(A.D. 1660 TO A.D. l664.)
Léger and Janavel had been condemned to death.[2] Twenty persons had been sent to the galleys, and others had been prosecuted for resisting the orders of the sovereign in the exercise of Protestant worship at St. John, where it had been interdicted.[3]
The condemned persons had fled; a price had been set upon their heads, but no one dared to give them up, and force was employed in order to apprehend them; the officer of justice, Perrachino, put himself at the head of a troop of soldiers, who commenced their exploits by ravaging and plundering. They proceeded to raze Léger's house at St. John, and that of Joshua Janavel at the vineyards of Lucerna.[4]
The command of the fort of La Tour was, moreover, intrusted to the Count of Bagnol, one of those who had been concerned in the massacre of 1655, and who continued a zealous servant of the Propaganda. His soldiers committed all sorts of excesses; they arrested travellers and robbed them, plundered the houses of the Vaudois, carried off their daughters, and killed those who resisted their violence. Many of the poor villagers abandoned their dwellings, to seek a safer asylum in the deeper recesses of their mountains. The outlaws who had fled thither descended from their fastnesses to defend their brethren. De Bagnol threatened the severest penalties against all who should receive them. The house of any one who should even give an outlaw anything to eat was to be razed to the ground. Everything possible seemed to be done at that time to irritate the Vaudois.
The commandant of the fort of Mirabouc followed the example of the commandant of La Tour. The governor of Lucerna, Léger tells us,[5] was famous for more than sixty murders, committed before the marriage of the Duke of Savoy, on which occasion he had received pardon;[6] and as to the Sire De Bagnol, who reigned in his fort over all the valley, we may mention by anticipation, that he died upon the scaffold convicted of 120 odious murders. What could the valleys become in such hands? What opinion can we form of the government which set over them such rulers?
Janavel, at the head of his troop of outlaws, was their sole defender. This troop was rapidly augmented by the addition of all the Vaudois who were driven from their dwellings. They were enjoined to return to them under pain of death and confiscation of goods. Then, under pretext of seizing the confiscated goods, the soldiers extended their ravages and pillage on all sides. The troop of outlaws, called, as at a former time, gli banditti, opposed these expeditions by force.
It may be imagined what this troop must have become under the conduct of Janavel. Every day was signalized by new exploits, and all attempts to apprehend him were fruitless. In vain were the Vaudois ordered to reign their arms into the hands of the magistrates,[7] and the former penalties denounced anew against the outlaws;[8] in vain did the Vaudois, on their part, betake themselves to the intendant of the province[9] and to the sovereign[10] to obtain the protection of the law against the robberies of the Count of Bagnol. It was difficult for those not on the spot to estimate the justice of their complaints; the authorities could not believe that such crimes were committed, and regarded their complaints as exaggerated. The intendant of the province replied that they must return to their dwellings within the space of three days,[11] and Charles Emmanuel promised an investigation concerning the disorders of which they alleged that they were the victims.[12] Meanwhile, De Bagnol continued his extortions and violence.
The troop degli banclitti defended the poor mountaineers; but they could not subsist without levying contributions on their part also, which they did most frequently on the Catholic villages. Janavel seized on several of these, laid siege to others,[13] and took ransoms for Catholics of the plain to sustain the persecuted people of the mountains. He sometimes pursued his adversaries to the walls of Lucerna and Briquéras. There was no clay, says Léger, on which some action did not take places[14] between these warlike troops and those of the Marquis De Fleury or Captain Pool; who commanded the forces of the province; the latter, notwithstanding their numbers, being always worsted in their conflicts with Janavel.
On the 25th of May, 1663, however, the Vaudois were driven back from the quarter of Les Malanots, which they occupied at St. John, as far as the hills of Angrogna; but there, assuming the offensive in their turn, they charged their pursuers so impetuously, that they drove them back again over all the ground which they had gained, and even into the fort itself. In none of the encounters which took place in 1655, says a letter of that period, did the Vaudois kill a greater number of the enemy than in that affair.
Another skirmish took place on the 17th of June, in the immediate vicinity of La Tour. The combat, says a letter of the 21st, lasted the whole day; and the Vaudois from the upper part of the valley[15] having arrived upon the ground without being aware that a fight was going on, flung themselves into the midst of the enemy, and killed a number of them without sustaining any loss.
But, as the bringing of military forces against the valleys had no other ostensible object than to apprehend men who had been outlawed by a judicial sentence, it was held a crime in the Vaudois to support their defenders, as if they had been guilty of favouring the escape of criminals. More than once the syndics of the communes were obliged to repudiate all connection with the troop degli banditti.
On the 25th of June (1663), the Duke of Savoy, wishing to inspire the Vaudois with admiration of his unexpected goodness,[16] issued a long edict, which, under pretext of pacifying the valleys, ordained them all to take up arms and make war upon the outlaws. Two hundred and sixty men, drawn from different communes,[17] were appointed to assemble at Le Chiabas, opposite to La Tour, and to await the orders of the commandant of Briquéras. Each commune was, besides, to give an hostage as security for its loyalty. An investigation was to be commenced at Turin, under the direction of the Count De Bagnol; and to crown all these benefactions, his highness pardoned all the Protestants, on condition of their returning to their dwellings within the space of fifteen days.
By the same edict, the preamble of which expressed so much benignity, Joshua Janavel was condemned to have his flesh torn with red-hot pincers, to be quartered, and to have his head cut off and planted on the top of a pike in an elevated place. The sentence of death against Léger was reiterated; a person named Artus, one named Bastie, one named Rivoire, two named Muston, one named Revel, and a number of others, amounting to thirty-five persons in all, were condemned to death and confiscation of goods. These were the most intrepid leaders of the little Vaudois army. Six persons also were condemned to the galleys for life, and four to be put in irons for ten years. And it was actually proposed that the Vaudois themselves should take the lives of their own leaders and pastors! And this was called a clemency worthy of admiration! We may judge what must have been the severity of those who deemed it so.
The governor of La Tour and the treasurer-general of his highness urged the Vaudois, in the most pressing manner, to accept these terms. They had eight days to make up their minds. But if ever there was dignity in silence, it was on this occasion. The Vaudois allowed the duke's ultimatum to remain unanswered. The commune of Prarusting alone declined all responsibility for the proceedings of the valley of Lucerna.[18] The seigneurs of the neighbourhood did their utmost to augment this division, to obtain the acceptance of the conditions of the edict by at least a part of the Vaudois. Not being able to obtain this, they particularly insisted that the inhabitants of the valley of Lucerna should give a proof of their peaceful and loyal disposition by escorting a convoy, which it was proposed to send, for the revictualling of the fort of Mirabouc. This fort commands the narrowest part of the valley of Lucerna, and shuts up the pass by which Dauphiny may be reached, whither, it will he remembered, that the Vaudois had oftener than once retired in time of persecution.
It was not without some hesitation that, by conveying warlike stores to this fort, they contributed to close this retreat against themselves in the event of their utmost need of it. But the protestations of the governor of La Tour and the treasurer-general were irresistible. "In return for this act of submission," said they to the Vaudois, "the most complete peace will be granted you. Bring back your families to their dwellings, and entertain no anxiety as to the future."
The Vaudois were already conforming to these advices, when all at once they received information that troops were being secretly sent out from Turin. And they very soon learned that these troops were marching against them. In fact, six regiments of Royal Guards had left the capital on the 29th of June, under the command of the Marquis De Fleury. This army had therefore set out eleven days before the expiration of the time allowed to the Vaudois for returning to their dwellings, and four days before the time when they were to make their reply as to the conditions of the edict. It came to be afterwards known that reinforcements of troops had been secretly directed to Lucerna and La Tour[19] even before this edict was published. It is a vain attempt, therefore, which is made to justify the aggression upon the Vaudois by saying, that the duke meant to punish the inhabitants of the valleys for not having conformed to the edict of the 25th of June, since the assailants were already on the march, not only before the Vaudois could make known their intentions in this respect, but even before they had heard of the edict.
The Marquis De Fleury marched direct upon Angrogna, taking the road by St. John. The Marquis of Angrogna,[20] commanding the cavalry of St. Segont, bent his course towards the same point by the heights of Rocheplate, whilst the infantry ascended to it by the hills of Briquéras. These bodies of troops united at daybreak on the higher plain to which these different roads conduct. This was on the 6th of July, 1663. Their object was to seize on the Vachère, which rises above the plain, and commands, from its central position, the openings of the three Vaudois valleys.[21] But a corps of observation, placed by the Vaudois, defended this important post.
The bulk of the Vaudois army, commanded by Janavel, occupied a position farther down, on the borders of St. John. It was therefore threatened with the danger of being attacked in the rear by the troops of the Marquis De Fleury. At the same time those of the Count De Bagnol would have assailed it in front, ascending the valley at once on the side of La Tour and on the side of St. John. They accomplished this movement, and effected their junction in Janavel's sight.
The Vaudois patriot recoiled before forces superior to his own. Arriving at the summit of the slope, he found it already occupied by the enemy, who cut off all his communication with his rearguard, which had just been moving in the direction of the Vachère. Never had Janavel been in a situation of greater danger; his destruction might have been deemed inevitable; it appeared as if nothing but a miracle could save him. But Janavel's trust in God was unshaken, and in him the confidence of the Christian was as eminently displayed as the intrepidity of the warrior.
With that perfect knowledge of the locality which he possessed above every other man, and that coolness which never forsook him in presence of danger, he sent sixty men into a defile called the Gates of Angrogna, opening upon the little plain then occupied by the Marquis De Fleury. "There," said he, "you may arrest an army, and you will cover at once the Vachère and Rochemanant. Go and pray, and be resolute." Then, continuing to fall back before the lines of the Count De Bagnol, he arrived at those impregnable precipices called Rochemanant, having with him only about 600 men. "Here is our Tabor," said he to his men; "to your knees and take courage!" The bible-reading warrior recollected the victories of Barak and Deborah. His men had got ahead of the enemy; they fell upon their knees. "O God!" exclaimed their leader, "shield us by thy mighty hand!"
But the enemy approached. The Vaudois spread themselves among the rocks; they barred every entrance; and from every aperture issued their death-dealing bullets. De Bagnol paused, and examined the ground. After having given his troops some repose, he attempted to carry the post, but was repulsed. The troops drew breath and returned to the assault; they were repulsed a second time. The count had already lost more than 300 men, and his army could do nothing against a rock. He attempted to scale it, but his soldiers were flung down one above another. Then a superstitious terror seized them. Could it be true that these heretics had made a compact with the devil to be made invulnerable? It was even said that the Vaudois collected in the folds of their shirts all the bullets which pierced their garments, without their bodies being injured. Janavel, indeed, had been pierced through and through in 1655; but that wound, which would have been mortal in any one else, had left him valiant and vigorous. These thoughts, more or less strongly entertained, and more or less general, were indicated by the increasing hesitation of the Catholic troops. The Vaudois perceived it, and made a vigorous sortie. "Let us sweep away these hordes of cowards at once," said Janavel. And his experienced warriors rushed from all the places in which they were intrenched. The enemy gave way and disbanded. The Vaudois, sword in hand, pursued with vigour. The Count of Bagnol in vain sought to oppose the rout, in which he himself was carried along; his soldiers rushed in a disorderly manner to the lateral slopes of the mountain; ten Vaudois put a hundred of their enemies to flight. The latter did not halt till they had reached the plain; many of them perished as they fled; the whole mountain was swept clean of its invaders.
Janavel now rallied his heroic army, mounted to the higher ground, gave thanks to God for the victory which he had just gained; and then all exhausted with fatigue, went to rejoin the sixty men whom he had sent to the Gates of Angrogna to protect his rear-guard.
As he had anticipated, these sixty men had sufficed to keep in check, since morning, all the forces of the Marquis De Fleury. They had intrenched themselves behind an earthen bank five feet high; this barrier crossing the defile, sheltered them, and permitted them to make continual discharges against the front of the enemy. But the enemy had also natural bastions which served them for bulwarks; and from rock to rock, they had come almost, it might he said, to surround this little post of the Vaudois. One effort more and the post would be carried, the defile passed, the Vachère occupied, and the valley lost. The Vaudois perceived this, and sent an emissary to Janavel to obtain some reinforcement. But Janavel had already cleared the ground of the Count De Bagnol, and arrived in person with all his troop.
Thenceforth the advantage was no longer doubtful. Whilst Janavel attacked the flank of the enemy's army, the Vaudois, who had so long remained without moving in their defile, now issued from it with great ardour. Nothing so raises the spirits of troops as the certainty of success. With Janavel's help and their confidence in God they had no doubt of the result. The enemy, on the other hand, seeing this redoubted captain arrive with his 600 men, understood that the Count De Bagnol was already vanquished. Nothing deprives men of courage like the contagion of a defeat. The Marquis De Fleury, likewise, now saw his army yield and disband before these new assailants. The intrepidity of the Vaudois increased; victory declared for them; the Catholics everywhere took to flight, and poured their confused legions over all the hills of Angrogna, St. Segont, and Briquéras. They left as many dead upon the field of battle as the Vaudois had of combatants altogether. More than 600 men were killed, more than 400 were wounded, and the greater part of these died of their wounds, whilst the evangelical party lost only five or six men, and had only twelve wounded, of whom none died.
Having pursued his adversaries half-way down the hill, Janavel paused, and his 600 warriors knelt around him, to give united thanks to God for the victory, and for having so completely delivered them.
They were only at a very short distance from the communes of Prarusting and Rocheplate, which a few days before had detached themselves from the common cause of the Vaudois. But seeing the victory gained by their brethren, the people of these communes now went in pursuit of the enemy's troops; so that after prayer, Janavel led his little army into these villages thus brought back to their alliance, in order to fraternize with the auxiliaries who had issued from them.
Less considerable encounters and skirmishes, in which he had almost always the advantage, still signalized his operations on the following days; so that he not only diminished the forces of the enemy, hut every day he augmented his own; for besides the Vaudois, who ranged themselves in greater and greater numbers under his command, many French Protestants hastened to the support of their brethren.[22] The reverses of the Marquis De Fleury became numerous in proportion; and, as it seemed to the court of Savoy impossible that, with the considerable forces which had been placed under his command, this general ought not to have succeeded in bringing into subjection a handful of rebels; (for so our heroic mountaineers are always called), the command of the troops directed against the Vaudois was taken from him, and the Count of St. Damian was sent in his stead.
The Count of St. Damian augmented his army by some new recruit, and commenced his operations by setting out from Lucerna at the head of 1500 men, to take possession of the little commune of Rora. It was at that time defended only by fifteen Vaudois and eight French, in all twenty-three men! They were posted in an advantageous position, but what could they do against 1500 assailants? They did much: they did more than the victors! They fought for six hours, and were cut in pieces with the exception of only one man, who was taken prisoner.
Inflated with his success, St. Damian, on the following day, made a sortie into the valley of Lucerna. But scarcely had he arrived at the village of St. Margaret, to which his soldiers set fire, when the Vaudois, to the number of 200, descended from the heights of Le Taillaret, so often assailed, and never assailed with success. They came upon his troop by the ravine which descends from Les Copiers, put it to flight, killed many of the incendiaries, and on their own side had neither killed nor wounded.
Charles Emmanuel, seeing that this intestine war was taking a turn so disastrous for him, and beginning to understand that the unskilfulness of his generals was not the only cause; thought that he might succeed better by intimidating these valleys, so devoted to their religion and so valiant in its defence. With this view he published, on the 10th of August, 1663, an edict, in which he began by declaring all the inhabitants of the valleys rebels, and guilty of high-treason, and accordingly condemned them to death, with confiscation of goods. There is nothing very formidable in a sentence of death pronounced upon those whom it has been found impossible to vanquish, and who slay more of their enemies than there are living men of themselves. These declarations, however, were merely a preface to numerous exceptions, by which the duke hoped to disunite this warlike and faithful people in order to bring them to a readier submission. But the Vaudois did not accept this edict, which kept in force the condemnation of their most valiant compatriots and most devoted defenders.
The war continued. After having weakened his adversaries, Janavel assumed the offensive against them. He pushed the Count of St. Damian to his very head-quarters, and afterwards renewed his incursions into the plain. The town of Lucerna demanded the protection of walls[23] to shield it from this terrible invader. The works were commenced, but, a new attack of the mountaineers interrupted them.
We can here only make hasty mention of the principal of those little expeditions which took place during the rest of the year. The Vaudois made an incursion on Bubiano and were repulsed: the enemy made one towards Le Villar and was repulsed. St. Damian prepared an ambuscade in the district of the vineyards of Lucerna; but he allowed himself to be surprised there, and his troops were cut in pieces.
The army of the Propaganda was disheartened, the duke's finances were exhausted, and new overtures were made to the heroic mountaineers. Peace was offered them upon condition that they should lay down their arms, that there should be no question about religion, and that each community of the valleys should, in all time coming, send up its petitions by itself. This would have been, on their part, to cease to be a people, a church, or a body, whose parts are all mutually responsible amongst themselves; it would have been to break up their unity. The Vaudois understood this, and these conditions were still rejected.
However, they wrote from the valleys, "Our poor people are very miserable; our men have been long constrained to live under arms, feeding on bread and water, and worn out by continual fatigue. God have pity upon us! But we will resolutely resist. The very children in the streets may be heard saying that they would rather die in the caverns than abandon their religion."[24] The melancholy facts becoming known in foreign countries, the Protestant powers were moved by them, and collections began to be made for the unfortunate Vauclois.[25]
The Piedmontese rulers, unable to reduce them by arms, attempted to gain their purpose by creating division amongst them. Six Vaudois, five of whom could not sign their own names (but the reality of whose assent is attested by a captain of the guards of his royal highness, a Capuchin missionary, and the prefect of Pignerol), in their ignorant simplicity, and perhaps through the use of undue means, permitted themselves to be drawn into an inconsiderate procedure which favoured these designs. They agreed to a declaration by which, making a full and entire submission to the will of his royal highness, they implored his clemency, disavowed the conduct of their brethren in taking up arms, and accepted the conditions of the edict of the 10th of August.[26]
History would take 110 notice of incidents in themselves so unworthy to occupy it, if the most insignificant occurrences, and the meanest tricks, had not sometimes been the grand resort of the government in pursuance of that cowardly, cruel, and deceitful papal policy which often prevailed over the natural nobility and goodness of the princes of Savoy.
Some historians tell us, that the persons who signed this paper had no other object than to obtain for themselves a few days' truce, to enable them to gather the grapes, then hanging ripe, without being disquieted at their work.[27] But the ducal council treated the declaration of these five people of Prarusting as a consequence, a ratification, and a development of that resolution to which the whole commune had agreed at St. Segont on the 1st of July, afterwards annulled on the 6th of August; when the troops of Janavel fraternized with the inhabitants of Rocheplate and Prarusting.
The people of these communes protested against such an interpretation; and the five persons themselves who had signed retracted the declaration which they had made, saying that it bad been obtained from them by surprise.[28] It might have been thought that the matter would now have been at an end; if so, it would never have been mentioned here.
The notary who drew up the paper, and the witnesses for the adherents who could not sign their names, maintained the validity of that deed,[29] notwithstanding the protestation of the reputed subscribers, who withdrew their names from it.
During the time of these pitiful debates, these abortive attempts at division and dishonourable negotiations, which could be brought to no issue, disorder spread in the valleys; acts of private revenge were mingled with those of public defence; the Count De Bagnol and his robber troops conducted themselves at La Tour as if they had been in a conquered country; discontentment extended everywhere; the wretchedness of the people increased rather than diminished; and, to crown their hardships, the severity of winter began to come upon the mountains, aggravating still more the terrible afflictions with which they were visited.
Fortunately, the Protestant powers of Germany, Holland, and Switzerland had already addressed urgent representations to Charles Emmanuel in favour of the Vaudois. The Propaganda, on the other hand, exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent them from being considered otherwise than as rebels and malefactors; but, notwithstanding all their activity in exciting irritation, and assisting to provide for the expense of this war, the Duke of Savoy, whose intelligence was too great, and his disposition too noble, not to regard many things in it with dislike, showed an inclination to receive the ambassadors of the powers that had undertaken the part of mediators; and they arrived at Turin in November, 1663.[30]
A safe-conduct was immediately despatched to the Vaudois, that they might be able to send commissioners to Turin. But the preamble of this document was not of a nature to re-assure them. "Being desirous," said the duke, "that it should be manifest to people of other countries that our subjects are rebels, and that we have all cause for chastising them, we authorize those of them to come to Turin who may be designated by the secretary of legation, attached to the extraordinary embassy of the six Protestant cantons of Switzerland."[31] Such was the substance of this document. For the Vaudois to have taken advantage of it would have been to have owned themselves really rebels; they feared, moreover, that it might have been to expose themselves to some surprise like those of which they had so frequently been the victims. They refused, therefore, to send any commissioner to Turin. "You see," the Piedmontese rulers then said to the ambassadors, "they dare not come, they have nothing to say in their own defence; they are avowed rebels! Is not their refusal to appear before us a proof of their contempt for their sovereign? Is it not an insult to Switzerland itself?"[32] The secretary of legation set out in person for the valleys, re-assured the Vaudois, and returned to the capital accompanied by their eight deputies.[33]
And now the conferences, of which we must proceed to speak, were opened at the town's-house of Turin.
Notes: