Note Back to Main Text — Chapter III

The persecution of the people of the valleys thus suffered no relaxation, and all that remained for them was flight into the mountains, to places where they were most likely to remain unmolested. Hence they fled up to the very edge of the glaciers, and formed their settlements at almost the farthest limits of vegetation. There the barrenness of the soil, the inhospitality of the climate, and the comparative inaccessibility of their villages, proved their security. Of them it might be truly said, that they "wandered about in sheepskins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Yet the character of these poor peasants was altogether irreproachable. Even Louis XII. said of them, "Would to God that I were as good a Christian as the worst of these people!" The wonder is that, in the face of their long-continued persecutions, extending over so many centuries, any remnant of the original population of the valleys should have been preserved. Long after the time of Louis XII. and Cæsar Borgia, the French historian, De Thou (writing in 1556), thus describes the people of Val Fressinières: "Notwithstanding their squalidness, it is surprising that they are very far from being uncultivated in their morals. They almost all understand Latin; and are able to write fairly enough. They understand also as much of French as will enable them to read the Bible and to sing psalms; nor would you easily find a boy among them who, if he were questioned as to the religious opinions which they hold in common with the Waldenses, would not be able to give from memory a reasonable account of them."[104]