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given for the causes above-mentioned, whether it be for payment of fees and expenses for the said persecution, or otherwise, shall be again restored unto them; unto which restitution all such shall be compelled to submit, who have in anything, either by sale or spoil of their goods, moveables or unmoveables, by detention or imprisonment of their persons, any ways wronged them, until they have fully restored their goods and things above-mentioned, and obeyed our commands; otherwise to be forced and compelled by all just and reasonable methods requisite in such a case; notwithstanding all appeals whatsoever, which our will is, should be absolutely suspended.

"Because that by reason of those confiscations, which have been formerly pretended, of the goods of those whom they have accused and prosecuted in this case, several, rather out of covetousness, and a desire of possessing the said confiscations, or part of them, than out of justice, do and have sued and prosecuted several people; and to further and procure the said confiscations, have made use of many unjust and illegal means; we have declared, and do declare by these presents, that we will not from henceforward have any confiscations taken, levied or exacted, for the said cause, for us, or by our officers; and all our right and claim we have quitted and remitted to the children, and other heirs and successors of those from whom such confiscations shall be exacted. Moreover, to prevent the frauds and abuses offered by the said Inquisitors of the Faith, we have forbidden, and do forbid any person to suffer or permit the said inquisitors to proceed from this time forward, against the said inhabitants of our country of Dauphiny, or to hold them in suit for the above-mentioned, or the like causes, without our express letters concerning that matter. have further forbidden, and do forbid, any of our judges and officers of our subjects, for the above-mentioned, or the like causes, to take upon them any jurisdiction or cognizance, but that they refer all causes and suits relating to the said business to us, and those of our great council, to whom, and to no other, we have reserved, and do reserve the examination and determination. We therefore expressly command and enjoin you, duly and punctually to put our said letters in execution, according to their form above-mentioned, and not otherwise, as in such case is requisite. For it is our will and pleasure that it should be done: And to that end we give you full power and authority, commission and special commandment. We charge and command all our justices, officers and subjects, commissioners and deputies, that they give their assistance for the due obedience thereunto. Given at Arras, May 18, Anno 1478.”

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The Archbishop of Ambrun ceased not to proceed further against the persons accused, but was much more animated than before; grounding his procedure upon that clause of the said letters: "Except there be found any among them who rebelliously, contumaciously, and obstinately harden themselves in their opinions." Therefore he pretended, that he did nothing in contradiction to the said letters, since those who had received them did not appear in judgment to justify themselves, making it manifest that they were neither obstinate, rebellious, nor contumacious. Moreover, the said archbishop extorted from part of the inhabitants of Fraissiniere, l'Argentiere, and Val Loyse, a renunciation or denial of the requests presented to the King, declaring that no persons in Dauphiny were less free from heresy, than those who were the readiest to clear themselves before the King; and caused a second information to be made. We have observed in that

information that the witnesses produced were for the most part priests, or officers belonging to the said archbishop, William Chabassol, Canon of Ambrun; Francis Magnici, priest of the Valley of Loyse; Rostain Payan, curate of St. Marcelin; Anthony Garneri, priest; Aimar Raimondi, chaplain; Michael Pierre, curate of Fraissiniere; all which deposed that those who had recourse to King Louis XI., were Waldenses. Thus the archbishop being fortified and encouraged by their recantation, and those witnesses, and the assertion of John Pelegrin, who was corrupted by money to charge and accuse the Waldenses of the ancient calumnies, which were formerly imposed upon the primitive Christians, that they met together in private and obscure places, and there, after the candles were put out, to commit sin, he sent to the court to vindicate and justify himself against the informations given to the King, that he prosecuted the Waldenses rather for the sake of their goods, than out of zeal for the Catholic Faith. But that single witness prevailed but little against several others who would never depose against their consciences, that they had seen among the Waldenses, anything which did bear the appearance of that villany with which the false witness had charged them. Nevertheless the archbishop did not desist from annoying and disturbing the said persons accused, to the utmost of his power; so that the greatest part of them that were unable to defray the charge, betook themselves to flight, there being not any amongst those that were persecuted, except James Palineri, who protested against the unjust trouble and molestation given them, to the prejudice of the letters obtained of his majesty, and demanded a copy of their proceedings, that he might right himself by law. The archbishop let him alone, prosecuting those who had not the courage to oppose his violent practices. But the consuls of Frassiniere, Michael Ruffi, and John Girraud, having been summoned to appear before the archbishop, to answer both in their own name, and the inhabitants of their valley; after they had made answer, that they had nothing to say before the archbishop, because their cause was depending before the King and council, which they then openly averred, and demanded a copy of it; being pressed to answer notwithstanding all their protestations and averment to the contrary, Michael Ruffi nodding his head, answered in his own language, Veici ragis; and being pressed a second time, he said, Veici una bella Raison. The archbishop being enraged against the said consuls for such a contempt, sent them to the fire without any other form or process. But the archbishop himself did not long survive them, for he died with an evident mark of Divine justice, soon after their execution. Thus ended the persecution in the year 1487.

We may observe a remarkable piece of villany in the process formed by this monk Veiliti. Having the said process in our hands, we discov ered little bills, wherein the said commissioner used to take the answers of the persons accused, simply and nakedly, as they came out of their mouths, but we found them afterwards stretched and extended in the process, altogether contrary to what they were in the sumptum, as they called it, altering therein the intention of the said person, making him to say that of which he never thought.

Inquire, whether he believed, that after the words of consecration were pronounced by the priest in the Mass, the body of Christ was present in the Host in as gross and extensive a manner as it was upon the Cross? if the Waldenses shall answer, no, Veiliti, or his clerk, he dictating it, set down the answer thus: "he confessed he believed not in God." In

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quire whether we ought not to pray to the saints? if he answer, no, they set down, "he reviled and spake evil of the saints." Inquire whether we ought to reverence the Virgin Mary, and pray unto her in our necessities? if he answer no, they write, "that he spake blasphemy against the Virgin Mary." Thus you may see the fidelity of the inquisitors in so weighty and important an action. It could not be without the great Providence of God, that the history of such villanies should be preserved till now, that men might see by what spirit they were actuated and inspired, who cut the throats of, and burnt the faithful members of the church, after they had loaded them with impostures; demanding of us notwithstanding, where these faithful members of the church were, whom they had massacred before our time.

If the reader desires to know how the process and indictments fell into our hands; here he will again see the great Providence of God, in causing the very same persons, who were the authors and actors of those cruelties and villanies, to keep the said papers and process in their libraries, and other places wherein their records are laid up; the archbishops of Ambrun themselves, John and Rostain, and others, until the city was recovered out of the hands of the rebels in the year 1585. Then all the said process and proceedings, attempted and contrived for many hundred years together against the Waldenses, were flung out into the street, because the archbishop's palace was set on fire by the enemies themselves, with a design to defend a tower called Tour Brune, whither they were retired, and to cut off a wooden gallery, by which the archbishop had passage to the tower. The Sieur de Calignon, chancellor of Navarre, and the Sieur de Vulcon, chancellor to the King, in the Parliament at Grenoble, being there, they caused the papers, containing the process, framed long ago against the Waldenses, to be gathered together; whence we have collected that which relates to the cruelties and lewd behaviour of the said monks inquisitors, and their adherents; as likewise that which followeth concerning the Waldenses in Dauphiny, and the persecutions carried on by the commissaries of the archbishops of Turin, against the Waldensian churches of Pragela.

The method of harassing the Waldenses by war was never known till that time; but Albert de Capitaneis, Archdeacon of Cremona,sent against them by Pope Innocent VIII., began to desire the aid and assistance of the King's Lieutenant in Dauphiny, called Hugnes de la Paln, who for this service levied troops, and marched to those places where the said Albert told him any of the Waldenses were, in the valley of Loyse. That the business might seem to be undertaken according to justice and equity, and to give the better authority to their proceedings, the Lieutenant of the King took along with him a Counsellor of the Court, named John Rabot. Upon their arrival at the said valley of Loyse, they could meet with none of the inhabitants, for they had all fled into their caverns on the top of the mountains, having carried thither with them their little children, and whatsoever they accounted most precious, and fit for their sustenance and nourishment. This Lieutenant of the King caused a great quantity of wood to be placed at the entrance of their caves, and to be set on fire, so that either the smoke by suffocating, or the fire by burning them, constrained a great number to throw themselves headlong from their caverns upon the rocks below, where they ended their lives, being dashed in pieces. If there were any one amongst them who dared to stir, he was immediately slain by the soldiers of Paln. That perse

cution was very severe for there were found within the said caverns four hundred little children, suffocated in their cradles, or in the arms of their dead mothers. Among the Waldenses dwelling in the adjacent valleys, above three thousand persons, men and women, belonging to the said valley, then perished. To say the truth, they were wholly exterminated; so that thenceforward that valley was peopled with new inhabitants, and there was no family of the said Waldenses that ever after took footing there; which proves beyond dispute, that all the inhabitants thereof, of both sexes, died at that time. That Lieutenant of the King having destroyed the inhabitants of the valley of Loyse, fearing lest the Waldenses in the neighbouring country should settle there again, and that they might not hereafter be put to a second trouble to expel them, he gave the goods and possessions of the valley to whom he pleased; which were not so soon divided, but that the Waldenses of Pragela and Fraissiniere had made provision for their safety, expecting the enemy at the passage and narrow straits of their valleys; so that when the Lieutenant of the King came to invade them, he was obliged to retreat. Albert de Capitaneis's commission calling him elsewhere, he substituted a Franciscan monk, named Ploieri, who began to exhibit fresh informations against the Waldenses of Fraissiniere, in the year 1489. He cited them to appear before him at Ambrun, and for not appearing, he excommunicated and anathematized them, and at last condemned them, as contumacious heretics and backsliders, to be delivered to the secular power, and their goods to be confiscated. At this judgment assisted a counseller named Ponce, in the behalf of the Parliament of Dauphiny, to the end that this mixed judgment might admit of no appeal. The sentence was pronounced at the great church at Ambrun, afterwards fixed upon the door of the said church upon a large pannel, in the lower part of which were thirtytwo articles of the faith of the said Waldenses, against the Mass, Purgatory, the Invocation of Saints, Pilgrimages, the Observations of Feasts, distinction of meats upon certain days, and other points maintained by the Waldenses.

The informations on which their sentence was grounded having come to our hands, this imposture hath been detected to their own condemnation. We find not any witness to these allegations: but, on the contrary, though the chief of those that were heard, were priests or monks, on being asked by the monk, whether they knew the contents of the aforesaid articles to be true; they answered, that they never knew any such doctrines either taught or practised amongst the Waldenses.

In the same parcel of writings, containing the process against the Waldenses, we find one drawn up against Francis Gerondine and Peter James, two barbs, or pastors, who were taken, "sur le col de coste plane;" about the hill in the side of the plain, in 1492. Being asked the reason why the sect of the Waldenses multiplied and increased so fast, and for a long time together had spread itself into so many places, this monk wrote down the answer of Gerondine after this manner : "That the dissolute and debauched lives of the priests was the cause of it; and because the cardinals were covetous, proud, and luxurious, it being manifest to all, that there was neither pope, cardinal, nor bishop, who kept not their concubines, and few or none who were not guilty of unnatural crimes; and therefore it was an easy matter for the pastors of the Waldenses to persuade the people, that the religion of such scandalous persons could never be good, since the fruits of it were so bad." And imme

diately after, the said pastor being asked what their doctrine was concerning lechery, they made him to answer, that lechery was no sin; as if it were a thing possible for the pastors to draw the people off from the Church of Rome, by condemning the lechery of the priests, if they themselves should teach that lechery was no sin. All this was thus set down and subscribed, not only according to what was dictated and ordered by the said monk, but approved of, and signed by the Counseller Ponce, and Oronce, Judge of Briancon. Wherein appears the clandestine conspiracy and unjust confederacy of the said Inquisitors, in that they were not satisfied with persecuting them by open violence, but likewise loaded them with calumnies, making the pastors to answer so unsuitably and childishly, touching those matters in which, as appears in their Exposition on the Seventh Commandment, the pastors were thoroughly informed by the Holy Scriptures; and in which Exposition they leave nothing unsaid of all that which the Word of God teacheth us against luxury and incontinency.

That persecution was extremely severe; for the Waldenses being condemned as heretics by the Inquisitor, Ponce the Counseller, and Oronce the Judge hurried them to the fire, without suffering their appeal. That which increased the number of the persecuted was, that whosoever did any ways intercede for them, though it were the child for the father, or the father for the child, he was presently committed to prison, and his indictment drawn up as a favourer of heretics.

In the year 1494, Anthony Fabri, doctor and canon of Ambrun, and Christopher de Salliens, canon, vicar, and official of the Bishop of Valence, received a commission from the Pope to commence suit against the Waldenses in Dauphiny, otherwise called Chagnards. Fabri, the Inquisitor, and Gobandi, notary of Ambrun, and secretary to the said Inquisitors, carried to Ambrun an indictment framed against Peironnette of Beauregard, in Valentinois, the widow of Peter Berand; whom we do not mention for her constancy, but because in her answers she delivered many things which make some addition to this history.

Being demanded whether she had seen or heard of any of the pastors of the Waldenses, she at first replied that she had not, being resolved to answer negatively to all interrogations. The Inquisitors ordered, because she had not satisfied their demands, that she should be committed to the Bishop of Valence's prison; where being menaced to be further pressed with the question, she confessed that about twenty-five years before, two men clothed in grey came to her husband's house, and after supper one of them asked her,-" N'aves vous jamais oui parlar d'un plen pung de monde, que si non era tot lo monde seria a fin,"-Whether she had heard of a handful of people that are in the world, without which the world must soon be at an end?-and she answered, "that she had never heard of such, but from one Monsieur Andre, minister of Beauregard, who frequently told her, that there was a small number of people in the world, without whom the world must perish. He then told her, that he was now come thither on purpose to confer with her, about that little flock, and to give her to know that they were the men who had by God's commandments learned how to serve him; and that they travelled about the world on purpose to instruct men how they ought to worship and honour him; and to correct and reform the abuses of the Church of Rome. Among other things, he told her that we ought not to do anything to another which we would not have done to ourselves-That we are to

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