the 11th of April-they were to destroy all their places of worship in eight days, dispose of all their goods and effects, and to take their departure in three companies, viz. those of Lucerne on the 21st-those of Angrogne on the 22nd, and those of St. Martin and Perouse on the 23d of April, and if they failed in any one tittle of the order, they were to be seized on, deprived of the liberty of departing, and condemned as the vilest and most execrable rebels. At this eventful moment the Waldenses became strongly impressed with a notion that a general massacre, similar to that of 1655, was about to take place among them, and fresh circumstances arose almost every hour to confirm them in the belief of it. Two or three days after the publication of the last edict, a dozen or fifteen of their number went in a body to the judge of the vallies, informing him that they and their families intended to depart, and requesting passports, which he refused, telling them to wait till others went. But that was not all-he importuned them to change their religion, and because they refused, he committed them to prison. Other attempts were made to procure passports, but with no better success; it was either too soon or too late, and they never could find the proper time to grant them. Thus circumstanced, they adopted the only remaining alternative-they armed themselves in their own defence. The troops of France and Savoy did not wait for the expiration of the period granted by the edict. They had taken the field, and on the 22nd of April they made a general attack upon the Waldenses. The latter raised entrenchments of turf and stone, but they were an armed undisciplined multitude of about 2500, acting always upon the defensive, and when beaten from one entrenchment they retired to another. In the mean time the French and Piedmontese armies proceeded through the vallies, where they sacked, pillaged, and burnt the houses, putting multitudes to the sword of all ages and sexes, giving up the females to the brutal lust of the soldiery, and perpetrating enormities too horrible to recite. I shall not harrass the reader's feelings by a circumstantial detail of the barbarous proceedings which marked this disgraceful scene. More than three thousand are said to have fallen by the sword and other instruments of destruction, ten thousand either banished or imprisoned, and two thousand children taken and dispersed among the catholics to be trained up in the profession of their religion. Many of them crossed the Alps, and retired into Swisserland, where they were kindly and hospitably received. In the month of September, 1686, the Swiss Cantons convened a general assembly at Aran, to deliberate on the condition of those who were either imprisoned or in a state of exile in Piedmont, and they came to the resolution of sending deputies to demand from the duke a release of all that were confined, and the privilege to quit the country. The latter, probably by this time glutted with human carnage, signed a treaty, in consequence of which the prisons were set open, and leave given to such as survived to depart peaceably through that part of Savoy which borders upon Bearne and the territory of Geneva. But a bare recital of the miseries which the prisoners had suffered during their captivity, is sufficient to sicken the heart. About ten thousand persons, men, women, and children, were distributed among fourteen prisons or castles in Piedmont. They were fed for months upon bread and water— the former, in which was often found lime, glass, and filth of various kinds, so bad as scarcely to deserve the name, and the latter, in many instances, brought from stagnant pools, and scarcely fit for cattle. Their lodging was upon bricks or dirty straw. The prisons were so thronged that, during the heat of the summer months they became intolerable, and deaths took place daily. Want of cleanliness necessarily engendered diseases among them-they became annoyed with vermin, which prevented their sleep either by night or day. Many women in labour were lost for want of the care and comforts essential to such a situation, and their infants shared the same fate. Such is the description given of the state of these afflicted and persecuted creatures, when the Duke of Savoy's proclamation was issued for releasing them. It was now the month of October; the ground was covered with snow and ice; the victims of cruelty were almost universally emaciated through poverty and disease, and altogether unfit for the projected journey. The proclamation was made at the castle of Mondovi, for example, and at five o'clock the same evening they were to begin a march of four or five leagues! before the morning more than a hundred and fifty of them sunk under the burden of their maladies and fatigues, and died. The same thing happened to the prisoners at Fossan. A company of them halted one night at the foot of Mount Cenis; when they were about to march the next morning, they pointed the officer who conducted them, to a terrible tempest upon the top of the mountain, beseeching him to allow them to stay till it had passed away. The inhuman officer, deaf to the voice of pity, insisted on their marching; the consequence of which was, that eightysix of their number died, and were buried in that horrible tempest of snow. Some merchants that afterwards crossed the mountains saw the bodies of these miserable people extended on the snow, the mothers clasping their children in their arms! Such as survived reached Geneva about the end of Decem ber, but in such an exhausted state that many died upon their arrival, "finding the end of their life in the beginning of their liberty." Of about ten thousand that were imprisoned in Piedmont, not more than a fourth part survived; but these were received by the citizens of Geneva, and also in Swisserland, with more kindness than they had experienced of cruelty from the Piedmontese. When they heard of their approach, the inhabitants went out to meet them, every one striving who should bring the most to his house and excel in acts of hospitality and kindness. They received them as christian brethren, who brought peace and blessings into their families. They clothed the naked, fed the hungry, succoured the afflicted, and while they opened to them their country, they also exercised towards them bowels of compassion in the most free and generous manner. The Elector of Brandenburgh hearing of their arrival in Swisserland, desired the Cantons to send a part of them into his dominions, where he promised to provide for them, and the United Provinces made a very liberal collection of money, which from time to time was sent them, and distributed according to their necessities. Thus were the vallies of Piedmont dispeopled of its antient inhabitants, and the lamp of heavenly light, which during a long succession of ages had here shined in resplendent lustre, was at length removed. INDEX. A Adrian, succeeds Trajan as emperor, 129. his character, ibid. Erius, presbyter of the church of Sebastia in Pontus, 224. en- Albert de Capitaneis, appointed papal legate in France and Pied- Agelius, pastor of the Novationist church in Constantinople, his Alaric, the Gothic chief, lays siege to Rome, 242. his proposition Albigenses, whence so called, mistakes concerning them rectified, Albinus, state of Judea under his government, 97. Alcuin, some account of, 299. note. Alexander and Arius, how they represented each others views of Alexander Severus, emperor of Rome, favours the Christians, 157. Ammianus Marcellinus, his view of the conduct of the clergy in Antichrist, reflections on the rise of, 165. foretold by the apos Antioch in Syria described, 35. first Gentile church there, ibid. Antoninus Pius, emperor, his amiable character, 132. his letter to Apostles, why at first confined to Jerusalem, 91. hint at their sub- Arian Controversy, its rise and progress, 189. reflections upon it, Archæologia, the account there given of the Waldenses at Ox- Arnold of Brescia, his history, character, and principles, 330. Arnold Hot, preacher among the Albigenses, holds a public dis- Arnold, abbot of Cisteaux, commander of the first crusading Athens some account of, 59, character of its inhabitants, 60. Athenagoras, his conversion to the faith, 153. his apology for the Athanasius, the part he took in the Arian controversy, 200. his in- Augustine's City of God, design of the author in that book, 249. Aurelius Marcus Antoninus, succeeds Antoninus Pius, 134. em- Avignon, city of, besieged by the crusaders, 435, defended by the B Barnabas and Saul, separated to the apostle's office, 41. proceed on Baronius, Cardinal, quoted on the darkness of the tenth cen- |