The brief periods of apparent peace which the Waldenses sometimes enjoyed, were by no means intervals of security and repose; but rather, of painful reflection and fearful anticipation. True peace, with security as to their persons, their property, and liberty of conscience-the inalienable rights of man, they knew not for hundreds of years.
In the year 1560 two events occurred which are sufficient to account for the exterminating wars which followed that period. 1. The throne of Savoy was then filled by Charles Emmanuel II., a youth of fifteen. He was a prince of a mild and humane disposition; but, like Charles IX. of France, he was counseled by his mother, and she was of the house of Medici, and granddaughter to that Catherine whose deeds of blood have justly merited the execrations of mankind. The boy-sovereign was ruled by his mother, who was regent during his minority, and she was ruled by the Vatican. 2. The Society for the "Propagation of the Faith" was established in the same year at Turin. Noble lords, ladies, laymen, priests, and people, pressed to join the society, the inducement being a plenary indulgence to all who should take part in the good work: the watchword reveals its character-"The conversion or the extermination of heretics."
The propagandists commenced their ruinous work under the fair pretext of conversion. Ladies of the court, and others of inferior rank, with swarms of monks, became zealous supporters of the society, visiting from house to house. About this time convents were established in the valleys, and the schools and colleges of the Vaudois were suppressed. The abduction of males under twelve and of females under fourteen years of age, for the purpose of conversion, was sanctioned by law. But these nefarious means were soon followed by a violent persecution similar to that of 1560.
"The bloody edict of Gastaldo"-so named from its consequences-appeared in January, 1655. In vain did the threatened inhabitants, by every means of appeal and supplication to the different members of the government, seek to avert the impending storm. More than a thousand families, in the depth of winter, were driven from their homes and properties to the shelterless heights of their ice-covered mountains. And this they were commanded to do within three days on pain of death. Anything more inhuman, more barbarous, under the circumstances, cannot be imagined. A whole population, including little children, old men, the sick, the feeble, and the bed-ridden, must leave their homes amidst the terrors of an Alpine winter. Their journey lay through valleys buried deep in snow, across rivers swollen with the flood, and over mountains covered with ice. True, an alternative was offered them: they might go to mass. The historian Leger informs us that he had a congregation of well-nigh two thousand persons, and that not a man of them all accepted the alternative. "I can well bear them this testimony," he observes, "seeing I was their pastor for eleven years, and I knew every one of them by name; judge, reader, whether I had not cause to weep for joy, as well as for sorrow, when I saw that all the fury of these wolves was not able to influence one of these lambs, and that no earthly advantage could shake their constancy. And when I marked the traces of their blood on the snow and ice over which they had dragged their lacerated limbs, had I not cause to bless God that I had seen accomplished in their poor bodies what remained of the measure of the sufferings of Christ, and especially when I beheld this heavy cross borne by them with a fortitude so noble?"