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Thus an invisible omnipotent arm was ever extended over the Vaudois and their land, delivering them miraculously in times of danger, and preserving them as a peculiar people, that by their instrumentality Jehovah might accomplish his designs of mercy towards the world. Nor were the Waldenses content simply to maintain their faith.
On Thursday and Friday Pianezza was occupied with three things first, in keeping those of the Vaudois on the French frontier from escaping to that country; secondly, in persuading the inhabitants of the valleys of his "good intentions;" and thirdly, resting his soldiers in readiness for the day of slaughter.
Thus marvellously, hitherto, in the midst of dangers at home and re-action abroad, has the Piedmontese charter been preserved. I dwell with the greater minuteness on this point, because on the integrity of that charter are suspended the civil liberties of the Church of the Vaudois. When I was in Turin the Constitution was three years old; but even then its existence was exceedingly precarious.
At any rate, in some such colours as these, framed in such a halo, Claude Mercier saw the Free City as he walked its narrow streets that evening, seeking the "Bible and Hand". In some such colours had his father, bred under Calvin to the ministry, depicted it: and the young man, half French, half Vaudois, sought nothing better, set nothing higher, than to form a part of its life, and eventually to contribute to its fame.
‘And do those whom you call Catholics never persecute?’ said I. ‘Never,’ said the man in black. ‘Ten times more than in the Flos Sanctorum,’ said I. The man in black looked at me, but made no answer. ‘And what say you to the Massacre of the Albigenses and the Vaudois, “whose bones lie scattered on the cold Alp,” or the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes?’ The man in black made no answer.
The same circumstances which have concurred in making Guillestre the seat of the principal fair of the valleys, led Felix Neff to regard it as an important centre of missionary operations amongst the Vaudois.
I fix upon this date because of the remarkable providence which befell the Vaudois Church in 1630. This was none other than a pestilential visitation brought into the valleys by the French troops, who were at this time occupying the valleys. By this terrible plague some ten thousand of the Vaudois perished, including twelve pastors.
These week-day assemblages, as well as the Sabbath audiences, were of a very miscellaneous character, Vaudois, who had come to Turin to be servants, for, prior to the revolution, they could be nothing else; Piedmontese tradesmen; Swiss, Germans, and Italian refugees, to whom three pastors ministered, one in French, one in German, and a third in the Italian tongue.
On 13 April 1545 the Baron entered the Vaudois territory at the head of a body of troops, reinforced by the papal Vice-legate and a fanatical mob of countryfolk. The inhabitants offered little resistance, and soon villages were in flames on every side. At Mérindol the soldiers found only one inhabitant, a poor idiot; all the rest had fled. The Baron ordered him to be shot.
"That is better said between ourselves than performed before the vulgar eye, honorable Melchior It would sound ill, of a truth, were these Vaudois to boast that a noble of thy estimation in Berne were thus to forget himself!" "None of this! are we not here to be merry and to laugh, and to be pleased with any folly that offers?
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