on which
would seem puerile were it not the conclusion of so sanguinary a
document, the owners of lands were forbidden to lease any part of
Merindol to a tenant bearing the same name, or belonging to the same
family, as the miscreants against whom the decree was fulminated.[466]

[Sidenote: It is condemned by public opinion.]

A more atrocious sentence was, perhaps, never rendered by a court of
justice than the _Arret de Merindol_, which condemned the accused
without a hearing, confounded the innocent with the guilty, and
consigned the entire population of a peaceful village, by a single
stroke of the pen, to a cruel death, or a scarcely less terrible exile.
For ten righteous persons God would have spared guilty Sodom; but
neither the virtues of the inoffensive inhabitants, nor the presence of
many Roman Catholics among them, could insure the safety of the
ill-fated Merindol at the hands of merciless judges.[467] The
publication of the _Arret_ occasioned, even within the bounds of the
province, the most severe animadversion; nor were there wanting men of
learning and high social position, who, while commenting freely upon the
scandalous morals of the clergy, expressed their conviction that the
public welfare would be promoted rather by restraining and reforming the
profligacy of the ecclesiastics, than by issuing bloody edicts against
the most exemplary part of the community.[468]

[Sidenote: Preparations to carry it into effect.]

Meantime, however, the archbishops of Arles and of Aix urged the prompt
execution of the sentence, and the convocations of clergy offered to
defray the expense of the levy of troops needed to carry it into effect.
The Archbishop of Aix used his personal influence with Chassanee, the
First President of the Parliament, who, with the more moderate judges,
had only consented to the enactment as a threat which he never intended
to execute.[469] And the wily prelate so far succeeded by his
arguments, and by the assurance he gave of the protection of the
Cardinal of Tournon, in case the matter should reach the king's ears,
that the definite order was actually promulgated for the destruction of
Merindol. Troops were accordingly raised, and, in fact, the vanguard of
a formidable army had reached a spot within three miles of the devoted
village, when the command was suddenly received to retreat, the soldiers
were disbanded, and the astonished Waldenses beheld the dreaded outburst
of the storm stran