It is a gigantic

loftier but less shapely mass of the Vandalin behind it, and rises into the sky in the form of a tall, symmetrical, and majestic column. pillar of stone not made with hands. That peculiar air of grandeur which the approach to La Torre possesses is owing mainly to this mountain. It gives character to the valley, from whatever point viewed. It is impossible, while you are in the valley, to keep your eye off it. We shall have some fine views of it when we have gone a little beyond our present point; but here, at its foot, it appears simply a mighty upward slope, richly clothed with woods, above which its crowning rocks shoot up in a tall perpendicular shaft to heaven.

With this mountain is associated the memory of one of the greatest calamities that ever befel the Waldenses. There is no darker woe in the long catalogue of woes that make up their history. I refer to the great massacre of 1655. The Castelluzzo, in its time, has looked over many a scene of horror. It has seen the Pelice rolling at its feet a river of blood. It has seen Vaudois blood flowing in the valley in torrents as copious as its thundershowers. It has seen corpses lying in heaps,

ITS TRAGIC MEMORIES.

numerous as its own winter-drifts.

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It has seen

Luserna a wide expanse of blazing flame-its sanctuaries and cottages sinking in ashes-and the smoke of its burning ascending like the smoke of a furnace, and rolling away over gorge and summit in darker clouds than those of winter. But of all the scenes of blood and horror upon which the Castelluzzo has looked down, it may be doubted whether it ever beheld any more terrible than the massacre to which we refer-justly styled the "Great Massacre." Let us sit down here, at the mountain's base, and tell the story to the reader.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Great Massacre.

This Crime traceable mainly to the House of Medici-Preliminary Attacks Institution and Object of the Propaganda-Marchioness di Pianezza-Gastaldo's Order-Its Barbarous Execution-Did Rome fear as well as hate the Vaudois?-Greater Sorrows-Composition of the Massacring Army-Waldenses resolve to FightPerfidy of Pianezza-The Massacre begins-Its Horrors-Modes of Torture-Individual Martyrs - The Sepoys outdone- Evidence collected by Leger-The Prime Instigator-Appeal to the Protestant States-Interposition of Cromwell-Mission of Sir Samuel Morland-Tragedy at Castelluzzo-Visit to the CaveMilton's Sonnet.

It was the year 1650. The throne of Savoy was filled by Charles Emmanuel II., a youth of fifteen. His mother, the Duchess Christina, governed the kingdom as regent. That mother was sprung of a race which have ever been noted for their dissimulation, their cruelty, and their bigoted devotion to Rome. She was the daughter of Mary de Medici of France, and granddaughter of that Catherine de

HOUSE OF MEDICI.

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Medici to whom has been assigned, and we believe on just ground, the main share in the guilt of the awful St Bartholomew Massacre. The base, blind superstition of the grandmother seems to have descended to the granddaughter. In no reign has the lot of the Vaudois been so wretched, in no reign have their tears and blood so profusely flowed, as in that of Charles Emmanuel; but the fact that this prince was constitutionally mild and humane satisfies us that the main share of all these crimes is to be laid, not at his door, but at that of his cold, cruel, and bloodthirsty mother, the regent. In short, it was not the facile spirit of the House of Savoy, but the astute spirit of the House of Medici, under the promptings of the Vatican, that enacted those scenes of carnage which now overwhelmed the Waldenses.

Not all at once did the blow descend. A series of lesser attacks heralded the great and consummating stroke. Machinations, chicaneries, legal robberies were set on foot, extremely harassing and oppressive, no doubt, but falling short of death. The Waldenses were ordered to withdraw, under pain of death, from their settlements at Fenile, Bubbiana, and other places on the skirts of the

plain of Piedmont, and to confine themselves to the narrow limits assigned to them in the mountains, Their patrimonial possessions were confiscated to the exchequer, their churches were pulled down, and their houses were given to Catholics. The more distinguished of their ministers were banished on various frivolous pretexts, and thus were they deprived of their natural leaders. They were next compelled to receive a mission of Capuchin monks, who proceeded to the Valleys on the hopeful task of converting the Waldensian heretics. The fathers were better hands at an auto da fé than an argument: they were uniformly worsted in their disputations, and their pious rage prevented them seeing the bad taste and the implied censure of the retort which on these occasions they always cast in the teeth of the Vaudois, namely, that "they made a Pope of their Bible." Young maidens were promised dowries, on condition of their embracing the Popish faith; Monts-de-Piété were established; and the Waldenses, overwhelmed by poverty, which had grown out of the confiscations, the billeting of troops upon them, and bad harvests-of which there had been a succession-were induced to pawn what little remained of their goods, and when all