But The Place Itself, Although
Capital Of A Canton, Is Scarce Larger Than A Hamlet.
It lies terraced
across a steep slope in the midst of mighty chestnuts.
The Protestant
chapel stands below upon a shoulder; in the midst of the town is the
quaint old Catholic church.
It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian martyr, kept his library
and held a court of missionaries; here he had built his tomb, thinking to
lie among a grateful population whom he had redeemed from error; and
hither on the morrow of his death they brought the body, pierced with two-
and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad in his priestly robes, he was
laid out in state in the church. The cure, taking his text from Second
Samuel, twentieth chapter and twelfth verse, 'And Amasa wallowed in his
blood in the highway,' preached a rousing sermon, and exhorted his
brethren to die each at his post, like their unhappy and illustrious
superior. In the midst of this eloquence there came a breeze that Spirit
Seguier was near at hand; and behold! all the assembly took to their
horses' heels, some east, some west, and the cure himself as far as
Alais.
Strange was the position of this little Catholic metropolis, a thimbleful
of Rome, in such a wild and contrary neighbourhood. On the one hand, the
legion of Salomon overlooked it from Cassagnas; on the other, it was cut
off from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet.
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