3-034-707 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mont Cenis Railway scenery: Salbertrand, [Italy], 1871. Women doing laundry at a communal water supply. 'The [recent] opening of the great railway tunnel through the Alps between Savoy and Piedmont...has been followed, this week, by the opening of the short line from the tunnel's mouth to the Modane station of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Company's line in Savoy, by which means there will henceforth be uninterrupted traffic of goods and passengers between France and Italy...[On the Dora Riparia river is] Salbertrand, a place memorable for the battle here fought, in 1689, by the persecuted Waldenses, or Protestants, of these mountain valleys, under their leader, Henri Arnaud, against an army sent by the Duke of Savoy, with the Marquis de Larrey for its commander, to prevent their return into Piedmont. They had been forced, in 1687, after suffering many years' cruel martyrdom for their religion, to emigrate to the French side of the Alps. They took a favourable opportunity, after two years, to come back to their native country, which they re-entered by the pass of the Col de Clairée, adjacent to Mont Cenis. They succeeded in making good their enterprise, defeating thrice their number of regular troops at the bridge of Salbertrand'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.