Note Back to Main Text — Chapter VII

The Vaudois peasantry were for the most part unarmed, and their only crime was their religion. The regiments of Viscount Clare and Viscount Dillon, principally distinguished themselves against the Vaudois. The war was one of extermination, in which many of the Barbets were killed. Mr. O'Connor states that between the number of the Alpine mountaineers cut off, and the extent of devastation and pillage committed amongst them by the Irish, Catinat's commission was executed with terrible fidelity; the memory of which "has rendered their name and nation odious to the Vaudois. Six generations," he remarks, "have since passed, away, but neither time nor subsequent calamities have obliterated the impression made by the waste and desolation of this military incursion."[43] Because of the outrages and destruction committed upon the women and children in the valleys in the absence of their natural defenders, the Vaudois still speak of the Irish as "the foreign assassins."