8.4.2012 VAUDOIS III - PERSECUTION

the first measures of a more general character, adopted by the secular authorities for the destruction of the vau, do not appear to have been earlier than the year 1209...

in the beginning of the 14th century (somewhere about the year 1308), THE INQUISITORS having entered the valley of angrogna, where already synods of 500 delegates were sometimes held, THE VAUDOIS REPELLED THEM BY FORCE OF ARMS...

 it was a foreigner
a female
the sister of louis XI
who first signalized herself by exciting bloody persecutions against the vau..
her name was yolande..
she had become the wife of amadeus IX, one of the mildest and most charitable of those dukes of savoy whose names are an honour to their dynasty.
she was left a widow in 1472 and named regent of his dominions.
after this we find her called violante, perhaps in consequence of the alteration of orthography occurring in the public documents of the time, or perhaps in allusion to her cruel and vindictive character.

on the 23rd of january, 1476,
without having previously found any fault with the vau,
without having expressed any displeasure against any of their proceedings,
without alleging for her severities any reason but their religious belief,
she commanded ..to bring them back,
by whatever means,
to the pale of the romish church.
the vaudois demanded that that church itself should be brought back to the gospel....
she was forcibly carried off by the order of the duke of...

the vau..had refused to abjure (renounce, repudiate, retract) their evangelical heresy, and charles I, the second son of yolande, having mounted the throne, gave orders that an investigation should be made concerning this (1485). the result of this investigation was laid before the holy see in 1486, and exposed, for the first time, in an official manner, the wide difference which the lapse of ages had produced betwixt the vau, always faithful to the primitive religion, and the romish church..

in the following year innocent VIII fulminated against them a bull of extermination, by which he enjoined all temporal powers to take arms for their destruction. he summoned all catholics to a crusade against them,
'absolving beforehand all who should take part in this crusade from all ecclesiastical penalties, general or special,
setting them free from the obligation of vows which they might have made,
legitimating their possession of goods which they might have wrongfully acquired and
concluding with a promise of the remission of all sins to every one who should slay a heretic. moreover, he annulled all contracts subscribed in favour of the vau,
commanded their domestics to abandon them,
forbade any one to give them any assistance,
and authorized all and sundry to seize upon their goods'.

forthwith some thousands of volunteers,
persons ambitious of distinction,
vagabonds,
fanatics,
men without lawful employment,
need adventurers,
plunderers of every description,
and pitiless robbers
and assassins,
assembled from all parts of italy to execute the behests of the ..successor of st peter. this horde of depredators and brigands..marched upon the valleys, in company with 18,000 regular troops, jointly furnished by the king of france and the sovereign of piedmont.

..this pontiff..lays no crime to (the vaudois') charge..

the papal legate commissioned to watch over the execution of these..orders..fixed his headquarters..and sent preaching monks to attempt the conversion of the vau before attacking them with arms. these missionaries were utterly unsuccessful. he then proceeded in person to the valleys.

the inhabitants sent two deputies to him, who addressed him in these terms:
'do not condemn us unheard, for we are christians and loyal subjects; and
our barbas are ready to prove, either in public or in private, that our doctrines are agreeable to the word of God, for which reason they ought rather to be held worthy of praise than of blame.
it is true that we have not thought fit to follow the transgressors of the evangelical law, who have long ago departed from the tradition of the apostles; we have not thought fit to conform ourselves to their corrupt precepts, nor to recognize any other authority than that of the bible;
but we find our happiness in a life of simplicity and purity, by which alone the christian faith strikes its roots deep and spreads out its branches. we contemn the love of wealth and the thirst of power with which we see our persecutors consumed;
and our hope in God is stronger than our desire to please men.
take heed that you draw not His wrath upon yourselves by persecuting us,
and be assured that, if God wills it, all the forces which you have assembled against us will avail you nothing'.
this holy confidence did not deceive them.
God willed it,
and that army of invaders vanished from around the vau mountains like the rain that has fallen on the sands of the desert.

the inhabitants concentrated themselves on the most inaccessible points; the enemy, on the contrary, were spread out over the plain, and whether from incapacity for strategy or from his pride moving him to make a grand display of his military force, cattanee thought proper to commence an attack upon all points at once; so that..his lines, without any depth, occupied all the country. he proposed to destroy by a single effort the hydra of heresy. by a single effort his own forces were shattered; for his lines, weakened by the way in which they were extended, were everywhere broken, his battalions driven back in precipitate flight and assailed in rear by those whom they had come to assail.

the weapons employed in this combat were only pikes, swords, and bows. the vau had hastily made for themselves great bucklers, and even cuirasses

there was, however, one post where, notwithstanding the vigour of their defences, the enemy seemed on the point of forcing a passage. tit was the central point of this great line of operations on the heights of st. john...the crusaders had invaded this quarter from beneath, mounting step by step, and closing their ranks around that natural bulwark behind which the vau had sheltered their families. seeing their defenders yield, these families threw themselves upon their knees with many tears; women, and children and old men united together in fervently crying, O Lord, help us!  O my God, save us! this cry of prayer was the only cry which broke from their hearts in their distress and arose to heaven. but their enemies laughed at it, and seeing this company upon their knees, hastened their advance. my fellows are coming-they are coming to give you your answer, exclaimed one of their chiefs..and immediately, joining bravado to insult, he raised the visor of his helmet, to show that he was not afraid to encounter the poor people whom he insulted. but at that moment a steel pointed arrow, let fly by a young man of angrogna, named peter revel, struck this new goliath with such violence, that it penetrated into his skull, between his eyes and laid him dead. his troop, struck with terror, fell back in disorder; a panic seized them; the vau took advantage of the moment and impetuously rushed forward, hurling their adversaries before them and eagerly continuing the pursuit, swept them into the very plain, where they left them vanquished and dispersed. then, reascending to their families so miraculously delivered, they likewise flung themselves upon their knees and all together gave thanks to the God of armies for the victory which they had just gained...

...this decisive defeat..accomplished the deliverance of that valley, in which the troops of cattanee never appeared again.

another instance...
under the reign of louis XV, the reformed religion being still interdicted, the protestant churches of dauphiny had their meetings for worship 'in the wilderness'...when a meeting was to be held anywhere, the villagers might be seen descending separately and by different paths, their spades over their shoulders as if they were going to the field and then they met in some solitary retreat, where the psalm books were drawn forth from their labourers' dresses.entire families travelled great distances to be present. they left home in the evening and travelled all night. at the outskirts of villages the men took off their shoes and walked barefooted along the silent street, lest the clatter of their iron shod soles should betray their passing. the feet of the beast which bore the wife and children were wrapped in cloths, which prevented noise; and the caravan, fatigued but rejoicing, arrived with much emotion at the furtive rendezvous of prayer and edification. sometimes, it is true, the soldiers of the gendarmerie..suddenly made their appearance, when all were engaged in the excesses of piety and in the king's name arrested the pastor. bloody collisions took place. the bullets of popery oftener than once mangled the gospel of Christ; but the 'assemblies of the wilderness' dissolved in one quarter, were resumed in another. where, by the incessant confiscations of which they were the object, copies of the bible had become too rare to suffice for the wants of all, societies of young people were formed, with the view of committing it to memory, and in this way saving themselves from that privation of it with which they were threatened. each member of these pious associations was intrusted with the duty of carefully preserving in his recollection a certain number of chapters, and when the assembly of the wilderness met again, these new levites, standing around the minister, with their faces towards the people, instead of the reading of the interdicted pages, recited in succession, and each in his turn, all the chapters of the book named by the pastor for common edification.

another...
the valley of st. martin was laid waste by the seigneurs of le perrier, named charles and boniface truchet. in the preceding year they had already attempted to seize the minister of rio-claret (the valley of the clear stream). whilst he was preaching, they had sent to the place of worship traitors, who, under the guise of simple hearers, were to gather around the minister, and lay hold of him. these hireling villains were at their post. charles truchet arrived at the gates of the place of worship with his proud and well armed troop. he sounded the clarion; his secret emissaries rushed upon the pastor and endeavoured to drag him away. all the people flew to defend him. the troop attempted to carry the church by assault, but was repulsed; its leader, although of great stature, vigorous and armed with mail,
(flexible armour made of interlinked rings)
was in danger of losing his life, for one of these robust mountaineers having got into combat with him, and squeezed him up against a tree, could easily have choked him; but because of his rank, says gilles (vaudois historian of this time), and from motives of humanity, he let him go.

instead of being thankful, his hostility only grew. thus it is with base natures. on the 2d of april, 1560, before daylight, he returned to rioclaret with a troop more numerous than the former,broke open the doors killed the inhabitants and ravaged the whole hamlet. but the cries of his first victims wakened their neighbours, who fled without clothes, without provisions, and without arms, to the peaks of the mountains, still covered with snow. 'the enemy, says richard, pursued these poor people far up into the woods, firing many shots at them with their arquebuses: afterwards they came back to the deserted houses, took up their lodgings there, and made themselves comfortable, whilst those to whom the houses and provisions belonged were suffering from hunger and cold: they even asserted loudly that they would not permit them to return, at least until they should promise to go to mass.

next day an aged pastor, recently come from calabria, made an attempt to visit and encourage these poor fugitives. the troop of truchet perceived him at daybreak, pursued him, seized him, and delivered him over to the monks of pignerol, who caused him to be burned alive, with another prisoner from the valley of st. martin. it is as needless to say that they might have saved their lives by apostasy, as it was needless to propose it to them.

three days afterwards, however, the vau of pragela having learned the unhappy condition of their brethren of rioclaret, assembled, to the number of 400, and resolved upon going to their rescue. their pastor, named martin, marched at the head of this troop, from time to time as they advanced, he flung himself upon his knees, with all his men, and prayed to God to give them the victory. their prayer was heard. the weather was very gloomy, and it was towards evening when they arrived at rioclaret. the enemy, being apprised of their approach, had made preparations for defence; but a terrible storm, such that the alps themselves seemed to be shaken when it burst upon their peaks, poured its fury upon the mountain at the moment when the action commenced. after an obstinate combat, the band of truchet was driven from its positions, and pursued into the ravines, were the soldiers wandered in the midst of the night, and for the second time the unjust aggressor had difficulty in making his escape.

hereupon truchet repaired to nice, where philibert then held his court, for the city of turin had not yet been given up to him. 'the vau, he said to him, are rebels; they bring foreign troops into your dominions (alluding to that band which came from pragela, in the kingdom of france) and they are constructing places of security on the mountains'.

a miserable stronghold, indeed, was that to which they had been obliged to retire amidst the snow, half-naked, and without arms of provisions!

a final for this page..
'in the month of june, says crespin, at the time when the harvest is reaped in piedmont, a number of the vau people having gone, according to their custom, to work in the plain as reapers for hire, to earn a little, they were all made prisoners at different places and times, without  their knowing anything one of another; but by the goodness of God they all escaped from their prisons, as if by miracle. then came the harvest time in the mountains in the month of july, and the people of angrogna, being one morning in their muandas or summer huts (chalets), in the neighborhood of st. germain, heard some arquebuse shots in the direction of that place; and a little after they perceived a troop of plunderers, to the number of 120, who were advancing towards them. hereupon they immediately shouted, to give notice to their brethren, and being all assembled, they formed themselves into two troops of 50 men each, the one of which went higher up, and the other lower down upon the mountain. the latter were the first to rush upon the rascally company, who were all loaded and encumbered with booty, and they put them to flight, and pursued them to the banks of the clusone, where the half of them were dworned'. if the men of angrogna had chosen then to pursue the fugitives, they might have seized upon the abbey buildings, and delivered all their brethren who were prisoner, for the monks had fled to pignerol; but they could not venture to do it without consulting their pastors, and the opportunity was lost.