The Huguenots in France

by Samuel Smiles

But it is not the scenery, or the geology, or the flora of the province, however marvellous these may be, that constitutes the chief interest for the traveller through these Dauphiny valleys, so much as the human endurance, suffering, and faithfulness of the people who have lived in them in past times, and of which so many interesting remnants still survive. For Dauphiny forms a principal part of the country of the ancient Vaudois or Waldenses—literally, the people inhabiting the Vaux, or valleys—who for nearly seven hundred years bore the heavy brunt of Papal persecution, and are now, after all their sufferings, free to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience.

The country of the Vaudois is not confined, as is generally supposed, to the valleys of Piedmont, but extends over the greater part of Dauphiny and Provence. From the main ridge of the Cottian Alps, which, divide France from Italy, great mountain spurs are thrown out, which run westward as well as eastward, and enclose narrow strips of pasturage, cultivable land, and green shelves on the mountain sides, where a poor, virtuous, and hard-working race have long contrived to earn a scanty subsistence, amidst trials and difficulties of no ordinary kind,—the greatest of which, strange to say, have arisen from the pure and simple character of the religion they professed.

The tradition which exists among them is, that the early Christian missionaries, when travelling from Italy into Gaul by the Roman road passing over Mont Genèvre, taught the Gospel in its primitive form to the people of the adjoining districts. It is even surmised that St. Paul journeyed from Rome into Spain by that route, and may himself have imparted to the people of the valleys their first Christian instruction. The Italian and Gallic provinces in that quarter were certainly Christianized in the second century at the latest, and it is known that the early missionaries were in the habit of making frequent journeys from the provinces to Rome. Wherefore it is reasonable to suppose that the people of the valleys would receive occasional visits from the wayfaring teachers who travelled by the mountain passes in the immediate neighbourhood of their dwellings.

As years rolled on, and the Church at Rome became rich and allied itself with the secular power, it gradually departed more and more from its primitive condition,[92] until at length it was scarcely to be recognised from the Paganism which it had superseded. The heathen gods were replaced by canonised mortals; Venus and Cupid by the Virgin and Child; Lares and Penates by images and crucifixes; while incense, flowers, tapers, and showy dresses came to be regarded as essential parts of the ceremonial of the new religion as they had been of the old. Madonnas winked and bled again, as the statues of Juno and Pompey had done before; and stones and relics worked miracles as in the time of the Augurs.

Attempts were made by some of the early bishops to stem this tide of innovation. Thus, in the fourth, century, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and Philastrius, Bishop of Brescia, acknowledging no authority on earth as superior to that of the Bible, protested against the introduction of images in churches, which they held to be a return to Paganism. Four centuries later, Claude, Bishop of Turin, advanced like views, and opposed with energy the worship of images, which he regarded as absolute idolatry. In the meanwhile, the simple Vaudois, shut up in their almost inaccessible valleys, and knowing nothing of these innovations, continued to adhere to their original primitive form of worship; and it clearly appears, from a passage in the writings of St. Ambrose, that, in his time, the superstitions which prevailed elsewhere had not at all extended into the mountainous regions of his diocese.

The Vaudois Church was never, in the ordinary sense of the word, a "Reformed" Church, simply because it had not become corrupted, and did not stand in need of "reformation." It was not the Vaudois who left the Church, but the Roman Church that left them in search of idols. Adhering to their primitive faith, they never recognised the paramount authority of the Pope; they never worshipped images, nor used incense, nor observed Mass; and when, in the course of time, these corruptions became known to them, and they found that the Western Church had ceased to be Catholic, and become merely Roman; they openly separated from it, as being no longer in conformity with the principles of the Gospel as inculcated in the Bible and delivered to them by their fathers. Their ancient manuscripts, still extant, attest to the purity of their doctrines. They are written, like the Nobla Leyçon, in the Romance or Provençal—the earliest of the modern classical languages, the language of the troubadours—though now only spoken as a patois in Dauphiny, Piedmont, Sardinia, the north of Spain, and the Balearic Isles.[93]

If the age counts for anything, the Vaudois are justified in their claim to be considered one of the oldest churches in Europe. Long before the conquest of England by the Normans, before the time of Wallace and Bruce in Scotland, before England had planted its foot in Ireland, the Vaudois Church existed. Their remoteness, their poverty, and their comparative unimportance as a people, for a long time protected them from interference; and for centuries they remained unnoticed by Rome. But as the Western Church extended its power, it became insatiable for uniformity. It would not tolerate the independence which characterized the early churches, but aimed at subjecting them to the exclusive authority of Rome.

The Vaudois, however, persisted in repudiating the doctrines and formularies of the Pope. When argument failed, the Church called the secular arm to its aid, and then began a series of persecutions, extending over several centuries, which, for brutality and ferocity, are probably unexampled in history. To crush this unoffending but faithful people, Rome employed her most irrefragable arguments—the curses of Lucius and the horrible cruelties of Innocent—and the "Vicar of Christ" bathed the banner of the Cross in a carnage from which the wolves of Romulus and the eagles of Cæsar would have turned with loathing.

Long before the period of the Reformation, the Vaudois valleys were ravaged by fire and sword because of the alleged heresy of the people. Luther was not born until 1483; whereas nearly four centuries before, the Vaudois were stigmatized as heretics by Rome. As early as 1096, we find Pope Urban II. describing Val Louise, one of the Dauphiny valleys—then called Vallis Gyrontana, from the torrent of Gyr, which flows through it—as "infested with heresy." In 1179, hot persecution raged all over Dauphiny, extending to the Albigeois of the South of France, as far as Lyons and Toulouse; one of the first martyrs being Pierre Waldo, or Waldensis,[94] of Lyons, who was executed for heresy by the Archbishop of Lyons in 1180.

Of one of the early persecutions, an ancient writer says: "In the year 1243, Pope Innocent II. ordered the Bishop of Metz rigorously to prosecute the Vaudois, especially because they read the sacred books in the vulgar tongue."[95] From time to time, new persecutions were ordered, and conducted with ever-increasing ferocity—the scourge, the brand, and the sword being employed by turns. In 1486, while Luther was still in his cradle, Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull of extermination against the Vaudois, summoning all true Catholics to the holy crusade, promising free pardon to all manner of criminals who should take part in it, and concluding with the promise of the remission of sins to every one who should slay a heretic.[96] The consequence was, the assemblage of an immense horde of brigands, who were let loose on the valleys of Dauphiny and Piedmont, which they ravaged and pillaged, in company with eighteen thousand regular troops, jointly furnished by the French king and the Duke of Savoy.