lleys of Piedmont, with the following
propositions:

1. That if the Waldenses would come to the bosom of the church of Rome,
and embrace the Roman catholic religion, they should enjoy their houses,
properties and lands, and live with their families, without the least
molestation.

2. That to prove their obedience, they should send twelve of their
principal persons, with all their ministers and schoolmasters, to Turin,
to be dealt with at discretion.

3. That the pope, the king of France, and the duke of Savoy, approved
of, and authorized the proceedings of the parliament of Turin, upon this
occasion.

4. That if the Waldenses of the valleys of Piedmont, refused to comply
with these propositions, persecution should ensue, and certain death be
their portion.

To each of these propositions the Waldenses nobly replied in the
following manner, answering them respectively:

1. That no considerations whatever should make them renounce their
religion.

2. That they would never consent to commit their best and most
respectable friends, to the custody and discretion of their worst and
most inveterate enemies.

3. That they valued the approbation of the King of kings, who reigns in
heaven, more than any temporal authority.

4. That their souls were more precious than their bodies.

These pointed and spirited replies greatly exasperated the parliament of
Turin; they continued, with more avidity than ever, to kidnap such
Waldenses as did not act with proper precaution, who were sure to
suffer the most cruel deaths. Among these, it unfortunately happened,
that they got hold of Jeffery Varnagle, minister of Angrogne, whom they
committed to the flames as a heretic.

They then solicited a considerable body of troops of the king of France,
in order to exterminate the reformed entirely from the valleys of
Piedmont; but just as the troops were going to march, the protestant
princes of Germany interposed, and threatened to send troops to assist
the Waldenses, if they should be attacked. The king of France, not
caring to enter into a war, remanded the troops, and sent word to the
parliament of Turin, that he could not spare any troops at present to
act in Piedmont. The members of the parliament were greatly vexed at
this disappointment, and the persecution gradually ceased, for as they
could only put to death such of the reformed as they caught by chance,
and as the Waldenses daily grew more cautious, their cruelty was obliged