(A.D. 1561 to A.D. 1581.)
There had been so long an interruption of the labours of husbandry, and the Vaudois had been subjected to so much of pillage and conflagration, and so many losses of every kind, that great distress began to be felt in their valleys. The confiscated properties had been spoiled to the utmost before being restored, and some of them were very incompletely restored. The monks of Pignerol continued to have a troop of malfactors in their pay, to inflict incessant injury on the inoffensive Protestants of their vicinity. Besides all this, there frequently arrived in the valleys a few unfortunate persons escaped from the massacres of Calabria, naked as those who have suffered shipwreck, issuing from the Apennines, where they had crept along from cavern to cavern, destitute alike of dothing, shelter, food, and the means of procuring it. The impoverished inhabitants of our hospitable Alps, nevertheless, welcomed these brethren and sisters with the warmest sympathy for the misfortunes which they had endured.
Compassion is easily excited in those who are themselves worthy of it. The Vaudois shared with these new-comers the little which remained to them. They were descended from the same ancestors. But the feeble resources of our desolated lands would have been insufficient for necessities so great. Collections were made for them in Switzerland, in Germany, and even in France.
Scarcely had they begun to recover when Castrocaro--the same who had been their prisoner, and whom they had so generously released--expressing, in the presence of the Duchess of Savoy, the best intentions with regard to them, succeeded in getting himself named Governor of the Valleys. His kind disposition towards them was believed, upon account of the gratitude which he owed them. But perfidious both upon the one hand and upon the other, he deceived his benefactress and his benefactors. The Archbishop of Turin had received from him the only promise which he did not fail to keep. He promised to him that he would gradually withdraw from the Vaudois all the liberties which had been conceded to them, and that he would thus labour for the complete destruction of their church.
Instead of seeking to accomplish this object by a sudden stroke, he proceeded by means of successive restrictions, and commenced by demanding, in 1565, a revision of the Treaty of Cavour, concluded in 1561. The Vaudois refused to consent. He then pretended that they had transgressed it. Recourse was had to the duke for the maintenance of its provisions. Castrocaro repaired to Turin, and returned from thence with new articles, which he presented on behalf of the prince for the signature of the Vaudois. But these papers did not bear the signature of the duke, and the leaders of the Vaudois again met him with a refusal.
He thereupon threatened that he would declare against them a war more cruel than the former. Long negotiations were entered upon; commissioners were named upon both sides; some concessions were wrung from those of the valleys, and the Vaudois people disavowed their deputies. Things then began to get embroiled; which was what Castrocaro wished. He got the command of a body of troops assigned to him to maintain order, and established himself with this garrison in the Castle of La Tour. He then ordered the inhabitants of Bobi to send away their pastor [2] and those of St. John no longer to admit the Protestants of the plain to their worship.
The Vaudois, by the intervention of the Duchess of Savoy, obtained at first a cessation of these hostilities. But as a suspension of twenty days had been proposed to them by Castrocaro, that they might appeal to the duke against his decisions, he took advantage of the concluding term of that suspension to give his decisions the legal force requisite for their being carried into execution, although the duke might have disallowed them; and on the 10th of September, 1565, he caused proclamation to be made in the valley of Lucerna, that he would put to the sword any who did not conform to them. What anarchy amongst rulers, what arbitrary magistracies, what ignorance of social rights prevailed in these unhappy times!
Castrocaro, writing to the court, represented the resistance of the Vaudois to his orders as a rebellion on their part against the duke's authority, and he obtained from that prince an intimation to the people that they must obey their governor. They, in their turn, sent deputies to court; namely, Domenic Vignaux, pastor of Le Villar,[3] Gilles, the pastor of La Tour, and three laymen. The good Duchess of Savoy procured for them a safe-conduct, and received them at Turin with much kindness; but she could not make up her mind to the recall of the governor whom she had given them, so completely had he succeeded in persuading her of the uprightness of his intentions. On the contrary, she urged the Vaudois to submit to him all their difficulties. "Dear and well-beloved," said she to them in a letter dated 6th of December, 1565, "we shall always commend the good desire which you show towards the service of God, as also of your prince, and we are far from thinking that you speak feignedly; but we have two things to ask of you--the first of which is, that whilst you reserve to yourselves the things which can only belong to the judgment of your own conscience, you would proceed in respect of them with sound discretion as well as with true zeal, for the one without the other is worth very little; the other is, that you would submit your deliberations to those who, being upon the spot, can judge accurately of what is expedient both for the one party and for the other; and if you allow yourselves to be guided by those who understand public affairs, and desire your repose, you will never find yourselves deceived nor have cause of dissatisfaction."
Worthy lady! it was she who was deceived. Noble minds have difficulty in believing evil, whilst the worthless suspect it even where it does not exist. Margaret of France believed in the good intentions of Castrocaro; and, accordingly, she adds in the letter above quoted, that she hopes that time and experience will permit the Vaudois to do him justice. Time only justified their apprehensions. His animosity was redoubled by the complaints made against him; he put to ransom, imprisoned, or persecuted these poor people upon all sorts of pretexts: accusing some of opposing his schemes, and others of finding fault with them; some of not looking upon him with a good eye, others of not showing him enough of deference. He succeeded in this way in expelling from the valleys the learned Scipio Lentulus, on the pretext that he was of foreign birth.[4] He caused the pastor of La Tour, Gilles Des Gilles, to be arrested, on the pretext that he had been at Grenoble and at Geneva with the view of bringing troops from other countries against his sovereign.
This pastor, however, had saved the lives of Castrocaro and of a multitude of Catholics, by many times arresting that terrible legion of sharp-shooters, whom he accompanied in 1561, like an angel of peace, whose mission was only to put an end to carnage. Castrocaro had been one of the prisoners; the laws of war authorized his death. His life was spared; his liberty was given to him; but these natural causes of gratitude tormented him as a thirst for vengeance. He set a troop of soldiers to watch his liberator; and in the beginning of February, 1566, they seized the pastor and cast him into prison, where "he was not less rigidly and rudely treated," his grandson tells us, "than if he had been some noted robber." AH the other pastors of the valleys offered to be security for their colleague, asking that he might be released until the charges brought against him should be submitted to the Duke of Savoy; but the merciless governor refused to allow any mitigation of the hardships of the captive.
When he was transferred to Turin, the family of the duke felt the greatest regard for him; but the clergy eagerly laboured for his destruction by aggravating, as much as possible, the charges under which he lay. One day the advocate-fiscal, Barbèri said to him, "Your case looks ill; a sentence of death is sure to be pronounced; you cannot escape it but by changing your religion." "Will that change my guilt or my innocence, in respect of the things imputed to me?" said the pastor. "No; but they will cease to be regarded, and you will receive as much favour as you have otherwise to apprehend punishment." "It is not justice, then, that is cared for." "It is your salvation, which is of far more importance. Hold! subscribe you only the things which are contained in this book and your life will be saved." "I would rather save my soul. But, however, let us see this book." "Ah! his highness has required that your case should be proceeded in without delay; you must therefore decide presently." "I cannot sign what I do not know." "Well! I will leave the book with you, and I will come back to hear your answer in three days."
Barèri having returned at the time fixed, the pastor exclaimed, "It is a tissue of errors and blasphemies; I would rather die than sign such a thing." "What! errors! blasphemies! It is you who blaspheme; and you will be burned alive were it only for these words." "If each be God's will, I am in his hands."
But at that time violent persecutions were carried on against the reformed at once of Saluces, Barcelonnette, and Suza; the Elector Palatine had deputed one of his councillors of state to the Duke of Savoy, in order to get them stopped, and this ambassador did not quit Turin till he had succeeded in having Gilles declared innocent and set at liberty.
Castrocaro then caused proclamation to be made in his government, that all Protestants who were not born within it, must remove from it under pain of death and confiscation of all their goods.[5] But by the intervention of the Duchess of Savoy, the rescinding of this barbarous order was obtained.
On the instigation of the Archbishop of Turin, the perfidious governor made an attempt to have the Vaudois interdicted from assembling in synod. In this he did not succeed. Thereupon he demanded to be present at it, on pretext of securing against plots which might there be hatched against the safety of the state. "The people protested," says Gilles, "against this innovation, not for fear of his knowing all that was transacted in these assemblies, but out of regard to the future."
In the year following, the religious wars broke out again in France; and the Duke of Clèves, leading a Spanish army into Flanders, had occasion to pass through Piedmont. His first exploits, it was said, would be the extermination of the Vaudois. Fanatics rejoiced, and Christ's followers were depressed; trouble and disquietude again prevailed in the valleys. A solemn fast was observed there in the end of May, to avert the judgments of God in the dreaded future. Was it, then, because of the unanimous supplications of this whole people, humbled in penitence and prayer, that this storm passed by without doing them any harm? Their faith was assured of it; the fact belongs to history. That vast extermination, the danger of which was thought to be so imminent--these prospects of bloodshed, these menaces and fears of death passed away like a cloud, whose presence is only marked upon the earth by the shadow which it casts. And whilst Europe was in combustion, the Vaudois people enjoyed at this time some years of peace.
Castrocaro employed this interval of respite in building, or rather completing, the fort of Mirabouc. The people of Bobi, in particular, saw with displeasure the erection of this fortress, because of the obstacle which it formed on the road to Le Queyras, the free passage of which was of some consequence to their colayers,[6] for the exchange or sale of their produce in Upper Dauphiny. Castrocaro, upon his part, vowed a particular enmity against the Bubiarels,[7] and in name of the priest of La Tour, he demanded that the place of worship at Bobi, and the grounds attached to the residence of the pastor, should be given up to him. The Vaudois refused; and by a sentence passed upon the 26th of October, 1571, he condemned them to a fine of 100 crowns of gold, payable within twenty-four hours, under penalty of twenty-five crowns of gold of additional fine for every day's delay in the payment of the original sum. All the Vaudois made common cause upon this occasion. They sent deputies to Emmanuel Philibert, and again succeeded in getting a stop put to these proceedings.
But seeing, nevertheless, that those persecuting courses were renewed against them, by which their destruction had formerly been attempted, they renewed upon their part by oath, their covenant and bond of mutual responsibility as Christians, the source of their previous triumphs, and subscribed in addition the following articles:--
"When one of our churches shall be assailed in any of its peculiar interests, all shall jointly reply as with one mouth to maintain their common rights. None of us shall act, in any such matter, without consulting his brethren.
"And we all bind ourselves to one another, under an oath, unswervingly to abide in this ancient union, transmitted to us by our fathers, never to forsake our holy religion, and always to remain faithful to our rightful sovereigns."
In these terms was their covenant made and ratified at Bobi on the 11th of November, 1571.
Nevertheless, the system of annoyance was still kept up, especially against the Protestants of Lower Piedmont, and a very curious particular connected with this fact is, that Charles IX wrote to the Duke of Savoy a very pressing letter in favour of the persecuted. "I have one request to make to you," says he, "which I would make, not in an ordinary way, but with all the earnestness which is possible for me. ... for during the troubles of war, passion no more permits us to judge aright of what is expedient, than disease permits a patient to judge in his own case ... and as you have treated your subjects in an unusual manner upon this account ... for my sake also, let it please you now, in kindness to me, upon my prayer and special recommendation, to receive them to your benign favour, to restore them and reinstate them in their possessions, which have been confiscated. ... This matter is so just in itself and is so earnestly regarded by me, that I assure myself you will readily comply with my wishes."
This letter is dated from Blois on the 28th of September, 1571. Charles IX was then twenty-one years of age. "He had received from nature," say the Benedictines,[8] "an excellent disposition and rare abilities; he was brave, intrepid, possessed of extraordinary penetration, of lively imagination, and of sound judgment; he expressed himself with dignity and readiness. But the seductions with which he was surrounded perverted this happy natural character; the queen-mother herself trained him in the art of deceit and dissimulation; the Marshal De Rez taught him to make light of oaths; and the Guises, by their sanguinary counsels, turned the natural impetuosity of his character into cruelty." Placed in other circumstances, he would, perhaps, have been one of the most accomplished princes, of whom the records of royalty have preserved the memory. It is impossible to tell what crimes bad example and bad instructions have produced. If Charles IX had been brought up under the teaching of the Bible, France would have escaped many calamities. But a year after this letter, came the news of the massacres of St. Bartholomew.[9] The most dreadful consternation succeeded in all the Reformed churches, to the hopes which they had conceived with regard to the future.
Castrocaro took advantage of the occasion to terrify the Vaudois valleys with his threats of extermination. "If 60,000 Huguenots have fallen in France," exclaimed he in a transport, "it is not to be supposed that this handful of heretics can expect to survive." And the Papists, the enthusiastic Papists, Gilles says, in his style of grave impartiality, already exulted in the approaching destruction of the Vaudois. And they, alarmed by that distant echo of so great a massacre, and by the infuriate rage which was displayed in their own immediate vicinity, began to convey their children and households to the most inaccessible places among the mountains; the men got ready their weapons, and waiting till they should be compelled to make use of them, they continued to watch and to pray.
But the cry of horror which resounded throughout the whole of civilized Europe, on that vast assassination, startled the Duke of Savoy himself. At the spectacle of such a conflagration, his heart was moved to indignation, and his wisdom dictated caution. He energetically protested against the cruelties of Charles IX, swore that he would never sully his reputation by such crimes, re-assured the Vaudois as to their prospects, and persuaded them to return peaceably to their homes, where they would have nothing to fear.
Some troubles, however, took place at this time in the valley of Perouse, which belonged to France, and the history of which is too intimately connected with that of Pragela to be detached from it. I shall therefore take notice of the events which then agitated the Val Perouse, in relating the history of Pragela, of which the political destinies have been very distinct from those of the other Vaudois valleys.
One fact, however, deserves to be inserted here, because it belongs to the general movement of the countries with which we are now engaged. In the midst of this almost universal fury against the Protestants, the pastor of St. Germain, Francis Guérin, had the courage to undertake, alone and unaided, to combat Catholicism by arms more terrible and less bloody--those of argument. One day, in 1573, he ascended to Pramol, where Popery reigned in full strength. It was a Sabbath, the people were assembled in the church, the priest celebrated mass. Francis Guérin took his place amongst the hearers, and waited in silence till the services were terminated. No one suspected that in that crowd of obscure persons was a soldier of Christ, who, armed according to the scriptural expressions, with the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,[10] was speedily, with all the power of love and courage, to make that word triumphant over the servile forces of superstition.
The priest of Pramol having concluded his service, the pastor rose and inquired if he had finished.[11] "Yes," replied the priest. "What then is it which you have been doing?" "I have been saying mass." "And what is the mass?" The question was put in Latin. The priest knew not what reply to make. Francis Guérin repeated it in Italian, and said to him, "Be so good as to explain to me what the mass is?" The priest was as silent as before. Then the pastor, inflamed with zeal for his God, and with ardent and devout compassion for so many enslaved souls, ascended the pulpit in the midst of an audience dumb with astonishment, and exclaimed, "Poor people! you see by whom you allow yourselves to be guided! By a man who does not know what he does; he says mass every day, and he does not know what the mass is. He feeds you with a thing which neither you nor he know anything about. Oh come! leave behind you your ignorance, and these vain superstitions! Souls are too precious to be thus trifled with. Behold the Bible," he proceeded, laying one down before him, "listen to the word of God and you shall be saved!"
The people, excited and motionless, ventured not to take any decided course. "Well," added the pastor, "I do not wish to take anybody by surprise; and to give your priest time to prepare his answers, I will return next Sabbath, to prove to him, both by the Bible and by his own missal, that the mass is full of falsehoods; meanwhile, pray to God that he may enlighten you, and incline you to receive the truth without weakness and without prejudice." Hereupon Guérin left the church and re-descended to St. Germain. In course of the week many of the people of Pramol came to him, opened their hearts to him, and asked his advice; and to each he gave a Bible, saying, "There is your best counsellor, consult it often, and you will have no need of other directions."
Next Sabbath he went up again to Pramol. The concourse of people was considerable; curiosity, surprise, and a multitude of different emotions agitated their hearts. The new apostle made his way into the church; the crowd pressed around him; he seemed to be already their pastor. But the priest did not make his appearance; no one presented himself to celebrate or to defend the mass. "Reverend pastor," said a voice, "speak to us again of the word of God." "Yes, I will speak to you," was the reply, "and I will be your pastor, or rather you shall have only one shepherd, who is Christ! you shall be his sheep; but his sheep must know him." And without delay he proceeded to expound to them the great doctrines of salvation. It may easily be imagined that they triumphed amongst these simple and awakened souls, for whom Popery at first did not think it worthwhile to contend with the gospel.
This event passed unobserved amidst the great troubles of the times. The Church of Rome was too much intoxicated with the bloody triumphs of St. Bartholomew, to alarm herself about so petty a triumph of faith. But nothing is insignificant which concerns the infinite and immortality; and the salvation of a soul is of more importance in the sight of God than the conquest of a kingdom.
Francis Guérin was decidedly of this judgment; for five years after, he set to work again to win souls in another district of the country. At the head of the Vaudois regiments he made his way into the marquisate of Saluces, for which Savoy and France then contended; and when the armies had retired, the pastor still remained to consolidate the evangelical churches there. The adventurous life of the knights-errant is regarded as full of heroism; but with what heroic emotions, perhaps still more elevated and still more generous, must not apostles, missionaries, and the ancient Vaudois Barbas have been animated, amidst the dangers which they often encountered!
During the various agitations of this period, and especially after the troubles to which the valley of Perouse was subjected, many of the people of that valley had taken refuge in the valley of Lucerna. Castrocaro, on the 28th of July, 1573, ordained all those who were not born within his government, to leave it within five days, under pain of three applications of the strapado and confiscation of goods. A new appeal to the Duchess of Savoy put an end to these proceedings. But this kind protectress was removed on the 19th of October, 1574, and her husband was not long behind her, for he died on the 30th of August, 1580.
During this interval, Lesdiguières wrote to the Vaudois, to request them to allow to the church of Gap, where he then resided, the ministry of Stephen Noël, pastor of Angrogna, who had already, in 1574, been called by the church of Grenoble. His ministry was therefore granted to one or other of these churches.
In February, 1581, polemical conferences were held in the valleys. The occasion was the following:--A Jesuit missionary, named Vanin, frequently made the Vaudois, and especially their pastors, the theme of his preaching. "Let them show their faces," he would say, "these heretics, these false prophets, these instruments of Satan, these workers of iniquity! But they will not come, for I would confound them." "There is nothing rational in abuse," wrote Francis Truchi, the pastor of St. John, in a letter addressed to him, "but if by word or writing you are willing to hold serious discussion with me, according to the usual manner of theologians, you will not find me to shrink from your attacks."
The day fixed for the first conference was a Sabbath. Vanin, presuming that all the Vaudois ministers would assemble to take part in it, and that he would find their churches abandoned at that time, repaired to Le Villar to address the people, instead of going to St. John to hold a discussion with the pastors. But Domenic Vignaux, minister of Le Villar, did not leave the field free to the Jesuit as he expected. "I am astonished," he said, "to meet with you here, at the very hour which you yourself had named for the conference at St. John; but since you are here you can have no objection that I take the place of my colleague Truchi in this duty, and that we proceed forthwith to public discussion. This was precisely what the Jesuit dreaded. He turned a supplicating look towards the governor's lieutenant who accompanied him, and who comprehended his embarrassment. "I forbid all discussion," said that magistrate.
But poor Vanin was not yet at the end of his vexations, for the pastor of St. John, with whom the discussion had been authorized, having learned that his antagonist had gone to Le Villar, had followed pretty closely after him, and soon arrived to call upon him to enter the lists which he had himself demanded. After many difficulties the conference was opened. It may be conceived which side had the advantage.
But Vanin, to avenge himself for his defeat, caused the son of the pastor of La Tour, Gilles Des Gilles, to be carried off by night. This young man was transported to Turin to the Jesuit convent, and thence he was despatched to the Indies, whence no word of him ever came. The grief of his family may be imagined. It endured as long as they lived, says his grand-nephew.
Soon after this, Castrocaro caused it to be reported that a new army was coming to destroy the Vaudois. The Vaudois withdrew their families to the mountains, and the governor wrote to the duke that they were fortifying themselves in order to resist his authority. A commissioner, sent to the spot, acknowledged at once the innocence of the Vaudois, and the hateful annoyances to which they were subjected by their calumniator. "For the cruel Castrocaro cared for nothing," says Gilles, "but to live in luxury in his castle of La Tour, where he became fat and rich, leaving his garrison to commit all sorts of excesses, and sometimes himself causing them to do so. He kept in his palace a troop of dogs, of which some were of prodigious size. His son Andrew was so debauched a fellow that the women of the neighbourhood, who regarded their own honour, durst not go out without being well attended. His three daughters went indiscriminately to mass or to the preaching of the reformed ministers, caring nothing either for the one religion or for the other, but only to be extravagantly and gaudily dressed, whilst his great object was to plunder all that he could."
The Duke of Savoy, being informed of such conduct, resolved to put an end to these excesses. He summoned Castrocaro to present himself at Turin; but, upon various pretexts, the unworthy governor always refused to obey, giving proof of his unfaithfulness by his resistance. The duke then seeing well enough that if there were rebels at La Tour, it was not among the Vaudois, but rather among those who denounced them, ordered the Count of Lucerna, Emmanuel Philibert, to seize Castrocaro and make him prisoner. This was no easy matter upon account of the fortifications, soldiers, and ferocious dogs by which he was surrounded.
Treachery came to the aid of tactics. Traitors are always deceived. A captain, named Simon, upon a private agreement with the Count of Lucerna, sent away, on the 13th of June, 1582, a part of the soldiers of the garrison. The count had posted his troop within a short distance of the castle. He came on impetuously, and surprised it almost without defence; the porter was killed at the moment when he was going to raise the draw-bridge before the assailants; they seized upon all the entrances. Castrocaro and his son were still in bed, and only the huge dogs which watched them attempted to defend them. The governor's three daughters mounted to the belfry of the castle, and sounded the alarm. The people came with all haste from Angrogna and St. John to the assistance of the castle. But the Count of Lucerna exhibited the ducal order upon which he had acted, and it may be supposed that the Vaudois were not very eager to oppose the arrest of their persecutor. He was conducted to Turin, and died in prison. His son expiated his misconduct in the dungeons of the senate. All their goods were confiscated, with reservation of a small allowance which was secured to the daughters and their mother.
Thus ended the disgraceful and mischievous rule of Castrocaro, illustrating the declarations of Scripture, concerning the wicked, whose strength and hope are suddenly destroyed, and who are not permitted to prosper in their iniquities.
Notes: