hree formidable attacks
should be made at the same time, unless the people of Roras, to whom he
sent an account of his great preparations, would comply with the
following conditions:

1. To ask pardon for taking up arms. 2. To pay the expenses of all the
expeditions sent against them. 3. To acknowledge the infallibility of
the pope. 4. To go to mass. 5. To pray to the saints. 6. To wear beards.
7. To deliver up their ministers. 8. To deliver up their schoolmasters.
9. To go to confession. 10. To pay loans for the delivery of souls from
purgatory. 11. To give up captain Gianavel at discretion. 12. To give up
the elders of their church at discretion.

The inhabitants of Roras, on being acquainted with these conditions,
were filled with an honest indignation, and, in answer, sent word to the
marquis, that sooner than comply with them they would suffer three
things, which, of all others, were the most obnoxious to mankind, viz.

1. Their estates to be seized. 2. Their houses to be burnt. 3.
Themselves to be murdered.

Exasperated at this message, the marquis sent them this laconic epistle.

_To the obstinate Heretics inhabiting Roras._

You shall have your request, for the troops sent
against you have strict injunctions to plunder,
burn, and kill.

PIANESSA.

The three armies were then put in motion, and the attacks ordered to be
made thus: the first by the rocks of Villaro; the second by the pass of
Bagnol; and the third by the defile of Lucerne.

The troops forced their way by the superiority of numbers, and having
gained the rocks, pass, and defile, began to make the most horrid
depredations, and exercise the greatest cruelties. Men they hanged,
burnt, racked to death, or cut to pieces; women they ripped open,
crucified, drowned, or threw from the precipices; and children they
tossed upon spears, minced, cut their throats, or dashed out their
brains. One hundred and twenty-six suffered in this manner, on the first
day of their gaining the town.

Agreeable to the marquis of Pianessa's orders, they likewise plundered
the estates, and burnt the houses of the people. Several protestants,
however, made their escape, under the conduct of Captain Gianavel, whose
wife and children were unfortunately made prisoners, and sent under a
strong guard to Turin.

The marquis of Pianessa wrote a letter to captain Gianavel, and released
a protestant prisoner that