The Israel of the Alps

(A.D. 1535 TO A.D. 1635.)

As from each sheaf of a great harvest a grain used to be taken to make up the heap which was intended for the altar, so from each epoch we select a memorial, from each persecution a precious gem of courage and piety, destined to a place in the group of Vaudois martyrs, the offering of their churches on the altars of the true God.

That there may be no blank in this sketch, which is intended to refer to all the events of the history in connection with all the martyrdoms, let us first direct our thoughts to the circumstances which occasioned them.

At the period of the Reformation, the Christians of Provence and of the valleys made common cause with the Reformers. The attention of the Church of Rome was fatally drawn to them in the first instance in Provence, at the gates of Avignon. This Rome of the West could not be expected to do otherwise than contend against the religious awakening which menaced its predominance. The inquisitor, John de Roma, raised the first piles upon the slopes of Léberon. The proceedings against these victims led to the discovery, amongst the heretics of Provence, of many persons from the valleys of Piedmont. The court of Aix wrote concerning this to the senate of Turin, and the senate named a commissioner (Pantaléon Bersour) to go to the places mentioned and take information.

Bersour returned from Provence with numerous particulars of precise information concerning the principal families of the Vaudois of Piedmont, and concerning the high antiquity and the extent of the ministry of the Barbas, which they carried on in silence, that it might bear the more fruit, and of which the distant ramifications were not suspected, even in the very places where they existed.

Like those marine plants which make their appearance on the surface of the waters only by a few green and almost unnoticed summits, but which pass through all the depths of the ocean to fix their roots in the primitive soil, the Vaudois, maintaining always their relation to the primitive church, had passed through centuries, and surmounted the increasing tide of superstition. Possessing no worldly eminence or personal distinction, they were not inapt to be confounded, by an indifferent observer, with the immense mass which surrounded them, and to this lowliness they owed their greatness. Their extension was carried on more successfully in the shade than it could have been in the blaze of day; they avoided the storm which might have broken on their heads; but so soon as attention and inquiry were directed to them, a discovery was made of the whole extent which their association, seemingly of so little importance, had secretly attained.

Bersour, furnished with the informations which he had received in Provence, repaired to the valleys, and continued the inquisitorial proceedings commenced by the court of Aix. Many witnesses were then brought to give evidence concerning this evangelical religion. One of them, Bernardin Féa of St. Segont, being interrogated by the judge who presided in the investigation concerning the intercourse which he had had with the heretics, replied in this manners:--

"Being at Briquéras in 1529, I met Louis Turin of St. John, who took me into his house on business: Our business being ended, another inhabitant of St. John, named Catalan Girardet, came to see us, and invited us to accompany him as far as La Tour, where he said we would hear things that were good; Louis Turin himself pressed me to accept the invitation, and we set out. When we had arrived at La Tour, Catalan conducted us behind the house of Chabert Ughet." (This was probably a descendant of the person who, in 1310, purchased from one of the last dauphins of the Viennois a house in Val Louise, that it might be used for the religious meetings of the Vaudois.) "We entered into a great apartment, where many persons were assembled. There a Barba, named Philip, preached, and after his duties were over, he asked me some questions, and instructed me in certain points of their religion."

"What did he say to you?"

"That there is no salvation but in Jesus Christ, and that we ought to do good works, not in order to be saved, but because we are saved."

However, as this witness had not ceased to attend mass, he was not disturbed, but a prosecution was commenced against Catalan Girardet, who had drawn him to that meeting.

Compelled to quit the valleys, Catalan was arrested at Revel, about the end of the year 1535, in course of which the evidence of Bernardin Féa had been given against him. He did not for an instant attempt to disguise his opinions; and being strongly urged to abjure them, he replied to the monks who came into his dungeon to tempt him to apostasy, "You will sooner persuade these walls to go on pilgrimage, than a Christian to deny the truth."

The fear of death had no greater effect in shaking his constancy. He was condemned to be burned alive. On the way to the stake, the monks who attended him still tried to persuade him to abjure. "Why should you be obstinate in your heresy?" said they; "your rude and barbarous sect will soon be, like your own flesh, consumed in a moment." Taking up two stones from the road, and rubbing them one against another, Catalan Girardet exclaimed in reply, "It would be easier for me to rub these stones to powder, than for you to destroy our churches!"

This assurance of the martyr was not mistaken. He died firm and serene, his countenance radiant, even as seen through the flames which devoured him, with the blessed certainty of that salvation which he had received, and of that eternal happiness which he was going to receive.

But is death endured for a profession of religion the only martyrdom? And has the Christian, visited with it for Christian works, no right to be also held in pious remembrance? A short time after the Count of La Trinity had laid waste the Vaudois valleys by fire and sword,[2] the pastor of Pral, named Martin, received a visit from two men who had been in the service of the seigneurs of Le Perrier, the cruel and perfidious Truchets, those relentless enemies of the Vaudois, who had already dragged to martyrdom Bartholomew Hector, the seller of Bibles. The pastor of Pral was a native of France; the two strangers called themselves Frenchmen; Martin received them as fellow-countrymen. They then expressed a desire to enter the Reformed Church, and the good pastor continued to entertain them as his guests, whilst he sought to instruct them in the way of salvation.

His parishioners, however, warned him to be upon his guard; for there is in the common people an instinctive sagacity, which sometimes gives a presentiment of danger with an accuracy of judgment, independent of evidence; moreover, as these intruders had recently carried arms against the Vaudois, it was natural enough that they should regard them with distrust. Nevertheless, the simple good pastor believed in the sincerity of their conversion, and appealed on their behalf to the charity of his flock against the insinuations which were made respecting them. His benevolent representations did not re-assure the people of Pral, who saw, with so much the more displeasure, these ill-reputed strangers dwelling under the roof of their pastor, that the latter had no family and lived by himself; but the worthy man, considering them almost as his adopted children, continued to treat them with the most generous hospitality.

One morning, however, he did not appear at church at the ordinary hour of public worship. The people gathered anxiously around his dwelling. The door was bolted; they knocked; no one answered. Some neighbours then mounted upon the roof, and penetrated into the interior by a skylight, and presently their cries of grief announced to those without some bloody catastrophe. In fact, the pastor Martin was lying lifeless, and bathed in his blood. The monsters, whom he had received with kindness, had cut his throat at and taken flight, after having plundered the house of their benefactor. The Vaudois pursued after the culprits, but in vain; no trace of them could be discovered; but sometime after they boldly re-appeared in the valley, being again in the service of the seigneurs of Le Perrier, who thus made themselves their accomplices, and who, perhaps, had been the instigators of this odious assassination. No doubt there was imprudence on the part of the pastor, in the too generous reception which he gave to these cut-throats; but ought not he also to be reckoned a martyr, who died confessing the gospel by the works of a charity carried the length of self-sacrifice, as much as if that self-sacrifice had been made by a profession of religion?

In consequence of the persecutions of which this execrable crime was one of the last fruits, the Elector Palatine sent an embassy to the Duke of Savoy, to intercede with him on behalf of the Vaudois. They were at that time ill-used, in a multitude of ways, by the councillor Barberi, whom Emmanuel Philibert had appointed his commissioner to treat with them. The secretary of the palatine's legation was a Protestant pastor. Barberi, thinking he might do what he pleased, caused him to be arrested by his minions at the very hotel of the ambassador; and without any other cause or pretext than simply that of his religion, he had the audacity to put him in prison. This fact, of itself may give an idea of the fierceness which then characterized the proceedings against the Protestants; and by this we may understand how much the Vaudois must have displayed of prudence, of irreprehensible probity, of patient endurance, and of active virtues, to avoid giving any occasion to their adversaries, whereby these proceedings might appear anything else than barbarous cruelties, and flagrant acts of injustice. This secretary of legation, who himself was very soon released, wrote them an affecting letter on this subject, of which the commencement is as follows:--

"Dear brethren in the work of the Lord! All things work together for good to them that love God, and the violence to which I have been subjected will give occasion of reflection to his highness, who will from this time, I trust, show himself less prejudiced against you. If it should prove, however, that instead of becoming more mild, and moderating the severity at present exercised, the duke becomes more embittered, be assured that it will be a plain token that God is about to interpose. But I trust that God will have pity on his highness, and hear the prayers, cries, and tears of those who groan under the burden of this horrible persecution, to turn the heart of their prince, and to inspire him with compassion for his people. As to the answers which the Chancellor Stropiano has made to our intercession for you, he accuses you of being disturbers of the public peace." (Such is the exact expression; so that it will be seen not to be of recent invention.) "He pretends that the Vaudois conspire against the state, and in support of that accusation, he quotes the case of nine religionaries who recently assembled in a frontier town" (at Bourg in Bresse, for that province was then a part of Savoy), "and whom he has caused to be imprisoned as conspirators."

We shall now examine into some particulars of these pretended conspiracies. A few Christians had met in a private house to meditate together on the word of God; after this exercise they prayed for the triumph of the gospel, when the officers of justice, guided by a pious, that is, a Catholic information, arrived upon the spot, surrounded the place of meeting, and seized all who were present. As the captives protested against this violation of a private abode, and as no cause of complaint could be found against them, they were accused of an imaginary conspiracy. Now, the men could not prove that they had not conspired, and so they were condemned to the galleys, as persons suspected of having conspired. "There is nothing new under the sun," says Solomon, and the same parodies on a court and on justice were repeated in 1793, against other doctrines, and in name of another fanaticism.

The Vaudois of Dauphiny and of Provence also paid, at this time, their tribute of martyrs to maintain the constant testimony of the Christian Church against the constant assaults of Antichrist.

The valley of the Grave, which descends from Le Pelvoux in a direction opposite to that of the Val Louise, had, in former times, been enlightened by some straggling rays of that evangelical light, whose centre of radiance was in the midst of the Vaudois valleys. A mercer of Villar d'Arènes, one of the most secluded villages of this valley, after having conducted his family]y to Geneva, that they might there be educated, and taught to walk in the ways of the Lord, was himself brought back to France by the necessity of attending to his business. Being particularly skilful as a worker of coral, Romeyer repaired to Marseilles in order to buy corals; and on the way he endeavoured to dispose of the goods which he carried with him. Passing by Draguignan, he showed them to a gold-smith of that town, named Lanteaume, who thought them very beautiful, and would have bought them, but the artist and he not being able to agree about the price, they parted without concluding a bargain. The Baron de Lauris was then at Draguignan, the son-in-law of Menier D'Oppède, whose name is written in letters of blood in the history of the Vaudois. Lanteaume, unwilling to allow the treasures which he had seen on the previous evening to pass out of his hands, advised Romeyer to exhibit them to a wealthy seigneur, who would probably purchase them, and named to him the Baron of Lauris. When the covetousness of the baron had been awakened by the sight of so good a prey, Lanteaume went and informed him that Romeyer was a Lutheran. Confiscation of goods followed, of course, upon a sentence of death. The two participators in this meditated spoliation understood one another precisely.

Romeyer was apprehended, at command of Lauris, by the viguier of Draguignan, in April, 1558. After he had undergone several examinations, in which he made a frank confession of his faith, the court of Draguignan met for his trial. An Observantine monk, who preached in that town during Lent, said, "I shall sing a mass to the Holy Spirit, that he may suggest to the judges to condemn that cursed Lutheran to death." But his mass did not produce all the effect which he expected from it; for a young advocate having risen at the bar of the court, pointed out that Romeyer had not been guilty of any offence, that he had neither preached nor taught his doctrine in France, that he was a foreigner, and did nothing in Provence but attend to his trade, and that therefore justice ought to protect him and not to condemn him.

All the bar supported this doctrine. The votes of the court were divided, one half for acquittal, and one half for condemnation. And of what sort of magistrates was this court composed? The following fact will show. One of them, named Barbesi, having heard the firmness spoken of, which Romeyer had shown in his examinations, came to see him in his prison. He was, as Crespin tells us, an illiterate, fat, ill-formed man, with a flat large nose, a hideous aspect, a sluggish disposition, and addicted to gluttony and lasciviousness. On his entrance, he coarsely addressed the prisoner: "What place do you belong to? What are you? What do you believe in? "I am a native of Dauphiny," was the reply; "I dwell in Geneva; I trade in coral; I believe in God and in Christ my Saviour." "Do the people of Geneva believe in God? Do they pray to him? Do they serve him?" said the judge. "Better than you!" was the quick reply of the poor captive, whose feelings were wounded by such suspicions and language. Accordingly Judge Barbesi voted for his condemnation; but in consequence of the equal division of votes, the condemnation could not be pronounced.

The Observantine monk, who made this, so to speak, his personal affair, and who already saw the credit of his prayers and his masses singularly compromised in public opinion by the uncertainty of the court, caused the bells to be violently rung, got the populace to run together, and exclaimed that good Catholics ought not to suffer an infamous heretic, a Lutheran, a man already damned, to come and defile with impunity by his presence the devout town of Draguignan. He then went with his passionate advices to the official and the consuls of the town, representing to them that it concerned their honour to maintain intact the excellent reputation of their beloved city; and all together, supported by the ragged populace and a raging rabble of priests, proceeded to the doors of the magistrates, exclaiming that if they did not condemn the heretic to be burned, they would themselves be denounced to the parliament, the king, the pope, and all the powers of the world and of hell, in order that they might be punished.

This is what Popery calls religious fervour. This worthy monk had perhaps a little too much zeal! it might be hesitatingly admitted by the hypocrites of our days, whom Rome still makes much of as her most faithful adherents, but who give small evidence of Christianity.

The king's lieutenant, who at that period represented the government, reminded them of the respect due to judicial forms, which must not be violated, even in the case of this heretic. "Let him be put to death! Let him be put to death!" replied the people. "To the fire with him! To the fire with him! Let him be burned!" exclaimed the clergy. The magistrate above-named, not being able to appease the tumult, promised to go to Aix to refer the matter to the parliament, analogous to the Cour Royale of the present time. The populace would have dispersed, but the monk prevented them; and the consuls of the city sanctioned this sort of municipal comitise with their presence. It was resolved that four persons should go to Aix at the expense of the commune, to accompany the Procureur du Roi, and urge the condemnation of Romeyer. These four deputies were the first consul, by name Cavalien, Judge Barbesi, the advocate-general, and a registrar. But on the way they met one of the presidents of the court of Aix, named Ambrois, who said to them--"You surely need not make so much ceremony about the burning of a heretic." The deputation made haste to return, that they might hurry on the sentence of death, and the king's lieutenant pursued his way alone. Having arrived at Aix, he laid the whole matter before the court, which called up the case before itself and interdicted the court of Draguignan from pronouncing sentence.

But fanaticism does not so readily let go its hold. Barbesi set out again for Aix, and obtained a decree that sentence should be pronounced in the court of first resort. This was, in fact, to obtain the condemnation, or rather the judicial assassination and legal tortures of poor Romeyer. He was accordingly condemned to undergo, first the rack, then the wheel, then to be burned alive, and that by a slow fire.--O justice! O charity! But did Popery ever know you?

Romeyer might still have escaped the infliction of this atrocious sentence at the expense of an abjuration; but the monk who was sent to make this proposal to him declared, as he came out from the prison, that he found him pertinax, and that he was a man already damned. The language of these men was as barbarous as their manners, as cruel as their doctrines.

The priests were immediately requested to announce, in all the surrounding parishes, that on the 16th of the month of May would take place, in public, the execution of a frightful Lutheran; and in the town of Draguignan proclamation was made, by sound of trumpet, that every good Catholic should bring wood for the pile.

The king's lieutenant, who had endeavoured to save Romeyer from this unjust execution, withdrew from the town, that he might not be a witness of it. But his substitute, accompanied by a number of judges, both civil and ecclesiastical, as well as by the consuls of the town, repaired in the morning to the prison of the condemned man, in order to apply the torture. They displayed before him the rack, the cords, the wedges, the bars of iron, and, in one word, all the instruments of torture invented by the successors of the martyred apostle. They said, "Denounce your accomplices and abjure your errors, instead of exposing yourself to these torments." "I have no accomplices," replied Romeyer; "I have nothing to abjure, for I profess nothing but the law of Christ. You now call it perverse and erroneous; but at the day of judgment God will proclaim it just and holy, to the confusion of its transgressors.

"Whereupon," says Crespin, "being placed upon the gehenna and fearfully pulled by the cords, he cried without ceasing to God, that he would have pity upon him for the love of Jesus." "Implore the Virgin now!" said these idolaters. "We have only one Mediator," he replied. "O Jesus! O my God!--grace! grace!" and he fainted. "For upon his refusal the torture had been recommenced," says the chronicler, "and that in so violent a manner, that he was left for dead." Then the monks and the priests unloosed him from the wheel, fearing lest he should expire without being burned. The bones of his arms and legs were broken, and the points of the displaced parts of bone stuck out through the flesh. They gave him some cordials to recall him to life. He was then removed to the place of execution, and fastened by an iron chain to the stake, which rose from the centre of the pile. Even now a monk addressed him, saying, "Call upon the Virgin and the saints!" The poor mercer of Villar d'Arènes made a sign with his head in the negative. Thereupon the executioners set fire to the pile. As it was composed, in great part, of branches and bushes, the flame at first rose with rapidity, then the half-burned fuel sank together, so that the martyr remained suspended to the stake above the devouring fire. His inferior members were shrivelled, his entrails running out, and his poor body already half burned below, when his lips were still seen to move, without any sound proceeding from them, but attesting the martyr's last invocation of the Divine Being--his last appeal to that Christ who died for him.

And doubtless that appeal was heard. And doubtless that vengeful prophecy shall be fulfilled, which for eighteen centuries has been suspended over the head of the Apocalyptic monster, whose sins have reached up unto heaven, and whose mouth has drunk, unto intoxication, the blood of saints and of martyrs. Yet we are told that we ought to employ, with regard to the papacy, that reserve in expression which is proper enough in the case of a wicked man for whose conversion we may hope, but not as to the inveterate wickedness of ages! The tree is to be judged by its fruits; and if the old trunk, which has served as a gibbet for so many victims, bears fruits less fatal in our day, it is because of its decrepitude: but restore its strength or trace it to the source of its bloody sap, and you will find it the same as ever. Let it be known, and it must be condemned!

There were also three unfortunate persons who, in 1563, were left to die of hunger at Gabridres, in a deep pit; and forty persons put to death by the sword, the rope, or the fire in the valley of Apt; forty-six at Lourmarin, seventeen at Merindol, and twenty-two in the valley of Aigues. All these crimes were perpetrated fifteen years after the fearful massacres of which notice has been already taken.

But, to give an example of the arrogant opposition which the Inquisition sometimes made to the will of the sovereign, and even to the edicts which he had signed, disputing with him for its victims. After the articles agreed upon at Cavour in 1561, between Emmanuel Philibert and the Vaudois, they ought not to have been proceeded against in any way, for anything that had taken place during the war of 1560. However, a man belonging to St. John, Gaspar Orsel by name, had been made prisoner at that time, and to save his life he promised to become a Catholic; but after the peace had been concluded, he returned to the sincere profession of his faith and religion. The inquisitors caused him to be watched by spies, and in 1570 he was seized, tied with cords, and conveyed to the prisons of the Holy Office at Turin. Against this the Vaudois reclaimed, on the ground of the amnesty which had been granted. The duke ordained the inquisitors to release their prisoner, but they refused to obey. The Edict of Cavour was laid before them, which this detention contravened. "Our order is not subject to the secular power," replied the worthy Dominicans. They were very willing to take advantage of that power, but not to bow to it. Upon this, Philibert, irritated, informed them in reply, that all the frocked legions upon earth would not make him break his word, and that they must forthwith captive free, if they did not wish cannon to be sent to bury them under the ruins of their den.

On this unexpected language, the Holy Office found it necessary to yield. Orsel was set free, and the Duke of Savoy wrote to the Vaudois on the 20th of November, 1570, through the governor of the province, to re-assure them that they need no longer entertain any fear regarding further proceedings based upon similar promises of abjuration. The firmness which he showed in this instance in compelling respect for the edict which he had issued, is honourable to the character of the prince; but that edict itself had been obtained by the firmness which the Vaudois displayed in legitimate self-defence. The obstinacy of the Holy Office alone cannot be praised, for it was obstinacy in evil.

Although it thus appears that the attempts of the papal party were not always successful, but that those escaped against whom they were directed, I think it right to quote some other examples of their evil-doings, to give an idea of the dangers with which the Vaudois were perpetually surrounded.

The reader will remember that when they were menaced in one valley by the princes and seigneurs who ruled in it, they often retired to another beyond the bounds of their authority, or more powerful to resist them.

The pastor of Praviglelm, himself a native of Bobi, had already found such a refuge in the valley of Lucerna in 1592. It was at the time when the Duke of Savoy had just seized upon the marquisate of Saluces, and found his possession of it disputed by France. Sometime after, beginning to think that he might be able to keep hold of his conquest, he began also to manifest a disposition to repress the reformed. The people of Praviglelm now received information that a project was on foot for seizing their pastor. They resolved to save him, and assembled for the purpose of opening a path for him through the snows towards St. Frour. But they were surprised by a company of soldiers belonging to the garrison of Revel, which seized the minister, and bore him off a prisoner. This took place during the night of the 27th of February, 1597.

The Vaudois immediately made the utmost exertions to have him restored to liberty. The governor of Revel gave them to understand that they might attain their object by the offer of a considerable ransom. The sum was speedily procured, for misfortune had given the Vaudois a spirit of devotedness; and the incessant perils which menaced them all, had created amongst them a feeling of unity and mutual sympathy, which realized that saying of St. Paul, "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it."

But the Inquisition had no desire to hear of ransom and enlargement; it preferred blood to money; and the garrison of Revel having been obliged to remove to a distance for some military operations, the report went that the inquisitors were coming to carry off the prisoner. His name was Anthony Bonjour. His brother-in-law obtained leave to pay him a visit under pretext of shaving him. Whilst performing this operation, he contrived to whisper into his ear with what danger he was menaced, and to slip a parcel of ropes under the apron which he had put upon him, saying in a low voice, "Put this in your pocket, and as soon as I am out of the way, lose no time, but let yourself down over the walls, at the rocks behind the castle, into the wood." And when he had taken leave, and before the minister had apparently recovered from his perplexity, he turned back, and said, "Save yourself Master Anthony, save yourself; flee quickly, or you are lost!" The minister thereupon ventured to attempt his escape in this way, and reached without accident the base of the rocks upon which the castle was built. Meeting no one, he set out in the direction of the mountain; but he had not gone far when he met face to face a male and a female servant of the governor, who were returning to the castle. "Ah! you are making your escape," said they to the minister. "In God's name, let me flee," said he, "for they want to take my life." The persons to whom he spoke were of the common people; the sentiments of humanity had access to their simple souls; and so these servants held their peace, and the fugitive succeeded in reaching the steep and wooded slopes which overhang the town.

Scarcely had he fled, when there were heard in the castle and neighbourhood much noise of arms and of horses, military cries, barking of dogs, and, in short, all the agitation which ensues upon the discovery of an important escape.

As for the poor pastor, after having waited till evening in the impenetrable thickets in which he had hid himself, seeing the tumult succeeded by a calm, he bent his steps for Praviglelm, and arrived there in the middle of the night His family were at prayer, his friends in distress, his congregation in dejection; but on the unexpected news of his deliverance (for he had been more than six months a prisoner), on the arrival of the father of the family, there were, says a contemporary, "around the good pastor restored to his flock, tears and rejoicings more than can be described."

In connection with this occurrence a strange coincidence must be noticed. It was to the absence of the governor and garrison of Revel that Bonjour owed his success in making his escape. The troops of that place had been sent against the Vaudois of the valley of Pragela; but the Vaudois were victorious, and made the governor of the castle of Revel himself a prisoner. "Ah, Sir!" said the leader of the Vaudois, "it is you who keep the minister of Praviglelm a prisoner." "I received orders to do so," he replied, "but that prisoner has always been well treated in my castle." "We will treat you in the same way here," said the Vaudois; "but you shall remain in our hands, as an hostage, till he be set free."

The men of Praviglelm, however, having assembled in arms, to the number of more than a hundred, conducted Anthony Bonjour to the place of his birth, in the village of Bobi, situated at the bottom of the valley of Lucerna. "He is now in safety," said his former jailer, on learning this news; "you asked me for his liberty; now he has it--grant me mine." Messengers were sent to Bobi to make sure of the fact. The aged pastor acknowledged the humanity which the governor of Revel had shown him, and the Vaudois of Pragela set the governor at liberty. This was being more generous than he had been, for they spared him the perilous chances of an escape, in which, perhaps, he would not have succeeded so well as his former captive.

Thus God in his goodness so ordered it, that this noble personage received the recompense of his humanity, and the humble minister of the valleys would have had, in this unexpected hostage, the means of deliverance secured to him, if his attempt at escape had not been successful Anthony Bonjour continued to perform his pastoral functions in the valley of Lucerna for more than thirty years after this time, and died at Bobi, on the last day of October, 1631, after having escaped the ravages of the pestilence in the preceding year, and exercised the ministry of the gospel for more than half a century.

But the prisoners in general, and especially those of the Inquisition, by no means obtained so favourable an issue of their captivity.

That same year (1597) an attempt was made to carry off the pastor of Pinache, Felix Huguet; his house was plundered, and his papers carried to Pignerol, but he escaped the ravagers. Instead of this prey, which they had missed, the inquisitors caused his father and his brother to be seized, and they were thrown into the prisons of the Holy Office. The latter came out of prison at the end of three years, but after a promise of abjuration, which altered and saddened him, as if he had lost his soul. As for the aged father, nothing could shake his constancy. Threats and tortures assailed him in vain; disease weakened him without overcoming him; the desire of seeing his family again, and of being warmed in his last days by the sun of his native spot, had no greater effect in bending him to submission. He died slowly, put to death by being thus buried alive; and in the depth and darkness of his dungeon, resigned his soul into the hands of Him who is the light and the life, not only for a few days of sorrow here below, but also to all eternity.

Nevertheless, amidst his sufferings, without earthly consolation, in these deep and gloomy subterranean cells, where his groans died away without an echo, he must have spent many hours of great distress. He had also hours of delight. One night, at the time when the universal silence of the sleeping earth rendered more perceptible the distant noises which communicated their vibrations to the sides of their dungeon, the two captives of Pragela (for his son was still with him) heard, through the walls of the prison. Christian hymns and psalms sung by unknown voices in the neighbouring cell.

After some days of labour, the wall was pierced; and the Huguets, father and son, entered into communication with their brethren in captivity. "For these nine years," said one of them, "I have lain buried before my time in this tomb; but I rejoice that God gives me strength to suffer so long for his gospel. The truth is so glorious! Salvation is so precious! My blessedness daily increases, and I confidently hope to continue thus, singing psalms and confessing the truth, to the very end of my life." The name of this martyr is not known.

There were in that prison Vaudois, Piedmontese, and foreigners. One class were destined to die in public, another to have life slowly extinguished in the bowels of the earth. There were dungeons above dungeons; in the deepest the captives were left to die of hunger. There were others in which they were crushed under a stone table, which was moved by chains; sometimes also they were poisoned, or died of sickness. The most privileged died by the hand of the executioner.

The brother of another Vaudois pastor was amongst the number of the prisoners. His name was John Baptist Gros. The inquisitors, oftener than once, offered him his liberty, on condition that his brother Augustine should come and take his place. What a justice is that of Popery! The son of this unfortunate prisoner was also apprehended some years after. He endured a long captivity, with the same courage which his father had displayed. Firmly resisting all solicitations to apostasy, he at last obtained his deliverance; but he wasted away and died sometime after, having contracted his mortal disease in the dungeons, whether it was properly disease or the effect of poison. Another minister of the valleys, named Grandbois, died also, it was never known in what manner.

That same year (still 1597), travellers returning from Turin said in the valleys, "We saw brought out of the dungeons of the Inquisition a venerable old man; tall, emaciated, sickly, but resigned, with white hair and a gray beard, whom they conducted to the square before the castle, to burn him alive. Enfeebled as he was, his look was full of spirit; and his courageous bearing and pious behaviour sufficiently told the cause of his death, for he could not speak; they had put a gag on his mouth; but he retained his firmness to the last. Although we inquired amongst the crowd, we were not able to find out his name, nor whence he was," "Alas!" said a young surgeon of Coni, who heard this, being then at La Tour, where the story was told, "these marks lead me to believe that this martyr was M. Jean, of Marseilles, with whom I became acquainted at Coni, in the following way. One evening I was in the Place de Notre Dame, where the governor of the town then was with some monks, when I saw a man pass by, such as you have just described. The governor interrogated him:--'Whence come you, Sir?' 'From Marseilles, Sir.' 'Whither are you going?' 'To Geneva.' 'What to do?' 'To live according to the law of God.' 'Can you not do that at Marseilles?' 'No, for they want to compel me to join in the mass, and in idolatry.' 'And are we, then, idolaters here at Coni?' 'Yes, Sir.' Thereupon the governor, much enraged, caused him to be imprisoned. I was often employed to convey to him alms and offerings on the part of the members of the church in our own town. He was incessantly singing psalms in his prison. The governor threatened him with the gallows if he continued it. 'As long as I live,' said he, 'I will sing the praises of my God, and as for death, I fear it not.' We were very urgent with the governor to have him restored to liberty. At last we obtained his liberation. He went to Turin, where I have learned that he had some discussions with the monks, and since that time I have heard nothing more of him; but, after your story, I must believe that his soul now reposes in peace in the bosom of his God."

The means employed against the evangelical Christians of the valleys were sometimes much more expeditious. During that same year (1597), Sebastian Gaudin, of Rocheplate, was taken and hanged at St. Segont. At a later date (in 1603), Frache, of Angrogna, who had been one of the Vaudois deputies assembled on the 19th of November, 1602, in the palace of the counts of Lucerna, to confer with these seigneurs concerning the sufferings to which the valleys had been subjected, was allured into a lonely house near Lucerna, and never came out of it. The particulars of his death are not known, but it is probable that he was secretly assassinated. Two men of Le Villar perished in the same manner, in a house apart from all others in La Tour, where the troops of the Baron of La Roche had been placed in garrison. This was in 1611. These men disappeared without anyone knowing what had become of them; but after the departure of the troops, their bodies were discovered under a dunghill. They still bore traces of the torments to which they had been subjected before they were slaughtered.

Mention has already been made, in the history of the Vaudois churches of the former marquisate of Saluces, of two faithful servants of God, who sealed with their blood the living faith of their souls.

Peter Marquisy was one of the elders of the evangelical church of Aceil; he held also a situation as a notary, and, according to the terms of the contemporary narrative from which we derive these particulars, "he acquitted himself very worthily, both in the one office and the other, always employing himself with great zeal in the advancement of the truth."[3] But the zeal on which God looked with approbation was to work him injury among men. Compelled to flee from his native country in order to escape the hands of his persecutors, he retired to Grenoble, where he suffered both from sickness and poverty. "The Reformed church of this place," adds our narrator, "can testify that he lived free of reproach, enduring, with all patience, the trial of his affliction." But he was unwilling that his family should suffer by his absence, and, with a view to put his affairs in order, he returned to Aceil in July, 1619. His intention was not to remain there long; but so soon as the murderous slaves of Popery were apprised of his arrival, they commenced to watch his movements, and by and by he fell into their hands. He was first cast into the prisons of the castle of Dronier; but ere long he was transferred to the dungeons of the Inquisition at Saluces.

A companion in affliction was given to him. With the lawyer was joined the soldier; but although their occupations had been so different, their lives were really the same; they were brethren in the faith, and they were brethren in martyrdom. The name of the new prisoner was Maurice Monge, or Mongie. He, as well as Marquisy, was a native of Aceil. Belonging thus to one place, they had, no doubt, oftener than once, partaken of the same communion, and could support one another in their common misfortune. Having shared together in the delights of Christ's table, they could encourage one another to bear testimony for him by their death. "We have had fellowship in his grace," said these Christians to one another, "let us go on to the fellowship of his sacrifice!"

Maurice Monge, it would appear, was a distinguished soldier; he had won honourable rank by his valour. He came to Saluces to ask pardon for his countryman, on the ground of an edict of toleration, recently obtained from the Duke of Savoy by the solicitations of Lesdiguières. But far from obtaining his request, he himself was deprived of liberty; the Inquisition claimed him as a prey of which it had got hold, and he was compelled to share the chains of him whom he had hoped to deliver.

The charges against Marquisy did not, however, seem to be so serious as to involve his death. He was accused of having failed to show proper respect to a Capuchin; of having read in public a Protestant book; prevented a Protestant woman from becoming a Catholic, and led a Catholic woman to embrace Protestantism. The two latter charges rested on no positive evidence. As for Maurice Monge, he was accused of being a relapsed person; and he frankly avowed that, having been at mass by constraint, he had hastened to return, as soon as he could, to the evangelical worship. "Do you believe," he was asked, "that our Lord Jesus Christ is corporally present in the host?" "O! as for that," said he, "I never believed it." "To the fire! to the fire!" exclaimed the judges. And from that time it was thought that this saying would cost him his life. Nor was the anticipation erroneous.

The two Vaudois were condemned to death, by a sentence pronounced on the 1st of October, 1619. They appealed to Turin. "But," says the narrative already quoted, "they could find no advocate nor procurator who would defend them; every one, indeed, saying that the cause was just and the sentence iniquitous, but no one daring to take up the case, for fear of being ruined." The papal nuncio, the Archbishop of Turin, and other ecclesiastics, actively exerted themselves to obtain a confirmation of the sentence of death, and easily succeeded, where, in fact, there was no opposition. Nothing now remained but to carry it into effect by a double murder.

On a dark autumn morning, before even the sun was up, on Monday, the 21st of October, 1619, the Bishop of Saluces left his palace in his carriage. Does he go to administer consolation in some case of great distress? What a zeal prompts him to go out so early in the morning! Let us follow the episcopal chariot. It stops before a scaffold. At the same moment a troop of soldiers and of monks approach the same spot. They come from the palace of the Inquisition, and bring with them the two captives of Aceil, who perceive that the hour of their death is come, and ask time to pray, but it is refused them, and the executioner immediately seizes upon Marquisy, in order to terminate his life. Some field-labourers, who have risen early for their work, and some of the humbler class of inhabitants of the town, who have got notice of the execution, hasten to the scene of death. Marquisy attempts to address them, but the executioner seizes him by the throat, and the soldiers strike him with their weapons. These words, however, escape from the lips of the martyr: "I see the heavens opened, and the angels wait for me!" "They are devils that wait for thee! damned wretch!" exclaims a monk. The bishop looks on from the window of his coach. The victim is dead, and the bishop still looks on. Another is brought; it is Maurice Monge. "Behold the corpse of your acolyte in heresy, misbeliever that you are!" says the fanatical monk. But Maurice, at that solemn moment, was above the reach of insults; they could not discompose his serenity. He deigned no reply to the unfeeling coarseness of the monk, but turning his eyes upon his friend, he said, with a mild voice, "Courage! we have gained the victory!" And thus he died, without ostentation and without weakness. He had braved death in the service of his prince, and how could he fear it in the service of his God!

Other prosecutions and other executions followed these. But nothing equalled in horrors the massacres of 1655, the terrible scenes of which would, of themselves, furnish a complete martyrology. Let us dwell, in preference, upon those rarer instances, more pleasant to contemplate, in which we find the persecuted obtaining their deliverance.

A skilful physician, Paul Roëri of Lanfranco, had come and settled in La Tour, in order to live there, without restraint, according to the gospel. Originally belonging to the neighbourhood, he was followed to his new residence by the reputation which he had acquired in Piedmont, and the Papists saw, with a jealous eye, the consideration and scientific enlightenment of the valleys thus augmented.

This physician, occupying himself in preparation of the medicines which he used, and in compounding which he almost exclusively employed vegetable substances (which, in these mountains, possess a remarkable energy), was accused, upon account of his crucibles and alembics, of spending his time in the fabrication of base money. One Sabbath, in the month of October, 1620, Roëri, having gone to the place of worship in St. John, was surrounded as he came out after service, by a troop of constables and officers of justice, under the directions of one of the principal seigneurs of the valley. The congregation, irritated at this procedure, surrounded the officers of justice in their turn, and might have made an end of them, by closing in upon them in anger, as easily as a sportsman chokes a bird in his hand; but the gentleman sbire, perceiving the danger, went into the church, and protested with an oath that religion had nothing to do with the cause of this arrest, and that if the innocence of Roëri were established, he would immediately be set at liberty. "No! no! cried some of the Vaudois, "he is not guilty, we will answer for him." "If he is not, I swear by my honour," replied the gentleman, "that I will bring him back among you safe and sound."

After some further protestations, he was allowed to go away with his prisoner. The latter wrote from his dungeon, a few days after: "Dear brethren of the Val Lucerna, remember me in your prayers. The Lord grants me the means of writing to you, though I am bound to the strictest secrecy regarding it; I bless him for it, and acknowledge that this affliction is a rod in his hand, for the just correction of my faults. However, dear brethren, as to the crime of which I am accused, I swear before God that I am innocent of it. Were my soul naked before you, as it is before him, you would not see in it one thought which had the least connection with anything of the sort. Be so good, then, as to bestir yourselves without fear, to get me out of this place, with the help of God; whose will, however, and not mine, must be done."

A deputation was sent to the seigneur who kept him prisoner, to obtain his deliverance; but he refused to release him before his case had been tried. Roëri was then transferred to the prisons of the senate of Turin. A great number of letters were exchanged betwixt him and his brethren in the faith. The accusation fell to the ground of itself; but fanaticism stood firm. The prisoner was told that he would be delivered over to the Inquisition if he did not abjure without loss of time. The question was then no longer one relative to the fabrication of base coin.

The gentleman who committed him to prison had given his promise as a guarantee for his enlargement; but of what worth are the promises of oppressors? The curiosity of worldly people was of more advantage to the poor captive. His skill in distilling had been spoken about; the proceedings with regard to him had attracted much attention to his laboratory; the seigneurs of the court represented to Charles Emmanuel that science was interested in the preservation of such a practitioner, and that his highness himself might find a pleasure in seeing his experiments. And, in fact, the duke caused Roëri to be brought to his palace, placed a laboratory at his disposal, was present at the preparation of some medicines and essences, tried them, approved them, retained the skilful preparer of them in his service, and finally authorized him to return to the valleys. But he made him revisit Turin from time to time, to resume his operations in the laboratory of the palace, and renew the pharmaceutical stores of the royal household. "Roëri," says Gilles, "was carried off by the plague of 1630, after having rendered great assistance to those who were sick of the plague in St. Germain and the Val Pérouse, whither he had retired, as well as to all those of the neighbourhood."

Whilst the French possessed Piedmont (from 1536 to 1559), we have seen that a great number of towns, as Turin, Chivas, and Carignan, had pastors and places of worship belonging to the reformed religion. The town of Pancalier was also of this number. "Its inhabitants," says an old author, "used mostly to belong to the religion, and had the public exercise of it." Amongst the principal families of this city, figured that of Bazana or Bazan, of which we have now to speak, and that of Rives, which was allied to it. When liberty of conscience was extinguished in Piedmont, these noble families retired into the valley of Lucerna, where the evangelical worship was still permitted. But whilst his family still dwelt in Pancalier, Sebastian Bazan had already spent some years at La Tour, there to receive religious instruction; and at that time had formed a very intimate friendship with a young man of that country, Gilles, who was the companion of his studies, and who became afterwards the narrator of his martyrdom. In consequence, no doubt, of the recollection of this former friendship, and of the wants of the religious life, of which his sojourn in the valleys had made him sensible, Sebastian Bazan afterwards formed the desire, and adopted the resolution, of transferring his abode thither. After the death of his father, he and his two brothers and their families, accompanied by their aged mother, came and fixed their residence at La Tour. "He was," says Gilles, "a very zealous defender of the Protestant religion, a man of sincerity, and an enemy of all vice, so that the enemies of virtue and of truth could not easily endure him; but for the rest, he was a man held in great and universal esteem, and of good reputation."

He went to Carmagnole on the 26th of April, 1622, and the Papists sought to seize him. He was known for his courage as well as for his probity, and his adversaries therefore took precautions against the resistance which they thought he might attempt, and in which his valour might have made him successful, and surrounded him on all sides, leaving him no means of defence. He remained a prisoner for four months in the dungeons of that town, after which he was conveyed, on the 22d of August, 1622, to those of the senate of Turin.

The courageous captive did not want intercessors for his liberation, and Christian friends to console him. But the latter alone were successful. "What favours God has granted me in your letters and your prayers!" he wrote to Gilles on the 14th of July; "for every good thing comes to us from God, even the blessing of friendship, and it is he who endows his own with strength and hopefulness in their trials, such as our adversaries cannot credit, who accordingly seek to make us yield by long imprisonments, and by perpetually urging us to abjure; but I am assured that the Lord will never forsake me, and will sustain me to the end." In fact, as the Bible tells us, it is not a vain thing to trust in him; and Sebastian Bazan proved for himself the truth of the declaration. "My case," he continues, "has been remitted into the hands of his highness, from which I presume that if any great man who was in favour with him could be employed in it, my deliverance could easily be obtained." It was, indeed, already in itself a boon to be removed out of the hands of the inferior magistracy, always goaded on by the clergy; above all, it was a great matter to escape from those of the Inquisition. "Be so good," continues Bazan, "as to visit my family, and exhort my wife to remain constant in the fear of God. She has need to be affectionately admonished, and gently remonstrated with, which you know better how to do than I to write about it." Finally, commending himself to the prayers of his friend, he concludes with this most touching prayer, expressing the sentiments of a Christian in the language of a soldier: "May God work with his own hand to bring us to perfection, that, resting on his holy promises, we may triumph gloriously with our captain, Jesus Christ, in his glorious heavenly kingdom! From the prisons of Turin, this 14th of July, 1622."

His hopes, certainly, were not disappointed as to the life to come; but as to his terrestrial deliverance, they were. Instead of his case being remitted to the humanity of the sovereign, he passed from the prisons of the senate to those of the Inquisition.

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'intrate! says Dante, speaking of the gates of hell. Yes! princes have been harsh, cruel, pitiless; but with them there was at least room for hope; in the horrors of Popery heaven and earth disappear, and nothing remains but hell! Yet never was reception more signalized by a slimy affectation of kindness and tenderness, than that which Bazan met at the Holy Office. Mild and flattering words, expressions of interest and even of affection, fervent and pious solicitations were in the first instance employed to get him to abjure. But the adopted son of the Vaudois valleys knew well enough that the most sanguinary monsters can give to their voices the gentlest tones, as the savage lynx attracts the sheep by imitating the bleating of lambs; and the calmness with which he remained steadfast in his convictions, in place of augmenting the esteem of his adversaries for him, had only the effect of drawing out their wrath. The most terrible threatenings succeeded the tenderest appeals. After threatenings came tortures; the lynx showed his teeth. But the victim did not yield; and the monster that held him captive did not grow weary of sporting with his torments.

Then, indeed, was the time to make intercession for the infortunate prisoner; but the Inquisition, when it has got the scent of blood, does not let its victims escape. Yet powerful intercessions in favour of poor Bazan continued to be made in great number. Lesdiguières himself wrote to the Duke of Savoy. "I have been accustomed," he said, "to address my supplications to your highness, certain beforehand of not being refused." Alas! Catholic although he had become, he was still unacquainted with Popery. "I request of your highness the life and liberty of one called Sebastian Bazan, detained in the prisons of your city of Turin. He is a man with whom no fault can be found, except as to his religious opinions; and if those who profess the same religion with him ought to be punished with death, then great Christian princes, and even your highness yourself, will have difficulty in re-peopling your dominions. The King of France has granted peace throughout all his kingdom to those of that religion, and I boldly counsel your highness, as your very humble servant, to take the same way. It is the surest means of firmly establishing tranquillity in your dominions."[4]

Lesdiguières did not confine himself to this single letter; he wrote also two others, still with the same object. The Duke of Savoy insisted upon the Inquisition's acceding to these requests of humanity. But the inquisitors replied, with much mildness, humility, and apparent regret, that this case was no longer in their hands, but had been submitted to the decision of Rome. After this, some months more passed. For a year and a half, by a resignation which indicated both strength of conviction and energy of character, Sebastian Bazan protested against the violence which was done in his person to the Christian religion. And this constant firmness of a noble spirit, always serene and resolute, notwithstanding the de pressing effect of the treatment received in the dungeons encircles the head of the martyr with a halo of glory not less pure than that of the courage, more briefly tried, which braves the punishment of death.

But for Sebastian Bazan this glory also was reserved. On the 22d of November, 1623, sentence of death was notified to him. He was condemned to be burned alive. "I am contented to die," he mildly and courageously readied, "since it is the will of God, and will be, I trust, for his glory. But as for men, they have pronounced an unjust sentence, and they will soon have to give an account of it." Was it a mere fortuitous coincidence, or was it in truth an actual judgment of God? I know not; but he who had pronounced this unjust sentence, received the stroke of death that very evening in his own house. He died, therefore, even before the condemned man. Next day, however, (the 23d of November, 1623,) was the day fixed for the execution.

Before leading Sebastian Bazan out of his prison, they put a gag in his mouth, to prevent him from uttering gospel truth at the stake. But whilst the executioner was fastening him to it, the gag fell out, and the martyr proclaimed with a loud voice the cause of his death. "People," said he, "it is not for a crime that I am brought hither to die; it is for having chosen to conform myself to the word of God, and for maintaining his truth in opposition to error." The inquisitors made haste to put an end to this sort of language by causing the pile to be kindled. Then Sebastian Bazan began to sing the hymn of Simeon, in the metrical version of Theodore Beza, that touching hymn of the churches of his native country, which the faithful sing after having refreshed their souls in the communion of their Saviour:--

" Laisse-moi désormais
Seigneur, aller en paix,
Car selon ta promesse,
Tu fais voir à mes yeux
Le salut glorieux
Que j'attendais sans cesse ! "[5]

But his voice was very soon stifled by the flames, and according to eye-witnesses, many persons, even of high rank, wept on seeing him die.

Several other arrests, followed by cruel treatment, took place at this period; amongst others, that of Captain Garnier, of Dronier, who was apprehended for having conversed on religious subjects with one of his relatives. He was tied upon a horse, his hands being bound behind his back, and his feet under the belly of the animal. When those who had him in charge stopped at any hostelry, they left him in this condition before the house, after having attached the chain to the iron bar of some window, or to a ring in the wall. Being conducted in this manner to Turin, he was put in a prison of the castle, which was named the purgatory, and afterwards removed to another, called the hell. But after long time spent in investigation and prosecution of the case, he was released on a bail of 200 crowns of gold, and his promise not again to converse on religious subjects. He then retired to the valley of Lucerna, where he married; but having occasion to make a journey into Dauphiny, and desiring to revisit the place of his birth, he attempted to return by the valley of Dronier, and was assassinated on the Col de Tende, at the age of fifty-five years.

More particulars have been preserved to us of the last moments of Bartholomew Coupin, who was also settled in the valley of Lucerna, but who was born at Asti, about the year 1545. Having married a young woman of Bubiano, he settled at La Tour, where he carried on the trade of a woollen draper, and exercised the office of an elder in the consistory of that church. The affairs of his business, as well as the associations of his youth, having led him in 1601 to Asti, his birthplace, at the time of a fair, held in the month of April, he found himself in the evening at a hostelry, supping with strangers. Conversation having commenced among them, the person next him inquired where he resided. Coupin named La Tour. "I have been in your quarter," replied the questioner, "and lodged with a townsman, whose wife is from Mont-callier." "No doubt it was Monsieur Bastie," said Coupin. "Yes, Sir," said the other; "he is of the religion, I have been told." "And so am I, at your service," said the woollen draper. "Do you not believe that Christ is in the host?" inquired the other. "No," replied Coupin. "What a false religion yours is!" exclaimed a person who till then had been silent. "False, Sir," replied the old man--for Coupin was then some sixty years of age--"it is as true that our religion is true, as it is true that God is God, and that I must die." He did not then think how soon these last words were to be realized! Nobody spoke again to answer him; but next day, the 8th of April, 1601, Bartholemew Coupin was apprehended by order of the bishop of that place. The officers of customs in the town had respected his religious opinions; the prelate had less charity, and caused him to be cast into the prisons of his palace.

Does anyone imagine that St. John or St. Peter ever had prisons in their houses? But, indeed, their pretended successors are not bound in anything to resemble them !

Bartholomew remained two days in irons, far from his family, afflicted, but calling upon his God, in the unwholesome garrets of that palace, in which one of the dignitaries of the Papal Church complacently enjoyed the light of the sun in his gilded halls, and the sensual delights of the earth at his richly-served table. This was still very unlike the lives of the apostles, nor was it of such a mode of existence that Paul spoke to Timothy, as proper for a Christian bishop. But on the part of Popery, nothing in the way of interpretation or unfaithfulness ought to excite any surprise.

On the day after his apprehension, they brought Coupin a book, intended to overthrow the Institutions of Calvin. It had been composed by the previous bishop of Asti, whose name was De Punigarole. "Not knowing how to pass my time," says he in a letter, "I have read the whole of this horrid book, and even from it I have derived some benefit, having learned from it a number of sentences of Calvin, which are quoted in it." Thus the very means which were thought best for shaking his faith, served to confirm him. It was not for want of arguments of every sort, employed to overcome him; for poor Bartholomew was subjected to sixteen examinations of five hours each, before the grand vicar, the advocate fiscal, and a secretary named Annibal. The following are his own words to his family, in a letter which Gilles has preserved: "They asked me, besides what is in the Holy Scripture, about things of heaven, of earth, and of hell, and other things of which I never heard before; and I marvel at the grace which God gave me to enable me to answer, it seems to me, seven times more than I knew. O immortal Cod! thy word is indeed true, which tells thine own that they need not concern themselves about what they should say when they are brought before men for thy sake; because it shall be given them what they shall answer!" We may form some notion of the extent of these examinations, from the circumstance that frequently a quire of paper was not sufficient to hold all the questions and answers of a single sitting.

"On the 16th of April," says the prisoner, "when I was very much indisposed (for his advanced age, his detention, and his feeble health, had made him quite valetudinarian), they came to seek me in my prison, to conduct me to the tribunal I passed through three grand apartments, and in the last I saw six prelates and lords gravely seated in arm-chairs.[6] 'Ah! my God!' thought I, 'this is my death!'" But the bishop saluted him, and, after having named to him the persons present, mildly said to him, "Bartholomew, we have prayed to God for you, that you may acknowledge your errors, and return to the bosom of the church. What say you?" "I say that I am in the true church, and that, by the grace of God, I hope to live and die in it." "If you would renounce that heresy," replied the bishop, "your valley would be all festivity and rejoicing upon your account." "It would rather deplore the news of my apostasy." "Have they no regard, then, for your life?" "Jesus says, 'He who will save his life shall lose it;' and it is eternal life which those who love me desire for me." "Have you nothing, then, which binds you to the earth?" "I have a wife and children; I have also some property; but God has taken away all this from my heart, to put there love for his service, to which, through his holy will, I shall remain faithful until death."

"There were upon the table," adds the martyr, "two Bibles, and a large paper book, on which were written, beforehand, the questions of the examination; and this with so many diabolical inventions, that the most learned man in the world could not have extricated himself from amongst them; and as for me, poor worm that I am, I answered as much as it pleased God; and if in anything I had difficulty as to reasons, I said to them--'I believe what the Holy Scripture teaches, and that is sufficient to prove the truth of my doctrine.'"

On the 29th of April they returned to the charge, to make him abjure. But he said to them--"You lose your time in seeking to overcome me, for I will never esteem myself overcome, knowing that you could not do it if there were a thousand of you against me." They said, "Do you then think yourself so learned?" "No, my lords," he replied, "I am a poor merchant, and very unlettered; but I wish to learn nothing from you in the matter of religion, and, therefore, I pray you to leave me in peace." "O what a peace!" cried the inquisitor who presided at these examinations. "Cursed heretic! obstinate Lutheran" thou wilt go to the abode of all the devils of hell; and thou likest this better than to be reconciled to the holy mother church!" "It is long," replied the prisoner, "since I was reconciled to the holy church, and that is the reason why I am so unwilling to leave it."

In the following month (from the 1st to the 15th of May) he was again frequently examined respecting the worship of images, the invocation of saints, the merit of works, justification, &c. ; but in the end he said to them--"My lords, if an unarmed man were attacked by four or five men well-armed, how could he protect himself? You are here opposed to me--so many learned folks, with books and writings prepared; how am I, a poor ignorant man, and without books, able to defend myself?" "You know too well how to do that, you wretch!" replied the inquisitor; "it would be better for you that your skull were not so well furnished." God, who puts the truth into the mouths of his children, puts wisdom and knowledge also into simple and upright hearts. It is not from the head, but from the hearty that the living convictions come by which men are enabled to brave death.

The bishop endeavoured to shake Coupin's determination by the means so well known to the Church of Rome, and which so often succeed with weak minds--the charm which is in prodigies, the power of the marvelous, and all this aided by cruel threatenings, and a long perspective of the torments from which a miraculous conversion seemed the only way of escape. "See you that building that stands there by itself?" said the bishop's secretary one day to the poor prisoner, whom he had brought down to a terrace. "Yes." "It is a prison." "Well!" "It is thirty-two years since I came to this palace." "What has that to do with yonder prison?" "Listen: one day there fell into our hands a singular heretic; nobody knew what he was. He was neither a Jew, nor a Lutheran, nor a Mahometan; nobody could tell his religious creed." "And, therefore, not being able to convict him of error, as they did not know his opinions, they must have released him!" "No: he was walled up over there, and a little nourishment was passed to him through a hole guarded with iron bars." "What became of him?" "He remained there for five years; many priests and monks came to instruct him and exhort him. All at once he was converted; and ever since that time he has done marvellous things." "As for me," replied Coupin, with the simplicity of a Christian, and the affecting good-nature of an old man, "I have but two or three steps to take in order to arrive at the good place of rest, and, by God's help, I will not turn back."

"However," says he himself, "many priests and preachers came also to console me and to diaconsole me. The sieur John Paul Laro, a person of great rank, having come to see me, began to assail me about change of religion. 'A nephew of Calvin,' said he to me, 'being on a long journey, passed through Rome, where he fell sick. Being without money, he went to the hospital. Next day they wanted to confess him and to bring him the host, but he refused the sacraments. Having questioned him as to whence he came, they knew what he was, and the pope had him brought into his own presence. There he became a convert, and since that time he has done marvellous things.'" It was always the same conclusion. "Other persons also," says Coupin, "came to tell me similar fables."

Meanwhile, his fellow-countrymen, his friends, and his family, made very urgent efforts to obtain his liberty. All the notables of the valley of Lucerna, including even some Catholic seigneurs, who knew Coupin as an honourable and respected man, addressed a petition in his favour to the Duke of Savoy, from whom there was some hope of obtaining his liberation. The edicts in force authorized the Vaudois to profess their religion; the duke seemed disposed to apply them to the prisoner at Asti, but the Romish Church and the Inquisition always prevented it. "They blew to kindle the pile," says an author of that time.

However, they did not cease to employ, in order to overcome the firmness of the martyr, all the solicitations and all the means which could operate upon the heart of man. He had espoused, as his second wife, the daughter of a worthy notary of Bubiano, John Reinier by name, who had been, in 1560, one of three delegates of the valley of Lucerna, appointed to repair for conference, in name of the Vaudois, to the castle of Cavour.[7] Coupin obtained leave to receive a visit from his wife and his eldest son. They supped together: it was on the 15th September, 1601. At the close of the repast, the bishop and the inquisitor arrived. "Well, Coupin, have you come to repentance? You see your wife and child: abjure your errors, and we shall immediately set you at liberty." But they made nothing of it, says Gilles; and his pious wife herself durst not ask him to renounce his religion for the love of this world. She could not but weep as she locked with admiration on this invincible firmness of a soul victorious over life. "My dearest," he said to her, "take heed to give good instruction to our children. Be a mother to them all!" (for he had two by his former marriage; their names were Martha and Samuel. The names of the others were Matthew, David, Bartholomew, and Mary). Then, when he had commended them all to the grace of the Lord, they took their last farewell with many tears. Now, after the lapse of three centuries, it is pleasant to think that they are re-united in heaven.

After their departure, Coupin found himself again alone in a lofty prison, for his cell was situated in the uppermost story of the episcopal palace. The friends whom he had at Asti, seeing the hour of his condemnation to approach, excited by the example of his courage, and vexed at the fruitlessness of all the efforts which they made in his favour, resolved, in despair of his case, to deliver him themselves, and to come and carry him off daring the night.

All their precautions were taken with success. They made their way, without any one suspecting it, to the top of the palace, pierced the roof, descended into the garrets, removed a plank of the ceiling, and reached Coupin's prison. The poor man knew not, on hearing this noise, whether he ought to fear or to rejoice. Putting his trust in God, he remained calm. He waited till the ceiling of his cell was pierced, and a dark lantern made its appearance over the opening, when well-known figures presented themselves in the light of that liberty-bringing lamp, amidst the profound darkness of the night. "Silence!" said they to him, "we are friends. Fasten tins rope around your body." "And why so much ado? If God think proper to deliver me from this place, he will deliver me without any need of my going out like a robber." "But what if it please God to make use of us for your deliverance? You see to how much danger we have exposed ourselves to come here! God protects us: would you disappoint his goodness and our labour?"

The aged captive suffered himself to be persuaded. Liberty had become more precious to him since he had been deprived of it. They drew him out of his chamber, and then from the roof of the palace they let him down to the street. His liberators followed with all haste, but the jailer and domestics had heard the noise; they rose and gave chase; the gates were opened amidst great din; the friends of Coupin became confused, and took to flight; he alone preserving his composure, but too feeble and too aged to follow them, waited tranquilly in the street till the jailer came to seek for him. He was seized, carried back to the bishop's palace, and shut up in a place of confinement still closer than before. His soul alone was free; his soul was happy, and felt no solitude, for Jesus Christ says to his people--"I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

This occurrence, however, had the effect of quickening the procedure against Coupin, and hastening on the termination of his bodily sufferings. The papers in his case having been sent to Rome, he was condemned to be burned alive. But on the day of execution he was brought forth dead from the prison in which he had been detained. Had he died by a natural or by a violent death? This question has not yet been resolved. Be that as it might, his corpse was cast upon the pile; and whilst Rome raised her chant of victory around the execution fire, the church of the apostles and martyrs, the Vaudois Church, and the living gospel, reckoned one triumph more.

Of these poor victims of persecution, it will be seen that a number had, by their birth, no connection with the Vaudois Church; but they belonged to it by their faith, and, in many instances, had fixed their residence in the valleys. Of this number was also Louis Malherbe, born at Busque, near Saluces, in 1558. After having passed through all the vicissitudes attendant upon the numerous persecutions which the Protestants of his native district were compelled to endure--by turns a prisoner and a fugitive--now enjoying his possessions, and now seeing them subjected to confiscation--wandering hither and thither, but always steadfast in the midst of his eventful life--in misery and in poverty, he only became ever the more attached to the doctrines for which he had so much to suffer. And if we love those things most which have cost us the greatest sacrifices, what must be God's love to those believing souls whose salvation has cost the sacrifice of the Saviour!

Louis Malherbe had taken a wife at Verzol; and, after many changes of residence, he settled at last at La Totur, like Roëri, Bazan, and Coupin.

His family had already paid its tribute of martyrdom. When Castrocaro was governor of the valleys, Captain Malherbe, the brother of Louis, paid with his life for the spirit of independence which animated him. This captain had been noticed by the Duke of Savoy for his valour; and being a person of great consideration in the valleys, he conducted himself as one who should rather be the associate of the counts of Lucerna, than of the governor of La Tour. The governor, upon this account, conceived an envious animosity against him; and on the evening of the 1st of November, 1575, he gratified it by an assassination, Malherbe had gone to sup with a relative; Castrocaro placed one of his officers, named Bastian, with a company of the garrison, in ambush on the way by which he must pass. The darkness of the night favoured their designs: the streets of La Tour were silent and solitary. Scarcely had Malherbe made his appearance when these assassins attacked him at unawares: he drew his sword against them, put himself in a posture of defence, repulsed them at first, and although thereafter more closely pressed, continued to fight, successfully defending himself, and always keeping his face towards his assailants, till he arrived at the door of his own house. It was situated opposite to where the present town's-house stands. The assassins fearing lest he might escape, augmented their fury. Malherbe struck redoubled blows, with the hilt of his sword, upon the door, against which he had set his back; at the same time, he repulsed upon all sides the attacks of his adversaries. At the noise of the combat his relatives and friends ran hastily and opened the door, but it was too late. The mortal blow had been given; an instant had sufficed; his wearied arm had left his breast undefended, and he had just fallen, breathing his last. The murderers immediately took flight, and when the door of the house was opened, the corpse of their victim lay alone upon the threshold.

Another brother still, named Hercules Malherbe, was arrested on the 11th of April, 1612, by order of the prefect of Pignerol. But the Vaudois of St. John obtained his release, in virtue of the article of their privileges, according to which no inhabitant of the valleys could be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of his natural judge (in this case the podestat of Lucerna), let the charge be what it might, except for the crime of high treason.

His brother Louis was not so fortunate. Having ventured, notwithstanding advice to the contrary, to go to Busque in the spring of 1626, to receive payment of some money which was due to him, he passed by Verzol, where his wife's family resided. There he had a discussion with a missionary monk, who had been preaching in the church called the church of Les Battus. The monk, who probably had not the advantage in this controversy, assisted by some followers, all ready to use violence in his behalf caused the old man (for Louis Malherbe had then seen nearly seventy years) to enter into the church, close to where he had his assassin band. They watched the gates; and he sent a messenger in all haste to the inquisitor of Saluces, who, without losing an instant, came to Verzol to bear off the prisoner. No sooner were the Vaudois apprised of this outrage, than they addressed a petition to Charles Emmanuel for the liberation of the prisons. They grounded their petition on the edicts which authorized them freely to pass through the dominions of his highness, without any one having a right to arrest them, unless in the very act of crime.

Possibly a request enforced by such strong reasons might have engaged the honour of the sovereign to a just compliance with it, for the very maintenance of his own edicts; but the Inquisition, more prompt to slay than the prince to pardon, anticipated the solution of this question by an unexampled catastrophe.

At the very moment when hope began to be entertained of a present happy termination of the old man's captivity, the monks were seen to bear his corpse out of the prisons of the Holy Office, and to cast it contemptuously into a pit digged in the open field, beyond the walls of the city. The dishonour which marked his burial may be held as an attestation of the firmness which he had displayed, to his last breath, in not abandoning his religion; but the cause of his death was not discovered. We know not whether his body was entire or mutilated; whether he had been deprived of life by torture or by poison; nor, in short, whether his death had been violent or natural.

When, about the dose of the year 1633, the Vaudois of Praviglelm and Paësane were obliged to quit their abodes for the last time, and to retire into the valleys of Lucerna, the monks of the convent of Paësane set fire to the deserted houses, in order to deprive their fugitive inhabitants of all hope of ever returning to them again. Some of them came back to save from the flames their furniture or linen, which they had not been able to carry with them at first; but as they returned to their new refuge, they were arrested by the soldiers of the garrison of Revel. These imprisonments had no object but spoliation; and by abandoning the relics of their property, which they had with peril rescued from the fire, or by paying a heavy ransom, most of them obtained their liberation.

But in this they were not all successful. Daniel Peillon, a man already advanced in years, was apprehended at Barges, and conveyed from Revel to the prisons of the senate of Turin. There he had to contend against the solicitations of the regular clergy, who promised not only to restore him to liberty, but also to reinstate him in full possession of all his property, if he would abjure Protestantism. "God has given me the grace to know his truth," replied he firmly; "I have been happily enabled to persevere in it to my old age, and I am too near death to sacrifice my soul for the sake of living a few days more." In vain did they attempt to make him say anything else. All who knew him, even Catholics themselves, acknowledged his worth; many efforts were made to obtain his liberation, but in vain; he was condemned to the galleys for ten years. One of his judges, a member of the senate, being solicited in his favour by compassionate persons, who represented how cruel it was to condemn an old man to so long a punishment for no other cause than his doctrines, coldly replied "Ten years of the galleys! what is that for a heretic?" He was, therefore, compelled to undergo this punishment. He was transported to the pontoons of Villefranche, near Nice, and his fellow-countrymen of the valley of Lucerna sent every year one of their number to convey to him some relief and consolation. Every year, also, these charitable messengers returned to announce to the Vaudois that the evangelical galley-slave remained constant in his piety, enduring his punishment, but without regret for its cause.

Peillon became weak in body, but his soul did not bend; he grew old in the galleys, but renewed his youth for heaven.

The wars which ensued a few years after interrupted the fraternal communications betwixt the mountaineers and the prisoner. When they sought to resume them, and new messengers came to Villefranche to convey to him the accustomed tribute of the pious sympathies of his distant friends, upon their inquiring after the aged galley-slave of the valley of the Po, they learned that he was dead.

Thus the Vaudois left martyrs everywhere--amongst the mountains and in the prisons, on the piles, and on the seas. Such are the great examples left us by that age of heroism, faith, and suffering.

But how many other victims breathed their last with the same faith, and amidst equal agonies, of whom no account has come down to us! Unnoticed soldiers, they contributed to the triumph without having part in the glory. Obscurity attended them throughout their painful pilgrimage, and received them in the tomb; victims forgotten upon earth, but not in heaven, they seem greater still enwrapped in their own self-denial. And what matters it though our names may be unknown to men, if only they be inscribed in the book of life! Martyrdom has no need of circumstances which attract human attention, in order to enjoy the blessing of heaven. To devote one's self to Christ, without regard to glory or display, is the sacrifice which is most pleasing to him; and it may be made in the ordinary life of every day, as well as at the last moment of a world-noticed death. Yea, the Christian may contend for his faith in prosperity as well as in suffering, and die for his God in the bosom of his family, as well as on a burning pile.

Notes:

1. Authorities.--The same as in Chapter 8.
2. See Part Second, ch. ii, of this History.
3. Brief discours des persec. advenues du Marq. de Saluces, chap. iii.
4. Dated firom Paris, 15th February, 1623.
5. A simple and beantiful versification of the words of the aged Simeon, (Luke 2:29, 30)-- TR.
6. "Sur les chaises," Coupin's letter says.
7. See chapter 16.