(A.D. 1550 TO A.D. 1580.)
In the space between Turin and the Vaudois valleys, there is perhaps not a single town in which the religions reformation of the 16th century did not find adherents, and obtain the sympathy of many.
Catholicism had fallen into a state of degradation of which we can scarcely form an idea at the present day. An inquisitor of Racconis,[2] writing to the Holy Office of Rome in 1567, says, "I cannot describe to you the utter decay of everything connected with religion in this country; the churches in ruin, the altars despoiled, the sacerdotal vestments tattered, the priests ignorant, and all things held in contempt." Like the quickening dawn of morning, the evangelical revival, therefore, spreading over that bare and arid soil, restored life and vigour, and a thousand unexpected views of heaven and of earth opened at once before the spiritual vision of men. Life increased along with truth; the dew came with the light. The people, who had hitherto partaken of the immovable petrifaction of Popery, now illustrated and verified that saying of the Saviour's forerunner, "Even of these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham." But, like children, also, they were weak and timid. That dawning light was not then able to give them either the courage of conviction or the martyr's faith. Moreover, the most artful partisans of Rome restrained the natural development of the new opinions, by appearing to participate in them. "A reform is necessary," said they; "everyone feels it; the Church will make it; this is not the time for separating from her."
Such was the language of Dominic Baronius,[3] who was at that time in Piedmont, and who was oftener than once in communication with the doctors of the Vaudois churches. Perhaps his conviction was sincere, seeing that he wrote, in his book on Human Institutions, with reference to the serious corruptions which Popery had introduced into the celebration of the Lord's Supper, "Weep ye, and lament, for the sacrilegious profanation of this divine mystery! I would restrain my pen, but, O God! the zeal of thy house consumes me. Impiety, idolatry, ambition, venality surround thine altars!" And yet he did not dare openly to abandon that idolatry and impiety. Rome pardoned his offence upon account of his submission. "He affected to wonder," says Gilles, "that he found no danger in launching out against the abuses of the papacy, but in the time of persecution he made use of a hypocritical dissimulation, and persuaded others to do the same." Maximilian of Saluces, one of his adherents, wrote thus to the Vaudois pastors: "We condemn, as well as you, the errors of the Papal Church, we desire that they may be reformed; but, in the first place, it is necessary that we reform ourselves inwardly, and that we know how to accommodate ourselves to circumstances, and not to expose ourselves to needless perils in too sharply attacking received usages." Such was also the language of Erasmus, and even to a certain extent that of Melancthon.
The Vaudois pastors expressed themselves with less eloquence, but they acted with more courage. "Our rule of conduct," said they, "ought to be that declaration of Jesus, 'Whosoever shall confess me upon earth, him will I confess in heaven; and whosoever shall deny me upon earth, him will I deny in heaven.' We choose rather to be rejected by the Papal Church than by our Saviour."
The pastors of Geneva likewise sent to the different towns of Piedmont in which the gospel had begun to be introduced, letters strongly encouraging to perseverance. Celsus of Martiningue, who was pastor of the Italian church in that town, wrote to Baronius, with the view of inducing him to follow a course more open and evangelical. But the greatest effort to which the convictions of the latter, who was an abbé, ever proved equal, was that of introducing certain modifications in the manner of celebrating mass. He would have wished to reunite the two parties, and that by measures deemed sufficient upon both sides; but his example caused many persons to stop half-way in a course which would otherwise have resulted in a complete change. This hesitation on the one side, augmented the decision upon the other. The duke was solicited to issue an express prohibition of Protestant religious services beyond the bounds of the Vaudois valleys, and to restrain those from repairing to the valleys who did not inhabit them. This prohibition was published on the 15th of February, 1560.
Proceedings were immediately commenced against the Protestants in Piedmont. The uncle of the reigning duke had been stirred up to undertake the charge of these proceedings himself. "The officers of justice," says Gilles, "were incessantly running up and down, apprehending upon the highways, in the fields, and even in their houses, persons obnoxious upon account of their religion, whom they afterwards delivered into the hands of the commissaries." These commissaries were inquisitors, and the stake was their ultimate argument. Two martyrs were burned alive at Carignan, in the beginning of the year.
The Protestants, affrighted, like a flock of sheep surprised in a novel and dangerous situation, dispersed in disorder. Those of Carignan and of Vigon retired to Quiers or Ghiéri; those of Bubiano and of Briquèras to La Tour. As at that time a part of Piedmont belonged to France, the fugitives were able to get out of reach of the inquisitorial prosecutions both in the French villages and in the Vaudois valleys, where the religious liberty which was at that time assailed but energetically defended, was in the following year officially guaranteed.
The officers of justice then turned in the direction of Suza, entered the valley of Méane, and made a great number of prisoners. Their pastor, named Jacob, was condemned to be burned alive. "The will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven," said the old man. And amidst the torments which the earth had in store for him, he served the Lord with as lively a faith as the elect can amidst the celestial beatitudes. Pardon was offered him upon condition of his abjuring, but he refused; and that he might not be able to make a public profession of his faith, he was conducted to the pile with his mouth gagged, and his arms tied. There he was burned in a slow fire. But his countenance, full of resignation and of resolution during this cruel torture, so shook the minds of the judges, that the Senator De Gorbis resolved to have nothing more to do with such prosecutions; and the Count of Bacconis, says Gilles, "was so softened towards the reformed, that thereafter, instead of persecuting them, he did all that was in his power to procure their deliverance from their troubles." Thus the silent death of the martyr was productive of more advantage to his brethren than a victory won in the field of battle. He had conquered on the pile, where courage is more difficult than in the excitement of combat.
The city of Turin at that time belonged to France. In it there were pastors who preached publicly to an audience which always became more and more numerous. The Catholic clergy obtained the appointment of deputies, who were commissioned to present themselves before Charles IX, in name of the inhabitants of that city, to induce him to take measures for repressing this Protestantism. The young monarch replied, on the 17th of February, 1561, by a letter to the governor of Turin, and a proclamation to his "good and loyal subjects," in both of which he announced his resolution not to suffer the practice of the reformed religion either in the city or in the vicinity. Scarcely had these documents arrived at Turin, when the Protestant pastors were ordered to remove from it. It would appear that they had very soon after contrived to return, for it was found necessary to renew this order of banishment next year. This was only the prelude to a more general measure. Catharine de Médicis had written, at the same time with her son, to the Duke of Savoy, to inform him that the king's intention was to put an end to the reformed worship throughout the whole extent of Piedmont. She therefore entreated Emmanuel Philibert to take steps for the same purpose in his own dominions.
It might have been hoped that the duke would not have entered into these violent measures, as his wife, Catharine of France, sister of Henry II, was favourable to the Reformation, having acquired a knowledge of it in the company of the Queen of Navarre, and of René of France, the daughter of Louis XII, who participated in the new opinions. But Philip of Savoy, uncle of the duke, had been gained to the Catholic party by the Archbishop of Turin, and prepared to aid it by force of arms. It was he who, under the name of the Count of Bacconis, distinguished himself in a manner so little to his honour, in the persecutions instituted at this time against the inhabitants of the Vaudois valleys, as we shall shortly see. The influence which he then exercised over his august nephew, united with that which the brief of Pope Pius IV must have had--a brief dated 15th November, 1561, by which that pontiff adjured all the inhabitants of Piedmont to be upon their guard against heresy, and to put it away from them--decided Emmanuel Philibert to adopt severe measures against the Protestants. The courtier prelates by whom he was surrounded, incessantly endeavoured to interest his thirst for glory in their annihilation; they would have liked to have destroyed by a single blow all those evangelical churches, of which the germs began to appear so full of life in all parts of Piedmont. The first step taken was to enjoin all magistrates to watch over assemblies for religion; that was the expression employed; the next was to forbid these assemblies. Those who were taken in the fact of joining in social prayer and meditation on the Scriptures, were treated as criminals. The towns of Chiéri, Ozasc, Busque, and Frossac, became the theatres of cruel and often bloody proceedings against the reformed. Of this we have seen proofs in the preceding chapter, in perusing the details which have been preserved concerning some of their inhabitants who suffered martyrdom at that time.
The Countess of Moretta, who protected the reformed, was herself obliged to retire before their persecutors. The Countess of Carde, who also protected them, having died, they were constrained either to go to mass or to leave their native land. The same injunction was intimated to those of Ozasc and of Frossac. These simple and sincere men, although newly born to the gospel life, were already nourished with the pure spiritual milk which strengthens the soul of the Christian. They had tasted that the Lord is gracious, and rather than abandon his ways, they renounced their country, their goods, the homes in which they were born, and their hereditary fields, in order to preserve their religion. These unfortunate persons, or rather these happy faithful ones of Christ, almost all repaired to the valley of Lucerna, where they were kindly received, as the fugitives of Paësane and St. Frons had been half-a-century before.
Meanwhile, in the churches of Coni and Carail there had been an increase of the number of awakened souls, who from a little flock grew up more and more into a holy nation, a peculiar and willing people; and as the dawning light first touches the summits of the mountains in the horizon over which it is to spread, so it was chiefly amongst the upper classes that the doctrines of the Reformation were received.
After a war of twenty-three years, peace had been concluded betwixt France and Spain.[4] The Duke of Savoy had been the ally of the latter power, and had lost all his possessions, which, however, were now restored to him, with the exception of Turin, Pignerol, and Saluces. Many of the seigneurs who fought by his side had embraced Protestantism. So long as their aid seemed necessary to him, he had allowed these valiant adherents of the Reformation to enjoy liberty of conscience and religious quiet, which the recollection of their services secured to them. But scarcely had the more eminent of the secular clergy resumed the place of these men of arms around their sovereign, than the voice of honour was succeeded by that of the church. The duke was told that having returned to possession of his hereditary states, his glory required the re-establishment also, in its integrity, of the religion of his ancestors. It was by these artful methods that a prince was induced to become the executioner of his most faithful subjects, to weaken his states, and to destroy his people; and this they called glory! "Woe unto them!" says the prophet, "that call evil good, and good evil."
The duke began by interdicting the Protestants from all kinds of public worship beyond the limits of the Vaudois valleys; then he issued an edict at Coni,[5] by which all the inhabitants were required to give up to the magistrates all books of religion which they might possess. As the Bible is simply called the book, so the profession of its doctrines revived by the Reformation was simply called religion. These terms, by general use, came to be acknowledged as part of the language, the popular good sense, which instinctively created this form of speech, thus unconsciously attesting the truth that religion was indeed there and there alone.
The Duke of Savoy at the same time enjoined his subjects to attend the preaching of the missionaries whom he was about to send them. But what did the missionary thus recommended preach at Carail? Che Dio faceva far l'invernata bona, accioche d'il mese sqguente avanxas (sic) a fare di legna per poter bruschiar gli luterani; that is, "that God was giving them so mild a winter that year, in order that they might be able to save wood for burning the heretics in the succeeding months. "It may be imagined that this eloquence was not very persuasive in the way of inducing souls to prefer the religion of the stake and pile to that of the gospel Accordingly, the preacher was very soon forsaken; but, in the month following, on the 28th of December, 1561, a fresh edict renewed the order to deliver up all bibles to the magistrates, and enjoined all the inhabitants of the country to go to mass without more ado. But the number of those who refused was so great, that no step durst be taken to obtain the execution of this edict. Nay, about this time Emmanuel Philibert conceded the free exercise of their worship to the inhabitants of the Vaudois valleys;[6] the seigneurs who had followed him in the war still enjoyed in their independence the benefit of the remembrance of their recent exploits; and it was impossible to proceed with severe measures so quickly as the Church of Rome would have desired.
But a few years after, in 1565, the same prince having commanded the Vaudois to abjure within the space of two months, effect was given in the Church of Coni to the edict of 1561. Each family was required to appear before the magistrates, and to make a declaration of Romish orthodoxy, under peril of the severest penalties.
It may be conceived that these obstacles must have had the effect of retaining in the Church of Rome men who perceived its errors, but were timid--men of enlightened minds, but feeble, who had embraced the cause of the Reformation. However, there were still found fifty-five families who, in presence of the magistrates, had the courage openly to renounce all connection with Popery, and to declare themselves Protestants. It was an act of proscription; and accordingly the greater part of them, knowing the full consequence of that avowal, made haste of their own accord to set their affairs in order, to sell what they possessed, and to retire elsewhere.
A few only of the most influential and respected obtained, under special security from a Catholic proprietor, the favour of retaining both their properties and their beliefs, but solely on condition that they should abstain from any religious exercise, whether in their houses or elsewhere, under pain of total confiscation of all that they possessed. The poorer class, less encumbered with this world's goods, had rejected all shackles; the rich suffered them to be imposed upon them. The Protestant party was divided; it would have been better for them if they had resisted together, for the Bible assures us that there is great strength in the unity of brethren. It was at this same period that the young martyr of Coni, whose life has been given in the history of the Vaudois of Calabria, died at Rome. That humble Bethany from which he derived his birth, was less cruelly treated than the adopted church to which he devoted himself; but the flock that was beginning to be formed at Coni disappeared, as well as the ancient Church of Calabria.
The bundle being loosed, each separate stick is easily broken. The humbler of the people had removed from the place; the noble families retired to their estates, hoping to live there in greater freedom and tranquillity. It seemed, in fact, as if they were forgotten for some time, and they allowed themselves to be lulled into a false security; but very soon, by a gradual process, noiselessly and secretly, they were decimated; their most eminent members were taken away, the persons of greatest zeal being arrested in their dwellings, on the pretext, always plausible, that they had been guilty of family prayer and of the secret worship of their God.
Of these new prisoners there were some who made their escape; part of them by their courage, and part by means of bribes. Some perished in dungeons, a number were put to death, and some at last abjured, under the constraint of violence, the faith which they bad embraced from conviction.
Thus that church ceased to exist upon the banks of the Stura, where, thenceforth, the truth shed only rare and trembling gleams. It was brought into being beneath the radiance of Divine grace; its enemies sought to drown it in blood; and it may be said of it, that its beauty departed from it as soon as it ceased to be free. The light placed under a bushel is in a fair way for going out.
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