The Huguenots in France

by Samuel Smiles

But if the place is thus stern and even appalling in summer, what must it be in winter? There is scarcely a habitation in the village that is not exposed to the danger of being carried away by avalanches or falling rocks. The approach to the mountain is closed by ice and snow, while the rocks are all tapestried with icicles. The tourmente, or snow whirlwind, occasionally swoops up the valley, tears the roofs from the huts, and scatters them in destruction.

Here is a passage from Neff's journal, vividly descriptive of winter life at Dormilhouse:—

"The weather has been rigorous in the extreme; the falls of snow are very frequent, and when it becomes a little milder, a general thaw takes place, and our hymns are often sung amid the roar of the avalanches, which, gliding along the smooth face of the glacier, hurl themselves from precipice to precipice, like vast cataracts of silver."

Writing in January, he says:—

"We have been buried in four feet of snow since of 1st of November. At this very moment a terrible blast is whirling the snow in thick blinding clouds. Travelling is exceedingly difficult and even dangerous among these valleys, particularly in the neighbourhood of Dormilhouse, by reason of the numerous avalanches falling everywhere.... One Sunday evening our scholars and many of the Dormilhouse people, when returning home after the sermon at Violens, narrowly escaped an avalanche. It rolled through a narrow defile between two groups of persons: a few seconds sooner or later, and it would have plunged the flower of our youth into the depths of an unfathomable gorge.... In fact, there are very few habitations in these parts which are not liable to be swept away, for there is not a spot in the narrow corner of the valley which can be considered absolutely safe. But terrible as their situation is, they owe to it their religion, and perhaps their physical existence. If their country had been more secure and more accessible, they would have been exterminated like the inhabitants of Val Louise."

Such is the interesting though desolate mountain hamlet to the service of whose hardy inhabitants the brave Felix Neff devoted himself during the greater part of his brief missionary career. It was characteristic of him to prefer to serve them because their destitution was greater than that which existed in any other quarter of his extensive parish; and he turned from the grand mountain scenery of Arvieux and his comfortable cottage at La Chalp, to spend his winters in the dismal hovels and amidst the barren wastes of Dormilhouse.

When Neff first went amongst them, the people were in a state of almost total spiritual destitution. They had not had any pastor stationed amongst them for nearly a hundred and fifty years. During all that time they had been without schools of any kind, and generation after generation had grown up and passed away in ignorance. Yet with all the inborn tenacity of their race, they had throughout refused to conform to the dominant religion. They belonged to the Vaudois Church, and repudiated Romanism.

There was probably a Protestant church existing at Dormilhouse previous to the Revocation, as is shown by the existence of an ancient Vaudois church-bell, which was hid away until of late years, when it was dug up and hung in the belfry of the present church. In 1745, the Roman Catholics endeavoured to effect a settlement in the place, and then erected the existing church, with a residence for the curé. But the people, though they were on the best of terms with the curé, refused to enter his church. During the twenty years that he ministered there, it is said the sole congregation consisted of his domestic servant, who assisted him at mass.

The story is still told of the curé bringing up from Les Ribes a large bag of apples—an impossible crop at Dormilhouse—by way of tempting the children to come to him and receive instruction. But they went only so long as the apples lasted, and when they were gone the children disappeared. The curé complained that during the whole time he had been in the place he had not been able to get a single person to cross himself. So, finding he was not likely to be of any use there, he petitioned his bishop to be allowed to leave; on which, his request being complied with, the church was closed.

This continued until the period of the French Revolution, when religious toleration became recognised. The Dormilhouse people then took possession of the church. They found in it several dusty images, the basin for the holy water, the altar candlesticks, and other furniture, just as the curé had left them many years before; and they are still preserved as curiosities. The new occupants of the church whitewashed the pictures, took down the crosses, dug up the old Vaudois bell and hung it up in the belfry, and rang the villagers together to celebrate the old worship again. But they were still in want of a regular minister until the period when Felix Neff settled amongst them. A zealous young preacher, Henry Laget, had before then paid them a few visits, and been warmly welcomed; and when, in his last address, he told them they would see his face no more, "it seemed," said a peasant who related the incident to Neff, "as if a gust of wind had extinguished the torch which was to light us in our passage by night across the precipice." And even Neff's ministry, as we have above seen, only lasted for the short space of about three years.