in the afternoon, at Christmas-tide, when their liberation was announced, with the addition that if they did not set out forthwith it would be out of their power to leave at all, for the order was to be revoked next day. Fearful of losing the chance of liberty, these unfortunate persons, wasted by sickness, set out on their march that very night. There were old men amongst them, worn down by sufferings as well as by years, besides women and children of the tenderest age. That night they marched three or four leagues through the snow, in the most intense frost.’
This first march cost the lives of a hundred and fifty of them. Was it wonderful that these died?
A few days later on at Novalèse, at the foot of Mount Cenis, a troop of the prisoners noticed that a storm was rising on the mountain; they knew well what mountain snow-storms were, and they begged the officer who was in charge to let them stay at Novalèse for a while, out of pity for the weak that were to be found in their ranks. If their request caused delay, they said, they would not ask for food; there was less danger in going without food than in travelling in the face of the storm. The officer refused. The company was forced to proceed on its march, and eighty-six sank in the drifted snow; they were the aged, the worn out, women, and some little children. The bands that followed days after saw the bodies lying frozen on the snow, the mothers still pressing their children in their arms.
Henri Botta would never have survived that journey of toil and horror, had his son Gaspard’s arm been less strong and his heart less brave.
Gaspard devoted himself to his father with the whole force of his silent nature; it seemed as though his love for Rénée, pent up and baffled as it was, sought an outlet in this older, less selfish love, and touched it with an enthusiasm which was glorious to behold.