Vaudois

“ Like the Quakers, the Vaudois were a quiet, even a timid people. They did not seek the notice or the glory of the world. The life they loved the best was that of their lonely Alpine valleys, the simple days of shepherding among the fairy-haunted hills, the evenings when the head of every house read, in his own dialect, the Bible to his assembled children; the bursting of the flowers in spring (flowers which the Fantines, the Vaudois fairies, watch and water every day until they blow) ; the long days out on the hills in summer, when the cattle are led to the upper meadows ”

“ A thick mist having risen up from the valley, the Vaudois set out, late at night, under the guidance of Captain Poulat, a native of the district, who well knew the paths in the mountains. They climbed up on to the heights above, over icy slopes, passing across gaping crevices and along almost perpendicular rocks, admitting of their passage only in single file, sometimes dragging themselves along on their bellies, clinging to the rocks or to the tufts of grass, occasionally resting and praying, but never despairing. ”

“ And over and over the tale was repeated how the enemy broke and fled, leaving behind them provision, ammunition, and baggage; a welcome store for the men who came empty and poor in all things save belief in their cause and faith in their God.
Before the sun set the Savoy guard were fugitives on the mountain side, and the Vaudois stood shoulder to shoulder on the Col di St. Guliano, gazing down on the Luserna Valley, the very heart of their fatherland, the goal of their dearest hopes. ”

“ Henri Botta stood in the doorway, looking down on the old man’s face, and he silently thought that neither age nor death would quite rob the Vaudois of Joshua Janavel; such names and memories as his linger long in the hearts of men, and being dead, yet speak in those voices which have far echoings. ”

“ O child, thou hast lost much, and even yet more may be asked of thee—home and dear ones are gone; food, raiment, life itself may be wrenched away—but, Rénée, do not give up thy faith!—thy faith in the rest that remaineth for the Vaudois—thy faith in thy Saviour, who loveth even thee and me!’
The girl was weeping. Not the burning tears of a passionate despair, but the blessed drops that ease the heart from whence they flow. Into her soul there came some faint fair imagining of the meaning of it all—this trial and torture, this desolation and weariness of waiting. ”

“ Storms of cruelty and the bitterness of superstition had swept the valleys at various times, but never a storm so devastating and terrible as this. From Fenestrelle to Rora, from the Pra Pass to the plains of Piedmont, fire and sword had driven forth the remnant of the Vaudois. Hundreds had fallen, fighting for their faith and for their homes; hundreds had perished under the white pall of the winter snows ”

“ The Vaudois," says he, in another place, "are so called from their residence among the valleys and fastnesses of the Alps, and may well be considered as the remains of the purest primitive Christian church. Nor has it been possible to draw them within the pale of the Roman communion, notwithstanding the horrible persecutions exercised against them. At this time they have churches flourishing, as well in doctrine as in examples of a truly innocent life. I speak particularly of those of the Alpine valleys, of whom some are subjects of the king of France, and others of the Duke of Savoy." ”

“ One thing that struck me as a painful void was, the absence of any public monument of the past events of the wonderful history of the Vaudois. It is true, in one sense, that the whole place is a museum of relics; that every rock has some thrilling tale, every mountain slope and hill-side graven upon it the memory of saints and martyrs. Yet I confess that those who do remember what has passed, and that those who wish that generations yet to come may know the history of these valleys, may well desire that some external tokens stood out to impress the passer-by with suitable emotion. ”

“ She crossed the pass this morning at the sunrising, and saw where the enemy lies to bar our path. There is a way, a toilsome and dangerous way truly, but still one that can be trodden by Vaudois’ feet, and it will lead us out beyond the crown of the defile, beyond the garrison that holds it against us.’
‘It is really so,’ said Madeleine, speaking out simply before them all. ‘The path is scarcely more than a track for wild goats, but it will serve.’
‘Aye, it will serve,’ said Arnaud. ‘Gaspard Botta, do thou go with thy mother in advance. ”

“ This word Vaudois, which they first acquired from their geographical situation, they have preserved as a token of their religion in all countries, as the Vaudois of Provence, and of Bohemia, and the Walloons of the Low Countries. Since the Reformation the names of Lutheran, Calvinist, and Reformed, have served to distinguish all those who rejected the papal doctrines, and the inhabitants of our valleys, the only people who have never been affected by these opinions, have alone retained their original name of Vaudois. ”

“ The evil mood that had tried her faith was gone, and in its place had come the nameless Light that shines from the Spirit of Comfort. She was dreaming, not of Gaspard, nor of happy days past or come, but of her Mother-Madeleine and her ‘Psalm of Confidence.’
Yet all about that ruined hut were cruel and violent men, the hired soldiery of the duke. Men little better than brigands, who had been sent expressly upon work of rapine and slaughter, that a ‘strong hand’ might crush the Vaudois now and for ever. ”

“ I have only to cast a glance back upon our good ancestors, when our barbes studied the Bible alone, to be confirmed in my opinion. Is there now among the nations regarded as the most enlightened, any example of a society, which has attained to such a degree of perfection? Surely, if the answer is in the negative, we must not deny the source of the superiority of the ancient Vaudois over other nations, and even over the Vaudois of the present day. It is true that the studies of our young divines have not always been so simple. ”

“ The courtly knights of her father's train, and the maidens of her bower;
And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly feet untrod,
Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the perfect love of God! ”

“ Martin, and Perouse, were no less than six flourishing Vaudois churches, as late as 1727, when in consequence of the exchange of territory between France and the House of Savoy, all those who remained faithful to their religion, were forced into exile.* The Vaudois were also very numerous in the valleys of Queiras, Mathias, and Meane, until entirely extirpated there by Duke Charles Emmanuel in 1603. As they were in the Marquisate of Sa-luces, in 1633, where they had many churches. ”

“ The valleys were not to be gained without a deadly struggle; and Arnaud knew it.
Eleven days after leaving Geneva they set foot in the first Vaudois village, Balsille, in the Vale of St. Martino. It was empty; the new inhabitants had fled down the river-bank towards Le Perrier, where a strong force of Piedmontese soldiers were forming across the valley.
But the Vaudois avoided the force they could scarcely hope to defeat. Arnaud turned to the south-westward, up the gorge of Prali, intending to reach the Valley of Luserna by the Guliano Pass, leaving Le Perrier and its garrison on his left. ”

“ A person of confidence (M. de Bais, maréchal de camp) was in consequence sent to inquire into the truth of the facts. He obtained at a meeting of the principal Vaudois, at La Tour, in March, 1656, a justificatory recital of the complaints of the valleys, a letter to the king of France, and another to M. Le Serdigences, governor of Dauphiné, with which he sought redress at the court of Turin ”

“ Some rumours of what was happening in the great centres of life, in Paris, and Vienna, and Turin, penetrated as far as Luserna, and echoes reached the friendly cottage on the Casina road, and finally were heard by Madeleine.
Savoy was stripped of troops; the duke had need of all his soldiers in Piedmont; the King of France was fighting with the emperor and the Dutch; and the Vaudois were massed in the cantons of Switzerland, looking with longing eyes at the hill-ranges of their native land. ”

“ Once more we translate from the Vaudois historian, for the simple statement is more eloquent than modern words can be:—
‘Two thousand six hundred Vaudois were received within the walls of Geneva, the feeble remnant of a population of from fourteen to sixteen thousand. Moreover, they were either sick or worn out with fatigue and anxiety, and but ill protected from the rigours of winter by the old garments they had worn in prison. Some there were whose lives ended the very moment their liberty began ”

“ Indeed we have the fullest evidence that the Vaudois preserved the purity of their faith during the ninth and tenth centuries. To prove this fact, it will be sufficient to give a single quotation from the missionary Marco Aurelio Rorenco, Grand Prior of St. Roch, at Turin, whose work is entitled Narratione delle Intro-duzione delle heresie nelle valli de Piemonte, Turin, 1632.* Speaking of the doctrine of Claude, which this author is pleased to call heresy, he says—"This doctrine continued in the valleys all the ninth and tenth centuries;" ”

“ No other country could be ‘home’ to them. They must return, and lift again—if such were God’s good will—the voice of praise and prayer from the glens and the hills which now lay desolate.
Men with the same anxiety in their hearts as Gaspard had might be reckoned by the score. There was scarcely a Vaudois who would not have willingly died rather than have surrendered the hope of getting home to the valleys, somehow, some day. ”

“ An English monk, quoted by Boxhornius, also gives an example of the purity of Vaudois manners, in the answer of a young woman to the solicitations of her lover; "God forbid, O young man, that I should love thee so much as to become eternally miserable for the gratification of thy wishes."
This admirable purity is still respected in the valleys, and, notwithstanding the corruption of the age, we must look through a long series of years to find one or two females who have not observed it. Those who have fallen are become the objects of universal contempt. ”

“ When read after the story of the Vaudois, the annals of Greece and Rome even, fruitful though they be in deeds of heroism, appear cold and tame. In short, we know of no other instance in the world in which a great and sacred object has been prosecuted from father to son for such a length of time, with a [Pg 70] patriotism so pure, a courage so unshrinking, a devotion so entire, and amidst such a multitude of sacrifices, sufferings, and woes, as in the case of the Vaudois. The incentives to courage which have stimulated others to brave death were wanting in their case. ”

“ He was a student of theology at Geneva, and held one of those bursaries which the Lords of Bern had allotted for the training of young men as pastors in the Churches of the Valleys. He set out to spend his holiday with his family in Piedmont. We know how Vaudois heart yearns for its native mountains; nor would the coming of the youth awaken less lively anticipations on the part of his friends. ”

“ Hence the Vaudois put to death the guard on the Alps of the Pis, and at Balsille; this was the greatest number they did so treat. From Balsille Arnaud led his men into the valley of Prali, and subdivided his army into two divisions. On reaching the hamlet of Guigot, they rejoiced to find their temple still standing, and purging it of the superstitious ornaments introduced by the Papists, these seven hundred patriot warriors laid down their arms and sang the 74th Psalm—
"Hast Thou cast us off for ever? ”

“ The Vaudois, who had undergone all these vicissitudes, were naturally reduced to poverty, and their ministers were partially maintained by a subsidy from England, which was granted by Queen Anne. The 18th century, however, was a time of religious decadence even among the Alpine valleys, and the outbreak of the French Revolution saw the Vaudois made subjects of France. ”

“ At Perouse the archbishop had no better success than elsewhere, and the governor of Turin falling into disgrace, the Count of Luzerne was pressed to use his influence in favour of the Vaudois. By his means the edict of Nice was obtained from the Duke, in 1603; by which the religious exercises of the Vaudois were freely permitted within the valleys, and they were allowed to trade with the Catholics and to hold public employments. ”

“ The favour of their prince did not, however, defend the Vaudois from the persecutions of the inquisitors, who, from the convent near Pignerol, took many prisoners, either by force or stratagem, and seldom allowed them to escape death. By their intrigues they prevailed upon Marguerite de Foix, widow of the Marquis de Saluces, to drive all the Vaudois from her territory, in the year 1500. ”

“ The Vaudois of the other valleys welcomed these poor exiles, and joyfully shared with them their own humble and scanty fare. They spread the table for all, and loaded it with polenta and roasted chestnuts, with the milk and butter of their mountains, to which they did not forget to add a cup of that red wine which their valleys produce. [108] Their enemies were amazed when they saw the whole community rise up as one man and depart. ”