On Google Books which recounts the terrible persecution of the Vaudois in the Lumeron region in the mid 16th century. Many of the towns and villages are familiar to me after visiting the area, the last excerpt is about La Coste the small hill top town which I believe that Leen Arie's ancestors came from. Did they survive these atrociaties and then decide to move to the safe city of La Rochelle?
Here follows the excerpt.
Monsieur de Thou's History of His Own Time Volume I - Jacques Auguste de Thou 1729
The Vaudois as they are called were a people, who about three hundred years since hired a rocky and uncultivated part of the Country of the owners, and had, by dint of Pains and constant tillage, rendered it productive of fruits and fit for cattle; that they were extremely patient of labour and want; abhorring all contentions; kind to the poor; that they paid the Prince's Taxes, and their Lords Dues with the greatest exactness and fidelity; that they kept up a show of Divine Worship by daily prayers and innocence of manners; but seldom came to the Churches of the Saints, unless by chance when they went to the neighboring Towns for traffic or other business ; and whenever they set their feet in them , they paid no adoration to the statues of God or the Saints, nor brought them any tapers or other presents; nor ever intreated the Priests to say mass for them, or the souls of their relations; nor crossed their forehead, as is the manner of others; that when it thundered they never sprinkled themselves with Holy Water, but lifting up their eyes to Heaven implored the assistant of God; that they never made religious pilgrimages, nor uncovered their heads in the public ways before the Crucifixes; that they performed their Worship in a strange manner, and in the vulgar tongue; and lastly, paid no honour to the Pope or the Bishops, but esteemed some select persons of their own number as Priests and Doctors.
When this report was made to King Francis, on the eighth day of February, he dispatched an Arret to the Parliament of Aix, wherein having pardoned all past crimes, he allowed the Vaudois the space of three months, within which time they were required publicly to revoke their Opinion:
And that it might be known, who they were, that they were willing to reap the benefit of the Amnesty, it was ordered that chosen persons out of the towns and villages should appear at Aix in the name of the rest of the multitude, and publicly abjure their error: If they persisted in it, the Parliament were empowered and commanded to punish them after the example of former ages, and if need were, to call in the Military Officers to their aid. The Arret being read in the Senate, Francis Chai and William Armand came to Aix in the name of the Merindolian Commonality, and offered a Petition to the Parliament, that the Cause might be reheard, and examined by a Disputation of Divines; for that it was unjust, that, before they were convicted, they should confess themselves heretics, or be condemned unheard. La Chassagne, in whose breast his friend's advice had made a deep impression, calling aside the Deputies in the presence of the King's Advocates, admonished them to acknowledge their error, and not by their excessive obstinacy lay the Judges under a necessity of dealing with them more harshly, .......
When things were in readiness and he had under severe penalties summoned all those, who were capable of bearing Arms at Aix, Marseilles, Arles and other populous towns, to come into the field; and when six companies of Foot, with a squadron of horse commanded by Poulain, and other auxiliary troops from Piedmont and Avignon were already assembled; the Royal letters, which had been hitherto suppressed, were read in Parliament : Whereupon the Senators on the 12th day of April decreed the Execution of the sentence passed upon the Merindolians; and the business was committed to the President Francis de la Fons, with the Councilors Honore de Tributus and Bernard de Badet, to whom was joined Nicholas Guerin Kings Advocate, the Principle Incendiary of the War D'Oppede the day following, accompanied by a great body of nobles, repaired to the army at Cadenet, bringing with him four hundred pioneers. The first attack was made upon the country adjoining the town of Pertuis; the villages of Pupin, La Mote and St. Martin near the Durance were taken, pillaged and set on fire. On the following day the little towns of Ville-Laure, Lourmarin, Trezemines and La Roque, from whence the multitude had fled were cruelly burnt and all the cattle driven away. Then D'Oppede consulted about attacking Merindol; but when the townsmen saw the country around them in flames , in order to prevent the danger, they fled into the neighboring woods with their wives and children; which made a most lamentable spectacle, whilst in those by-ways were to be seen marching old men mixed with boys and women carrying their crying infants in cradles, or in their arms or laps. They rested the first night at Sansalaife, where also the inhabitants were preparing all things for a flight, because they knew, that the Bishop of Carvallion the Pope's Legate had ordered his men to massacre them. The next day they advanced further under the security of the thick woods, full of fears from every other quarter: for D'Oppede had outlawed the Vaudois and had ordered under pain of death that none should give them any relief, .......
Thence the town La Coste, the Lord of which place having pacified his ..... for their safety, provided they carry their Arms in .....
broke down their walls in four places, the credulous people did as they were commanded; notwithstanding which, on the arrival of D'Oppede, the suburbs being burnt and the town taken, all that were found left in the place were murdered to a man: The women, who to avoid the first fury of the soldiers, had retired into a garden near the castle, were deflowered, and after the rage of lust was extinguished, handled in so cruel a manner, that most of those which were with child, and even the virgins, died either of grief or by hunger and torments. The men, who sheltered themselves at Murs, being at length discovered, underwent the same fate with the others: The remains of them, wandering here and there among the woods and solitary mountains, led a wretched life, deprived of both wives and children; some few escaped, partly to Geneva and partly to the Swiss Cantons.
In all there are twenty two villages reckoned, which were punished with the last severity by D'Oppede; by whose authority judges were again selected, to make enquiry after the heretics; and these condemned the rest of those poor wretches either to the gallies, or to the payment of excessive fines.
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