Protestantism in the Waldensian Valleys - James Aitken Wylie

west of Turin. It contained many Protestants, some
of whom were of good position. The wealthiest
were selected and dragged to the burning-pile, in
order to strike terror into the rest. The blow had not
fallen in vain; the professors of the Protestant creed
in Carignano were scattered; some fled to Turin,
then under the domination of France, some to other
places, and some, alas! frightened by the tempest in
front, turned back and sought refuge in the
darkness behind them. They had desired the "better
country," but could not enter in at the cost of exile
and death.
Having done its work in Carignano, this
desolating tempest held its way across the plain of
Piedmont, towards those great mountains which
were the ancient fortress of the truth, marking its
track through the villages and country communes
in terror, in pillage and blood. It moved like one of
those thunder-clouds which the traveler on the Alps
may often descry beneath him, traversing the same
plain, and shooting its lightnings earthwards as it
advances. Wherever it was known that there was a
Vaudois congregation, thither did the cloud turn.
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