(A.D. 1400 TO A.D. 1560.)
It has been already mentioned that the Vaudois had also churches in Calabria. The following is the account which Rorengo gives of their emigration thither.
Two young men of the Vaudois valleys happened one day to be in Turin, in a hostelry, to which also a Calabrian nobleman came to lodge. The young men talked about their affairs, and the desire which they felt of going and settling somewhere out of their own country, where the cultivation of the soil began to be insufficient for the wants of the population. The stranger said to them, "My friends, if you choose to come with me, I will give you delightful plains instead of your rocks." The young Vaudois accepted his offer, on condition of their obtaining the consent of their families, which they went to ask, and in the hope that they might not be the only ones to accept this offer, but that others of their fellow-countrymen would accompany them.
The people of the valleys did not think it proper to come to any determination before acquainting themselves with the places in which it was proposed to establish them. For this purpose they sent commissioners into Calabria, accompanied by the two young men to whom the lord of the place had offered land.
"In that country," says Gilles, "there were beautiful streams and little hills, clothed with all sorts of fruit-trees growing promiscuously, according to the soil which they affected, such as olive and orange trees. In the plains were vines and chestnuts; along the lower hills, walnuts, oaks, beeches, and other hardwood trees; on the slopes and crests of the mountains, larches and firs. Everywhere were to be seen in abundance lands fit for cultivation, with few to cultivate them."
In the Vaudois valleys of Piedmont, on the contrary, there were more labourers than there were fields for them to cultivate; they were like a bee-hive which has become too small through the prosperity and increase of its population. Emigration was therefore soon resolved upon, and a new swarm of these heaven-blessed and flourishing families prepared to transport to a distance their industrious habits and pure manners, indicative throughout of the spirit of the first times of the gospel.
The young people who were to go made haste to marry; those who had properties sold all; and every one put his affairs in order. It must have been in the year 1340 that this took place;[2] and never before had these peaceful valleys known so general a movement, an agitation so great and so profound, extending everywhere amongst their families. The festivities which celebrated their domestic alliances were mingled with the grief of separations. More than one nuptial procession was changed into the caravan of exile. They could say, indeed, like the Hebrews, setting out for the promised land, "The tabernacle of the Lord shall go before us," for they bore with them their hereditary Bible, the gospel of consolation and of courage, that holy ark of the new covenant and of peace of heart. Yet the old men, and still more the poor mothers, must have wept many tears on beholding the departure, for an unknown region, of those youth in whom were centred all the earthly hopes of their declining days. Accordingly, the whole Vaudois family accompanied the first steps of this young colony on its departure. At the base of their mountains they embraced and wept, praying together to the God of their fathers to bless them always, both the one portion and the other, at the two extremities of Italy.
Thereafter the emigrants moved away in silence from their native country, and most of them never to return to it again. They took twenty-five days to reach Calabria, not accomplishing their journey without many privations, and perhaps regretful longings after their native land, becoming dearer to them the farther that they removed from it. But they bore a part of their country along with them, as they were entirely surrounded with fellow-countrymen and with familiar objects; above all, they bore with them in their hearts that confidence in the Almighty which is better than country or home.
Having arrived at the places which they were to inhabit, they agreed upon the conditions of their settlement. The lords of the soil granted them very favourable conditions. According to the terms agreed upon, the Vaudois were bound only to pay a certain quit-rent to the owners, and upon this were left at liberty to manage their agricultural labours according to their own pleasure. The right was granted to them of combining themselves in one or more independent communities, of naming their own rulers, both civil or ecclesiastical, and, finally, of imposing rates and collecting them without being bound to demand any authorization, or to render any account of what they did. These conditions, thus arranged, became a sort of charter to the Vaudois in this new country.
Thus was there secured to them an amount of liberty very great for that period; and their sense of its value is proved by the fact, that they caused these conditions to be drawn out in an authentic instrument, which at a later period was confirmed by the King of Naples, Ferdinand of Arragon.
The first little town founded by these new colonists was situated near the town of Montalto; and as the inhabitants had passed, in order to settle in it, over the mountains which separate that region from Upper Italy, the place of their residence was called Borgo d'Oltramontani, the town of Outremont, or town of the Ultra-montanes. Half-a-century later, they built St. Xist, which became afterwards the capital of that colony. During the interval, and after the foundations of these towns were laid, the hamlets of Vacarrisso, L'Argentine, St. Vincent, Les Rousses, and Montolieu sprung up, the names being in general merely those of the places where they were built. These numerous villages attest the increasing prosperity of a country previously almost without inhabitants.
It is, indeed, remarkable what a civilizing influence the gospel possesses, diffusing blessings amongst the people everywhere, in proportion to the purity in which it is received. The Vaudois churches, so flourishing in the midst of a land filled with superstition and wretchedness, presented then the same contrast which is still remarked in our own days between Protestant and Catholic countries. Let men draw what inference they may, it is indisputable that Brazil, where the Church of Rome is absolute, is very inferior in enlightenment, in morality, and in prosperity, to the United States of North America, where Protestantism has diffused so much of liberty and life. In Europe, what a difference betwixt Spain, the country of inquisitors, and (Germany, the country of the Reformation; betwixt Catholic Ireland and Protestant Scotland! France itself has only improved in its condition as Catholicism has lost power. And under the sky of Italy, in these fertile regions of Calabria, at the period to which our history relates, the industrious and united Vaudois made the striking contrast to appear for the first time.
Peacefully enjoying the privileges which they had obtained, faithful in the payment of their taxes and their tithes, and satisfied to abide within the restricted circle of their own beliefs and affections, they might have been supposed to be reserved for the happiest destinies. Yes! God gave them, indeed, all the means of quiet happiness, but Rome took them away. The Marquis of Spinello, struck with the improvements which they had introduced in the lands intrusted to them, invited them to his estates likewise. He authorized them to surround with walls the town which they built. This town was, for this reason, called La Guardia, as being appointed to perform the principal part in guarding their country.
Towards the end of the 14th century, their brethren of Provence being persecuted, many of them returned to the valleys from which their fathers had emigrated; but finding them too densely peopled to be able to accommodate new inhabitants, and some even of their own inhabitants desiring also to leave their native land, they formed together a new emigration, descending again into Italy, and settling on the frontiers of Apulia, not far from their Calabrian brethren. The villages which owed their origin to these new colonists, were all surrounded with walls, and were called by the same names with those which their inhabitants had left. There was a La Cellaie, after a place in the valley of Angrogna; a Faët, after a place in the valley of St. Martin; a La Motte, after a place at the base of the Leberon, near Cabrières d'Aigues, in Provence.
Even in A.D. 1500, some Vaudois left Freyssinières and Pragela, to settle in Calabria. They fixed their residence upon the banks of a little river, called the Volturate, which flows from the Apennines into the sea of Tarentum. Latterly, says Gilles, they extended themselves into divers other parts of the kingdom of Naples, and even into Sicily.
It is evident that the blessing of God rested upon these Vaudois colonies in their prosperity; and not only agriculture, but the sciences flourished among them; for Barlaam of Calabria, of whom Petrarch was the disciple, was himself, according to some writers, a disciple of the Vaudois. Sprung from all parts of the Alps where their brethren dwelt, they formed amongst themselves a representation of the whole Vaudois nation. We may therefore imagine what satisfaction they must have felt in that country, in which they found, as it were, all their native countries brought together. Moreover, they frequently received visits from pastors of the valleys. The Vaudois Synod renewed the appointments for this purpose every two years. Each of these pastors was accompanied by a fellow-labourer younger than himself and after two years' sojourn amongst their brethren of these churches, they returned to the mother church; for the Vaudois Church did not act upon the principle of assigning the same field of labour to its pastors for the whole period of their ministry.
But they did not take the same road, in their return to the valleys, which they had followed in going to Calabria. If they had gone by the right of the Apennines, by Genoa and Naples, they returned by the left, along the coasts of the Adriatic. This change of route was not without design;[3] for in almost all the cities of Italy, as in Genoa, Venice, Florence, and even Rome itself, they had brethren, and a private house in which they met. It was not until they had accomplished this evangelistic pilgrimage, of which the last station was Milan, that the missionary pastors returned to their own country. It must have been an occasion of great Christian joy for these poor isolated souls, whose secret sympathies made them look so eagerly for the coming of their pastors, when a pre- concerted signal by the stranger who knocked at their door, made him known as the missionary from the Alps, whom the Vaudois Church sent to them once every two years.
Conducted with every demonstration of kindness into the hospitable abode, where the recollection of the Barbas who had preceded him was preserved as a family treasure, from generation to generation, he found that abode his own, and that family his flock; a small flock no doubt, but under the care of the Good Shepherd. The faithful minister carried with him his commission in the gospel, which he was always ready to exhibit. How eagerly they must have pressed around him, and questioned him regarding the churches which he had visited in his journey, the brethren with whom he had met, and the Barba who had been with them two years before![4] Frequently the replies communicated melancholy news, and then they prayed together, and meditated on the Sacred Books. The man of God, a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth, received, according to the custom of the ancient Vaudois and of the primitive church, the evangelical confession of these humble believers, and then parted from them to go on his way, and to seek other hidden ones whom he was to comfort and confirm. Gilles relates that his grandfather, upon a visit which he made to the faithful in Venice, was assured by themselves that they were about 6000 in number.[5]
But all improvement, however slight, which purifies the heart, elevates also the mind, and develops the understanding. This we have already seen illustrated in the way in which the Vaudois distinguished themselves, as the first to make use of their common language for the composition of verse--that beautiful Romance language, which was extinguished in the blood of the Albigenses, and with which a literature full of promise, and a civilization that might have proved important for the world, irrecoverably perished. In Calabria, likewise, attention was drawn to the Vaudois by the enlightenment which distinguished them in an age of darkness; and when the Reformation had broken out, the Church of Rome, becoming more observant of religious movements--whilst these, on the other hand, acquired a greater strength--could not but fix her eyes upon those Protestant churches which had preceded Protestantism, those primitive churches which had survived the apostolic times. Their existence was their condemnation: they must needs be utterly destroyed.
Already, at different times, says Perrin,[6] "The clerical race had made complaint that these ultramontanes did not live religiously, like other people; but the seigneurs restrained the curés, saying that these cultivators of the soil came from distant and unknown regions, where, perchance, the people were not so much addicted to the ceremonies of the church; but that in the main they were remarkable for honesty, charitable towards the poor, punctual in paying their rents, and full of the fear of God; that therefore there was no reason why their consciences should be troubled about a few processions, images, or lights, which they had less than the other people of the country." This restrained those who looked upon them with ill-will, and prevented for a time the murmurs of their neighbours, who, not having been able to draw them into alliances by intermarriage, became jealous when they saw their lands, their cattle, and their labours, more blessed of Heaven than their own. Thus they remained in liberty, prospering as the people of God, even in the land of bondage. The priests themselves, says Meille, had never levied such large tithes as since the Vaudois had come to make the country more productive. To drive them away would have been to render themselves poor, and they held their peace.
However, the Calabrian brethren came to know that their fellow-Vaudois of the Piedmontese valleys, yielding to the counsels of the Reformers, had erected places of worship, instead of the private houses in which they had previously been accustomed to assemble; and they thought it their duty also to make an outward manifestation of their existence as an evangelical church. "But the Barba who was then with them, an aged and prudent man," says the historian Gilles, whose great-grandfather he was, "represented to them that zeal must be contented without always pushing things to the uttermost; for it was necessary for them to consider if, in their circumstances, they were able to act as freely as their brethren of the Val Lucerna, and to make themselves as conspicuous, without endangering the destruction of their churches. In short, he counselled them to bend to the times, and even secretly to put their affairs in order, so that they might retire to a place of safety in the moment of peril." "Some," adds the chronicler, "followed his counsel, and were saved; others, who thought it judicious, proceeded, but slowly, to act upon it, and in this way many lost their lives; but the majority did nothing, either because they were too much attached to that country to be able to make up their minds to quit it, or because they had too much confidence in God to entertain any fear." In the meantime, the Barba Stephen Négrin, of Bobi, in the valley of Lucerna, succeeded the aged Barba Gilles, who returned to his native country.
But the Calabrians wished to have a settled pastor, who should not quit them. For this purpose they sent to Geneva one of their number, named Mark Uscegli, and familiarly know by the name of Marquet, one of those endearing names of childhood, which are sometimes retained in later life. He was commissioned to solicit from the Italian Church which then existed there, the means of having a minister in Calabria, who should reside amongst his brethren of that country, and devote himself entirely to them. His request was granted; and to this honourable but perilous post a minister, still very young, was nominated, himself also a Piedmontese, who had quitted the profession of arms to become a soldier of Christ, and who had prepared for the ministry of the gospel by a course of study recently terminated at Lausanne.
The name of this young man was John Louis Paschal; he was born at Coni, and two days before his being selected to be sent into Calabria, he had been betrothed to a young woman of his own nation, Camilla Guarina, born like himself in Piedmont, and who like himself had fled to Geneva, in order to live according to the gospel. When he made known to her the call which he had received, and asked her consent to leave her and go into Calabria, the poor girl could only answer him with tears. "Alas!" she exclaimed, "so near to Rome, and so far from me!" But she was a Christian, and she submitted.
Paschal set forth, accompanied by Uscegli, by another pastor, and by two schoolmasters also destined for the Vaudois. The name of this second pastor was Jacob Bovet; he also was from Piedmont, and he suffered martyrdom at Messina, in 1560. These two friends, natives of the same country, brethren in faith, in devotedness, and in courage, were not to be separated, even in death.
Scarcely had Paschal arrived in Calabria, when he began to preach the gospel in public, as was done at Geneva, the Vaudois desiring it, and his own zeal urging him so to do. "Thereupon," says Crespin, "there arose a great noise in these countries, that a Lutheran had come and was destroying everything by his doctrines. The ignorant murmured, the fanatical exclaimed that he must be put to death with all his adherents. The Vaudois alone proceed around him with the joyous affection of brethren, and always hungering the more for the word of life, the more that he multiplied it to them, like the bread broken by the Lord. Thereupon the Marquis Salvator Spinello, principal feudal lord of the Vaudois, who at that time happened to be at Foscalda, a little town near La Guardia and St. Xist, sent to ask the attendance of some of the inhabitants of these towns, that they might explain matters to him. The Vaudois thus summoned, entreated their minister. Paschal, to accompany them, and to state their reasons for the course which they had pursued." This was in the month of July, 1559.
Mark Uscegli went along with them, and when they had arrived at Foscalda they went into a hostelry before going to appear before the marquis. There a secret friend of their doctrines, who was one of that nobleman's own household, came to request a conversation with them. "Listen to me," said he; "you have powerful enemies; the best defence of the feeble is to keep out of their way; I advise you therefore to go back without presenting yourselves." "What!" exclaimed Paschal, "shall I skulk away without defending myself, without contending for the truth, without pleading for my beloved church!" "The only object of pleading is to gain a cause," replied the prudent adviser; "in this instance it can only be gained by keeping silence." "That would not only be feeble, but shameful," rejoined the young minister, breaking out in holy ardour; "the Christian is not to measure his strength, but to do his duty. Moreover," added he, "the help of God cannot fail us in this conflict; where is there more strength than in his word?" "Its strength goes for nothing with those who do not listen to it. Take heed! you will not be judged according to the word of God, but according to that of men." "What then!" replied the courageous pastor, "the honour of defending the word of God is better than that of triumphing over men." "You will defend it better by preaching it to your churches, which desire it, than by exposing it to the contempt of those who wish to suppress it." "But it is my churches themselves which are called to account, and their pastor ought to be there." Besides all this, Paschal felt so profoundly convinced, so assured, so strong in the excellence of his cause, that he did not despair of being able to make it good, even before the most prejudiced minds. One soul brought captive to the foot of the Saviour's cross was of more value, in the estimation of the pas- tor, than all earthly good. The secret emissary, who came to give this warning of human wisdom, retired discomfited before this holy foolishness of the cross. The Vaudois presented themselves accordingly before the Marquis of Spinello, accompanied by their young and ardent defender.
But he had not to contend, as he expected, in an honest contest, by reasons and gospel statements, against errors sincerely held. His enemies desired not truth but silence; they wished not to destroy error, but the protests which were made against it. Poor Paschal, therefore, had the grief of being at once deprived of the friends whom he already had, and of the adversaries whom he expected to find. The marquis, after having heard him for some moments, during which the Vaudois kept silence, sent them away, whom alone he had cited, and retained Louis Paschal and Mark Uscegli as prisoners, who came to defend them. They remained for eight months in the prisons of Foscalda; to youth and mental activity an anticipation of the tomb! But the tomb is the gate of heaven to redeemed souls, and celestial consolations cheered the two young Christians in their dungeon.
After this long period of trial they were removed to the prisons of Cosenza, where it would seem that Mark Uscegli was subjected to torture, for we read these words in a letter of Paschal, written on the 10th of March, 1560, "God has preserved me alone from the torture." Alas! it was only to reserve him for martyrdom.
"My companion, Marquet," says he, in another place, "was solicited by the Count D'Acillo to recant, and as he particularly put forward the authority of the pope to pardon all sin, Marquet said, 'If the pope had had the power of pardoning sins, it would have been needless for Jesus Christ to have come and died for sinners.'"
A Spaniard, who was present, exclaimed, "What! a clown, that can neither read nor write, will meddle and dispute!" "We have nothing to do with disputations," said an auditor of the Holy Office, who was also there, "but to know if thou wilt abjure, ay or no." "No," replied Uscegli. "Ah, well then, it goes the devil's way!" replied the auditor, and signed himself four times with the sign of the cross. From this moment we hear nothing more of poor Marquet; and it makes one's eyes fill with tears to find that infantile diminutive applied, at the close of his torture, to the young man whom his mother had so called amidst the caresses which she lavished upon his childhood.
In the month of April, Paschal was conducted from Cosenza to Naples, along with twenty-two prisoners condemned to the galleys, and three companions, whom he does not name. "The person who was appointed to conduct us," says he, in a letter addressed to his afflicted bride, "put on me manacles so tight that I could not repose either by day or by night. I was obliged to bribe him to open them a little, and he did not take them off till he had succeeded in getting from me all the money which I possessed. The galley slaves were fastened by the neck to a long chain; they got nothing but coarse herbs for their food, with a slice of bread, and when one of them fell down from inanition and fatigue, they forced him to rise again by beating him unmercifully." Is it possible that sinful men can so treat their brethren? But the despotic and merciless spirit of Rome would transform brethren into executioners. "During the night," continues the prisoner, "the beasts were better treated than we, for at least they gave them litter, whilst, as for us, we were left on the bare ground."[7] Nine days were spent in this way ere they arrived at Naples, and in the bark which conveyed them thither he ceased not to preach and exhort, proclaiming the fullness and the necessity of the salvation which is by Jesus Christ. It is evident that he was one whom menaces and maltreatment could not intimidate.
Paschal was brought to Cosenza on the 7th of February; he left it on the 14th of April. He entered the prisons of Naples on the 23d of that month, and was transferred to those of Rome on the 16th of May, 1560. There this fervent and zealous disciple of Christ arrived with irons on his feet and hands! But consider how Christ endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, and remember that thus they persecuted the prophets which were before you. Blessed, without doubt, must this new apostle of the Gentiles be deemed, imprisoned, like St. Paul and St. Peter, in that great city of Rome, which has always aimed at reigning over the earth. "Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 5:10)
He entered the city by the Gate of Ostium, the same by which also the apostles and primitive martyrs were conducted into it. Fourteen centuries had passed, and the same scenes were to be renewed again in the name of the idols of Popery, more bloody than those of the Gentiles. Paschal was imprisoned in the Tower of Nona, where very few, says Crespin, were permitted to see him. Already dead as to his connection with the world, nothing can be known of the proceedings with regard to him, save only that he was frequently interrogated and urged to recant, but without effect.
His brother, Bartholomew Paschal, who had neither abjured Roman Catholicism nor the brotherly affection of the carnal heart, resolved to make an attempt to save him, or at least to see him again. Determining to undertake a journey to Rome for this purpose, he set out from Coni, with a recommendation from the governor of that city, and a letter from the Count de la Trinité, whose name has so melancholy a celebrity in the annals of the Vaudois valleys, where we shall presently see that he conducted an atrocious persecution. In consequence of these introductions from persons so powerful, and so high in credit at the papal court, and perhaps, also, because it was hoped that his influence might lead his brother to abjure, Bartholomew Paschal succeeded in making his way to the gloomy and fetid dungeon where John Louis was confined.
"I went last evening," he wrote to his family, "to pay my respects to the Grand Inquisitor of the faith, the Cardinal Alexandrini, but when I spoke to him of my brother, he replied sharply, that that fellow had been a great pest in the country, and that even in the bark he had done nothing but preach his nonsense." Is not this the very way in which the pagan inquisitors of former times must have spoken of St. Paul? "I then went," he says, "to speak to the judges who examined him. They told me that he became always more and more obstinate, and that his was a bad business. I entreated them in his favour, and they replied that for any other crime, however enormous, pardon might have been possible, but that for having attacked the Church, at least unless he recanted, there could be no pardon." Was this indeed the church of Him who pardoned his executioners? "Then," continues Bartholemew Paschal, "I returned to seek the cardinal, and at last I obtained leave to visit my brother. Great God!" he exclaims, "it was frightful to see him amidst the gloom of these damp walls, meagre, pale, enfeebled, bareheaded, his arms tied with small ropes, which went into the flesh, ill of fever, and not even having straw to lie upon."
"Do good even to your enemies," said Jesus and the apostles.
"But," continues the letter of Bartholemew, "desiring to embrace him, I cast myself down upon the ground, and he said to me, 'My brother, why do you distress yourself so much? Know you not that a leaf cannot fall from a tree without the will of God?' The judge who accompanied me imposed silence upon him, saying, 'Hold your peace, you heretic!' And I added, 'Is it possible, my brother, that you are obstinate in disowning the Catholic faith, which everybody else holds?' 'I hold that of the gospel,' he replied. 'Think you, then,' said the judge, 'that God will condemn all those who do not follow the doctrine of Luther and Calvin?' 'It is not for me to determine,' replied he, 'but I know that he will condemn those who, knowing the truth, do not profess it.' 'You speak of truth--you disseminate errors.' 'Prove me that by the gospel.' But the judge, instead of answering his question, said to him, 'You would have done far better to have remained still in your own house, enjoying your inheritance, and dwelling among your brethren, instead of rushing into heresy and losing all that you had.' 'I have nothing to lose upon the earth,' he replied, 'that I must not lose sooner or later, and I acquire an inheritance in heaven, which all the powers of the earth shall not be able to take from me.'"
Is not this still the language of the primitive Christians, and of their idolatrous persecutors, who only lived for the good things of this world?
During three whole days, successive members of the Holy Office dealt with Paschal, for more than four hours at each time, in the hope of inducing him to recant, and perhaps, also, of being able then to give him up to his brother; but they could get no concession. "Then," resumes Bartholemew, "I entreated him to yield a little, and not to bring upon his family the disgrace of a condemnation.'Must I honour my Saviour less than them, that I am to become perjured to him?' 'You will honour him in your heart, although you remain in the Church.' 'If I am ashamed of him on the earth, he will deny me in heaven.' 'Ah! my dear brother, return to the bosom of your family, we would all be so happy to have you there.' 'Would to God that we were all met again, united in the Saviour's love! for my native skies would be pleasanter to me than the vaults of this prison. But if I remain here, it is because Jesus abides with me, and my Saviour is better to me than my family.' 'Would it be to lose him, to come with us?' 'Yes; for the gate of my dungeon will not open except by means of an abjuration, and that would be the loss of my soul.' 'Your friends, then, are nothing to you?' 'Jesus says, he that is not ready to give up his father or his mother for my sake, is not worthy of me.' Then," says Bartholemew, "I went the length of promising him the half of all that I had, if he would come back with me to Coni; but he, with tears, answered me that to hear me utter such words afflicted him much more grievously than the fetters with which he was bound: 'for' said he, 'the world passeth away, with the lusts thereof, but the word of God endureth for ever.' And when I wept also, he added, 'God grant me such strength that I may never forsake him!' Then the monk said to him, 'If you will die, die then!'"
We see, in these three personages, the regenerate man, whose soul speaks according to the Spirit of God; the natural man, full of regard for the things of this world, of which he knows the value, and yet also full of kindly affection; and, finally, the man besotted by superstition, such as Rome has made him, ignoble and cruel, interrupting the intercourse of soul and heart, the conversation between the martyr and his brother, by such gross invectives as have now been related.
"Three days after," the brother of John Louis Paschal continues, "I found means to speak with him again, and when the monk was proceeding to exhort him anew, he said to him, 'All your arguments are founded upon human prudence, but do not shut your eyes to the grace of God, for you will be inexcusable before him.' 'The monk was very much astonished, and said 'God have mercy on us!' 'O, that he may!' added the prisoner. But the day following, without uttering a word, he made a sign to me that I should begone, having perceived that the inquisitors had begun to suspect me; and so I left him without speaking, and returned to Piedmont."
Here we have still the natural man, timid, because he has no strength but his own, in contrast with the Christian, invincible, because he confides in the strength of Christ.
Now thou art alone, then, poor Paschal! buried alive in the bowels of the earth, waiting to be consumed alive by the fire! But the best of fathers, of brothers, and of friends is still ever with thee!
"The affection which I bear to you," he writes to his bride, "increases with the increase of my love to God; and the more that I have made progress in the Christian religion, the more also have I loved you." Then, giving her to understand that his death might soon be expected, he says, "Console yourself in Jesus Christ; and let your life be an exhibition of his doctrine." Such were the exhortations which Paschal addressed to Camilla Guarina who was to mourn him as his widow, without having become his wife.
On Sabbath, the 8th of September, 1560, he was conducted from the tower Di Nona to the convent Della Minerva, there to hear his condemnation. "He confirmed, with a steadfast and joyful heart," says Crespin, "all the answers which he had already given, rendering thanks to God for having called him to the glory of martyrdom; and next day, being Monday, the 9th of September, he was conducted to the square of the castle of St. Angelo, near the bridge over the Tiber, where the pile had been prepared." Pope Pius IV was present at this execution; "but," observes Perrin, "he would have been glad to have been elsewhere, or that Paschal had been dumb, or the people deaf; for that worthy man spake many things which moved the spectators and displeased him much." Upon this account the inquisitors caused him to be presently strangled, fearing, perhaps, that his voice might still be raised in midst of the flames to proclaim the truth. The flames, therefore, only consumed his corpse, and his ashes were cast into the Tiber.
Thus died this courageous martyr, removed from his consort before having married her, and from his congregation before having resided among them, but not removed from the profession of the Christian faith without having done it service; for his example itself was of more value than all the sermons which he could have preached throughout the course of his life.
During his captivity, the Marquis of Spinello, who had ever previously shown himself the zealous protector of the Vaudois, in consequence no doubt of the solid advantage which he derived from their rents, being apprised of the severity of the court of Rome, and fearing, not without cause, that it might be extended to the lands which owned him as their feudal superior, thought proper at least to prevent the consequences of the accusation which was already brought against him, of having introduced and favoured heretics. Perhaps he might also hope, by coming forward against them, to keep in his own hands the means of affording them more efficacious protection. Be this as it might, he himself accused them of heresy, and demanded from the Holy Office the means of bringing them to submission. "However, it was well known," says Gilles, "that in secret he desired their preservation. Upon this," continues he, "the Bishop of Cosenza applied himself to that business; and the marquis, under the guise of assisting him, always contrived to effect some mitigation of his measures."[8]
But the proceedings of Paschal and his companions having made known at Rome the importance of the evangelical churches of Calabria, the Holy Office deemed it not too much to send thither the Grand Inquisitor himself. Cardinal Alexandrini, fresh from the execution of the young and courageous pastor of these ancient churches, which he also had witnessed, prepared therefore to visit them. He arrived at St. Xist, accompanied by two Dominican monks, who put on an aspect of the greatest affability, like the wolves in sheeps' clothing of whom the gospel speaks. They caused the inhabitants to be assembled, and said that their intention was to do no harm to anybody (by and by they slaughtered every one); that they were come only to bring them in an amicable way to cease listening any longer to any ministers but those sent by the bishop; and that if they would dismiss the Lutheran schoolmasters and preachers by whom the neighbourhood was still infested, they would have nothing to fear. And then, no doubt, in order to obtain evidence for themselves as to the number who had a regard for the rites of the Church of Rome, they caused the bell to ring for mass, and summoned the people to attend it. No one came. All the inhabitants with one consent left the town, and retired into a wood, leaving in their houses only a small number of children and of aged persons. The monks, without appearing to feel at all irritated, went through the mass by themselves; then, leaving that deserted town, they proceeded to La Guardia, of which they took the precaution to close the gates behind them.
The bells were rung; the people assembled. "Most dear and beloved Christian brethren," said the monks, "your brethren of St. Xist have abjured their errors, and unanimously attended at the most holy mass; we invite you to follow so wise an example; otherwise we shall be obliged, with great sorrow, to condemn you to death." This treacherous language left no room for hesitation between the two alternatives; the people, filled with alarm, thought it best to follow the example of their brethren, who, of course, had acted without constraint, and submitted to hear mass. After this ceremony the gates of the town were opened. Some of the people of St. Xist arrived, and the truth was discovered. Immediately the whole population of La Guardia, indignant at such treachery, and ashamed of their own weakness, assembled again in the public square, crying from all sides that Rome lived only by errors and superstitions. The monks endeavoured to calm the irritated people, who, in order to avoid hearing them any longer, resolved to go and join in the woods their neighbours of St. Xist. But the Marquis of Spinello arrived, and endeavoured to restrain them; and with difficulty, says M'Crie, by his representations and promises, succeeded in preventing them from carrying their design into execution. Thus already were the Vaudois divided, part in the town, and part in the woods.
The Grand Inquisitor, in virtue of the powers with which he was invested, now required the aid of the military to execute his commission. Two companies of soldiers were placed at his disposal He sent them into the woods of St. Xist to bring back the fugitives; but scarcely had they discovered their retreat, when they fell upon them, crying, "Kill! kill!" The unfortunate Vaudois tried to make their escape; the soldiers pursued them in all directions, as if they were engaged in the destruction of wild beasts. At last some of the fugitives gathered upon a mountain, and demanded a parley. The captain of the soldiers advanced. "Spare us!" they exclaimed, "spare us! what harm have we done you? Have pity on our wives and children! Have we not been here for centuries, without having given any cause of complaint? Are we not loyal subjects, industrious labourers, and peaceable well-doing people?" "You are devils, transformed into angels of light, to seduce the simple," was the reply, "but the Holy Office has unmasked your errors." "Well, then," said they, "if we may not be permitted to profess the faith of our forefathers in peace, in these countries which we have rendered fertile, we offer to leave them, and to retire into another country." "You will go to sow there the poison of your heresy. No mercy for the rebels!" cried he. And giving the order for his troop to attack them, he advanced with his men amongst the rocks where the Vaudois had sheltered themselves. But seeing the fruitlessness of their endeavours, the necessity of fighting, and that the only hope of safety for their families was in victory, which depends upon God alone, the fugitives laid hold of such weapons as they had been able to make or provide themselves with, loosened masses of rock, which they hurled upon their assailants, crushing many to death, and then rushed out and dispersed them, killing half of their number, and finally entrenched themselves anew upon the heights which they had so valiantly defended.
But what avails courage against numbers, without miraculous assistance, like that which was granted to the Israelites against Sennacherib? Cardinal Alexandrini addressed himself to the Viceroy of Naples, representing the legitimate self-defence of the Vaudois as an open rebellion against authority. The viceroy set out in person, at the head of his troops, and arriving at St. Xist, made proclamation that all should be destroyed by fire and sword if the Ultramontanes did not abjure their heresy.
This was not the means to subdue them; for, determined not to abjure, they resolved also to defend themselves. Their party immediately acquired a strength and an unity which till then they had wanted. The Vaudois with enthusiasm fortified themselves on the mountains; and their position very soon became so formidable, that the viceroy did not venture to attack them with the troops which he had brought. Thereupon he issued a new proclamation, by which he offered to all the fugitives from justice, and banished and condemned persons who lived as vagabonds in the kingdom of Naples, pardon of their offences, on condition that they should come and range themselves under his banners for the extermination of the heretics. This was just what Cattanée had done; and such are the supporters of the cause of Rome, whence blood and infamy everywhere flow, as a sponge soaked in mud empties itself when it is grasped in the hand.
A multitude of outlaws of the worst character, and wretches of all ages, marauders and robbers, who knew all the paths of the Apennines, offered themselves for his service. The Vaudois were surrounded, pursued, waylaid on the approach to their place of retreat, and slaughtered by men in ambush; the forests, in which they could not be got at, were set on fire; the greater part of them perished, and many of those who made their escape, died of famine in the caverns to which they retired.
But what did the monks and inquisitors now do? "We cannot endure the sight of bloodshed!" they exclaimed, "these exterminations are revolting to us; O! come, come with us into the fold of the Church; with us you will find nothing of that display of warlike weapons which is so disagreeable to men of peace." And the better to testify their aversion to it, they removed to a distance from the town, inviting the inhabitants of La Guardia who still survived to join them there without arms. Alas! poor people, always deceived by the great deceiver of the nations, the woman who speaks with a sweet voice, and afterwards precipitates both bodies and souls into hell! they still listened to this perfidious invitation; they assembled, but the soldiers were concealed close by, and seventy Vaudois, the number of the first disciples of our Lord, were seized and loaded with chains. These new confessors of the gospel, in presence of a new Paganism, more cruel and more treacherous than the ancient, were carried prisoners to Montalto. There they were subjected to torture; the inquisitor; Panza, made them all endure the rack, the cords, the wheel, the iron wedges, or the boiling water, to compel them not only to abjure their religion, but also to denounce their brethren and their pastors!
O Rome, hypocrite that thou art! shedding crocodile tears because thou canst not now, in thy decrepitude, glut thyself with human flesh as in time past; what need have we in contending against thee, to enter into the lists of controversy? Thine own acts condemn thee better than our words, and thy history shall be thy burial-dress. The truth is every day preparing it for thy reception; and when the gospel shall have overcome thy principles of hatred and of pride by its maxims of humility and love, it will triumphantly inscribe upon thy tomb, Hate only evil, but love the evil-doers.
One of the things which the torturers were especially anxious to obtain from those who were submitted to their hands, was the confession of the pretended abominations of which the Vaudois were accused, and with which it was desired to reproach their morals, on the testimony of their own brethren. Is this Holy Office of the Catholic faith, then, to be accounted a court of justice, or a den of villains, which seeks not only to slaughter its victims, but to load them with infamy?
Stephano Carlino, from whom they thought to extort this confession, was tortured in so horrible a manner, says M'Crie, that his bowels were forced out of his belly. Another prisoner, named Verminello, had promised, in the extremity of his suffering, to attend mass. This yielding made the inquisitor hope that by augmenting the violence of the tortures he would at last extort a confession of the crimes which he was so desirous to fasten upon the Vaudois, and of which no testimony had yet been obtained. With this view, the unhappy captive was kept for eight whole hours on an instrument of pain, called the hell, but Verminello constantly denied the truth of these atrocious calumnies. Bernardino Conto was covered with pitch at Cosenza, and burned alive before all the people. Another martyr, named Mazzone, was stripped of his garments and scourged with small iron chains, and when his flesh had been thus torn in pieces, he was dragged through the streets, and killed at last by blows with burning billets of wood. Of his two sons, the one was flayed alive, as a sheep is flayed by the butcher, and the other was flung down from the summit of a tower.
To this same tower a young man was conducted, of prodigious strength, and who upon that account had been surnamed Samson. But the strength of the Christian's soul was still more remarkable than the physical strength of the Israelite. As he had resisted all attempts which had been made to get him to abjure, he was urged at least to confess. "I only confess to God," replied he. "Come to mass, or you are a dead man." "Jesus says, if ye believe in me, though ye were dead ye shall live." "Well! kiss this crucifix." "My Jesus is not upon that piece of wood, but in heaven, from which he shall come again to judge the living and the dead." "You will not kiss it?" "I do not choose to be an idolater." And the soldiers flung him down upon the pavement. Much injured, but still alive, he implored the mercy of God. The viceroy happened to pass by. "What piece of carrion is that?" said he, looking at him. "A heretic, who could not die." The ruler gave him a kick upon the head, saying, "Make him food for the pigs." Yet the poor young man continued to live for twenty-two hours before he breathed his last. Which was most contemptible in all this?--king or priest? But before these powers the nations of the earth still prostrate themselves. O when shall Christ make them free!
Sixty females of St. Xist, as Gilles relates, were tortured in such a way, that the cords having entered into their flesh, and no relief being given them, devouring vermin were engendered in their wounds, which could only be killed by quicklime. Some of them consequently died in the dungeons into which they were cast; others were burned alive, and the best-looking were sold, as in Turkey, to the highest bidders, who, of course, were also the basest of men.
But all these atrocities were yet surpassed by the barbarous scenes enacted at Montalto, under the government of the Marquis Buccianici. "Poor wretches!" exclaims an eye-witness,[9] "eighty-eight prisoners were shut up in a low chamber. The executioner came; he entered and laid hold of one, and after having wrapped a linen cloth round his head, he led him out to the ground adjacent to the building, caused him to fall down upon his knees, and cut his throat with a knife. The blood spouted upon his arms and clothes; but removing the bloody cloth from the head of the man whom he had killed, he entered again, took another prisoner, and slaughtered him in the same manner. My whole frame still shudders when I figure to myself the executioner with his bloody knife between his teeth, and the dripping cloth in his hand, his arms red with the blood of his victims, going in and coming out again almost a hundred times in that work of death. It is impossible to imagine the gentleness and patience of these poor people, who were thus taken like lambs from the fold. All the old men met their death with imperturbable calmness. I could scarcely restrain my tears at the time. And about eight o'clock a decree was issued, which condemned to the torture a hundred women who were afterwards to be put to death. The number of the heretics who were arrested in Calabria is said to have amounted to 1600, and they were all condemned to die. It is said that they originally came from the valleys of Piedmont."
"Some of them," adds a Neapolitan historian,[10] had their throats cut; others were sawn through the middle of the body, or flung headlong from the tops of rocks. The father saw his son die, and the son his father, without showing the least sign of grief, but, on the contrary, glorying in their being delivered from their woes, and going to rejoin one another in the bosom of that Jesus who died for them." And the historian from whom I quote mocks at this heavenly resignation, and says that it was an evil spirit of which these resigned victims were possessed. The same thing was said of Jesus Christ. Blessed are they who tread with such faith the path of sorrow which He trod!
Another eye-witness, who was one of the suite of Cardinal Alexandrini, thus completes this mournful story: "Before my lord's arrival, eighty-six relapsed heretics had been flayed alive, and then cut into two parts, and the pieces placed upon stakes all along the road for a space of thirty-six miles. This mightily strengthened Catholicism, and considerably shook the cause of heresy. There are already 1400 of these Ultramontanes in the prisons; some still wander amongst the mountains, but ten crowns are promised for every head that is brought in. Soldiers have been sent in pursuit of them, and every day some prisoners are secured. Their number has at last become so considerable, that my lord, along with the Commissary and the Grand Vicar of Cosenza, have resolved to subject the greater part of them only to penance, excepting the most obstinate, who will be put to death. And for the preaching ministers and leaders of this sect, they will be burned alive. Five of them have already been sent to Cosenza, in order to undergo that punishment, anointed with rosin and sulphur, so that, being gradually consumed, they may suffer the more for correction of their impiety. Many women remain prisoners, all of whom will be burned alive. Five of them are to be burned to-morrow." This letter is dated 27th June, 1561,[11] and terminates with a gross joke about the state of pregnancy of some of these ill-fated females.
When our indignation is roused against the authors of such atrocities, we are ready to declare that the Church of Rome should be called the church of devils. Pagans, barbarians, savages could not act so cruelly; it was left for Popery to degrade man beneath the level of the brutes. A man is burned alive! it is a terribly laconic expression! How much pain and suffering does it describe! What, then, when a whole people is given over to such a death! Can we fail to recognize in persecuting Rome the great whore of the Apocalypse, drunk with the blood of saints and of martyrs? the abominable city, in which is found the blood of all those who have been slain on the earth?[12]
The pastor, John Guérin, who came to Calabria from Bobi to succeed the Barba Gilles, already mentioned, died of hunger in the prisons of Cosenza, because he would not renounce the gospel-- the immortal food of his soul amidst all his cruel torments. The four principal persons of the town of La Guardia were hanged upon trees, on a little hill called Moran. The town of St. Agatha, near Naples, paid also its tribute of victims to Rome's thirst for blood. And how many more places besides these, of which the very names have not reached us! For two years the rage of the monster, whom the Vaudois called Antichrist, devoured that unhappy country. For two whole years the piles were always kindled, the prisons choked, the executioners bathed in blood.
A few of the unfortunate Vaudois succeeded in making their way back to the valleys of Piedmont. But through what a series of difficulties and perils! Orders were given to the keepers of all bridges, and to those who had the charge of vessels, or of any kind of conveyances, that they should suffer no traveller to pass without a note from the priest of his parish. Innkeepers were threatened with severe penalties who should receive strangers without this safe-conduct; so that these poor persecuted people were constrained to travel by night, passing rivers by fording, hiding themselves in the woods, living upon roots, upon what they could timidly glean in the fields, and the fruits which they found on some kinds of trees; yet thus did a number of families, the females habited in male attire, succeed, after multiplied dangers and unparalleled fatigues, in regaining the retreat of their forefathers. O, how blissful to them after hardships so great and protracted, must have been the peaceful security of the Vaudois valleys, which, however, were also to be subjected to much suffering!
But it appears that all the Vaudois of unhappy Calabria were not yet destroyed; for Pius IV afterwards sent the Marquis of Batiana to accomplish the extirpation of heresy in that country, and in order to encourage him in the work, promised to reward his success by granting a cardinal's hat to Joseph Butiana, his son. He had no difficulty in succeeding. The Inquisition, that great prop of Popery, which has declined ever since it was abolished--that power of hell, which, however, has not prevailed against the church of God--had long enough wrought its work of ruin now in these evangelical districts.
The people of Rome themselves, irritated at the bloody atrocities which it had perpetrated, burned its palace on the death of Paul III. This, no doubt, was because they were not so good Catholics as they ought to have been. Accordingly, Pius IV, whose pontificate was signalized by the events which we have just narrated, transported the seat of the Holy Office to the opposite bank of the Tiber, to the same place which is said to have been occupied by the ancient circus of Nero, in which so many of the primitive Christians were delivered over to the teeth of wild beasts. And these were primitive Christians, too, who perished at Cosenza, at La Guardia, and at St. Xist; only for wild beasts were substituted the priests, the monks, and the inquisitors of the Church of Rome.
Notes: