THE YEAR OF THE PLAGUE.
Peace--Re-occupation of their Homes--Partial Famine--
Contributions of Foreign Churches--Castrocaro, Governor of
the Valleys--His Treacheries and Oppressions--Letter of
Elector Palatine to the Duke--A Voice raised for Toleration--
Fate of Castrocaro--The Plague--Awful Ravages--10,000
Deaths--Only Two Pastors Survive--Ministers come from
Switzerland, &c.--Worship conducted henceforward in French.
A whole century nearly passed away between the trampling out of the
Protestant Church in Calabria, and the next great persecution which
befel that venerable people whose tragic history we are recording.
We can touch only the more prominent of the events which fill up the
interval.
The war that La Trinita, so ingloriously for himself, had waged against
the Waldenses, ended, as we have seen, in a treaty of peace, which was
signed at Cavour on the 5th of June, 1561, between Philip of Savoy and
the deputies of the Valleys. But though the cloud had rolled past, it
had left numerous and affecting memorials of the desolation it had
inflicted. The inhabitants descended from the mountains to exchange the
weapons of war for the spade and the pruning-knife. With steps slow
and feeble the aged and the infirm were let down into the vales, to
sit once more at noon or at eve beneath the shadow of their vines and
ancestral chestnut-trees. But, alas! how often did the tear of sorrow
moisten the eye as it marked the desolation and ruin that deformed
those scenes lately so fair and smiling! The fruit-bearing trees cut
down; vineyard and corn-field marred; hamlets burned; villages, in
some cases, a heap of ruins, all testified to the rage of the enemy who
had invaded their land. Years must pass before these deep scars could
be effaced, and the beauty of their Valleys restored. And there were
yet tender griefs weighing upon them. How many were there who had lived
under the same roof-tree with them, and joined night and morning in the
same psalm, who would return no more!
Distress, bordering on famine, began to invade the Valleys. Seven
months of incessant fighting had left them no time to cultivate the
fields; and now the stock of last year’s provisions was exhausted, and
starvation stared them in the face. Before the treaty of peace was
signed, the time of sowing was past, and when the autumn came there was
scarcely anything to reap. Their destitution was further aggravated
by the fugitives from Calabria, who began about this time to arrive
in the Valleys. Escaping with nothing but their lives, they presented
themselves in hunger and nakedness. Their brethren opened their arms
to receive them, and though their own necessities were great, they
nevertheless shared with them the little they had.
The tale of the suffering now prevailing in the Valleys was known in
other countries, and evoked the sympathy of their Protestant brethren.
Calvin, with characteristic promptness and ardour, led in the movement
for their relief. By his advice they sent deputies to represent their
case to the Churches of Protestantism abroad, and collections were made
for them in Geneva, France, Switzerland, and Germany. The subscriptions
were headed by the Elector Palatine, after whom came the Duke of
Wurtemburg, the Canton of Bern, the Church at Strasburg, and others.
By-and-by, seed-time and harvest were restored in the Valleys; smiling
châlets began again to dot the sides of their mountains, and to rise
by the banks of their torrents; and the miseries which La Trinita’s
campaign had entailed upon them were passing into oblivion, when their
vexations were renewed by the appointment of a deputy-governor of their
Valleys, Castrocaro, a Tuscan by birth.
This man had served against the Vaudois as a colonel of militia under
La Trinita; he had been taken prisoner in an encounter with them, but
honourably treated, and at length generously released. He returned the
Waldenses evil for good. His appointment as Governor of the Valleys
he owed mainly to his acquaintance with the Duchess Margaret, the
protectress of the Vaudois, into whose favour he had ingratiated
himself by professing a warm affection for the men of the Valleys; and
his friendship with the Archbishop of Turin, to whom he had pledged
himself to do his utmost to convert the Vaudois to Romanism. When at
length Castrocaro arrived in the Valleys in the character of governor,
he forgot his professions to the duchess, but faithfully set about
fulfilling the promise he had made to the archbishop.
The new governor began by restricting the liberties guaranteed to
their Churches in the treaty of peace; he next ordered the dismissal
of certain of the pastors, and when their congregations refused to
comply, he began to fine and imprison the recusants. He sent false and
calumnious reports to the court of the duke, and introduced a troop
of soldiers into the country, on the pretext that the Waldenses were
breaking out into rebellion. He built the fortress of Mirabouc, at the
foot of the Col de la Croix, in the narrow gorge that leads from Bobbio
to France, to close this gate of exit from their territory, and overawe
the Valley of Lucerna. At last he threatened to renew the war unless
the Waldenses should comply with his wishes.
What was to be done? They carried their complaints and remonstrances to
Turin; but, alas! the ear of the duke and duchess had been poisoned by
the malice and craft of the governor. Soon again the old alternative
would be presented to them, the mass or death.[95]
In their extremity they sought the help of the Protestant princes of
Germany. The cry from the Alps found a responsive echo from the German
plains. The great Protestant chiefs of the Fatherland, especially
Frederick, Elector Palatine, saw in these poor oppressed herdsmen and
vine-dressers his brethren, and with zeal and warmth espoused their
cause. He indited a letter to the duke, distinguished for its elevation
of sentiment, as well as the catholicity of its views. It is a noble
defence of the rights of conscience, and an eloquent pleading in behalf
of toleration. “Let your highness,” says the Elector, “know that there
is a God in heaven, who not only contemplates the actions, but also
tries the hearts and reins of men, and from whom nothing is hid. Let
your highness take care not voluntarily to make war upon God, and not
to persecute Christ in his members.... Persecution, moreover, will
never advance the cause it pretends to defend. The ashes of the martyrs
are the seed of the Christian Church. For the Church resembles the
palm-tree, whose stem only shoots up the taller the greater the weights
that are hung upon it. Let your highness consider that the Christian
religion was established by persuasion, and not by violence; and as it
is certain that religion is nothing else than a firm and enlightened
persuasion of God, and of his will, as revealed in his Word, and
engraven in the hearts of believers by his Holy Spirit, it cannot, when
once rooted, be torn away by tortures.”[96] So did the Elector Palatine
warn the duke.
These are remarkable words when we think that they were written in the
middle of the sixteenth century. We question whether our own age could
express itself more justly on the subject of the rights of conscience,
the spirituality of religion, and the impolicy, as well as criminality,
of persecution. We sometimes apologise for the cruel deeds of Spain and
France, on the ground of the intolerance and blindness of the age. But
six years before the St. Bartholomew Massacre was enacted, this great
voice had been raised in Christendom for toleration.
What effect this letter had upon the duke we do not certainly know,
but from about this time Castrocaro moderated his violence, though he
still continued at intervals to terrify the poor people he so basely
oppressed by fulminating against them the most atrocious threats. On
the death of Emanuel Philibert, in 1580, the villainy of the governor
came to light. The young Duke Charles Emanuel ordered his arrest;
but the execution of it was a matter of difficulty, for Castrocaro
had entrenched himself in the Castle of La Torre, and surrounded
himself with a band of desperadoes, to which he had added, for his yet
greater defence, a pack of ferocious bloodhounds of unusual size and
strength.[97] A captain of his guard betrayed him, and thus as he had
maintained himself by treachery, so by treachery did his doom at last
overtake him. He was carried to Turin, where he perished in prison.[98]
Famine, persecution, war--all three, sometimes in succession and
sometimes together--had afflicted this much-enduring people, but now
they were to be visited by pestilence. For some years they had enjoyed
an unusual peace; and this quiet was the more remarkable inasmuch as
all around their mountains Europe was in combustion. Their brethren
of the Reformed Church in France, in Spain, and in Italy were falling
on the field, perishing by massacre, or dying at the stake, while
they were guarded from harm. But now a new calamity carried gloom and
mourning into their Valleys. On the morning of the 23rd of August,
1629, a cloud of unusual blackness gathered on the summit of the Col
Julien. It burst in a water-spout or deluge. The torrents rolled down
the mountain on both sides, and the villages of Bobbio and Prali,
situated the one in the southern and the other in the northern valley,
were overflown by the sudden inundation. Many of the houses were
swept away, and the inhabitants had barely time to save their lives
by flight. In September of the same year, there came an icy wind,
accompanied by a dry cloud, which scathed their Valleys and destroyed
the crop of the chestnut-tree. There followed a second deluge of rain,
which completely ruined the vintage. These calamities were the more
grievous inasmuch as they succeeded a year of partial famine. The
Vaudois pastors assembled in solemn synod, to humble themselves and to
lift up their voices in prayer to God. Little did they imagine that at
that moment a still heavier calamity hung over them, and that this was
the last time they were ever to meet one another on earth.[99]
In 1630, a French army, under Marshal Schomberg, suddenly occupied the
Valleys. In that army were many volunteers, who had made their escape
from a virulent contagious disease then raging in France. The weather
was hot, and the seeds of the pestilence which the army had brought
with it speedily developed themselves. The plague showed itself in the
first week of May in the Valley of Perosa; it next broke out in the
more northern Valley of San Martino; and soon it spread throughout
all the Valleys. The pastors met together to supplicate the Almighty,
and to concert practical measures for checking the ravages of this
mysterious and terrible scourge. They purchased medicine and collected
provisions for the poor.[100] They visited the sick, consoled the
dying, and preached in the open air to crowds, solemnised and eager to
listen.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST. JOHN LATERAN, ROME.]
In July and August the heat was excessive, and the malady raged yet
more furiously. In the month of July four of the pastors were carried
off by the plague; in August seven others died; and in the following
month another, the twelfth, was mortally stricken. There remained now
only three pastors, and it was remarked that they belonged to three
several valleys--Lucerna, Martino, and Perosa. The three survivors
met on the heights of Angrogna, to consult with the deputies of the
various parishes regarding the means of providing for the celebration
of worship. They wrote to Geneva and Dauphiné requesting that pastors
might be sent to supply the place of those whom the plague had struck
down, that so the venerable Church of the Valleys, which had survived
so many calamities, might not become extinct. They also recalled
Antoine Leger from Constantinople.[101]
The plague subsided during the winter, but in spring (1631) it rose
up again in renewed force. Of the three surviving pastors, one other
died; leaving thus only two, Pierre Gilles of Lucerna, and Valerius
Gross of Martino. With the heats of the summer the pestilence waxed in
strength. Armies, going and coming in the Valleys, suffered equally
with the inhabitants. Horsemen would be seen to drop from the saddle on
the highway, seized with sudden illness. Soldiers and sutlers, struck
in by-paths, lay there infecting the air with their corpses. In La
Torre alone fifty families became extinct. The most moderate estimate
of the numbers cut off by the plague is 10,000, or from a half to
two-thirds of the entire population of the Valleys. The corn in many
places remained uncut, the grapes rotted on the bough, and the fruit
dropped from the tree. Strangers who had come to find health in the
pure mountain air obtained from the soil nothing but a grave. Towns
and villages, which had rung so recently from the sounds of industry,
were now silent. Parents were without children, and children were
without parents. Patriarchs, who had been wont with pride and joy to
gather round them their numerous grandchildren, had seen them sicken
and die, and were now alone. The venerable pastor Gilles lost his four
elder sons. Though continually present in the homes of the stricken,
and at the bedsides of the dying, he himself was spared to compile the
monuments of his ancient Church, and narrate among other woes that
which had just passed over his native land, and “part of which he had
been.”
Of the Vaudois pastors only two now remained; and ministers hastened
from Geneva and other places to the Valleys, lest the old lamp should
go out. The services of the Waldensian Churches had hitherto been
performed in the Italian tongue, but the new pastors could speak only
French. Worship was henceforward conducted in that language, but the
Vaudois soon came to understand it, their own ancient tongue being a
dialect between the French and Italian. Another change introduced at
this time was the assimilation of their ritual to that of Geneva. And
further, the primitive and affectionate name of _Barba_ was dropped,
and the modern title substituted, _Monsieur le Ministre_.[102]