with a more realizing emphasis. And
it was in this train of thought that I cast my eyes upward to the
overhanging crag of Castelluzzo. The murderous designs of the edict
proclaimed by Gastaldo on the 25th January, 1655; viz., "That all and every
one of the heads of families of the pretended reformed religion, of
whatever rank or condition, without any exception, both proprietors and
inhabitants of the territories of Lucerna, Lucernetta, San Giovanni, La
Torre, Bibbiana, Fenile, Campiglione, Bricheariso, and San Secondo, should
remove from the aforesaid places within three days to the places allowed by
his highness, the names of which places are Bobbio, Villaro, Angrogna, and
Rora. Persons contravening the above will incur the penalty of death and
confiscation of all their goods, unless within twenty days they declare
themselves before us (Gastaldo) to have become Catholics," received its
fulfilment by a signal given from this spot on the 24th of April, 1655.
The Vaudois had made every submission short of going to mass; but all was
in vain, as their extirpation had been determined on by a branch of the
inquisition established at Turin in the year 1650. This council was
presided over by the Archbishop of Turin, as regards one committee. The
Marchioness Pianezza filled the same office over another whose members were
ladies! She seems to have breathed the same spirit of ferocity and cunning
as that which characterized the conduct of her husband, who commanded the
fifteen thousand troops whose gentle entreaties were to win the Vaudois to
the orthodoxy of Rome! This army fitly included three regiments of French
soldiers, red-handed from the slaughter of the Huguenots; twelve hundred
Irish, exiled for their crimes in Ulster; and a number of Piedmontese
bandits, attracted by the love of plunder and the promised benedictions of
the Church in return for their meritorious labours in extirpating heretics.
Two monks led this band of miscreants. One of them, seated on a waggon,
brandishing a flaming torch in his left hand and a sword in his right,
exhorted the troops to burn and slay. His companion, an aged friar, carried
a crucifix before him, exclaiming, "Whoever is a son of the holy church
does not pardon heretics; they are the murderers of Christ!" The soldiers,
inflamed by these appeals to their fanaticism, went forward with the cry,
"Viva la S. Chiesa." They found La Torre deserted; for the people had
betaken themselves to the mo