Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/427

Rh image or other of a saint. The Waldenses look on without contempt, but with perfect indifference.

During my rambles in the valleys, and even often at night, I have heard sung a kind of pleasing melancholy ballad, with long concluding cadences, like those in our northern folk-songs. I have been told that these songs are called “Complaints,” and that they have been sung in these valleys ever since the times of the persecutions. More than once have I heard these songs ascending out of the depths of the valleys with a most touching power and expression. To-day, while on a visit, which I paid to the descendants of Henri Arnaud—who now reside on a beautiful estate on the height, where formerly stood the tower of the enemy—I was able to hear two of these songs sung by two young women, servants of the house, who were called in for that purpose.

“On winter evenings, when we are alone,” said Madame Peijrot, the daughter of Henri Arnaud's grandson, “I frequently let my maid, Margrete, sing to me some of these ‘Complaints,’ because she knows many of them; they have all their distinctive names.” But Margrete was now shy, and would not sing unless the dairy-maid, Susanne, came and sung with her. Susanne, a stout and very handsome young woman, was called in, and after she had consulted some little time with Margrete, they sang, with remarkably pure and beautiful voices, a ballad of a prisoner, doomed to die for his faith. He was imprisoned in the tower. The spring came; the trees put forth their leaves; he perceived the scent of the violets; he heard the song of the nightingale, but