Essentials of Systems Analysis and Design 6th Edition Valacich Solutions Manual
Essentials of Systems Analysis and Design 6th Edition Valacich Solutions Manual
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This ebook isfor the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
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Title: The Glorious Return: A Story of the Vaudois in 1689
Author: Crona Temple
Release date: October 3, 2015 [eBook #50122]
Most recently updated: October 22, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Lindy Walsh, Chuck Greif and
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GLORIOUS
RETURN: A STORY OF THE VAUDOIS IN 1689 ***
45.
Some typographical errorshave
been corrected; a list follows the
text.
Contents: Preface.
Chapter I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII.,
VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV.,
XV., XVI., Appendix.
(In certain versions of this etext [in
certain browsers] clicking on this
symbol , or directly on the
46.
image, will bringup a larger
version of the illustration.)
(etext transcriber's note)
THE GLORIOUS RETURN.
ARNAUD POINTING TO THE VAUDOIS HILLS. See page 110.
THE GLORIOUS RETURN
A Story of the Vaudois in 1689
BY
CRONA TEMPLE
Author of “The Last House in London,” etc.
T H E R E L I G I O U S T R A C T S O C I E T Y,
56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul’s Churchyard,
and 164, Piccadilly.
47.
I
PREFACE.
T is nearlytwo hundred years since the long persecutions of the Church in
the Alpine valleys ended in their ‘Glorious Return’ from exile, and their
gain of liberty of conscience and freedom from the yoke of Rome. It is
but right that in 1889 Protestant countries should unite in offering sympathy
and brotherly help to the Waldensian Church in its time of commemoration.
Two hundred years ago, Britain, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and the
Protestants of France vied with each other in showing their generous love
for these sorely-tried children of God. And in these happier times it is well
to turn back the history page, to learn what it was that stirred the hearts of
our forefathers; to learn what manner of woe it was that the Vaudois
endured; to read how the God they served did not suffer them to be tempted
beyond what they were able to bear, but—giving them the high honour of
bearing witness to His truth, He comforted them at last with His gifts of
freedom and of peace. It is in such memories that nations may learn their
lessons of truest wisdom. Christianity should be national as well as
individual: the Heavenly King demands service from nations as well as
from hearts. And it is right that, though the Waldenses are foreigners, and a
people of but small account on Europe’s muster-roll, their bi-centenary
should waken echoes in England; such echoes as God wills that noble deeds
should stir throughout all time.
THE GLORIOUS RETURN.
48.
T
CHAPTER I.
HE sunlightwas fading from the hills, and the pine-forests were growing
grey in the creeping shadow.
A northerly breeze had been blowing from the mountains, but it had
died down, as north winds do, with the sunsetting; a great stillness had
fallen upon the valleys.
One could hear the torrent as it leapt from the snows above, rushing and
gurgling in the gorge it had graven for itself on its way to the Pélice River.
One could hear too, faint and far away, the cry of the ravens as they circled
over a meadow; and one might catch the jarring call of a night-hawk as it
woke from its daylight sleep.
But these sounds rather blended with than broke upon the silence. And
there seemed besides no sign of life or motion in all the width of the valley.
There were traces of cultivation on the hill-sides where careful hands
had terraced and tilled the stony soil, winning from the wilderness fields for
pastures and for corn.
There were also buildings that had the semblance of cottages, a group of
ruins here by the stream-side, and single ones standing yonder beyond the
spurs of the pine-woods.
But in those fields were now neither flocks nor herds, nor any sign of
corn; and from those broken chimneys no smoke-wreaths drifted to tell of
human lives about the warm hearth-stones.
It was the year 1687, and the valley was the Valley of Luserna, in the
Piedmontese Alps.
This was the country of the Vaudois, and it was indeed desolate after the
bitter persecution which had followed the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes.
Storms of cruelty and the bitterness of superstition had swept the valleys
at various times, but never a storm so devastating and terrible as this. From
Fenestrelle to Rora, from the Pra Pass to the plains of Piedmont, fire and
sword had driven forth the remnant of the Vaudois. Hundreds had fallen,
fighting for their faith and for their homes; hundreds had perished under the
49.
white pall ofthe winter snows; and hundreds more had died on the scaffold
or in the prisons of the plain.
And the remnant, the poor harried and hunted souls, had gone forth to
seek an asylum—if such there might be found—where they might worship
their God according to His Word.
The sun sank lower yet; the line of light retreated farther up the
mountain-peaks. The ravens sullenly stooped and settled on the rocks. The
torrent kept its noisy way, charged with the blue snow-water that came
glancing from the hills.
Suddenly a woman’s voice rose on the air, clear, and very sweet. It came
through the sprays of creeping plants that veiled a crag so steep that one
might marvel how human being could have climbed there. It was a haunt fit
only for the chamois or the hill-sheep; and on either hand spread dense
forests and ravines where the snow-wreaths lay yet unmelted.
The song rang forth. It was no wavering strain, no uncertain sound, but a
chant of triumph that held also a note of defiance—
‘God’s Name is great!
He breaketh the arrow of the bow,
The shield, the sword and the battle.
Thou art of more honour and might than the mountains of prey.
Thou, even Thou art to be feared.
The earth trembled and was still when God arose
To help the meek upon the earth.
The fierceness of man shall turn to Thy praise,
And the fierceness of the violent shalt Thou restrain.
God shall refrain the spirit of princes.
The Lord our God is terrible unto the kings of the earth.’
The voice ceased; as the last note died away the last sun-shaft touched
the highest peak. The day was done. Night had fallen on the Valley of
Luserna.
Behind the ivy-sprays and the clinging rock plants there was a path on
the face of the cliff widening as it rose, until—some fifty feet above the
stream—it spread into a platform or tiny amphitheatre completely hidden
from any prying eye that might search the cliff from below.
From above one might perhaps peer into its recesses; but then no living
thing ever did look from above, save the falcons and the ravens, or perhaps
50.
a wild goat,tempted by the tufts of mountain flowers which bloomed
against the edges of the snow.
Presently, far back in the hill-cleft, a small red flame leaped up, fed on
dried grasses and fir-cones.
‘Rénée, Rénée,’ called a woman’s voice, ‘thou art too rash, dear child.
May not that light betray us after all?’
‘Oh, no, mother! No one comes here now; we are safe, quite safe. And
see where Tutu creeps forward to the blaze! Thou art cold, my poor Tutu?
Then rest thee, none will harm thee here.’
MAY NOT THAT LIGHT BETRAY?
A dormouse lifted its beadlike eyes to the speaker’s face, as if well
understanding that it was loved and safe. It was a sort of friend to these
poor refugees, here in their mountain hiding-place, a creature even more
weak and helpless than themselves.
Again the woman’s voice was heard.
‘Dear child, be not stubborn. Have we endured so much only to perish
now for lack of a little further patience? A fire even by daylight is rash, at
night its glow is almost certain to be seen.’
The girl she addressed stood silent for a moment, the flicker of the fire
fell on her slender figure and on the graceful lines of her head and throat.
Then she stooped and flung earth upon the flame, treading out the scarcely
51.
kindled heap, andscattering the fir-cones till their brightened edges died
into little rims and coils of grey.
Rénée Janavel had learnt how to obey and how to suffer, but to-night one
word of pleading forced its way from her lips.
‘It is in the night,’ she said, ‘in the dark night that we need the cheer and
the warmth. Oh, mother, I lit the fire to keep away my fear——’
The words sank in a broken whisper; it was strange for Rénée Janavel to
speak of fear.
The woman paused in wonder.
Why should Rénée be afraid of aught but the danger which the blaze
might bring—the danger of cruel men who were thirsting for their blood:
men who had sworn that no remnant of the proscribed race should be left in
the valleys, and who had swept the fields and forests again and again in
their search for any Vaudois in hiding there? Rénée, child of the mountains
as she was, why should she fear anything but this? The winter was past, and
the prowling wolves had withdrawn themselves; the shy black bears that
haunted the hills were not creatures to be greatly affrighted at. What ailed
the girl?
Rénée came to her side, and hid her face against the woman’s knee.
‘It is so lonely,’ she murmured brokenly. ‘Lately, at night, I have thought
over many things, terrible things—and I have been frightened even to turn
my head, too frightened to call to you. Oh, mother, mother dear! will these
days never have an end? Shall we never be happy again, Gaspard and you
and I?
‘I know that it is cowardly,’ she went on in pathetic appeal. ‘But, mother,
you are well now, almost quite strong again: could we not creep away and
gain the Swiss country where the rest are gone; and see the dear friendly
faces, and sleep in peace, afraid of no man?’
She stopped, for her throat was full of sobbing, and her head sank lower
yet upon the trembling hands.
Just then some remaining spark of fire was kindled into blaze by the
wind that swept into the cave, and the dried grass leapt into a red flame that
threw dancing gleams and shadows on the rocks around, and touched the
trunk of a pine overhanging the place with a glow as of deepest orange.
52.
Little Tutu, thedormouse, curled himself up in soft satisfaction, a nut which
Rénée had given him held tight in his tiny paws.
The woman looked at the fire, but she did not again ask that it should be
extinguished.
‘Rénée,’ she said, ‘it is out of all possibility that I should climb the hill
passes. I can never see the Swiss country. And, indeed, here in mine own
land I would choose to stay, that my last earthly look should rest on the
valley I love so well. And for yourself, dear child, how could you go all that
long and dangerous way? It was for my sake that you stayed, Rénée. But
now—I would not keep you, child, if it were possible for you to gain safety,
to reach friends, there in the land where one may worship the good God in
peace. But as it is——’
‘Mother! do not speak so! Never, never can I desert you! You know I
will not leave you while life holds us together.’
She rose to her feet. One might see the stateliness of her figure as she
stood betwixt the fire-glow and the twilight, her head erect, her face full of
the strength of love and trust.
‘Sing it again, mother,’ she said, ‘the hymn that you sang just now. And
forget that Rénée has been afraid of shadows.’
The woman took her hand and held it tenderly between her own.
‘Tell me, Rénée,’ she said, ‘why were you frightened? Has any new
thing chanced?’
‘No, no; it is the long weariness, the uncertainty, the remembering—oh,
it is just everything! Whilst you were ill, mother, I had no time to be
frightened; but now, when we sit and watch the sun go down, I remember
all that has happened, and I turn sick at my very heart.’
She shuddered. They had passed, those two women, through terror
enough to try any mortal nerves, and privations sufficient to exhaust the
strongest frame. It was small marvel that Rénée trembled as she
remembered the past.
‘Sing, mother,’ she said again; ‘Gaspard was always wont to say that
your songs uplifted his courage.’
So ‘The Psalm of Strong Confidence’ was chanted once more, the notes
of the woman’s voice filling the place with its rich volume of sound. The
quick blaze had died down, and the dark shades fell across the cavern. But
53.
without, beyond thestooping pines, the sky was brightening. The stars stole
out on the deep vault of blue, those glittering stars which tell through all
speech and language that the statutes of the Lord are true, and that in
keeping of them there is great reward.
And the two women sat, hand in hand, serene in spite of trouble; content,
although they were homeless and hunted on the earth. Nay, just now they
were more than ‘content!’ they could rejoice that they, like their martyred
ancestors, were found worthy to bear the cross of suffering for their
Master’s sake.
Rénée Janavel was an orphan. Madeleine Botta, the woman she called
‘mother,’ was bound to her not by ties of blood, but by the stronger ties of
love and gratitude. She had inherited a name which was known throughout
the length and breadth of the valleys. Her grandfather, ‘the hero of Rora,’
Joshua Janavel, had led the patriot bands who battled against enormous
odds in the persecution of 1655 and the few following years. Her father had
been sentenced by the Inquisition, and if he were not dead, his miserable
existence, chained to an oar as a galley-slave, was worse a hundred times
for him than death itself.
Her young mother had perished in the prisons of Turin, and Rénée, a
mere child when the Duke of Savoy stopped for a time those terrible deeds
of blood, had lived always at Rora with the Bottas.
Madeleine Botta had lost her own daughter, and she had taken Rénée to
her heart instead, loving and cherishing her until the desolate child almost
forgot that Madeleine was not in very truth what she always called her, ‘her
mother.’And was she not Gaspard’s mother? and were not Gaspard’s people
to be her people? his life, her life? She would have been Gaspard’s wife at
Easter-tide, had not this new time of death and danger come upon the
valleys. Now he was swept off with the fighting men, none exactly could
tell whither; and she was here, hidden in the rock-ledges, seeking shelter
with Madeleine from the ravaging hordes that had sworn to ‘exterminate the
heretics as they would exterminate all other sorts of noxious beasts.’
The home at Rora was a heap of ashes; the peaceful days when Rénée
drove the goats down the hill in the shadowy afternoon, or sat busily
spinning the flax at Madeleine’s knee, were gone for ever. There had been
troubles then, of course, but troubles so tiny that now in comparison they
seemed to be positive pleasures.
54.
Henri Botta, thehouse-master, was a hard-featured man, whose rare
words were sometimes wont to be hard; he looked on the world as a vale of
sighing, a place where evil reigned, and no man should desire to be happy.
Rénée used to shrink from his warning words, and strive to avoid his grim
glances. Now how glad she would have been to have heard the sound of his
voice, or to have seen the outline of his rugged face!
Then there was Emile, the eldest son, almost as hard and silent as his
father; and even Gaspard had a trick of shutting his lips tightly together and
frowning till his black brows met, when the talk was of the future or the
past.
But Gaspard had never been hard to Rénée—never. He had been to Turin
learning his trade, a carpenter he was, and the best carpenter, as Rénée
proudly said, in all the commune. He was away for years, for such delicate
work as his is not learned in a hurry, and on his return he found the child
Rénée grown into a fair and gracious maiden, the realisation of the dreams
which had haunted his young manhood.
And so he loved her, and wooed her, and won her; learning from her
gentleness to unbend his sternness, teaching her girlish heart to be staunch
and earnest.
They had built and plenished their future home in the simple fashion of
the valley folk. Rénée was already stitching at the wedding gear, and
Madeleine Botta had proudly piled the homespun linen which was to be her
marriage gift to the girl who was already as her dear daughter.
And then—
But the tale is dark in the telling. One must go back some way in
Europe’s history to understand how such deeds came to be done, how such
devastation fell ever and again on the devoted people of the Vaudois
valleys.
T
CHAPTER II.
HERE aresad pages in all histories: there are tales in every land the
telling of which must awaken deep feelings of horror. Man’s inhumanity
to man has always been the dark stain upon God’s earth.
But no cruelties of the ancient days—not even the ghastly enormities of
Nero or the evil deeds of the ‘dark ages’—can exceed the terror and trouble,
the fiendish works, the rage and oppression which have reigned in the
Vaudois valleys.
From primitive times those valleys in the Savoy Alps have been the
refuge of Christians who only asked to be allowed to live, harmless and
insignificant, tending their mulberry trees, their vineyards and their corn;
with liberty to serve God according to the simple faith which had been
handed down to them from their fathers. They had books which they greatly
prized,—portions of God’s Word, poems, commentaries, and their own
Noble Lesson. This celebrated book was written or compiled about the year
1100, in the Romance language,—and in this language they also possessed
the text of the Psalms and several books of the Old and New Testaments.
They themselves declared that it was the persecutions of the Roman
emperors which had driven the first Christian settlers to the valleys; and if it
were so the little Church, born of persecution and nourished by martyrdom,
had learned from the first to endure all things as good soldiers of its Master,
Christ.
From the earliest times there have always been faithful hearts humbly
following the steps of the Lord, seeking, above earthly wealth and weal, to
know and to do God’s will. And such there will ever be until the Master
comes again. Evil may seem triumphant, and pride and arrogance lift
prosperous fronts, but the Lord knoweth them that are His, and there shall
never lack a remnant to watch and wait for Him.
It is not needful to trace in this story the growth of the pomp and power
of the Bishop of Rome, nor to tell at length how the ‘successor’ of St. Peter
ceased to be either humble or faithful. The Empire of the West had
crumbled away, the ancient seat of the Cæsars was empty, and gradually the
bishop became the most important person in the city, claiming one thread of
57.
power after anotheruntil the ‘Sovereign Pontiff’ asserted rule and right over
the length and breadth of Christendom.
It was strange that such pretensions could be based on the Gospel of Him
who took on Himself the form of a servant, and whose first words of
teaching were a blessing on the ‘poor in spirit.’ Perhaps it was partly a dim
consciousness of this that made pope and cardinals wish the people not to
read the writings of the apostles and the words of the Lord.
But reading in those days was no easy matter.
Books were scarce and costly. Learning was difficult. The bulk of the
people only heard God’s Word through the mouths of those whose gain it
was to suppress and distort its simple teaching. Men and women lived and
died believing that pope and priest could forgive sins and wipe off all
offences, and that a handful of gold pieces could purchase their entrance
into paradise.
It was through these dark days that the Light of the Truth burned clear in
the hearts and homes of the simple race dwelling on the confines of Savoy,
where the frontier lines of Switzerland and France met on the white-hill
peaks. And this race it was, this ‘nest of heretics,’ that the Roman power
resolved to crush and kill.
The first persecution that was regularly organised to destroy them root
and branch took place at the end of the twelfth century. In addition to those
slain outright, the number of those carried into captivity was so great that
the Archbishop of Avignon declared that he had ‘so many prisoners it is
impossible not only to defray the charge of their nourishment, but to get
enough lime and stone to build prisons for them.’
From this time onwards the history of valleys is one long tale of
persecution. The intervals when ‘the churches had rest, and were edified,’
were so short that the accounts of suffering and martyrdom must have been
handed down verbally from father to son. Thirty-two invasions were
endured, invasions of troops filled with the remorseless rage of religious
fanaticism.
But it was in the year 1650 that the bitterest storm broke over them. It
was a time of extraordinary ‘religious’ feeling, and councils were
established in Turin and other cities, having for their object the spread of
the Romish faith and the utter extirpation of heretics. The plan on which
58.
they worked wasjust the old barbarous way of force and fire, and the worst
weapon of all, treachery.
Once again the Vaudois fled before the soldiers hired to butcher them.
The caves and dens of the rocks, the mountain passes filled with snows that
April suns had no power to melt, the natural fastnesses and citadels of the
hills—these were the places to which the villagers escaped. And as they
went they were lighted by the blaze of their burning homesteads, and
followed by the shrieks and groans of the weak and their helpless defenders,
whom the ruthless murderers overtook, tortured and slew.
It was then that Janavel of Rora came to the front. He had but six men
with him when he first made a stand on the heights above Villaro, where the
mountain track leads over the Collina di Rabbi to Rora. He lay in ambush,
resolved to do what he could to stop the foreign soldiers from ravaging his
home, and in his desperate mood he had no thought save to sell his life as
dearly as he could: what could seven men do against hundreds?
But in that narrow place seven men could do much. The simultaneous
discharge of their muskets threw the soldiers into confusion. No enemy was
to be seen; the troops could not be sure that those rocks and trees did not
shelter scores of Vaudois. They faltered, then fell back.
Again the musket-balls came crashing from the hill-side. It was more
than hired courage could stand! The troops of Savoy turned and fled,
leaving sixty or seventy of their number dead on the ground.
They fled only to return. The next day six hundred picked men ascended
the mountain by the Cassutee, a wider, more practicable path. But here also
Janavel was ready for them. He had now gathered eighteen herdsmen, some
armed with muskets and pistols, but the greater number having only slings
and flint stones, which they knew very well how to use. Their ambush was
well chosen. The column advanced, only to be assailed flank and front with
a shower of balls and stones. Again this invisible foe was too much for them
to stand. They thought only of escaping from the fatal defile; once more
Janavel was victorious.
The Marquis of Pianezza, the Savoy leader, was furious at these
repulses. He hastily collected his whole force, sending for his lieutenant, the
impetuous and cruel Mario, to bring up the rear-guard, together with some
bands of Irish mercenaries, who were specially fit for dashing and
59.
dangerous service. Rorashould surely be carried this time! Every soul there
should rue the hour in which they had dared to oppose Pianezza!
But Janavel and his heroes were armed with a strength on which the foe
had little calculated. For the third time victory rested with the weak. For the
third time the soldiers were driven down the mountain-slopes, hurling one
another to destruction in their mad flight.
But this could not last for ever. Eight thousand soldiers and two thousand
popish peasants were marched on Rora, and this time the work of death was
done.
Janavel and his friends, who had been decoyed to a distance from the
village, escaped with their lives, and for many weeks they carried on the
struggle, only to be beaten at last, overpowered by numbers. But the name
of Janavel was reverenced far and wide as that of a good man, ‘bold as a
lion, meek as a lamb,’ rendering to God alone the praise of his victories,
dauntless in his faith and love, while tried as few are tried. His wife and
daughter had fallen into the hands of Pianezza,—spared for the time from
the massacre at Rora; a letter from the general reached Janavel, offering
him his life, and their lives, if he would abjure his heresy, but threatening
him with death and his dear ones with being burnt alive if he persisted in his
resistance. ‘We are in God’s hands,’ answered Janavel; ‘our bodies may die
by your means, but our souls will serve Him by the grace that He gives to
us. Tempt me no more.’
And much the same he wrote thirty years after, when he and Pastor
Arnaud planned the Glorious Return.
It was no marvel that Rénée, Gaspard Botta’s betrothed wife, blushed as
she spoke of fear. The blood of her heroic grandsire ran in her veins. She
too could trust in God, and for His sake endure.
There was a time of peace after that terrible persecution. The whole of
Protestant Europe had remonstrated against the cruelties and horrors that
had taken place. Oliver Cromwell, then governing England, sent an
ambassador to Turin to enforce, if possible, his indignant demand for
mercy. Holland, Switzerland, the German Protestant powers, and even a
large number of French subjects, all sent messengers to the Duke of Savoy.
And they sent also large sums—more than a million francs—to relieve the
most pressing necessities of the homeless and the destitute.
60.
The Duke ofSavoy died, and under the rule of his son, Victor Amadeus
II., the Vaudois had some years of peace. They showed their gratitude for
this forbearance by loyally defending the frontier against the Genoese, and
by eagerly helping to quell the banditti infesting the mountain passes. They
sought to prove, with a devotion that borders upon pathos, that they also
could be good subjects, that their allegiance to their God only heightened
their loyalty to their sovereign.
It was then that Rénée Janavel sang as she sewed the long seams in the
linen store that her foster-mother had spun. It was then that Gaspard would
whistle as his plane cut through the white plank, and the shavings fell, silky
and shining, about his feet.
Even the grim house-master would let the suspicion of a smile lurk
under the straight moustache of iron-grey that almost hid his lips. He could
remember the times of terror—oh, yes, he could remember them only too
well!—but ferns and wreaths of mauve auricula were now growing about
the ruins that had then been made so fearsome; and the mulberries were
flourishing again; and it was a comfort to see Mother Madeleine about and
well after her sharp attack of fever a year or two ago; and Emile and
Gaspard had grown sturdy and strong—the finest young men in all Rora;
and Rénée—the child—was always singing when she was not laughing:
what a gay, sweet heart it was, to be sure! And, all things considered, it was
no marvel that Henri Botta now and then forgot all the ghastly doings of the
past, and let a smile dawn upon his lips or glimmer in his eyes.