(A.D. 1350 TO A.D. 1550.)
The Vaudois established themselves in Provence during the reign of Charles II, who possessed vast lordships at once upon both sides of the Alps, and who therefore assumed the title of Count of Piedmont and of Provence. This was about the end of the 13th century. At the commencement of the next century, the persecutions directed against the Vaudois of Dauphiny caused some of them to take refuge with their brethren in the faith upon the banks of the Durance.
At the close of the ten years' war between Louis II, Count of Provence, and Raymond of Toulouse,[2] this district remained depopulated; and as Louis II was obliged to sell part of it in order to provide for the expenses of that war, the Seigneurs of Boulier Cental, and of Rocca Sparviera, bought from him at that time the valley of Aigues, which stretches from north to south along the soft slopes of the Leberon. But these seigneurs already possessed, in the marquisate of Saluces, great estates cultivated by Vaudois. They engaged some of that people, therefore, to come and cultivate their new possessions likewise, and these lands were conveyed to them by emphyteosis, that is to say, upon perpetual lease.
From the most distant parts of Calabria, where other Vaudois were also settled, numbers of them returned to the valleys from which they originally sprung, and passed from thence into Provence, as there were also some from Provence who went to settle in Calabria; so great was then the fraternity subsisting among all these communities, or rather these dispersed parishes of an united church.
"In place of priests and of curés," says a Catholic author of that country,[3] "they had ministers who, under the name of Barbas, presided in their secret religious conventicles. However, as they were seen to be quiet and reserved, and as they faithfully paid their taxes, tithes, and seigneural dues, and were moreover very industrious, they were not disturbed upon the subject of their practices and doctrines."
But the Reformers of Germany, to whom they sent a deputation along with their brethren of Piedmont, warmly urged them to abandon this reserve, reproaching them as guilty of dissimulation, because their exercises of religion were only conducted in secret. Scarcely had they made a more open display of their separation from the Church of Rome, when inquisitors were sent against them. One of these, called John de Roma, perpetrated many outrages during a period of ten years which he spent in that region.[4]
At last the king caused him to be imprisoned, and an investigation, whose volominous records are preserved to this day,[5] was made concerning his exactions and cruelties. Nevertheless, the proceedings which he had instituted were continued. In 1534, says Gilles, the Bishops of Sisteron, Apt, Cavaillon, and others, each in his own diocese, caused inquisition to be made for the Vaudois, and filled the prisons with them. Learning that these heretics derived their origin from Piedmont, they wrote about them to the Archbishop of Turin, and he named a commissioner, who wrote to Provence that these proceedings should be suspended until he had made more perfect inquiry on his side. But the Bishop of Cavaillon replied, on the 29th of March, 1535, that thirteen of the prisoners had already been condemned to be burned alive. Of this number was Anthony Pasquet, of St. Ségont. The spirit of the martyr who gave his name to that village was not yet extinct there. Others had died in prison; the bishop mentioned in particular Peter Chalvet, of Rocheplate. Thus the intervention of the commissioner, who was himself a native of Rocheplate, was ineffectual to counteract the zeal of these prelates, and especially of the Parliament of Provence, more eager apparently for condemnations than for justice.
Clement VIII, a year before his death, promised plenary indulgences to all Vaudois who should return to the bosom of the Popish Church. None availed themselves of the offer. The pope complained to the King of France, who wrote on the subject to the Parliament of Aix; and the Parliament ordered the seigneurs of the lands occupied by the Vaudois, to compel their vassals to abjure or to quit the country. As they refused, an attempt was made to overcome them by intimidation. Some of them were cited to appear before the court of Aix, to explain the causes of their refusal; they did not attend, and the court condemned them by default to be burned alive. Thereupon their brethren took up arms; one named Eustace Maron put himself at their head, and they proceeded to rescue the prisoners. The authorities became alarmed, the effervescence extended, and a civil war was just on the point of breaking out in the district. The king, Francis I, was informed of it, and thinking to pacify all, he caused a general amnesty to be proclaimed in July, 1535, on condition that the heretics should abjure within six months.
Tranquillity was restored, and the six months passed away; no one had abjured, and each of the seigneurs or magistrates in these regions arrogated the right of arbitrarily exacting the required abjuration, or punishing the Vaudois at his own pleasure by confiscation and imprisonment. This latter mode of proceeding may be said to have become truly fashionable. It was known that the Christian would rather give up his fortune than his creed, and he was deprived of his fortune in order to punish him for retaining his faith. It was a new way of acquiring wealth. Many availed themselves of it to a large extent; Ménier D'Oppède went beyond all bounds. He was poor, of Jewish descent, a man of doubtful integrity, of unquestionable selfishness, infatuated with self-conceit, like all men of little minds, and disdaining people of low rank with a pride all the more contemptuous because he himself was but a miserable upstart. The apostasy of his grandfather seemed to irritate him all the more against the religious steadfastness of the Vaudois; the sternness of his character prevented his shrinking from the use of any kind of means, and his ambition made all kinds lawful. Marching with a troop of armed men, he would seize the Vaudois in their fields. "Call upon the saints for deliverance," he would say to them. "There is no other mediator between God and man," the Vaudois would reply, "but he who is both God and man, that is Christ." "Thou art a heretic; abjure thy errors." Upon the refusal of the Vaudois, he flung them into the cellars of the castle of Oppède, which served him for a prison, and did not release them without the payment of a large ransom, or if they died, he confiscated their goods.
These shocking depredations were particularly numerous in 1536. Next year the procureur-general of the Parliament of Provence, solicited at once by the fanatical clergy and by the interested spoliators, made a report, in which he represented that the Vaudois were daily increasing. On thus report the king required the court to repress the rebels; and the year following (June, 1539) he authorized it to take cognizance of the crime of heresy. After the month of October in that same year, the court issued warrants for the arrestment of 154 persons, whom two apostates had denounced as heretics.
It may be imagined what an excessive fermentation such measures must have produced in the country; and though we can here give only a brief sketch, we may say that no historian has yet combined together those details, an acquaintance with which, however, is necessary, that the course of events may be understood. In circumstances such as these, a spark may cause a conflagration. This actually happened in the manner which we now proceed to show.
The mill of the Plan d'Apt was an object of desire to the magistrate of that town. He denounced Pellenc, the miller, as a heretic. Pellenc was burned alive, and his mill confiscated for behoof of the man who had denounced him. Some young men of Mérindol, in whose Provençal veins the Italian blood still boiled, were unable to contain their indignation at such iniquities, and in their ignorance of legal forms, to which, however, no recourse would have remained for them, they executed justice after the manner of the populace and according to the notions which children form of it; they destroyed, during the night, the mill of which the man who had destroyed their brother had so unrighteously obtained possession as the price of his blood. The magistrate of Apt made his complaint to the court of Aix, and named the persons whom he suspected of having had a hand in this business. The court, although it was vacation time (it was in July, 1540), held an extraordinary meeting and ordered the apprehension of eighteen suspected persons. The officer commissioned to intimate to them the decree of the courts proceeded to Mérindol, where he found all the houses deserted. "Where are the inhabitants of this village?" said he to a poor man whom he met upon the road. "They have taken refuge in the woods," said the other, "because they were told that the troops of the Count de Tende[6] were coming to kill them." "Go and seek them," said the officer, "and tell them that no harm will be done to them." Some Vaudois came, and the officer summoned them to appear before the court within the space of two months from that date.
On the 2d of September they all met, and addressed a petition to the court, in which they protested their submission to its authority and their loyalty to the king, entreating the court not to lend an ear to their enemies, who would mislead it in the execution of justice, "for," say they, "in the summons which has been served upon us we find persons indicted to appear before you who are dead, and others who never existed, and children of so tender an age that they cannot even walk alone." The courts annoyed that simple countrymen should point out such mistakes in its decrees, replied that they must appear, without concerning themselves about the dead. The Vaudois consulted an advocate to know what they ought to do. "If you wish to be burned alive," said he, "you have nothing to do but to come." The poor people did not attend; and the day for which they were summoned being past, the court of Aix, on the 18th of November, 1540, pronounced against them an inconceivable sentence, condemning to the pile twenty-three persons, of whom only seventeen were designated by name. "The court," such are also the further terms of that sentence, "delivers over their wives and their children to anyone who can lay hold of them, prohibits all and sundry from giving them any assistance, and as the village of Mérindol is notoriously known to be a retreat of heretics, appoints all the houses and buildings of that place to be demolished and burned."
This decree caused a general indignation amongst all persons of enlightenment, especially amongst all the generous spirits belonging to the noblesse and the bar, as may be inferred from the following anecdote, borrowed from the writers of the time:--The President of the court of Aix was dining with the bishop of that city. "Well, Monsieur de Chesnee," said a woman, who lived in a shameless manner with the prelate, "when are you to execute the decree of Mérindol?" The president made no answer. "What decree do you mean?" asked a young man. The lady informed him. "It must certainly be a decree of the parliament of women," ironically exclaimed the youthful D'Allenc, one of the most eminent of the Arlesian noblesse. A councillor named De Sénas gravely affirmed its sad reality. "No; it is impossible to believe anything so barbarous," exclaimed the Seigneur of Beaujeu. A member of the parliament, who was also one of the company, thought to put an end to the conversation by a joke. "Ah! Seigneur de Beaujeu," said he, pointing to the young lady, as she sat between the bishop and the president, "if you are going to attack the gowns you will have no easy work of it!" The witticism caused a laugh, but the person to whom it was addressed replied with indignation, "It is atrocious! I have had to do with the inhabitants of Mérindol, and nowhere have I met with more decent people." "I would have been astonished," said the mistress of the episcopal palace, "if nobody had been found to defend these misbelievers!" "I would have been still more surprised," rejoined the young man, "if a new Herodias had not loved to see the shedding of innocent blood." "Come! come!" said the aged De Sénas, "we are here to enjoy ourselves, and not to dispute." Hereupon the discussion terminated; but, a few days, after the Count D'Allenc waited upon the President Chassanée, appealed to his sentiments of justice and humanity, and obtained a suspension of the decree. The court itself was alarmed at the decree which it had passed, and wrote to the king to remit the matter to his judgment.
Francis I commissioned Dubellay, Seigneur of Langez, to repair to Provence, and make investigation as to the conduct of the Vaudois. "They are quiet and peaceable people," says he, in his report, "reserved in their manners, chaste and sober, very industrious, but very little in the habit of attending mass." Upon this report, the monarch proclaimed a general amnesty (by letters, dated 18th February, 1541), whereby, leaving all that was past to be forgotten, he granted pardon to all the accused, upon condition that within three months they should abjure their errors of doctrine. These letters of grace, which came to the court in the beginning of March, were not published by it till the month of May. There remained only a fortnight for the Vaudois to avail themselves of them; but, if it had been only one moment, they would not have sought to prolong their lives by abjuring the truth and giving up their souls to death. On the contrary, they proclaimed their persecuted doctrines more distinctly than ever, by a confession of faith, drawn up on the 6th of April, 1541. This was sent to Francis I, and the Sire de Castelnau read it to him; each point of doctrine being supported by passages of the Bible. "Well! and what have they got to say in answer to this?" exclaimed the king. But his unsettled and shallow mind could not remain faithful to the impressions which it had received; he very soon forgot these words of approbation which a scriptural production had drawn from him--a production of which, indeed, enlightened Catholics themselves could not but approve.
The illustrious and learned Sadolet, whose features Raffaele has preserved to us in a celebrated painting, and who was then Bishop of Carpentras, caused a copy to be sent to him; and it is here that, for the first time, the Vaudois of Cabrières appear upon the stage, for they belonged to the diocese of Carpentras, whilst Mérindol formed part of that of Cavaillon. They made haste themselves to convey to Cardinal Sadolet a copy of their common confession. "We are ready," said they, on presenting it, "not only to abjure, but to be subjected to the severest penalties, if it can be shown to us, from the Holy Scriptures, that our doctrines are erroneous." The cardinal answered them kindly, acknowledged that they had been the objects of black calumnies,[7] invited them to come and hold conference with him, and endeavoured to convince them that without changing in any respect the purport of their confession, they might mitigate its terms. He did not seek to hide from them that he himself was desirous of a reform in Catholicism. If the Vaudois had always been examined before men such as he, blood would not have been shed.
Sadolet wrote to the pope that he was astonished to see proceedings adopted against the Vaudois, whilst the Jews were spared; but his protection was soon withdrawn from them by his removal from the country; for, being called to Rome, he lost sight of them, and the Vaudois had now none to deal with but their persecutors.
The term of amnesty, announced by the letters of grace, being expired, the court of Aix commanded the Vaudois to send six mandatories, to declare whether they intended to take advantage of it and to conform to its conditions. One man alone presented himself named Eslène: "We are ready to abjure," he once more said, "upon condition that our errors be proved to us." Others claimed the benefit of the amnesty without reservation; and of this number were those persons in particular who had been condemned by the decree of the 18th of November, 1540; so that the decree ceased, by this very circumstance, to have any object, yet afterwards it served as a pretext for their total extermination. This fact, which has not been noticed by any writer, exposes the disorder and iniquity then existing where the Vaudois were concerned, in respect of what was called the administration of justice.
A whole year now elapsed without any very notable incident, except the martyrdom of an humble hawker [colporteur] of books, who was surprised at Avignon in the very act of selling a Bible. His trial was soon finished: in the eyes of the Church of Rome his crime was unpardonable. All means were tried in order to make him abjure, but he had been too long familiar with the word of God to bow to the word of men. His steadfastness (which the evangelical colporteurs of our days seem to have inherited, and which they display in the midst of humiliating treatment sometimes experienced by them, where their predecessors would have incurred the penalty of death) did not forsake him in his last moments. Condemned to be burned alive at the place of public execution, he was chained to a post, to which the volume of the Holy Scriptures was also attached. "Ah!" cried he, "how can I complain of my being put to death, when the word of God is burned along with me?" The Bible and the Christian were consumed together in the flames; but the Vaudois were only the more confirmed in their faith and constancy.
The Cardinal De Tournon, stirred up against them by the Legate of the Holy See, transmitted to the king information that the clergy had condemned the Confession of Faith which they had presented. The king demanded to be apprised of the results which had been produced by the letters of grace which he had granted, and at the same time wrote to the governer of the province[8] requiring him to cleanse that region of heresy.
The Bishop of Cavaillon was one of those who most strongly maintained that they should make an end at once with the heretics. The court of Aix delegated him, along with one of his councillors, to make inquiry at Mérindol how the Vaudois stood affected with regard to religion. Having arrived in the village, he sent for the bailli, whose name was Maynard, and far the principal persons of the place, and without touching upon any question of doctrine, said to them, "Abjure your errors, whatsoever they may be, and I will hold you as dear as I now hold you guilty: if not, then tremble for the penalty of your obstinacy." "Would your grace," said the bailli, "be pleased to tell us what points we are required to abjure?" "It is needless," said the bishop; "a general abjuration will satisfy us." "But according to the decree of the court," said they, "it is upon our Confession of Faith that we ought to be examined." "And what is that?" said the bishop's councillor, who was a doctor of divinity. The bishop presented it to him, saying, "See! the whole thing is full of heresy." "In what place?" said Maynard. "The doctor will tell you," replied the prelate. "I would need two or three days to examine it," remarked the theologian. "Very well! we will come back next week."
Eight days after, the doctor of divinity went to his bishop. "My lord," said he, "I have not only found this paper conformable to the Holy Scriptures, but, moreover, I have learned to understand them better during these two or three days, than during all the rest of my life." "You are under the influence of the devil," said the prelate. The councillor withdrew; and as we shall not meet with him again in the course of this history, it may here be added that this circumstance led him to search the Scriptures still more than he had yet done, and that, a year after, he went to Geneva, where he embraced Protestantism. Had the Confession of Faith of the Vaudois churches produced only that result, there is enough of good in the conversion and salvation of one immortal soul, to make us regard it with feelings of satisfaction, whatever temporal misfortunes may have ensued from it.
However, a few days after the bishop had dismissed this conscientious theologian, he filled up his place at Gavaillon with a doctor of the Sorbonne, recently come from Paris.
With him the prelate returned to Mérindol. They met some children on the way, and the bishop gave them a few pieces of money, recommending them to learn the Pater and the Credo. "We know them," said the children. "In Latin?" "Yes; but we cannot give the meaning of them except in French." "What need is there of so much knowledge?" said the bishop; "I know many doctors who would be at a loss to give the meaning of them." "And what purpose would it serve to know them, if one did not know what the words meant?" replied Andrew Maynard, who now made his appearance before them. "Well, do you know it yourself!" said the prelate. "I would think myself very unhappy if I were ignorant of it," replied the bailli. And he explained the meaning of a portion. "I could not have believed," exclaimed the churchman, with a peculiar clerical oath, "that there had been so many doctors at Mérindol." "The least among as could tell you as much as I," replied the bailli; "only ask one of these children, and you shall see." But, as the bishop kept silence, he went on: "If you will permit, one of them shall himself ask questions at the rest." And they did it so readily and beautifully, that everybody marvelled.
The bishop then, sending away all the strangers, said to the Vaudois, "I know very well that there is not so much ill amongst you as people think; nevertheless, to satisfy men's minds, it is necessary that you should submit to some appearance of abjuration." "What would you have us to abjure," said they, "if we are in the truth?" "It is nothing but a mere formality that I require of you," said the bishop; "I demand neither notary nor signature. Let the bailli and the syndic only make an abjuration here, in secret, and in your name, as vague as they please, and I will put an end to all these prosecutions." The Vaudois kept silence, and made no reply. "What is it that restrains you?" said the bishop, to remove all difficulty; "if you do not think fit to keep by that abjuration, nobody will be able to convict you, neither by your act nor your signature." But the upright and honest minds of these simple mountaineers could not enter into such sinuosities of popish consciences. "We are frank and sincere, my lord," said they, "and we are not disposed to do anything that we cannot keep by." Oh! do not the reservations and prudent dissimulations of worldly wisdom seem wretched indeed, when contrasted with that generous blindness of honesty and truth! For if the Vaudois had but thought fit to say, "We abjure our errors," making application of that expression to some other thing altogether than their doctrines, perhaps they might have been saved. But Jesuitism is not of Vaudois origin. The bishop withdrew.
On the 4th of April, 1542, he returned with a recorder of the tribunal, and a commissioner of the parliament. The inhabitants of Mérindol were summoned together again: the papers in their case were read; some remarks were exchanged betwixt the bailli and the recorder; but the commissioner becoming impatient, commanded them to be silent, and required the Vaudois to give their conclusive reply. "Our reply," said they, "is, that our errors ought to be pointed out to us." The commissioner asked the bishop to do it. The bishop replied that public report was a sufficient inculpation of the heretics. "And was it not to ascertain if these reports were well founded that the investigation was appointed? said Maynard, in name of the Vaudois. The bishop, sufficiently embarassed, then called upon a preaching monk, who was with him, to preach a sermon to them. The monk pronounced a long discourse in Latin, and every one withdrew. But the commission not having followed up this investigation, another year passed, during which the Vaudois enjoyed some measure of tranquillity. Nay, the inhabitants of Cabrières du Cantal (for there is also a Cabrières d'Aigues), having been attacked by a band of marauders, amongst whom were some soldiers of Avignon, addressed their complaints to Francis I; and the monarch, comprehending at last the intrigues of their enemies, signed, of his own accord, on the 14th of June, 1544, an edict, by which he suspended all proceedings commenced against the Vaudois, ordaining that they should be re-established in all their privileges, and that those of them who were prisoners should be set at liberty, and which concluded with these words, "And seeing that the Procureur-General of Provence is a relative of the Archbishop of Aix, their sworn enemy, a councillor of the court shall be appointed in his place to inform me if they are innocent."' It looked as if all was on the point of being thus brought to an end; and seeming just to approach a peaceful conclusion of this agitated drama, we are farther than ever from anticipating the terrible catastrophe with which it was really to close.
The court of Aix, before publishing the letter of Francis I, sent one of its officers, named Courtin, to Paris, in order if possible to obtain the revocation of it. A sum of sixty livres was allowed him for this journey. He had letters of recommendation to the Cardinal De Tournon, and to the Procureur du Roi of the privy council. In a meeting of this council, on the 1st of January, 1545, the letters of revocation were presented to the king for signature. Francis I signed them without reading them; afterwards he repented of it, and inquiry was made by whom these letters had been prepared, and by whose hands they had been brought to him. The name of the Procureur du Roi in the privy council was John Leclerc "Was it you," he was asked, "who signed this paper?" "I have no recollection of it." The seal was broken; there was no signature. The persons commissioned to inquire into the matter sent for Leclerc's substitute, whose name was William Potel. He was asked, "Was it you who prepared the paper?" "Yes, but I did not sign it." "Who got you to write it?" "It was M. Courtin, an officer of the Parliament of Provence." "Why did you not sign it?" "Because it wanted the packet of documents connected with it." "By whom were these letters of revocation, which have been surreptitiously obtained and illegally drawn up, introduced into the privy council?" "By Monsieur the Cardinal De Tournon." The cardinal was called. "Who gave these documents to your eminence?" "The officer of the court of Aix, sent by the president, D'Oppède" (for D'Oppède had succeeded Chassanée in 1543). "Whose business was it to present them for his majesty's signature?" "The grand chancellor's." This dignitary was sent for, and the letters of revocation were exhibited to him. He was asked if he had ever had them in his hands. He said, "Yes; but as they did not appear to be regular, I did not think it proper to present them for signature to the king." "Then who presented them?" "He who countersigned them." They looked and found that this was the minister De L'Aubespine. He was summoned before the commission, and acknowledged his signature, but he said that the paper had not been written in his office. None of his clerks had any better recollection of it. The hand of the clergy, working in secret, had left no trace of the tortuous course by which these letters had passed. Moreover, says the advocate-general of 1550, the seal was of white wax, and the counter-seal green, a thing quite unusual
It is therefore beyond doubt that these letters had been dishonestly fabricated, and presented at unawares for the signature of the king. Let us now see what they contained.
"Considering," it is there said, "that the heretics of Lucerna have established themselves in Provence, and preach there; that the Vaudois publicly manifest their heresy, that they trouble the country ... &c., the court of Provence shall proceed to execute the decree of the 18th of November, 1540, all letters of grace of later date notwithstanding, and we ordain the governor of the province to apply himself with all vigour to the execution of justice in this matter."
What justice, O God what iniquity! And this business becomes blacker still, if we consider that the privy council, even if the papers had come to it in the regular way, had no power to decree anything contrary to the letters of grace and evocation, which had been granted by the monarch himself. It was an equally flagrant, and still more deplorable contravention of law, that whilst the decree of the 18th of November, 1540, only bore the condemnation of a small number of the inhabitants of Mérindol, yet under the pretext of the execution of that decree was included the destruction by fire and sword of a whole population, occupying seventeen villages, all of which were ravaged and destroyed.
Scarcely had this sanguinary order been obtained, when Courtin sent it to D'Oppède, by an express courier. This courier arrived at Aix on the 13th of February, 1545. The court of Aix immediately wrote to Courtin, signifying its great satisfaction; to M. De Grignan, Governor of Provence, requiring him to have troops ready for their service; and to the Cardinal De Tournon, congratulating him on the triumph which he had obtained.
Here, again, a new infraction of judicial forms took place. The Vaudois, who were trusting to the suspension of proceedings, in terms of the royal letters of 14th June, 1544, ought to have received immediate notification of these new papers, which gave effect to the original decree. They received no notification of the kind; all was carefully concealed from them; the troops were collected in silence; and advantage was taken of the feeling of security amongst the poor people to make preparations for their death. The enemies of the Vaudois did not wish that they should have time to address to their sovereign a reclaiming petition, which might have led to a detection of the villainy of which he had been the dupe, and of which they were to be the victims. They only waited until a certain Captain Poulain, Baron of La Garde, who was then in Piedmont, and who was soon to conduct a body of veteran troops to Roussillon, should pass through Provence, in order to employ these troops in that service. He arrived on the 6th of April. From the 7th to the 11th all the necessary preparations were made for the execution of that retroactive sentence, which had never even been notified to those whom it concerned. The next day, the 12th of April, was the Sabbath; nevertheless, the court met on the summons of Menier D'Oppède. The king's advocate, whose name was Guérin, formally demanded the execution of the decree, to which these letters of revocation were supposed to have restored all its force. The court accorded his demand, named commissioners, and required D'Oppède, as the king's lieutenant, in absence of the governor, to take vigorous measures for the execution of justice--an odious mockery! Immediately after, D'Oppède wrote to the Warden of Apt to take arms and seize upon all the heretics of the neighbourhood; he then caused his commissioners to set out, who that same evening arrived at Pertuis.
At the same time orders were sent to the inhabitants of Lourmarin to prepare billets for 1000 infantry, and 300 cavalry. The inhabitants replied by taking up arms. The summons was repeated; they demanded a delay of twelve hours to consider of it. "What!" it was answered, "shall subjects make terms with their prince?" The Châtelaine of Lourmarin, Blanche de Lévis, came in person to intercede for them. She was not listened to. Thereupon she went to the public square of the village, into the midst of the inhabitants, and with many tears adjured them to lay down their arms, and not to expose themselves to certain destruction. "Our destruction will only be the more speedy if we do so," was their reply. "But at least send a petition," said she. "Well," said they, "let them only allow us to leave the country, and we will abandon our property to those who wish to get possession of it by our death." But the poor châtelaine could give them no assistance in this matter. The Lady of Cental also wrote to D'Oppède to entreat him to spare her vassals. But Captain Vaujuine had already arrived at Cadenet. The troops spread over the country commenced to pillage and to burn. The first column, led by D'Oppède, marched upon Lourmarin. The second, conducted by the Baron of La Garde, marched upon La Motte and Cabrières d'Aigues. The third, under the orders of Vaujuine and De Bedortier, proceeded towards Mérindol and Cabrières du Comtat.[9]
D'Oppède commenced, upon the way, by setting fire to the houses of La Roque, Ville Laure, and Trezemines, which had been deserted by the Vaudois; he did the same at Lourmarin, where 114 houses were destroyed by the flames. He then ordered the officers and the consuls of Apt to collect all the forces possible at Roussillon, and to proceed thither and await his orders.
On the 18th of April, the united troops of D'Oppède, Vaujuine, Redortier, and Poulain, appeared before Mérindol. The inhabitants had fled from it, but a young man, whom some circumstance had detained in the fields, was seized by the spoilers. His name was Maurice Blanc. He was tied to an olive tree, and the soldiers making a target of his body, seemed to delight in insulting his agony by discharging their pieces at him from a distance. He expired, pierced by five arquebuse balls. Just so many were the wounds which his Saviour had received upon the cross. The young martyr of Mérindol committed his soul to him, with the exclamation, "O Lord, receive my spirit into thy hands!"
They then set fire to the village, which was entirely destroyed. Some women, says a person who was present, having been surprised in the church, were stripped of their garments, and the barbarians, making them join hands as for a dance, compelled them, by severely pricking them with their daggers and pikes, to march round the castle, amidst shouts of laughter and outrages, of which they were the objects. After this they took them, already covered with blood, and flung them, one after another, from the top of the rock upon which the castle was built. Many others were taken elsewhere and sold. A father had to go as far as Marseilles to redeem his daughter. A young mother, who was fleeing across the corn-fields with her infant in her arms, was seized and violated by these soldiers, or rather brutes, whilst she still continued to hold her babe pressed to her breast. An old woman, whose age secured her from similar outrage, was treated by them in a way which insulted both humanity and their own religion. They shaved her in the form of a cross, and having decked her with some worthless ornaments, dragged her through the streets, chanting in derision, after the manner of priests. This took place at Lauris, on the way between Cabrières and Avignon. The procession arrived where there was an oven ready for baking bread, and the soldiers, pushing their victim forward with their weapons, said to her, "Go in there, you old damned wretch!" The poor woman was going in without resistance, so much had she been tormented, when those who had heated the oven objected, and prevented her from being thrown into it.
Amidst such brutalities, a thousand times repeated, under different and more revolting forms, the army came to Cabrières. It was a fortified town in the territories of the pope. The king's troops had no power to touch it without the consent of the pontiff. But the vice-legate, Mormoiron, hastened to put into the hands of D'Oppède the most unlimited powers for this expedition.
They arrived at Cabrières on the 19th of April, which was also a Sabbath. The walls were battered from morning to night, in order to make a breach in them--a becoming sanctification of the day of the Lord! The Vaudois, who were shut up in that place, prayed and offered an unyielding resistance. The attack was continued all night without effect. On Monday morning D'Oppède put a stop to the firing. He wrote, with his own hand, to the Vaudois, that if they would open the gates of their town he would do them no harm. He probably knew that, according to the decision of the Council of Constance, there is no necessity for keeping faith with heretics. The Vaudois, less familiar with the canonical science, which teaches perjury, than with the Bible, which enjoins sincerity, judged by its maxims of the king's word, or that of the President of the court of Aix, and opened to him the gates of Cabrières. The first troops which entered were the veteran bands of the Baron of La Garde, newly arrived from Piedmont, men inured to all the dangers of war. It was by them that the carnage was to be commenced, but knowing the terms of capitulation which had been agreed upon, the soldiers asserted that it concerned their honour to oppose the infraction of them. The commissioners of the court of Aix and of the vice-legate entered into a discussion with them upon this point. Meanwhile Menier D'Oppède caused the principal persons of the town to be called, who came with unhesitating confidence. They were eighteen in number. Their hands were tied, and they were ordered to the midst of the troops. They supposed that they were only made hostages, to secure the tranquillity of the rest of the population. But as they moved along the ranks of the Provençal troops commanded by D'Oppède, his son-in-law, named De Pourrières, struck with his cutlass the bald head of an old man, whose tottering step had caused him to touch him in passing. "Kill them all!" cried D'Oppède, seeing him fall, and in a moment these dastardly and fanatical troops fell upon them and butchered them. After they were dead, the same De Pourrières, and the Sire de Faulcon, went about amongst them and mutilated their corpses.
The heads of these unfortunate men were carried about on pikes. The passions of the soldiery were roused; the signal for massacre had been given. Some women, shut up in a barn, which was set on fire, sought to save themselves by leaping from its walls. They were received upon the points of partizans and swords. Others had retired into the castle. "Their death! their blood!" cried D'Oppède, and pointed out to his soldiers the way to their place of refuge.
But how shall I describe the scene which took place in the church? It was the most horrible and sacrilegious scene of all; for it was there that a great number of the women and young girls of the place had taken refuge. The soldiers rushed upon them, stripped them, committed the most shocking outrages upon them, and then some were thrown down from the steeple; others were taken away to be still further abused. Pregnant women might be seen with their bellies ripped up, and the bloody fruit of their womb fallen from them. Mutilated bodies, still breathing, lay scattered before the porch. The advocate Guèrin, who was present there, said in his deposition, "I think I saw four or five hundred poor souls of women and children killed in that church."
The prisoners who were not put to death by order of the president, were sold by the soldiers to those who recruited for the royal galleys. However, the vice-legate would not suffer any quarter to be given. Such was the spirit of Popery in its most exalted representatives. This legate also, having learned that twenty-five persons, the greater part of whom were mothers of families, were concealed in a cave towards Mys, although it was not within the boundary of the papal territories, marched thither with soldiers to destroy them. Arriving at the entrance of the cave, he gave orders for discharges of musketry, but no one came out. Thereupon he caused a great fire to be kindled in the mouth of the cave, and every living creature in it was stifled to death. Five years after their dried bones were still to be seen, as was ascertained in those judicial investigations of which we are presently to speak. The general results of these investigations, which may here be stated, were, that in this extermination 763 inhabited houses, eighty-nine stables, and thirty-one barns were burned. As to the number of the slain, it could not be ascertained with precision, but it was estimated at more than 3000.
Whilst he was still at Cabrières, D'Oppède received a message from the Seigneur of La Coste, praying him to spare his vassals. This was on Monday evening. "Let them make four breaches in their walls," replied D'Oppède, "and then we shall see." On Tuesday morning the breaches were commenced. Two officers, with a few soldiers, arrived. The Seigneur of La Coste offered them a refreshment before the gate of the castle. Two domestics served it. The soldiers sat down to eat, and whilst they eat there arrived, with a great sound of drums and trumpets, the bulk of the forces of Menier D'Oppède, marching as to an assault. The inhabitants of the little town were alarmed, closed the gates, and interrupted the making of the breaches, which had been commenced. The soldiers scattered themselves through the gardens of the castle, which were on the outside of the walls of the town, tore up the plants, cut down the fruit-trees, burned the arbours, and dragged about over the parterres, which they had covered with ruin and confusion, their prisoners, whom they cruelly maltreated. Within the walls the soldiers who had got admission killed the two domestics who served them.
Next day, being Wednesday, the 22d of April, D'Oppède wrote to the syndics of La Coste to persuade them to open the gates of the town, promising justice and protection. The gates were opened, and that instant the furious soldiery rushed into the streets, destroying, plundering, ravishing, massacring, and burning in all directions. A little warren lay behind the castle. Thither the soldiers dragged the captives whom they seized, to deprive them of their honour before depriving them of their life. Mothers attempted to defend their daughters, and to save them from the perpetrators of these brutalities. One, seeing the fruitlessness of her efforts, pierced her bosom with a knife, and held it out bleeding to her daughter, that she might stab herself with it also. "Oh! I am overcome with all these horrors," exclaims the king's advocate, who pleaded in the evocation of this affair before the court of Peers. "Spare me from speaking of the wretches who flung themselves from the top of the walls, or hanged themselves upon the trees, or stabbed themselves, the victims trodden under foot, or wandering about and dying of famine, or torn by the ravens, or seized and killed, or sold and sent to the galleys."[10] The very cattle of these poor people perished for want of shelter, for it was forbidden to harbour a Vaudois, or anything that had appertained to them. A poor woman, ready to die of hunger, asked a morsel of bread at the door of a farm-house. "It is forbidden," they said. "If men forbid you, God commands you," cried she. But that cry did not save her, and the Church of Rome was able to reckon one triumph more.
What, then, became of such of these unfortunate Vaudois as succeeded in making their escape from present death? Assembled upon the wild brows of Leberon, they prayed God to enlighten their enemies, and entreated from him the strength which they needed, that they might not be tempted, in consequence of their misery and their calamities, to abandon their faith or to adopt any evil course. Their calamities were not yet, however, at an end, for after the regular troops came the marauders. The inhabitants of the village of Les Jourdains scoured the country with flags flying, and returned to their homes with mules laden with booty. Those of Puypin rifled their own churches, hoping that this spoliation might be laid to the charge of the Vaudois. Those of Mount Furon killed or sold some wandering children, whom they contrived to seize. Those of Garambois murdered an old man in a cistern. In short, there was nothing but violence, spoliation, and death everywhere. The country-house of Cantal, which was then the most beautiful in Provence, was burned.
The lady of that place, as guardian of her son, whose lands had been ravaged, addressed a complaint to the king. This complaint was brought before the second tribunal of the kingdom, called the Queen's Chamber. The parties concerned in these ravages were cited to appear before this court, but they refused, sheltering themselves behind the authority of the decrees, in virtue of which they pretended to have acted. It became necessary to revert to the decrees themselves, and to examine them; but for this the Queen's Chamber was not competent, and the case was carried before the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, called the King's Chamber, afterwards called the Court of Peers. Thus it came to pass that all these acts of iniquity and barbarity were inquired into by judicial investigations, the records of which place them all in a dear light, though to those who have not consulted them the connection of events is sufficiently obscure.
This case was tried in September, 1551, during the reign of Henry II, who sought to cleanse away this stain of blood from the memory of his father. Nevertheless, the most guilty were not punished; the advocate Guérin alone was condemned to death, and D'Oppède returned in triumph to Provence. But we may form some notion of all the intrigues which the clergy must have put in operation to save him, from the fact that on the news of his acquittal hymns of thanksgiving were sung in the churches.
Public prayers were made in Provence to ask of God the preservation and speedy return of this illustrious defender of the faith! "Truth prevails over all." This maxim of history condemns him now. Its tribunal, superior even to that of the Court of Peers, is not accessible, like the tribunals of men, to the corrupting influences of the mighty, whom it judges even in their graves.
Those of the Vaudois who survived retired into the valleys of Piedmont, and afterwards returned to Provence when the storm was past. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes overthrew once more the places of worship which they had rebuilt upon the banks of the Durance. Under the deplorable reign of Louis XV the vexatious treatment of the Protestants was continued in a more hypocritical and more undignified manner. At the present day Protestantism flourishes again on the desolated slopes of the Leberon, but religious indifference has wrought greater ravages amongst souls than the persecutions of former times. The inhabitants of these regions scarcely know their history. May the remembrance of their ancestors, recalled in these pages, lead them to an imitation of them! That Bible which made them so great, even in adversity, can alone restore the Vaudois character to these churches, which have forgotten their very origin, and lost even the dignity of misfortune.
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