many of the prisons of Piedmont. It was computed that fourteen thousand, both of men and women, were imprisoned. Many of the clergy were led to death, and met it with the courage of martyrs.

On the fame of the Waldenses, martyrdom being noised abroad, the powers of Protestant Europe again raised their voices, and that with such effect, that the prisons of the Waldenses were opened, but only with the sentence of perpetual banishment.

It was in the winter of the year 1656, when they were obliged to fly across the Alps into a foreign land. They had been miserably fed in prison, most of them were ill or insufficiently clothed. Hundreds of them died of fatigue, hunger, and cold, in the snow, on their journey across the Alps. Those, however, who reached Switzerland, were received with open arms by their brethren in the faith, in Geneva, Zürich,