Note 206 — XLVII.—To Peter Viret.

While he sought the alliance of the Protestant princes of Germany, Francis I. persecuted the Protestants in his own dominions with an extreme rigour, under the odious designation of Sacramentaries. The year 1540 witnessed numerous burnings at the stake, in the provinces of Dauphiny, Vivarais, at Paris, and in the valleys of Provence. There dwelt for many centuries a pastoral population, which was only known to the world by simplicity of manners and the purity of its faith. De Thou, liv. v. c. 7; Histoire des Martyrs, liv. iii. pp. 133-146. The Vaudois of Cabrières and Merindol, hated by the Roman Catholic clergy on account of their being estranged from the superstitions of the time, were devoted to death by the fanatical fury of the parliament of Aix. The arrêt, which condemned in the mass an innocent and inoffensive people to extermination, was dated 18th November 1540. The intercession of the Senate of Strasbourg, of the Swiss Cantons, and of the German princes, suspended the execution of it until the year 1545.