THE Vaudois troops (if the word ‘troops’ can be applied to the nine hundred followers of Henri Arnaud) crossed Lake Leman on the 18th of August, and at once pressed southwards through La Chablais and Faucigny.
They were already on the enemy’s ground, or rather in the dominions of the Duke of Savoy, but their own country lay beyond the huge shoulders of Mont Blanc and Mont Cenis; and they had many weary leagues to win before they could look upon their enterprise as fairly begun. They had no
quarrel with the towns of Upper Savoy; all they asked was free passage, and to be allowed to purchase food—a demand not always granted.