“Armies of the Aliens” Put to Flight by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 19, 1909

“Armies of the Aliens” Put to Flight

By W. A. S.

In 1487 Pope Innocent VIII issued a decree, or bull of extermination, against the Vaudois people of the Piedmont valleys of Italy. Their consistent refusal to accept Romish doctrine, long back prior to the Reformation of the sixteenth century, had made them objects of papal hatred.

The Inquisition had been refused permission to set up its machinery of espionage and torture in the valleys, the people turning its agents back by force of arms. This brought the papal bull ordering total destruction.

Troops came in thousands, eighteen thousand regulars of France and Piedmont, joined by a host of plunderers and brigands who were after the spoils of the happy valley homes. Some of the accounts of deliverances that saved the people from total destruction in this first general persecution of the Vaudois, read like stories from the days of Israel.

The campaign of massacre, watched by a legate named Cattanée, in behalf of the pope, began in an attack on the valley of Angrogna. The enemy was breaking the line of the Vaudois defense, at a point behind which were the women and children and aged. Dr. Muston says:—

Seeing their defenders yield, these families threw themselves upon their knees with many tears; women, and children, and old men united together in fervently crying, “O Dio aijutaci! O Lord, help us! O my God, save us!” This cry of prayer was the only cry which broke from their hearts in their distress, and arose to heaven. But their enemies laughed at it, and seeing this company upon their knees, hastened their advance. “My fellows are coming—they are coming to give you your answer,” exclaimed one of their chiefs, surnamed “the Black of Mondovi,” because of his swarthy complexion; and immediately, joining bravado to insult, he raised the visor of his helmet, to show that he was not afraid to encounter the poor people whom he insulted. But at that moment a steel-pointed arrow, let fly by a young man of Angrogna, named Peter Revel, struck this new Goliath with such violence that it penetrated into his skull, between his eyes, and laid him dead. His troop, struck with terror, fell back in disorder; a panic seized them; the Vaudois took advantage of the moment, and impetuously rushed forward, hurling their adversaries before them, and, eagerly continuing the pursuit, swept them into the very plain, where they left them vanquished and dispersed. Then, reascending to their families so miraculously delivered, they likewise flung themselves upon their knees, and all together gave thanks to the God of armies for the victory which they had just gained.—

“History of the Waldenses,” Vol. I, pages 33, 34.

But the invaders were by no means defeated; they had only been turned back and angered. On they came the next day, fiercer than ever:—

The enemy took a different route; ascending by the bottom of the Valley of Angrogna, in order to penetrate to the Pra du Tour, whence, mounting by La Vachera, they would have been masters of the whole region. But a dense and dangerous mist, such as sometimes unexpectedly appears in the Alps, settled down upon them just at the very moment when they were entangled in the paths most full of difficulty and of peril. Ignorant of the locality, marching apprehensively, uncertain of the route which they ought to take, and not able to advance except singly, over rocks, upon the brink of precipices, they gave way before the first assault of the Vaudois, and not being able to range themselves in order of battle, they were easily defeated. The first who were repulsed fell back precipitately, overthrowing those who were next to them; the confusion spread further and further; disorder reigned everywhere; the retreat became a flight, the flight a catastrophe, for those who attempted to retrace their course slid over the humid rocks, of which the edge was concealed by the mists. Others, again, thinking to find in these sinuosities a way of escape, precipitated themselves into the chasms in which the former had already perished. Very few succeeded in making their escape, the greater part losing their way in the depths of the ravines, or on the crests of the rocks.

This decisive defeat, which is to be ascribed to the will of God rather than to the arms of the Vaudois, accomplished the deliverance of that valley, in which the troops of Cattanée never appeared again. The detachment which was destroyed in so complete and unexpected a manner, was the last which showed itself upon the banks of the Angrogna before the period of the Reformation. The captain who commanded it was called Saguet de Planghère, and the chasm into which he fell is called to this day, after the lapse of four centuries, the Toumpi de Saguet—Saguet’s hole.—Id., pages 34, 35.

“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal.” The Reformation history

shows that it was by witnessing and experiencing suffering and not by fighting that the light of truth was caused to shine. But in these experiences of deliverance we see God’s providence in keeping alive the little band of witnesses in the Piedmont valleys until the time of reformation should come. And in all the reading of God’s providences in former days, we are to remember that he is the one who delivers us in our conflicts with spiritual foes to-day. W. A. S.