of pines on a
Titan scale. There are four principal peaks, and so the mountain has been
named Quatre Dents." The term chateau, or castle, used in this narrative
was applied to a kind of grassy platform at the top.

CHAPTER XI.

Although the Vaudois were not wholly despoiled of the fruit of their heroic
efforts in fighting their way back to their native valleys, yet the cruel
banishment of the French Protestants, and the removal of so many of their
gifted and devoted leaders, was a very heavy calamity. It placed almost
insuperable difficulties in the way of their reorganization. Furthermore,
they were greatly harassed by the imposition of taxes far beyond their
means, and most unjustly levied _only_ on the Protestants. Very
dishonourable attempts were also made to seduce their children from the
profession of evangelical principles. They were not allowed to repair their
shattered temples, and were deprived of a proper number of pastors; so that
altogether they were in an evil case. Their proverbial and long-tried
loyalty to their prince, however, flourished in spite of these
discouragements. Victor Amadeus, having joined England and Holland against
France, was besieged in Turin by the latter power in 1706. He was so hardly
pressed by the French troops as to be obliged to take refuge among his
faithful subjects of the valleys. A family named Durand had the honour of
giving shelter to their fugitive prince; and when by the forced marches of
Prince Eugene deliverance was at hand, King Amadeus conferred the right of
burying in their own garden on the family which sheltered him, as well as
bequeathed his own silver spoons and drinking-cup to the family. I had the
pleasure of seeing one of these spoons, preserved in the museum at La
Torre, on the occasion of my visit in 1871. Eugene and the Duke of Savoy
ascended the heights of the Superga (a hill about six miles from Turin)
together. The prince, detecting some mistakes in the movements of the
French troops, exclaimed, "It seems to me that these people are already
half beaten;" whereupon the duke vowed, if Turin were delivered from the
French, that he would erect a monument on that spot to the Virgin. He kept
his vow, and the present imposing structure, used as a mausoleum for the
House of Savoy, was begun in 1717, and finished fourteen years after. But
he was not equally mindful of his obligations to his devoted Vaudois, who,
in addition to pr