To return, the nuncio Capitaneis, furnished with the Pope's letters patent, having engaged the Duke of Savoy, the King of France, and other neighbouring princes to furnish troops for the extermination of the inhabitants of the valleys, about 18,000 men were assembled, besides 5 or 6000 Piemontese volunteers, eager to obtain both the pillage of the valleys and full remission of their sins.
In order to ensure success, this army was divided into several corps, and attacked at once Angrogna, Luzerne, Perouse, and St. Martin, as well as Pragela, where, after many cruelties committed, they were repulsed by the inhabitants. The chief attack was made in the Valley of Angrogna, towards Roccal Mag-nol, where the Vaudois were prepared to receive it; some of the advanced guard had armed themselves with a kind of long wooden cuirass, which defended the men, and from which the arrows rebounded; and under this living rampart the second rank made good use of their long cross-bows, but were on the point of yielding to superior numbers; when one Revel, indignant at the insulting shouts and imprecations of Lenois, who commanded the enemies, shot him with an arrow, upon which his troops were struck with a panic and fled. The French and Savoyards, irritated by this defeat, made another attack on the side of Angrogna, but though at first successful, they were afterwards repulsed. One of their captains, Saquet, falling from a rock into the torrent Angrogna, the spot was called by his name more than a hundred years after.
In the attack upon Pral, of 700 men, who engaged the Vaudois near Pommiers, one ensign alone escaped, whom the Vaudois pardoned, that he might carry the news of this defeat to the rest of the army. The attacks in other quarters having had no better success, all open hostilities ceased, although desultory incursions were made into the valleys for a year afterwards, which did great mischief, in keeping up an alarm and preventing the cultivation of the land.
Philip the Seventh, Duke of Savoy, at length resolved to put an end to the war, and sent a bishop to treat with the Vaudois, at Pra Ays-suit; the only condition being, that they should come to Pignerol, where his court was, to ask pardon. This was assented to, and the Duke granted a general pardon, on receiving a sum of money; he allowed that he had been ill informed; confirmed their former privileges, and affirmed that he had not such good, faithful, and obedient subjects as the Vaudois.
It was on this occasion that Philip VII. desired to see the children, it having been reported among the vulgar, that the Vaudois children were born with one eye in the midst of the forehead, and four rows of black teeth: a striking instance of the ignorance in which Piémont was plunged at that time.
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. These poor exiles, after taking refuge for five years in the valley of Luzerne, and making incessant supplications for permission to return, at length suddenly attacked their enemies sword in hand, and gained possession of their homes, where they remained unmolested during the greatest part of the sixteenth century.
CHAPTER II. THE REFORMATION.
Every one knows that the commencement of the sixteenth century was marked by the change in religious opinions throughout Europe which produced the Reformation; nor need I here specify the names of the reformers, or enumerate their labours in different countries, from Luther's public acts, in 1516, to the assemblage formed by Cranmer in England, of Bucer the martyr, Fagius, and others, about the middle of the century.
Our barbes had, in 1526, sent barbe Martin and others, to hold a conference with the reformers Zwinglius, OEcolampadius, and Bucer, and had returned with many eulogiums on the constancy and simplicity of the Vaudois. Luther, though at first no friend to the Vaudois, admitted, upon better information respecting them, that they were most improperly styled heretics, and expressed his admiration of the courage with which they had renounced all human systems, in order to be guided solely by the light of revelation. Calvin also took a lively interest in them, and held their doctrines in high estimation. To the eulogiums of the reformers were added, however, some rebukes on what they esteemed errors in church discipline, and some German ministers returned with the barbes, to consult on their amendment. The strictures of the reformers rested on points of doctrine not specified by our histories; too much lenity shown towards feeble persons, who attended mass from fear of persecution; and lastly and principally, "that the Vaudois had not celebrated their worship with sufficient publicity for some years."