Note 466 — Chapter VII

Histoire ecclés., i. 23; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 90; De Thou, i. 536; Nicolaï, ubi supra; Recueil des anc. lois françaises, xii. 698. See the arrêt in Bouche, Hist. de Provence, ubi supra. The last-mentioned author, while admitting the proceedings of the Parliament of Aix to be apparently "somewhat too violent," excuses them on the ground that the Waldenses deserved this punishment, "non tant par leurs insolences et impiétez cy-devant commises, mais pour leur obstination à ne vouloir changer de religion;" and cites, in exculpation of the parliament, the "bloody order of Gastaldo," in consequence of which, in 1655, fire, sword, and rapine were carried into the peaceful valley of Luserna (ibid., 615, 623)! The massacre of the unhappy Italian Waldenses thus becomes a capital vindication of the barbarities inflicted a century before upon their French brethren.