Protestantism in the Waldensian Valleys - James Aitken Wylie

the more remarkable inasmuch as all around their
mountains Europe was in combustion. Their
brethren or the Reformed Church in France, in
Spain, and in Italy were falling on the field,
perishing by massacre, or dying at the stake, while
they were guarded from harm. But now a new
calamity carried gloom and mourning into their
Valleys. On the morning of the 23rd of August,
1629, a cloud of unusual blackness gathered on the
summit of the Col Julion. It burst in a water- spout
or deluge. The torrents rolled down the mountain
on both sides, and the villages of Bobbio and Prali,
situated the one in the southern and the other in the
northern valley, were overflown by the sudden
inundation.
Many of the houses were swept away, and the
inhabitants had barely time to save their lives by
flight. In September of the same year, there came
an icy wind, accompanied by a dry cloud, which
scathed their Valleys and destroyed the crop of the
chestnut-tree. There followed a second deluge of
rain, which completely ruined the vintage. These
calamities were the more grievous inasmuch as
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