EXPLOITS OF GIANAVELLO--MASSACRE AND PILLAGE OF RORA.
Ascent of La Combe--Beauty and Grandeur of Valley of Rora--
Gianavello--His Character--Marquis de Pianeza--His First
Assault--Brave Repulse--Treachery of the Marquis--No Faith
with Heretics--Gianavello’s Band--Repulse of Second and
Third Attacks--Death of a Persecutor--An Army raised to
invade Rora--Massacre and Pillage--Letter of Pianeza--
Gianavello’s Heroic Reply--Gianavello renews the War--500
against 15,000--Success of the Waldenses--Horror at the
Massacre--Interposition of England--Letter of Cromwell--
Treaty of Peace.
The next tragic episode in the history of the Waldenses takes us to the
Valley of Rora. The invasion and outrages of which this valley became
the scene were contemporaneous with the horrors of the great massacre.
In what we are now to relate, feats of heroism are blended with deeds
of suffering, and we are called to admire the valour of the patriot, as
well as the patience of the martyr.
The Valley of Rora lies on the left as one enters La Torre; it is
separated from Lucerna by a barrier of mountains. Rora has two
entrances: one by a side ravine, which branches off about two miles
before reaching La Torre, and the other by crossing the Valley of
Lucerna and climbing the mountains. This last is worthy of being
briefly described. We start, let us suppose, from the town of La
Torre; we skirt the Castelluzzo on the right, which high in air hangs
its precipices, with their many tragic memories, above us. From this
point we turn to the left, descend into the valley, traverse its
bright meadows, here shaded by the vine which stretches its arms in
classic freedom from tree to tree. We cross the torrent of the Pelice
by a small bridge, and hold on our way till we reach the foot of the
mountains of La Combe, that wall in the Valley of Rora. We begin to
climb by a winding path. Pasturage and vineyard give place to chestnut
forest; the chestnut in its turn yields to the pine; and, as we mount
still higher, we find ourselves amid the naked ledges of the mountain,
with their gushing rills, margined by moss or other Alpine herbage.
An ascent of two hours brings us to the summit of the pass. We
have here a pedestal, some 4,000 feet in height, in the midst of a
stupendous amphitheatre of Alps, from which to view their glories. How
profoundly deep the valley from which we have just climbed up! A thread
of silver is now the Pelice; a patch of green a few inches square is
now the meadow; the chestnut-tree is a mere dot, hardly visible; and
yonder are La Torre and the white Villaro, so tiny that they look as if
they could be packed into a child’s toy-box.
But while all else has diminished, the mountains seem to have enlarged
their bulk and increased their stature. High above us towers the
summit of the Castelluzzo; still higher rise the rolling masses of the
Vandalin, the lower slopes of which form a vast and magnificent hanging
garden, utterly dwarfing those which were among the wonders of Babylon.
And in the far distance the eye rests on a tumultuous sea of mountains,
here rising in needles, there running off in long serrated ridges,
and there standing up in massive peaks of naked granite, wearing the
shining garments which winter weaves for the giants of the Alps.
We now descend into the Valley of Rora. It lies at our feet, a cup
of verdure, some sixty miles in circumference, its sides and bottom
variously clothed with corn-field and meadow, with vineyard and
orchard, with the walnut, the cherry, and all fruit-bearing trees,
from amid which numerous brown châlets peep out. The great mountains
sweep round the valley like a wall, and among them, pre-eminent in
glory as in stature, stands the monarch of the Cottian Alps--Monte Viso.
As among the Jews of old, so among the Waldenses, God raised up, from
time to time, mighty men of valour to deliver his people. One of the
most remarkable of these men was Gianavello, commonly known as Captain
Joshua Gianavello, a native of this same Valley of Rora. He appears,
from the accounts that have come down to us, to have possessed all the
qualities of a great military leader. He was a man of daring courage,
of resolute purpose, and of venturous enterprise. He had the faculty,
so essential in a commander, of skilful combination. He was fertile in
resource, and self-possessed in emergencies; he was quick to resolve,
and prompt to execute. His devotion and energy were the means, under
God, of mitigating somewhat the horrors of the Massacre of 1655, and
his heroism ultimately rolled back the tide of that great calamity,
and made it recoil upon its authors. It was the morning of the 24th
of April, 1655, the day which saw the butchery commenced that we have
described above. On that same day 500 soldiers were dispatched by the
Marquis de Pianeza to the Valley of Rora, to massacre its unoffending
and unsuspecting inhabitants. Ascending from the Valley of the Pelice,
they had gained the summit of the pass, and were already descending on
the town of Rora, stealthily and swiftly, as a herd of wolves might
descend upon a sheep-fold, or as, says Leger, “a brood of vultures
might descend upon a flock of harmless doves.” Happily Gianavello, who
had known for weeks before that a storm was gathering, though he knew
not when or where it would burst, was on the outlook. He saw the troop,
and guessed their errand. There was not a moment to be lost; a little
longer, and not a man would be left alive in Rora to carry tidings of
its fate to the next commune. But was Gianavello single-handed to
attack an army of 500 men? He stole up-hill, under cover of the rocks
and trees, and on his way he prevailed on six peasants, brave men like
himself, to join him in repelling the invaders. The heroic little band
marched on till they were near the troop, then hiding amid the bushes,
they lay in ambush by the side of the path. The soldiers came on,
little suspecting the trap into which they were marching. Gianavello
and his men fired, and with so unerring an aim that seven of the troop
fell dead. Then, reloading their pieces, and dexterously changing their
ground, they fired again with a like effect. The attack was unexpected;
the foe was invisible; the frightened imaginations of Pianeza’s
soldiers multiplied tenfold the number of their assailants. They began
to retreat. But Gianavello and his men, bounding from cover to cover
like so many chamois, hung upon their rear, and did deadly execution
with their bullets. The invaders left 54 of their number dead behind
them; and thus did these seven peasants chase from their Valley of Rora
the 500 assassins who had come to murder its peaceful inhabitants.[124]
That same afternoon the people of Rora, who were ignorant of the
fearful murders which were at that very moment proceeding in the
valleys of their brethren, repaired to the Marquis de Pianeza to
complain of the attack. The marquis affected ignorance of the whole
affair. “Those who invaded your valley,” said he, “were a set of
banditti. You did right to repel them. Go back to your families and
fear nothing; I pledge my word and honour that no evil shall happen to
you.”
These deceitful words did not impose upon Gianavello. He had a
wholesome recollection of the maxim enacted by the Council of
Constance, and so often put in practice in the Valleys, “No faith is
to be kept with heretics.” Pianeza, he knew, was the agent of the
“Council of Extirpation.” Hardly had the next morning broken when the
hero-peasant was abroad, scanning with eagle-eye the mountain paths
that led into his valley. It was not long till his suspicions were more
than justified. Six hundred men-at-arms, chosen with special reference
to this difficult enterprise, were seen ascending the mountain
Cassuleto, to do what their comrades of the previous day had failed
to accomplish. Gianavello had now mustered a little host of eighteen,
of whom twelve were armed with muskets and swords, and six with only
the sling. These he divided into three parties, each consisting of
four musketeers and two slingers, and he posted them in a defile,
through which he saw the invaders must pass. No sooner had the van of
the enemy entered the gorge than a shower of bullets and stones from
invisible hands saluted them. Every bullet and stone did its work. The
first discharge brought down an officer and twelve men. That volley
was succeeded by others equally fatal. The cry was raised, “All is
lost, save yourselves!” The flight was precipitate, for every bush and
rock seemed to vomit forth deadly missiles. Thus a second ignominious
retreat rid the Valley of Rora of these murderers.
The inhabitants carried their complaints a second time to Pianeza.
“Concealing,” as Leger says, “the ferocity of the tiger under the skin
of the fox,” he assured the deputies that the attack had been the
result of a misunderstanding; that certain accusations had been lodged
against them, the falsity of which had since been discovered, and now
they might return to their homes, for they had nothing to fear. No
sooner were they gone than Pianeza began vigorously to prepare for a
third attack.[125]
He organised a battalion of from 800 to 900 men. Next morning, this
host made a rapid march on Rora, seized all the avenues leading
into the valley, and chasing the inhabitants to the caves in Monte
Friolante, set fire to their dwellings, having first plundered them.
Captain Joshua Gianavello, at the head of his little troop, saw the
enemy enter, but their numbers were so overwhelming that he waited a
more favourable moment for attacking them. The soldiers were retiring,
laden with their booty, and driving before them the cattle of the
peasants. Gianavello knelt down before his hero-band, and giving
thanks to God, who had twice by his hand saved his people, he prayed
that the hearts and arms of his followers might be strengthened, to
work yet another deliverance. He then attacked the foe. The spoilers
turned and then fled up-hill, in the hope of escaping into the Valley
of the Pelice, throwing away their booty in their flight. When they
had gained the pass, and begun their descent, their flight became yet
more disastrous; great stones, torn up and rolled after them, were
mingled with the bullets, and did deadly execution upon them, while
the precipices over which they fell in their haste consummated their
destruction. The few who survived fled to Villaro.[126]
The Marquis de Pianeza, instead of seeing in these events the finger
of God, was only the more inflamed with rage, and the more resolutely
bent on the extirpation of every heretic from the Valley of Rora. He
assembled all the royal troops then under his command, or which could
be spared from the massacre in which they were occupied in the other
valleys, in order to surround the little territory. This was now the
fourth attack on the commune of Rora, but the invaders were destined
once more to recoil before the shock of its heroic defenders. Some
8,000 men had been got under arms, and were ready to march against
Rora, but the impatience of a certain Captain Mario, who had signalised
himself in the massacre at Bobbio, and wished to appropriate the
entire glory of the enterprise, would not permit him to await the
movement of the main body. He marched two hours in advance, with three
companies of regular troops, few of whom ever returned. Their ferocious
leader, borne along by the rush of his panic-stricken soldiers, was
precipitated over the edge of the rock into the stream, and badly
bruised. He was drawn out and carried to Lucerna, where he died two
days afterwards, in great torment of body, and yet greater torment of
mind. Of the three companies which he led in this fatal expedition,
one was composed of Irish, who had been banished by Cromwell, and who
met in this distant land the death they had inflicted on others in
their own, leaving their corpses to fatten those valleys which were
to have been theirs had they succeeded in purging them of heresy and
heretics.[127]
This series of strange events was now drawing to an end. The fury
of Pianeza knew no bounds. This war of his, though waged only with
herdsmen, had brought him nothing but disgrace, and the loss of his
bravest soldiers. Victor Amadeus once observed that “the skin of every
Vaudois cost him fifteen of his best Piedmontese soldiers.” Pianeza
had lost some hundreds of his best soldiers, and yet not one of the
little troop of Gianavello, dead or alive, had he been able to get into
his hands. Nevertheless, he resolved to continue the struggle, but
with a much greater army. He assembled 10,000, and attacked Rora on
three sides at once. While Gianavello was bravely combating with the
first troop of 3,000, on the summit of the pass that gives entrance
from the Valley of the Pelice, a second of 6,000 had entered by the
ravine at the foot of the valley; and a third of 1,000 had crossed the
mountains that divide Bagnolo from Rora. But, alas! who shall describe
the horrors that followed the entrance of these assassins? Blood,
burning, and rapine in an instant overwhelmed the little community. No
distinction was made of age or sex. None had pity for their tender
years; none had reverence for their grey hairs. Happy they who were
slain at once, and thus escaped horrible indignities and tortures. The
few spared from the sword were carried away as captives, and among
these were the wife and the three daughters of Gianavello.[128]
There was now nothing more in the Valley of Rora for which the
patriot-hero could do battle. The light of his hearth was quenched,
his village was a heap of smoking ruins, his fathers and brethren
had fallen by the sword; but rising superior to these accumulated
calamities, he marched his little troop over the mountains, to await on
the frontier of his country whatever opportunities Providence might yet
open to him of wielding his sword in defence of the ancient liberties
and the glorious faith of his people.
It was at this time that Pianeza, intending to deal the finishing blow
that should crush the hero of Rora, wrote to Gianavello as follows:--“I
exhort you for the last time to renounce your heresy. This is the only
hope of your obtaining the pardon of your prince, and of saving the
life of your wife and daughters, now my prisoners, and whom, if you
continue obstinate, I will burn alive. As for yourself, my soldiers
shall no longer pursue you, but I will set such a price upon your head,
as that, were you Beelzebub himself, you shall infallibly be taken; and
be assured that, if you fall alive into my hands, there are no torments
with which I will not punish your rebellion.” To these ferocious
threats Gianavello magnanimously and promptly replied: “There are no
torments so terrible, no death so barbarous, that I would not choose
rather than deny my Saviour. Your threats cannot cause me to renounce
my faith; they but fortify me in it. Should the Marquis de Pianeza
cause my wife and daughters to pass through the fire, it can but
consume their mortal bodies; their souls I commend to God, trusting
that he will have mercy on them, and on mine, should it please him that
I fall into the marquis’s hands.”[129] We do not know whether Pianeza
was capable of seeing that this was the most mortifying defeat he had
yet sustained at the hands of the peasant-hero of Rora; and that he
might as well war against the Alps themselves as against a cause that
could infuse a spirit like this into its champions. Gianavello’s reply,
observes Leger, “certified him as a chosen instrument in the hands of
God for the recovery of his country seemingly lost.”
Gianavello had saved from the wreck of his family his infant son, and
his first care was to seek a place of safety for him. Laying him on
his shoulders, he passed the frozen Alps which separate the Valley of
Lucerna from France, and entrusted the child to the care of a relative
resident at Queyras, in the Valleys of the French Protestants. With
the child he carried thither the tidings of the awful massacre of his
people. Indignation was roused. Not a few were willing to join his
standard, brave spirits like himself; and, with his little band greatly
recruited, he repassed the Alps in a few weeks, to begin his second
and more successful campaign. On his arrival in the Valleys he was
joined by Giaheri, under whom a troop had been assembling to avenge the
massacre of their brethren.
In Giaheri, Captain Gianavello had found a companion worthy of himself,
and worthy of the cause for which he was now in arms. Of this heroic
man Leger has recorded that, “though he possessed the courage of a
lion, he was as humble as a lamb, always giving to God the glory of his
victories; well versed in Scripture, and understanding controversy,
and of great natural talent.” The massacre had reduced the Vaudois
race to all but utter extermination, and 500 men were all that the two
leaders could collect around their standard. The army opposed to them,
and at this time in their Valleys, was from 15,000 to 20,000 strong,
consisting of trained and picked soldiers. Nothing but an impulse
from the God of battles could have moved these two men, with such a
handful, to take the field against such odds. To the eye of a common
hero all would have seemed lost; but the courage of these two Christian
warriors was based on faith. They believed that God would not permit
his cause to perish, or the lamp of the Valleys to be extinguished;
and, few though they were, they knew that God was able by their humble
instrumentality to save their country and Church. In this faith they
unsheathed the sword; and so valiantly did they wield it, that soon
that sword became the terror of the Piedmontese armies. The ancient
promise was fulfilled, “The people that do know their God shall be
strong and do exploits.”
We cannot go into details. Prodigies of valour were performed by this
little host. “I had always considered the Vaudois to be men,” said
Descombies, who had joined them, “but I found them lions.” Nothing
could withstand the fury of their attack. Post after post and village
after village were wrested from the Piedmontese troops. Soon the enemy
was driven from the upper valleys. The war now passed down into the
plain of Piedmont, and there it was waged with the same heroism and the
same success. They besieged and took several towns, they fought not
a few pitched battles; and in those actions they were nearly always
victorious, though opposed by more than ten times their number. Their
success could hardly be credited had it not been recorded by historians
whose veracity is above suspicion, and the accuracy of whose statements
was attested by eye-witnesses. Not unfrequently did it happen at the
close of a day’s fighting that 1,400 Piedmontese dead covered the
field of battle, while not more than six or seven of the Waldenses had
fallen. Such success might well be termed miraculous; and not only did
it appear so to the Vaudois themselves, but even to their foes, who
could not refrain from expressing their conviction “that surely God was
on the side of the Barbets.”
[Illustration: CROMWELL AND MILTON.]
While the Vaudois were thus heroically maintaining their cause by
arms, and rolling back the chastisement of war on those from whom its
miseries had come, tidings of their wrongs were travelling to all the
Protestant States of Europe. Wherever these tidings came a feeling
of horror was evoked, and the cruelty of the Government of Savoy was
universally and loudly execrated. All confessed that such a tale of
woe they had never before heard. But the Protestant States did not
content themselves with simply condemning these deeds; they judged
it to be their clear duty to move in behalf of this poor and greatly
oppressed people; and foremost among those who did themselves lasting
honour by interposing in behalf of a people “drawn unto death and
ready to perish,” was, as has already been said, England, then under
the protectorate of Cromwell. In the previous chapter mention was made
of the Latin letter, the composition of Milton, which the Protector
addressed to the Duke of Savoy. In addition, Cromwell wrote to Louis
XIV. of France, soliciting his mediation with the duke in behalf of the
Vaudois. The letter is interesting as containing the truly catholic and
noble sentiments of England, to which the pen of her great poet gave
fitting expression:--
“Most Serene and Potent King,
... “After a most barbarous slaughter of persons of both
sexes, and of all ages, a treaty of peace was concluded,
or rather secret acts of hostility were committed the more
securely under the name of a pacification. The conditions
of the treaty were determined in your town of Pinerolo:
hard conditions enough, but such as these poor people
would gladly have agreed to, after the horrible outrages
to which they had been exposed, provided that they had
been faithfully observed. But they were not observed; the
meaning of the treaty is evaded and violated, by putting
a false interpretation upon some of the articles, and
by straining others. Many of the complainants have been
deprived of their patrimonies, and many have been forbidden
the exercise of their religion. New payments have been
exacted, and a new fort has been built to keep them in
check, from whence a disorderly soldiery makes frequent
sallies, and plunders or murders all it meets. In addition
to these things, fresh levies of troops are clandestinely
preparing to march against them; and those among them who
profess the Roman Catholic religion have been advised to
retire in time; so that everything threatens the speedy
destruction of such as escaped the former massacre. I
do therefore beseech and conjure your Majesty not to
suffer such enormities, and not to permit (I will not
say any prince, for surely such barbarity never could
enter into the heart of a prince, much less of one of the
duke’s tender age, or into the mind of his mother) those
accursed murderers to indulge in such savage ferocity,
who, while they profess to be the servants and followers
of Christ, who came into the world to save sinners, do
blaspheme his name, and transgress his mild precepts, by
the slaughter of innocent men. Oh, that your Majesty,
who has the power, and who ought to be inclined to use
it, may deliver so many supplicants from the hands of
murderers, who are already drunk with blood, and thirst
for it again, and who take pleasure in throwing the odium
of their cruelty upon princes! I implore your Majesty
not to suffer the borders of your kingdom to be polluted
by such monstrous wickedness. Remember that this very
race of people threw itself upon the protection of your
grandfather, King Henry IV., who was most friendly disposed
towards the Protestants, when the Duke of Lesdiguières
passed victoriously through their country, as affording
the most commodious passage into Italy at the time he
pursued the Duke of Savoy in his retreat across the Alps.
The act or instrument of that submission is still extant
among the public records of your kingdom, in which it is
provided that the Vaudois shall not be transferred to any
other government, but upon the same condition that they
were received under the protection of your invincible
grandfather. As supplicants of his grandson, they now
implore the fulfilment of this compact.
* * * * *
“Given at our Court at Westminster, this 26th of May, 1658.”
The French King undertook the mediation, as requested by the Protestant
princes, but hurried it to a conclusion before the ambassadors from
the Protestant States had arrived. The delegates from the Protestant
cantons of Switzerland were present, but they were permitted to act
the part of onlookers simply. The Grand Monarch took the whole affair
upon himself, and on the 18th of August, 1655, a treaty of peace was
concluded of a very disadvantageous kind. The Waldenses were stripped
of their ancient possessions on the right bank of the Pelice, lying
toward the plain of Piedmont. Within the new boundary they were
guaranteed liberty of worship; an amnesty was granted for all offences
committed during the war; captives were to be restored when claimed;
and they were to be exempt from all imposts for five years, on the
ground that they were so impoverished as not to be able to pay anything.
When the treaty was published it was found to contain two clauses that
astonished the Protestant world. In the preamble the Vaudois were
styled rebels, whom it had pleased their prince graciously to receive
back into favour; and in the body of the deed was an article, which
no one recollected to have heard mentioned during the negotiations,
empowering the French to construct a fort above La Torre. This looked
like a preparation for renewing the war.
By this treaty the Protestant States were outwitted; their ambassadors
were duped; and the poor Vaudois were left as much as ever in the power
of the Duke of Savoy and of the Council for the Propagation of the
Faith and the Extirpation of Heretics.