(A.D. 1560 TO A.D. 1630.)
We have already seen that, in the beginning of the year 1560, the Duke Emmanuel Philibert had prohibited all the inhabitants of his dominions from going to hear the Protestant ministers in the Vaudois valleys, and from celebrating the reformed worship without the limits of these valleys.[2] But this edict did not specify how far their limits were to extend. Commissioners were appointed, who were to determine this at their discretion, according to the cases which arose, and to prosecute those who were guilty of what they should deem contraventions of the edict.
But as the contravention of the edict was punishable with a fine of 100 crowns,[3] and as the half of this sum was to go to the informers, there were sure to be found, in the vicinity of the Vaudois valleys, some ardent lovers of Catholic worship and of the money of the reformed, who would lie in wait as spies of the humble pilgrimage of the Christians of the plain going to the mountain assemblies. The monks of the abbey of Pignerol even took into their pay a troop of miscreants, who scoured the country and made prisoners of these poor people. Whilst this troop chiefly devoted its labours to the valley of Pérouse, it carried its efforts and its ravages as far as Briquéras, Fenil, and Campillon. There, moreover, their place was more than supplied by Count William of Lucerna. A vain silly man, who delighted in showing himself off like a peacock on a richly caparisoned horse, making a display of his glittering ornaments, he had dissipated his fortune in the pursuit of pomp and pleasures, and he thought to recover it again by the wages of espionage. It was he who advised the Duke of Savoy to build the fort of Mirabouc.[4]
"At that time," says Gilles, "the most influential and wealthiest of the inhabitants of Garsiliano, Fenil, Bubiano, and other little towns situated in the vicinity of the Vaudois churches, were of the same religion with us, and very diligent in their attendance on our worship. Nay, the greater part of the population of Campillon and Fenil was Protestant."
The Count of Lucerna gathered about him a few persons of birth and brutality like his own, and of these, along with his domestics well-armed, he formed a little troop of brigands, or rather of sbirri, whose exploits consisted in surprising and arresting the Protestants as they went to the valleys to attend the religious assemblies. These noble adventurers hoped to enrich themselves by the spoils of their victims, and they even settled by anticipation the division of the property of most of them. Captain Scaramuzza had the property of Claude Cot, of Vigon, who took refuge in the valley of Lucerna in 1560. Count William obtained an assignation of 1000 crowns, of which 800 were to be taken from the commune of Rora, and 200 from those of the plain; but the general persecution which then arose against all the inhabitants of the valleys, and which was terminated by the treaty of Cavour (concluded on the 5th of June, 1561), made that right of spoliation worthless, and destroyed all the future prospects of these banditti.
By this treaty, all the Protestants of Bubiano, Fenil, Briquéras, and other towns contiguous to the territory of the valleys, were authorized to repair thither freely, and to attend public worship. The Vaudois won their liberty of conscience by the most generous efforts and the most heroic exploits. The inhabitants of the towns just named, whose goods had been confiscated, and who had been obliged to flee, were allowed to return freely to their possessions. Of this number were three lawyers of Campillon, the Podestat of Angrogna, who belonged to Bubiano; Clarenton, a physician, and Bernier, a lawyer, also of that town; Anthony Falc, who afterwards devoted himself to the ministry; Daniel and Baptist Florius, as well as a great number of merchants, farmers, and artisans of every description.
The above-mentioned towns thereafter enjoyed some years of real tranquillity, for which they were indebted to the energy of the Vaudois people, who had secured it for them.
Without having the right to open places of worship, the inhabitants of these towns had the right of repairing to those of the Vaudois, and of celebrating family worship in their own houses. They even had it in their power to send for the pastors in case of sickness, or in order to the funeral service of those of their own religion. In 1564, however, the Dominican Garossia attempted to apply to them the provisions of an edict of the year preceding, relative only to other towns of Piedmont, by which the Catholics were interdicted from having anything to do with the Protestants. He attempted also to take from them the Bibles and religious books which they used; but, resting upon the terms of the treaty of Cavour, they sheltered themselves from his designs: and by the confirmation of all their privileges, which was granted to the Vaudois in 1574, for the payment of 4000 crowns, they still obtained a further abatement of the restrictions under which they were placed.
But the clergy, by their unprincipled proceedings, gradually obtained the upper hand again. In 1565, Castrocaro, then governor of the valleys, caused the place of worship at St. John to be closed; and the Countess of Gardes, the Baroness of Termes, and other persons of high rank, who were accustomed to come from their castles, to attend at the celebration of the Lord's Supper in the valleys, according to the reformed worship, received orders to abstain from so doing in future. The Vaudois pastors met and resolved to resist the iniquitous attempts of the governor. They wrote to the Duchess of Savoy, and by her good offices they obtained from Emmanuel Philibert a new confirmation of their liberties. However, intrigues and vexations of every kind continued to press upon the scattered Protestants of Piedmont. The goods of Claude Cot, a rich burgess of Vigon, had been confiscated. The ambassador of the Elector Palatin was then at Turin. The Duke of Savoy wanted to make him a present: "Would your royal highness," said he, "give me the house which has been confiscated at Tigon." It was bestowed on him in absolute possession, by a ducal patent of the 12th of April, 1566. The worthy ambassador, Junius, immediately restored it to the persecuted family. But Junius had no sooner departed, than Castrocaro, who was then governor of the Vaudois valleys, prohibited all the reformed of Lucerna, Bubiano, and Campillon, from attending the Protestant worship of the valleys, under pain of death.[5] He caused those who did not give heed to this order to be apprehended. They appealed to the duke: the Vaudois also sent two deputies to represent to him that the Edict of Cavour authorized their fellow-Protestants of the plain in attending their worship. A new authorization confirmed the privilege, and all who had been made prisoners upon this occasion were released, through the intercession of the good duchess.
But by degrees the limits were narrowed within which burned the radiant fires of evangelical truth and of independence; and at last, by an edict of the 25th of February, 1602, the towns of Lucerna, Bubiano, Campillon, Briquéras, Fenil, Montbrun, Garsiliano, and St. Segont, the only towns in which religious liberty was maintained, were completely detached from the territory of the valleys. This was done in the hope that the bond being thus broken which attached the Protestants of the plain to those of the mountains, their unity of faith would be equally broken, and their mutual relations and brotherhood.
Forthwith the governor of the province and the Archbishop of Turin repaired to these regions, accompanied by a grand train of preaching monks, polemical clergy, Capuchins, Jesuits, and missionaries, in hope of accomplishing at once the conversion of all the Protestants. When a few trembling green leaves still remain upon the uppermost boughs of a tree which the winds have swept bare, a light breeze will be enough to bring them down. But the sap by which these churches were nourished still retained all its vitality.
The prelate having arrived in the beginning of the month of February, had taken up his abode in the palace of the counts of Lucerna. After having held some private conferences with the count and the governor, he began by causing all the heads of Protestant families residing in Lucerna to be summoned into his presence. "There were a good number of them," says Gilles, "and these among the principal families of the country, who had always dwelt in it from time immemorial." His royal highness, they were told, was resolved not to suffer two religions in that town, "and he has sent us to you," said the prelate and governor, "for your own good, that you may make up your minds to live as good and faithful Catholics, which if you do not, you will be obliged to sell your goods and leave the country." Of course these insinuating speeches did not remain unanswered; but more energetic language was next employed. "You cannot resist the orders of your sovereign without being accused of rebellion, and then you will be treated as rebels; whilst if you return to your duty," that is to say, to the Church of Rome, "not only will you save all your property, but you will be largely rewarded." "If it is a duty," replied the more resolute ones firmly, "why speak of reward? and if not, why try to make us deviate from our duty?" "Those will be rewarded who do what is agreeable to their sovereign." "Our fidelity ought to be agreeable to him, and he would have reason to doubt it if we were unfaithful to our God." The greater part of the Protestants of Lucerna, therefore, remained unmoved by the offers and the threats with which they were plied; but the resolution of some gave way. Presently proclamation was made that exemption from taxes was granted to those who had newly become Catholics, and to those who should intimate an intention of following their example.[6]
The archbishop, the governor, and the count then proceeded to Bubiano, where all to a man were inflexible.
Attributing this unanimous resistance to the heads of two or three eminent families, as zealous for their religion as influential and honourable in virtue of their station, they caused them to be cited to Turin, before the Duke of Savoy. There were Peter Morèse, Samuel Falc, and the brothers Matthew and Valentine Boulles. The last-named had married a young woman, by birth a Catholic, but converted to Protestantism, a god-daughter of the Count of Lucerna. On their arrival in Turin they were surrounded by devoted courtiers, who said to them, "Take care what you do! for our prince is very angry at you four, for having prevented the conversion of the Protestants of Bubiano. He proposes to speak to you in a friendly way; but if you think proper to oppose him, you may expect something rough and disagreeable." They paid little heed, however, to these artful suggestions, and presented themselves at the palace, where his highness caused them to be informed that he would receive them in private, one by one.
Valentine Boulles was the first introduced. The duke spoke kindly to him. "I desire," said he, "that my subjects should all be united in the same religion; and knowing how useful you have it in your power to be in promoting these views in the part of the country in which you dwell, I have thought fit to see you, that I may myself exhort you to follow the religion of your prince, and to gain your neighbours to it. Be persuaded," added he, "that in acting thus, besides the spiritual advantage which will thence result to yourself you will reap other benefits, by which you will learn how great satisfaction you have given to your sovereign." "After the service of God," replied the Christian, "there is none to which I deem it so much an honour to devote myself as that of your highness; and I am ready heartily to spend in it my life and my property. But my religion is more precious still to me than my life. I believe it to be the true religion, the only religion founded upon the word of God, and I cannot abandon it without losing all peace, all consolation. Your highness may rest assured of my devotedness to your service, but be pleased to leave me my religion, without which I could not live." "And think you, then," rejoined the duke, "that I have not taken care for the salvation of my soul? If I were not persuaded that my religion is the true one, I would not follow it, and I would not try to get any other person to follow it. However, I am disposed to make those who embrace it understand how agreeable their so doing is to me; but I do not wish to do violence to anybody's conscience. You may retire."
Valentine Boulles was conducted out by another gate from that by which he had entered, and his companions were told that he had yielded to the solicitations of his prince, and had become a Catholic. They having then been successively introduced, replied to the duke, that having lived hitherto in the Protestant religion, they would have deemed it a precious favour to have been permitted to die in it, but that if his highness demanded the contrary, they were ready to do all that was agreeable to him. "That is really agreeable to me," said the duke, "and I will know how, in fitting time and place, to make you know it."
Notwithstanding these words of favour, they went out little comforted by their weakness; but what was their grief when they learned the firmness of their brother, and the more satisfactory words which the duke had addressed to him, leaving him his freedom of conscience! The poor men were so humbled for their fall, that far from waiting to receive the favours of their prince, they had scarcely returned to the valleys when they made public profession of repentance, to expiate that fault and re-enter the fellowship of their church. The promise to the contrary had doubtless been wrung from them by a sort of surprise, but advantage was taken of it to represent to the duke that the conversion of the Vaudois was not so difficult a thing to secure, their adversaries not being ashamed to say that, like the sheep of their fields, they would all follow where the first went. "These persons," they said, "were made to believe that the first had become a Catholic, and the rest agreed to abjure; afterwards they learned that he had remained in his errors, and they immediately returned to them. Let your highness, then, display a little energy in the work which has been undertaken, and when two or three families have been converted, all the rest will follow like a flock." Such were the irreparable consequences of that momentary weakness. The rising again, it is true, was as prompt as the fall had been sudden, the repentance as deep as its occasion had been serious; but nothing could destroy the impression which that moment had produced.
The honourable firmness of Valentine Boulles had been respected by the prince, and the Vaudois, respected like him, might have found in their sovereign's justice reason to entertain better prospects for the future; for men will treat those more considerately whom they respect, than those whom they despise, and whose constancy they hope to shake; and from that time forth the inhabitants of the valleys were treated with a sort of disdain and rigour, very unlike the habitual moderation of Charles Emmanuel. If each of the persons summoned from Bubiano had only studied his conscience, and not considered his situation or what another might have done before him; if each of them had replied to the prince with the noble and respectful firmness of the first who appeared in his presence, perhaps their church would have been saved. But its enemies saw their opportunity for making a first assault upon it, and they did not suffer the opportunity to escape them.
Immediately afterwards, in fact, an order was published, requiring all the Protestants of Lucerna, of Bubiano, of Campillon, and of Fenil, to become Catholics, or to leave the country within five days, under pain of death and confiscation of goods.
The churches of the valley lost no time in addressing a petition to the sovereign, setting forth arguments to persuade him to revoke this edict. They reminded the duke that, in returning from the Fort of Mirabouc, taken from the French in 1595, he had said to the Protestants who came to congratulate him at Villar, "I will make no change in regard to your religion; and if any one molest you, I will redress it as soon as I am informed of it." To this the duke caused it to be replied that he had not changed his intentions concerning them, but that what was being done related solely to the heretics dwelling beyond the limits of their valley. The governor of Pignerol, renewing his previous orders, then enjoined the Protestants who were in these latter circumstances to quit their abodes within two days, unless they obtained special permission from the archbishop to remain. Some individuals went to the prelate to obtain this; but, as may well be supposed, he insisted, in the first place, upon having an abjuration from them. "We would not like to abjure without knowing wherein our religion is wrong," replied the people with simple good sense. Forthwith appeared clergy, and monks, and Jesuits, who entangled them amidst a confused mass of theological arguments, for which the reading of the Bible had not prepared them. "We cannot dispute with you," replied they, "but if you would be pleased to confer with our pastor, and to prove to him that the mass and other ceremonies of your worship are not contrary to the word of God, we promise you that we will attend them without so much scruple."
The archbishop, thinking himself sure of victory, made haste to send a safe-conduct to the pastor, Augustus Gros, who had been named to him, and who was himself a former Augustine monk of Villefranche, converted to Protestantism. But he, remembering the decision of the Council of Constance, which sanctions breach of faith on the part of a Catholic towards persons of another communion, refused to go to Bubiano, and proposed St. John or Angrogna for this meeting, "not refusing," said he, "to confer with the prelate, or with those of his theologians whom he may think proper to send, with the weapons of the word of God, and according to the conditions essential to a sober and well-conducted debate."
The archbishop accepted this proposal, and nominated to enter the lists a Turin professor, by name Anthony Marchesi, a doctor of theology, and rector of the Jesuits in that capital. The commencement of the conferences was fixed for the 12th of March. They were opened, on the part of the Catholics, by the exposition of this thesis--The mass was instituted by Jesus Christ, and is to be found in the Holy Scripture. The Jesuit displayed great talent in his argument in support of it. But the pastor, coming after, and exposing in detail, one after another, all the parts of the mass, demanded that the whole ceremonial should be shown him in the Bible. Marchesi was then obliged to grant that the greater part of the rites had been instituted by the Church of Rome at divers times and in diverse circumstances. "Then," said the pastor, "I promise to go myself to the mass, and to exhort my hearers to go, provided that it be stripped of all these roman additions, and restored as it was instituted by Christ." The Jesuit looked down to the ground; silence prevailed throughout the meeting, and the president of the conference declared that, this first question being exhausted, the consideration of that of auricular confession would be put off till next day.
Each went his own way, but the Papists returned no more. Sometime afterwards Augustus Gros was informed that the Jesuit boasted of having had the advantage in this conference. "I would have been very much surprised if he had spoken otherwise," replied the pastor; "he had not the courage to confess the truth contained in the word of God; what could be more confidently expected, then, than that he would deny a truth uttered by the lips of men?"
The archbishop, with all his suite, retreated after this unsuccessful conference; and instead of the great triumph of conversion, with the expectation of which they had flattered themselves, the enemies of the Protestants were obliged to be contented with subjecting them to partial and vexatious treatment in a multitude of ways.
Valentine Boulles, in particular, the first of the persons summoned from Bubiano who had appeared before the Duke of Savoy, and whom they accused of having destroyed, by his perseverance, all the good effects of that experiment, was exposed to incessant recrimination, His wife, a Catholic by birth, was daily subjected to urgent solicitations that she should return to the church in which she had been baptized. Wearied out at last by this life of perpetual oppression, they resolved to flee from it, and to seek a more tranquil existence, with the peaceful exercise of their religion and conjugal happiness, in the seclusion of a retreat at a distance from all these wicked annoyances. They therefore quitted Bubiano, and settled at the lower part of the valley of Lucerna, in the little village of Bobi.
In 1619, a Protestant joiner having died at Campillon, the seigneur of that place objected to his being buried in the ordinary cemetery of the Protestants, which was contiguous to that of the Catholics, pretending that the proximity of the mortal remains of a heretic would pollute the holy earth set apart for the reception of the coffins of faithful Papists. Alas! they place holiness in the earth rather than in the heart; a cemetery is the fit emblem of their church, which is motionless as death. Why should human pride and fanaticism carry division even into the tomb?
It must be observed that, a few days before, an edict prohibiting the Vaudois from assembling at a funeral in greater number than six persons, had been secretly published. I say secretly published, because it concerned the Protestants alone, and had been read only at the close of the Catholic service. The greater part of those interested in it were therefore completely ignorant of it. The seigneur of Campillon, to carry out his opposition to this funeral, collected his armed retainers. The Protestants, on their side, took arms, under the direction of Captain Cappel. The obsequies took place without a conflict, in consequence of the firm front presented by the Vaudois, but all who were present were denounced as having infringed the edict. The trial of this case belonged to the podestat of Lucerna; but, by an infraction of the juridical laws then in force, the provost-general of justice took it up, and sent out his officers in pursuit of the Vaudois, who were very soon entangled amidst the meshes of inextricable assignations, protocols, compearances, examinations, confrontings, and proceedings, to such a degree that no criminal case ever assumed such formidable dimensions as this. An unjust judge is the scourge of a people!
The greater part of the accused were condemned for contumacy, but it was thought proper that they should be made prisoners. The most difficult to lay hold of was Captain Cappel, "a terrible man," says Gilles, "and who made himself to be much dreaded."
Treachery came to the aid of injustice. The colonel of a regiment offered a company to this redoubtable captain, and invited him to meet him on that business at Pignerol. "Remember your Virgil," said one of his friends, to whom he made known this proposal--
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."[7] But his own boldness prevailed over this prudent advice. He repaired to Pignerol, was conducted into the castle, and retained a prisoner. From thence he was transferred to Turin, thrown into a dungeon, and condemned to death. Two Vaudois, Samuel Truchi and the minister Guérin, brothers-in-law of Lesdiguières, besought that illustrious general to intercede for the unfortunate captain; and in September, 1620, Lesdiguières, having come to Turin, obtained a pardon for Cappel. However, he was destined to die in prison; for in 1630 he was arrested anew, and died of pestilence in the prisons of Pignerol.
After he was first arrested, the provost-criminal caused all the other Protestants who had been present at the funeral of the poor artisan of Campillon, to be summoned to appear before him within three months. At the end of that time, not having appeared, they were all condemned for contumacy, and declared to be banished from the dominions of his royal highness. Thereupon, their fellow-Christians of all the valleys made common cause with them, offered them an asylum, and interceded with the sovereign. For fear that the duke might find fault with the unjust severities of which they had been made the victims, and that at the close of the reckoning the seigneur of Campillon, the eager mover in the whole affair, might find himself in a dangerous predicament, that seigneur thought proper to interpose in their favour. We shall by and by see whether or not he was sincere in so doing.
His interposition was offered to the Vaudois by a Papist, who called himself a Protestant. This commencement did not promise much sincerity. The seigneur signified his confidence of obtaining remission of the sentence, provided the co-religionists of the parties would address a petition to the sovereign in which they should offer him money. This might have seemed a gross insult to his royal highness, but he knew nothing about it, for his seigneur and excellence of Campillon took charge both of the petition and the money. Meanwhile the provost-criminal continued to carry his sentence into execution against the Protestants residing at Lucerna, on the right bank of the Pélis.
At length the Vaudois themselves sent deputies to Turin. The duke was not there; his ministers demanded from them 5000 ducatoons (nearly 30,000 francs[8]), that an end might be put to the vexations of which they complained. It may well be said that they were all alike, seigneurs, provosts, and ministers. The deputies could not venture to engage for the payment of such a sum; the 3000 livres which the seigneur of Campillon had already taken charge of had made them timid; they returned to the valleys, and the provost continued more actively his prosecutions, processes, intimations, and sentences, which always issued in heavy expenses.
At last, they learned that Charles Emmanuel was on his return to Turin. New deputies immediately repaired thither; a new petition was presented, new difficulties were every day thrown in their way, and finally they retired, leaving the charge of their business to two delegates remaining on the spot--Anthony Bastie, a notary of St. John, and James Fontaine, the gonfalonier or standard-bearer of Le Villar. At the end of some months they obtained a draft of a decree, of which the following were the principal provisions:--The ancient privileges of the Vaudois to be confirmed, and all the proceedings commenced against them, upon account of religion, to be abolished, upon payment of the sum of 6000 ducatoons (34,800 francs[9]). It contained an injunction, moreover, that the Protestants should not labour in public on the days of the Catholic festivals; that they should show reverence to processions, or retire out of their way; and finally, that they should close the new place of worship which they had opened at St. John (at Les Stalliats).
"May it please your royal highness," said the deputies to Charles Emmanuel, "for many years the humble confidence which your faithful Protestant subjects[10] have reposed in your goodness, has been entertained with fair words and good hopes, without any amelioration of their condition. At the present time it is still proposed to restrain the exercise of our religion, and on this account a considerable tribute is exacted from us." They might have added, in reference to the proceedings which it was proposed to abolish, "Ought the cessation of an injustice to be purchased? and would its long continuance not rather give a right to compensation?"
Be these things as they might, the duke replied with his accustomed amiability and suavity, saying that there was nothing he desired more than to see them contented. But those who surrounded him were less noble, less just, and, above all, less disinterested. When the Vaudois deputies were about to depart, to carry this reply to the valleys, the procurator-fiscal caused them to be arrested and detained until the complete payment of the 6000 ducatoons, which the advisers of his royal highness had decided to impose upon the Vaudois.
This was on the 12th of March, 1620; they were kept prisoners for five months in the castle, which still stands beside the museum of painting in Turin; and on the same day the governor of Pignerol, Ponte by name, upon the suggestion of the Archbishop of Turin, caused twelve Vaudois to be likewise incarcerated, who had come to the market of Pignerol. There was no help for it but to resolve upon payment of the tribute demanded. Long negotiations still took place, and at last, on the 20th of June, 1620, an edict was issued conformable to the projected arrangement, save only that it contained nothing relative to the Catholic festivals and ceremonies.
Next year, in the month of April, new annoyances were commenced against the Vaudois, in regard to a valuation of property, which required them to present themselves individually at Pignerol, which some of them had failed to do. The great means employed against the Vaudois, which consisted in raising criminal prosecutions, on pretext of rebellion against the orders of the sovereign, was again resorted to; and in order to escape; these unfortunate adherents of a persecuted religion consented to augment their tribute by another 1000 ducatoons.
This sum was apportioned amongst all the inhabitants of the valleys, although those of Campillon alone had been originally the cause of the tribute. The distress was great; many families were obliged to pinch themselves in the very necessaries of life, and murmured at such hardships: Then it was that the monks and Jesuits set their emissaries to work amongst the poorer and more isolated. This influence was brought to bear, especially along the disputed boundary line where Protestantism was in contact with Romanism, in the towns of Bubiano, Campillon, Fenil, Garsiliano, and Briquéras.
The agents of the clergy, both regular and secular, under pretence of compassion for the hardships endured by these poor families, offered, with all appearance of generous interest, not only to pay their quota of the debt for which the Vaudois were subscribing, but also to obtain for them a long exemption from taxes, and even immediate rewards, on condition that they would only consent not to reject boons still more precious, namely, the abandonment of Protestantism, and the adoption of the Church of Rome. A number were prevailed upon, and thus sold themselves, yielding to the fallacious and gilded seductions of the tempter.
Thus, under these perpetual assaults, these scattered churches, consisting of no great numbers of persons, were weakened, being constantly exposed to the danger either of violence or of temptation. And when in our own days we see so much religious indifference prevailing amongst religious communities not only enjoying freedom, but loaded with gifts, addressed with invitations rather than with threats, surrounded with encouragements instead of obstacles, honoured instead of being despised for the discharge of their duties--when we see scriptural truth and life extinguished before the breath of selfishness and corruption, by the mere power of the infirmities of our nature--we may well be astonished that the scattered Christians of the plain of Piedmont should have been able to survive at all, during a whole century, the numerous falls which made gaps in their ranks, or the strokes of persecution which were meant for their destruction.
I cannot recount in detail all their distresses, all the troubles with which they were beset, or the injuries to which they were for a long time subjected. Charles Emmanuel might, perhaps, have been inclined to be favourable rather than hostile to them, but when the animosity of the government against them was abated, they had to endure that of private enemies. After the judicial proceedings followed the doings of the fanatics.
In 1624, for example, two Protestants being in the public square of Bubiano, some new converts reproached them with remaining faithful to a religion which had never made men anything but martyrs. "If I were in the prince's place," said one of them, "I would very soon make you abjure." "In what way?" "By force." "We thank God that he has given us a prince more moderate than you." This saying was reported to the magistrates in the following amended form: "The Protestants said that the prince is less zealous for religion than the new converts."
"The prince is insulted!" exclaimed the Catholics. The magistrates, urged on by their clamours, caused the two unfortunate Protestants to be prosecuted for the crime of lese-majesty. They were not only heretics, but rebels. The name of the one was Peter Queyras, and that of the other, Bartholemew Boulles. They succeeded at first in withdrawing from the pursuit of which they were the objects, and which, to say the truth, does not seem to have been urged with much rigour. The whole affair seemed to be forgotten, when Queyras was one day invited to dine with a seigneur of the valley. His conduct will show whether or not the seigneur was truly noble. He caused his servants to arrest the Protestant, and deliver him to the sbirri of Lucerna. He was cast into prison, and Boulles, his innocent accomplice in the language laid to his charge, thereupon fled to the mountains of Rora.
Queyras was conveyed to the dungeons of Turin. His liberation was demanded in vain. The inquisition supposed that a new victim had come into its hands. But the wife of the prisoner took her infant in her arms, went and cast herself at the feet of the prince, and informed him that the words spoken by her husband were a tribute to the wisdom of the sovereign, and not an insult to him; and supplicating in favour of the father of the child which she carried with her, she had the good fortune to obtain the pardon which she asked. "A faithful wife," says the Bible, "is a treasure from the Lord." The princes of the house of Savoy almost never showed themselves unjust or cruel, unless under the influence of the Church of Rome.
Next year (in 1625) a senator came to Bubiano, and, in virtue of secret informations of which he was possessed, caused many persons to be apprehended in that district. A petition was addressed to Charles Emmanuel, to obtain the enlargement of the captives. The duke replied that that business belonged to the judge Barbéri, who had been commissioned to inquire into it; but his benevolence did not forget it, and after a time they were set at liberty.
Thus the Protestants of Bubiano and of the neighbouring towns still retained, at that date, some measure of liberty of conscience, which they owed to the sovereign's toleration; for, according to the edict of 28th September, 1617, their religion was not to have been tolerated for more than three years beyond the bounds appointed by the edict of 1602. Not residing within these boundaries, they must have abjured, or sold their goods, to withdraw to some other quarter, or have incurred the penalties pronounced by the edict. Some authors even say that only three months were allowed them for this purpose; and eight years had now already passed without their having either abjured or sold their lands. They might, therefore, hope for the permanent continuance of this favour, the prolongation of which had been tacitly conceded to them by the kindness of the sovereign. The monks and the inquisitors were only the more eager to proceed against them; they wished to make victims of them, and not to see them indulged.
One day ten young persons were apprehended on their way to Pignerol; the monks of the abbey turned it to their own account. Subsequently a man and woman, both advanced in life, were seized at Briquéras, and conducted to Cavour. The inquisition made them its prey. Every now and then, indeed, travellers or foreign merchants were surprised on their journeys, and cast into dungeons, where they often remained without being heard of more.
In 1627 a number of persons were arrested simultaneously at Bubiano, Campillon, and Fenil. The prisoners were in the first place conveyed to Cavour, then to the castle of Villefranche, after which nothing more was to be heard of them. Their relatives, their friends, and all their compatriots, were deeply afflicted. Urgent solicitations were addressed to Count Philip of Lucerna, who appears to have been no stranger to these acts of violence, and from whom none but evasive answers could be obtained. The Vaudois then addressed a petition to their prince, and sent deputies to present it to him. A person of noble birth offered his intervention with the sovereign; it was accepted; they set out and came to Turin. "I have a friend in great favour at court," said their new protector; "intrust me with your petition to show it to him, and I promise you his support." The petition was given up, but not returned. The Vaudois demanded it. "I have presented it to the duke," replied their noble friend, "but his highness was excessively angry, because of a report which accused you of having taken arms to rescue the prisoners by force. I have assured him of the falsehood of that report, and I hope to calm him completely; but you will be obliged to make some outlay, and you will not forget, in particular, to pay me the great expenses which I have incurred on this occasion."
The people of the valleys were much discontented with the turn which this affair took, and found great fault with their deputies for having let the petition pass out of their hands, which they ought themselves to have presented to the sovereign. At last a reply was obtained, and they were informed that this business was remitted to the judgment of the Archbishop of Turin and the grand chancellor. To the latter they therefore addressed themselves; but he replied that his highness, and the heir presumptive of the crown, were about to take it into their own consideration. The unhappy captives were therefore transferred to Turin, after a preventive detention of several months, ignorant even what crime was laid to their charge. The brother of Sebastian Bazan, whose name we shall meet with again in the next chapter of martyrs, was amongst the number of these prisoners. Some more weeks passed, during which the archbishop died; and after this, upon the renewed petition of the Vaudois, the duke ordered the chancellor to bring the affair to a close.
On the 21st of July, Barbéri, abusing his high position, repaired to Lucerna, escorted by a troop of constables and officers of justice, or rather brigands; for, violently entering the houses of the reformed, they pillaged at discretion, and drew up an inventory of what they left. They went on to Bubiano, where they repeated the same proceedings, and thence, in like manner, to Campillon and Fenil. After this he published an order, requiring all the notaries and syndics of these communes to render him an exact account of all the possessions of the Protestants, who, he said, were all guilty, in one way or other, and merited, without exception, to be condemned to death, and to have their goods confiscated; but that, of his clemency, he would permit them to live, on condition that they should pay a large ransom. What justice! What a senator!
The Vaudois, indignant, refused to pay this monstrous tribute. Thereupon the report was spread that an army was coming to exterminate them. The inhabitants of Bubiano, and of the other towns of the plain, hastened to convey their families to the mountains, and to carry off whatever they had most valuable. The mountaineers, on the other hand, descended in arms, and posted themselves before Lucerna, to be ready to receive the army that was spoken of. But another senator, named Syllan, being then at Lucerna on his own private business, sent emissaries to re-assure the Vaudois as to this subject. He afterwards caused them to be informed, that if they would pay the expense of Barbéri's troop it would be withdrawn, and the movables which had been taken away would be restored.
It seemed a little hard to pay the expense of the injustice to which they had been subjected; but the Catholics of Bubiano and the other towns above-named, offered to the Vaudois to pay for them the half of the sum, in order to be delivered from that horde whose presence was disastrous for all. This act of brotherliness upon the part of the people was more Christian than all the acts of persecution on the part of the church. The offer was accepted, and Barbéri accordingly went away with the tribute which he had sought. But it soon came to be known that he had received no orders from the prince to act against the Vaudois; and they therefore drew up a detailed account of all the hardships to which they had been subjected, and it began to be spoken of that they should be made to pay something again, in order to get a stop put to them, when unexpected circumstances occurred, which completely changed the aspect of this affair.
Many persons had been apprehended at Lucerna, Garsiliano, and Briquéras, but it often happened that when the case of one of these prisoners was to be proceeded with, he was not to be found. On the other hand, the informations against persons alleged to frequent the Protestant worship in the valleys, multiplied so much, that the higher authorities could not conceive that the Vaudois had so great a number of adherents in Piedmont. What rendered the whole thing still more incomprehensible was, that some of the captives who had disappeared from the prisons were again seen at liberty amongst the mountains. Let us tell the whole story of this mystery at once. The informers received a reward from the magistrates, and the inferior magistrates received a ransom from the accused, who were too happy to escape in this way from these unjust and cruel prosecutions. The prospect of these ransoms and recompenses had made the whole neighbourhood of the valleys a mere prey to a set of informers. But the work of the wicked deceives him. These informations began to include persons higher in station and influence, who, instead of compounding, proved the falsehood of the accusation, and brought the accuser to punishment.
Thereupon the superior authorities, whose uprightness is one of the glories of Piedmont, suspended all the prosecutions which had been begun. A severe investigation was instituted concerning the previous course of these proceedings, and many false witnesses were discovered, who had caused the innocent to be condemned, and who were in their turn condemned to the galleys. But the Church of Rome, which attacks evangelical truth, must needs defend calumny; and, by the intervention of the Jesuits, many of these false witnesses succeeded in escaping the punishment to which they had become liable.
The Vaudois made no complaints; they were too happy to have their brethren restored to them. The prisoners of Villefranche were set at liberty. Those of Campillon and Bubiano, of Fenil and Briquéras, were not long of returning to the bosom of their families. The attempts directed against them had resulted in mischief to their enemies. The feet of the plotters of evil were taken in the snares which they themselves had hid. The eternal wisdom of Heaven never fails to be justified in these things by the perpetual folly of men.
In consequence of this restoration to legal rights, the Christians of Bubiano, Campillon, and Fenil--where the reformed, Gilles says, were more numerous than the Catholics[11]--obtained the privilege of continuing, secondo il solito (according to use and wont), the free exercise of their family worship, as well as the power of repairing to the valleys for public worship, and even of sending for the Vaudois pastors in case of sickness or death. Their right to have a Protestant schoolmaster was also recognized.
This was nothing more than what was allowed by the edicts of the 10th of January and 5th of July, 1561; but it was a great victory to have maintained them. The Catholic clergy were not long of disputing their enjoyment of the fruits of it, and, under the most futile pretexts, raised prosecutions against the Vaudois, which always concluded with the alternative of apostasy or a ransom, "insomuch," says the author above quoted, "that there was no fault so petty but it was very difficult to settle for it without this condition, nor crime so enormous that it was not readily to be pardoned to those who would abjure their religion."
The monks, in particular, ceased not to complain of the pretended vexations which they endured from the Vaudois. At La Tour, for example, where an ancient Protestant cemetery was just beside the walls of their convent, and the use of the cemetery had upon that account been interdicted[12] to those of our religion, it so happened that the inmates of the cloisters exposed some of the bones in digging the foundation for a wall. A Vaudois woman gathered up the bones and buried them. Forthwith the monks wrote to Turin that the Vaudois impeded them in their labours, carried away their materials, were guilty of thefts from them, &c. And in this manner, upon false reports, severe prosecutions sometimes lodged tile innocent in prison.
La Fontaine was not yet born: but it seems that the fable of the wolf and the lamb was already known; for the learned and simple historian who relates these facts, boldly compares these monks to the wolves, "incessantly crying," says he, "that the lambs were troubling the water."
But the monks were kept in countenance by others; and sometimes the secular authorities, and sometimes the seigneurs, played the part of the wolves. We have seen proof of this in the ambuscades of William of Lucerna, and the ransoms of those who were condemned. In 1629, for example, a Protestant of Campillon, named Perron, was assailed in his own house by a band of constables, whom his four sons and he valiantly repelled for half-a-day. One of his sons was killed, and another dangerously wounded. But particulars of this kind are so numerous, that they cannot all be mentioned.
Under the reign of Victor Amadeus I, orders were given to the authorities of Lucerna, Bubiano, Briquéras, Campillon, and Fenil, and often reiterated, to proceed with the extirpation of the heretics who could not be got to relinquish their heresy. These orders were dated on the 9th and 11th of November, 1634, the 6th and 27th of May, 1635, the 10th of April, 1636, and the 3d of November, 1637. But whether the sentiments of the sovereign were milder than his words, or whether the indulgence of the judges mitigated the severity of his decrees, the Vaudois continued to exist in these towns, where they had existed so long.
An edict of 28th January, 1641, definitively pronounced their goods confiscated everywhere without the limits of the valleys. On the 17th of February, 1644, they were forbidden to come without the territory of these valleys, except for the purpose of trafficking at the fairs; but it appears, nevertheless, that there were always some shoots of the old evangelical churches remaining at Lucerna, Bubiano, Campillon, Fenil, and Briquéras; for the prohibition against the Vaudois residing in these towns was frequently renewed at later dates. It is repeated in the edicts, amongst others, of the 31st of May and of the 15th of September, 1661, of the 31st of January, 1725, and of the 20th of June, 1730.
It was reserved for our days to see these unjust and puerile barriers at last disappear, which had been raised betwixt one set of people and another, in order to circumscribe thought. The doctrines of the gospel, like the enlightenment of civilization, will not be confined within manorial boundaries. What have the marches of a territory to do with the limits of error and of truth? May these fair regions soon recover, in their liberty, the gifts which once they exhibited so admirably in the days of their bondage!
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