Across the still stretches of the Geneva water, over the sleeping lake into the shadow of the further shores; then, landing on the Savoy side, and marshalling their ranks in such brave battle-front as they could show, these nine hundred men began their march.
Their historian[B] says: ‘They were a small company to attack Savoy—a company, on the other hand, far too numerous for the slender means of sustenance to be found in the by-places through which they intended to go; an untrained assemblage formed of persons of every age, hardened, it is true, by toil, but yet strangers to military discipline and manœuvres. What would become of them as they pressed on, forcing their way against an armed resistance, through inhospitable tracts and deep defiles, by the sides of precipices, and over rocks crowned with eternal snow? Now alone on the strand of the lake they have just crossed, they tread on the soil they are about to bathe with their sweat and their blood. No illusion deceives them; the hard reality, with its dangers and privations, is before their eyes, stern as the truth. But no one draws back. The prize of the conflict seems to them worthy of the highest sacrifices; it is a terrestrial home, to the recollection of which they have attached their faith and hope of salvation in Christ Jesus. In setting out, sword in hand, to reconquer it their hearts are at ease, for their cause is just.... They desire to remain under the observation of God, the righteous Judge, and beneath His holy protection. They hope to repeat on their march, and in every encounter, “Jehovah is our Banner.” ’
[B] Antoine Monastier.
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The blessed summer-time brought beauty once more to the valleys. The flowers shone again in the deserted gardens, and the garlanded leaves of vines hid the breaches in the shattered walls of Rora.
Madeleine Botta came of sturdy mountain race, and her vigour came again to her with the throbbing, teeming life of the summer world. It was Rénée now whose strength flagged, Rénée whose eyes were lustreless, and whose footsteps were slow.
The months, long weary months, had told on her courage and broken her spirit; it was in the spring of 1687 when the thunderbolt of desolation had fallen on her home, when the house-master and Emile and her own Gaspard had gone out to keep the barricades. It was high summer-time when Gaspard had crept away from their cave shelter, and she had dashed the tears from her eyes, that her vision might hold him, clear and unbedimmed, until he had turned that sharp angle of rock where the broken bridge lay damming up the stream. It was again the summer when Madeleine lay so nigh to death, and she, in lowliness and sore distress, fought with the fever that threatened to rob her of her ‘mother.’
And now again it was summer-time. Was the brightness but empty mockery? Was the sunshine to gladden all the world save the homes of the Vaudois, and the heart of Rénée Janavel?
Madeleine watched her in silence. She knew something, and guessed more, of this heart-sickness that weighed upon the girl’s elastic nature until her Rénée seemed as limp and nerveless as one of the unpropped vines in yonder ravaged valley. She did not sympathise nor seek by word of counsel to probe or heal the hurt. She waited with the trustful patience that was part of her character until her spoken sympathy could be followed out by help.
Some semblance of peace had come to the country-side; the professors of the ‘new religion’ had been driven out with sword and with fire: and there must needs be cessation of persecution when none are left to be persecuted. Even such refugees and stragglers as had hidden in the mountains had mostly perished or been seized ere this, and even the priests and preaching friars were content with their finished work, and let their energy in heretic-hunting slacken down.