that a just and righteous cause will never reach Your Majesty's ears without exciting a proportionate interest, and securing a corresponding support.

I have the honour to be,

SIRE,

with profound Respect,

Your Majesty's most dutiful Subject,

and most devoted Servant,

WILLIAM STEPHEN GILLY.

May 20, 1824.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

In the course of the last and present century, the press has teemed with accounts of excursions made to almost every part of the known world: but the picturesque valleys at the eastern foot of the Cottian Alps, with the magnificent mountains which surround them, and the extraordinary race of people who inhabit this romantic region, would seem, from the little notice that has been taken of them, to have escaped the researches of the tourist. Independent of the unrivalled attractions of the scenery, there are higher considerations, which might have induced travellers, and particularly those from Protestant states, to visit these Alpine fastnesses, which nature seems to have reserved for the theatre of uncommon events. It was here that the Reformed Religion had its

birth, and that its martyrs and champions made the first effectual resistance to Papal tyranny; and here too may yet be found that primitive Christianity, those simple manners, and noble traits of character which must have distinguished the ancient natives of a district, where the corruptions, introduced elsewhere by the Roman hierarchy, were never tolerated.

I am not aware of any publication, that has anticipated this attempt to call the attention of readers to the scenes described in the following pages, nor do I know of any volume in which the present condition of the Vaudois, and their former interesting history is brought under review in the form which I have here adopted. The list of books, inserted in the Appendix, No. I. contains the principal authorities, which have been consulted for the purpose of giving a correct sketch of the ancient Waldensian churches: these books are, for the most part, very rare, and if they were not so, the distance of time at which they were printed, and the periods of history that they comprise, would shew, that the writer of a narrative, who brings the relation down to the last year, is taking up ground that has not yet been occupied, unless indeed by an occasional pamphlet.

My principal object is to make the singular community, which forms the leading subject of this volume, more known to the world, than it has lately been; and to re-announce, what seems to be almost forgotten, that the race of the old Waldenses, of whom such extraordinary tales have been told by crusaders, inquisitors, troubadours, romancers, and historians, still exists in the Vaudois, still occupies the strong holds of rock and mountain, from which their fathers never could be driven, and still resembles the ancient stock in every thing that constitutes "A PEOPLE OF GOD." I have therefore chosen to throw a great part of my materials into the more attractive form of a traveller's narrative, interwoven with incidents, anecdotes, and observations, in order that I may catch the attention of such readers, as would not engage with a work professedly ecclesiastical.

The weightier matter, and such as could not conveniently be introduced in the Narrative, but which is indispensable towards an illustration of

Those who take an interest in the Vaudois must regret, that they have not found a more conspicuous place in Mr. Southey's admirable work, "The Book of the Church.”