Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/409

Rh But if you risk your lives for me then I will risk mine for you.”

Nothing could be more cordial than this reconciliation between the Prince and the Waldenses in the commencement. The Waldenses gave the assurance of entire fidelity, as did also their friends in the faith of Provence and Dauphine. Their valleys were restored to them; the prisoners were set free, the exiles recalled. And from all quarters were seen Waldenses returning to their valleys, “like doves to the dovecote.” The heroic Arnaud was raised to the rank of Colonel, and to the brave men of his troop were offered posts of honor in the Duke's army.

“The light which shines in darkness,” shone again brightly in the valleys; the churches were re-established and attended with renewed zeal by the crowds of the now thanksgiving “Israel of the Valleys.”

But a long time passed without the fair promise which had been made to the Waldenses being fulfilled; and still, to within a few years, they might ask themselves, “What will be the future of us and our children?” The Waldenses, it is true, had peace within their own valleys, but, out of them, they had no right of citizenship. Not one of them could hold office, or purchase houses or land in Piedmont, excepting in the valleys. The clergy and the aristocracy opposed every attempt to obtain civil freedom, and the Bishop of Pignirol, Monsignore Charvaz, declared openly, not many years since, “that he would give all he had to root them out.”

But a powerful movement, as it were of a new spring, passed through the heart of Italy between the