Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/174

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162
THE DIARY OF POLIDORI

thirty[?] French. She was taken; a pardon was offered. She said, "I do not acknowledge any pardon; my action is not pardonable; a thief [one?] pardons, not a just man." They killed her with swords. The hundred men who came from the higher part of Schwytz, attempting to go to their relief, were through their own countrymen forced to cut their way and march by night; and, when in retreating they came to the other shore of Lucerne Lake, they had again to cut through their own countrymen to arrive at their homes, they refusing them permission to pass. The Austrians, for the help the higher Valaisians gave them, from sovereigns have made them subjects to the lower Valaisians. The curate came in again, with a description of the Simplon; sat an hour and a half, then left the book. When [he was] not here I have written the part of my Journal I missed at the time, and the extract from his book. He came in again about 6 with a basket of prunes for me, and offered to go with me half-way, as he had to go to a church on the way.

September 26.—Got up at 5. The curate came, and, my foot being better, I set off. He showed me the bridge over the Massa where was a battle, and the ruins of a tyrant's tower. We came to his church, where he showed me the miraculous figure that was found in the Rhone. He told me the lower Valaisians