(A.D. 1300 TO A.D. 1650.)
Being in Dauphiny, we may as well pursue the story of the vicissitudes which the ancient Vaudois experienced all around the present Vaudois valleys, before resuming the series of events which have befallen them in the latter down to our own days.
The Vaudois were, in process of time, rooted out, not only of the "Val Louise, but also of Barcelonnette, Saluces, Provence, and Calabria, where they were anciently established. They have likewise more recently been exterminated in the valley of Pragela.
The valley of Barcelonnette is a deep ravine, shut in upon all sides by almost inaccessible mountains. It belonged in former times to Piedmont, but it was in the possession of France from 1538 to 1569, after which it reverted to Piedmont till 1713, when it was finally ceded to France in exchange for the two little valleys of Sexare and Bardonèche, situated towards Briançon.
This vale of Barcelonnette, with the little lateral valleys which open into it, anciently bore the name of Terres-Neuves (the New Lands), probably because they had been recently discovered. It is not known at what date the Vaudois began to occupy them. Farel preached there in 1519. The place of worship was at Les Josiers. The inhabitants, much interested and delighted to hear the voice of the reformer, gloried that the doctrines of their fathers, in all their evangelical completeness, were thus publicly proclaimed. But this publicity attracted to those who professed them the dreaded attention of the Church of Rome. The ferocious inquisitors ascended even to that peaceful retreat of poverty and prayer. This took place in 1560, the same year in which the valleys of Méana, of Suza, and of Pragela, were laid waste.
"The persecution," says Gilles, "raged so fiercely then against the faithful of these countries, that they were all made prisoners or compelled to flee, so that they were for a long time wanderers amongst these wild mountains, and in great want of food and shelter. Those who were seized, and who refused to abjure, were sent to the galleys. As for apostates, their condition was not much better, for besides the remorse of conscience which continually tormented them, they were distrusted and despised, so that some of them also returned to the right way." These last, who, having become Catholics, returned again to the gospel, received the name of Relapsed. The severest penalties were denounced against them, but the Catholics themselves had little esteem for men who were converted with the knife at their throat. How could they even respect doctrines for whose advancement the use of such means was found necessary?
However, a few years after (in 1566), a rigorous edict enjoined all the Vaudois of Barcelonnette to embrace Catholicism, or to leave the dominions of Savoy within the space of one month, under pain of death and confiscation of goods. The greater part of them resolved to retire into the valley of Freyssinières, which belonged to France; but it was then the time of Christmas, the most inclement season of the year; the women and children became faint by the way; the snow which covered the mountains augmented the fatigue and dangers of the route; night had come on before they could reach the ridge, so that the proscribed race were obliged to lie down upon a bed of frozen snow, and the cold so seized upon them in their sleep as to change the sleep of many into that of death. Those who died were soonest at the end of their sufferings, but how keen must have been the anguish of the survivors who next morning had to behold sixteen of their children corpses, stiffened by the frost in the arms of their wretched mothers! The survivors, with great difficulty, reached the fraternal asylum which was opened to them.
The governor of Barcelonnette would then have distributed amongst the Catholics the possessions abandoned by these unhappy fugitives, but, to the credit of the inhabitants of these mountains, it must be told that no one would consent to accept them. These Catholics were far behind in the path in which their Church had advanced.
The Vaudois, therefore, were at liberty to return to their abodes, and take possession again of their property. The authorities winked at their return, without which these districts must have remained waste, and these mountains unpeopled; but in order to the exercise of public worship, they were under the necessity of traversing the glaciers again, and repairing to Vars in the dominions of France. And these humble Christians, already so severely tried, did not hesitate to travel that long and arduous journey, several times a year, to enjoy the privilege of mutual edification, and to receive the benediction of a pastor. What a lesson for the Christians of our day!
But, half a century after, in 1623, severities were recommenced. A Dominican monk, named Bouvetti, obtained authority from the Duke of Savoy to institute proceedings against the Vaudois of Barcelonnette, to whom he brought a new edict of abjuration or exile. This edict was mercilessly carried into execution by the governor of the valley, Francis Dreux, so that, after many fruitless petitions and efforts to obtain some mitigation of their lot, the Vaudois, unshaken in the faith of their fathers, were compelled again to forsake their native country, to which they were now never to return, going into hopeless exile, and seeking an asylum in countries less afflicted than their own. Some retired into Le Queyras and the Gapençois, others to Orange or Lyons; some went to Geneva, and many to the Vaudois valleys of Piedmont, which they regarded as their mother country. Thus was this retired valley left to silence and depopulation, which had been happy when it was forgotten, and in which, whilst it was forgotten, the gospel had been proclaimed and enjoyed in peace.
The persecuting Church gloried in this destruction as a triumph. Thus human passions, to glorify themselves, take for their pedestal the very vices which serve them, and, encouraged by the errors of his age, the man of power makes a merit of his excesses and misdeeds.
The inhabitants of Freyssinière, whose laborious habits and blameless manners the illustrious and unfortunate De Thou has so well described, made resistance to their persecutors. Louis XII indeed had said, after a judicial investigation concerning them. "These brave people are better Christians than we." But they were so in virtue of the gospel, and Rome could not endure this. From the commencement of the 13th century to the end of the 18th, she never ceased to persecute them; and between the year 1056 and the year 1290, five bulls of different popes demanded their extermination. The inquisitors preyed upon these unhappy valleys from the year 1238; and in order to discover if an accused person were really guilty, we are told that these official defenders of the Catholic faith applied to him a red-hot iron; if it burned him it was a sign of heresy, and he was condemned. What times and what manners! Would to God that the uncertainty of the documents would permit us not to believe such things !
In 1344, says an old MS., the greater part of the people of Freyssinières being persecuted, fled into the valleys of Piedmont; but they returned with the Barbas, resisted the inquisitors, and were soon stronger than before.[2] It remained for the inconceivable cruelties of Borelli and of Veyletti to enfeeble them anew. Louis XI put an end to the proceedings of these agents of the holy office in 1478. They were succeeded by Francis Ployéri, whom Cattanée left there after his extermination of the whole Vaudois of Val Louise.
This inquisitor commanded the inhabitants of Freyssinières to appear before him at Embrun. They knew that it was in order to obtain from them an abjuration of their faith; it could therefore be of no use for them to go, and no one went. Thereupon they were condemned to death for contumacy, as rebels, heretics, and relapsed; and, as usual, all the goods of these poor people were confiscated for the profit of the Church. This was the thing which interested and attracted her most, and which constituted her motive for these condemnations. What cared her monks for the sorrows, the inexpressible distress, and misery of our families, if they could provide well for themselves, and give themselves up to all the grossness of their clerical sensuality! All of the unfortunate Vaudois who could be apprehended were therefore committed to the flames without more formality; for the surest means of seizing upon confiscated lands was to slaughter their owners; and whosoever ventured to intercede for the condemned, were it a son for his mother or a father for his child, was immediately thrown into prison, brought to trial, and often condemned as an abettor of heresy.
The Vaudois had no repose till after the death of the feeble Charles VIII, which took place in 1498. Deputies from almost all the provinces of the kingdom then repaired to Paris, to be present at the coronation of Louis XII. The inhabitants of Freyssinières were there also represented by a procurator, who was commissioned to lay their complaints before the new sovereign. Louis XII remitted this business to his council; the pope was written to upon the subject, and commissioners, both apostolical and royal, that is to say, representing the pontifical power and the royal authority, were named to proceed to the spot and there make exact inquiry into the facts of the case.
Having arrived at Embrun, they caused all the papers connected with the proceedings instituted against the Vaudois by the inquisitors to be laid before them, found fault with the bishop, and annulled all the condemnations pronounced for contumacy against the inhabitants of Freyssinières. But the bishop would not assent to an arrangement which entailed upon his clergy the loss of the property acquired by these odious confiscations. He grounded his resistance upon what one of the commissioners had said publicly in the hostelry of the Angel, where they had been lodged, "Would to God that I were as good a Christian as the worst of these people!" from which the prelate concluded that this judge must have favoured the heretics at the expense of justice. However, Louis XII ratified the decisions of the commissioners by letters dated at Lyons, 12th October, 1501, and the commissioners obtained from the pope a brief which rendered the king's decision binding upon the clergy. This pope was Alexander VI, and the brief was obtained through the intermediation of his son, Caesar Borgia, who had come to France, bringing to Louis XII a bull of divorce, in exchange for which he received, along with the title of Duke of Valentinois, the very part of Dauphiny in which the valley of Freyssinières is situated.
Borgia and Alexander VI had something else to do than to trouble themselves about the doctrines which were professed there! The inhabitants had treated an ecclesiastical tribunal with contumacy, and an absolution was necessary for this in order to render inoperative those proceedings which the king desired to have annulled. Nothing could be refused to the king, and Alexander VI was generous in the matter of absolutions. But the cause for which one was sought appeared to him too insignificant for such long writings. Nothing but contumacy; a pretty peccadillo! And so, to make it something worth the trouble, he granted to the Vaudois a comprehensive absolution, not only from that of which they were charged, but also from all sorts of fraud, usury, larceny, simony, adultery, murder, and poisoning; for no doubt these things being so common at Rome, it was quite natural to suppose them equally common everywhere. The simple and austere life of the Vaudois stood in no need of these sin-breeding indulgences, and the evil which resulted from their employment remained entirely with the church which had recourse to them.
Half a century after, during the heat of the wars which filled up the 16th century, an attack was directed against the Vaudois of Freyssinières and Le Queyras, by the military commandant of Embrun, who marched against them at the head of 1200 men belonging to Embrun and the Briançonnais. But Lesdiguières, then scarcely twenty-four years of age, hastened by the Champsaur to the defence of his brethren in the faith. He encountered their enemies at St. Crispin and cut them in pieces.
The Protestants, in their turn, thought to seize upon Embrun. A stratagem was devised for this purpose. The day of the feast of the Conception, in December, 1573, was fixed for the execution of it; but it was mismanaged, and its author, Captain La Bréoule, having fallen into the hands of the Catholic, was strangled, dragged through the mud, quartered, and the parts suspended upon four gibbets at the four gates of the city. Twelve years after, Lesdiguières seized the place. He first attacked the town of Charges, which was fortified. The inhabitants and soldiers, trusting in the fortifications, did nothing but chat and divert themselves. Lesdiguières, advancing by paths which were concealed from observation, planted his ladders against the walls and entered the town. "We are come to dance with you," said he, making his appearance. The garrison were declared prisoners; they attempted to defend themselves and perished by the sword. A regiment of 500 arquebusiers came from Embrun to retake this place, but they fell into an ambuscade which Lesdiguières had planted for them at the hill of La Coulche, where they were cut in pieces. The victorious chief then caused the approaches to Embrun to be reconnoitred, and took possession of it on the 17th of November, 1586. A part of the soldiers who defended it retired into a sort of central fortress, of which there still remains a portion called the Tour Brune, contiguous to the ancient bishop's palace. Fire was applied to it, and during this fire the papers of the episcopal archives were thrown out of the windows in order to save them. Among them were the records of investigations against the Vaudois; a soldier laid hold of them and sold them, and from hand to hand they have passed into the hands of our historians. The cathedral of Embrun then became a Protestant church, for the bishop had fled at the commencement of the siege, with all his clergy.
Two days after this exploit Lesdiguières proceeded to besiege Guillestre, which was taken, and of which he levelled the walls, never since rebuilt. He then ascended the rugged valley of the Guill and took Château Queyras. The resistance which he met with at this place increased the irritation of his troops and the effervescence already prevailing in the valley. The victorious Protestants incurred the guilt of bloody reprisals against the Catholics, by whom they had been so long oppressed. For some years previous in particular, troops of fanatics had frequently assailed their habitations and passed through their villages, scattering everywhere desolation and death, instigated to these outrages generally by Captains De Mures and De La Cazette.
In 1583, the Reformed of Queyras being threatened with a speedy attack, called to their aid their brethren in faith from Piedmont, for considerable forces were preparing to attack them. The Vaudois of the valley of Lucerna were the first to arrive for their defence. They seized on Abriès; the enemy were masters of Ville Vieille, situated two hours' march lower down. A traitor, named Captain Vallon, left the Catholic troops, came to Abriès and said to the Protestants, "I am one of your brethren; I have been made prisoner, and they have made me swear not to take up arms again, but I have obtained permission to leave the camp, and I am come to tell you that if you do not retire you will all be cut in pieces." "You spy!" exclaimed the Vaudois, "if you would not be cut in pieces yourself in the first place, begone immediately." The traitor disappeared, and the enemy's forces advanced. The cavalry came by the bottom of the valley, and two bodies of troops by the lateral slopes of the mountains. The Vaudois were intimidated at the sight of forces so superior to their own. "What! are you afraid?" cried Captain Pellenc of Le Villar. Let a hundred men follow me, and God will be with us! All followed him. Captain Fraiche, who had already delivered the Vaudois of Exiles from the soldiers of La Cazette, was the first to rush upon the enemy. He caused their centre to give way, but their two wings closing together, the little Vaudois troop was on the point of being surrounded. They retreated over the heights of Val Préveyre; there they met their brethren of the Valley of St. Martin, who had also come on the same summons; then they resumed the offensive with impetuosity they had the advantage of the ground, and the avalanches of stones which they rolled down before them broke the first ranks of the Catholics. They dashed into the opening, struck down, dispersed, overwhelmed, and swept away the aggressors, and pursued them as far as Château Queyras. The skirmishes which afterwards took place were terminated by the victory of Lesdiguières, who made himself master of the whole valley, where cruelties and spoliations, unworthy of their name, were then perpetrated by the Protestants. Lesdiguières maintained his protectorate there until the Edict of Nantes. The Vaudois then had it in their power to enjoy the free exercise of their worship. During the 17th century they had pastors at Ristolas, Abriès, Château Queyras, Arvieux, Moline, and St. Véran. These pastors were sent by the synod of the valleys of Piedmont, as the Barbas had been in former times, who cherished with so much care the sacred fire of the primitive faith in churches much more distant.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was attended with the destruction of their places of worship, and their renewed proscription. It is well known what numbers of French Protestants were then driven into exile. Those of Le Queyras re-entered the valleys of Piedmont with the Vaudois who had been expelled from thence.
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," like those of Gard and the Cévennes. 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 rendez-vous of prayer and edification. Sometimes, it is true, the soldiers of the gendarmerie, then called the maréchaussée, suddenly made their appearance, when all were engaged in the exercises 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.
It was thus that the Protestant churches of France passed through these stormy times. In the valleys of Dauphiny, which were anciently Vaudois valleys, the descendants of these glorious martyrs have survived their misfortunes, and still subsist at Freyssinières, Vars, Dormilhouse, Arvieux, Molines, and St. Veran. A recent apostolate, displaying, like those of the ancient Vaudois, the fervour which animated the primitive church, has connected with these countries the name of Felix Neff, which history has already placed alongside of that of Oberlin, the famous benefactor of the Vosges. The young missionary and the aged patriarch had the same ardour; for souls do not become aged, and what are our years in comparison with eternity? Even centuries are nothing. Happy are these churches which have combated during centuries for a cause that cannot be destroyed, and whose contests and triumphs shall be celebrated in the world of immortality!
The chapters following will show us the heroic and patient defenders of this cause in other places also, but everywhere the same.
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