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At the beginning of the 17th century, the Waldensians numbered twenty thousand. Under the firm leadership of a handful of pastors, and a more numerous group of schoolmasters, they kept one hand on the Bible and the other on the hoe, one eye on Geneva and the other on the New Jerusalem of the heavens above.

Tillers of the soil and keepers of flocks, the Waldensians dwelt exclusively in a remote corner of Italy. The Counter-Reformation of the Roman Catholic Church had forced them to shut themselves up in the mountains, amidst the Cottian Alps, between the towering peaks.

The region was divided between two sovereigns: the Delfinato, an area including the upper Dora and Chisone Valleys, belonged to the King of France; the Pellice and Germanasca Valleys belonged to the Duke of Savoy. The area’s culture and language was (and is) the expression of a combination of two cultures: French and Italian.

The Waldensians prospered. They built churches and schools, and began to move out to the plains below. Everywhere they brought with them the Bible and the Psalms put to music by the French Calvinists—the Huguenots.

A reaction set in in the Piedmont. Injunctions and decrees, incursions and pillage of the countryside put the Waldensians to the test, but they did not give in. In the end, the authorities in Turin took drastic measures. In January 1655, a judge ordered the Waldensians to abandon all they possessed beyond the territorial limits established almost 100 years before by the treaty of Cavour (1561). The Marquis of Pianezza was stationed at Torre in the Pellice Valley, but his 700 soldiers were no match for the 2,000 Waldensians observing them from the safety of the surrounding hills.

Meanwhile, however, a great army of French soldiers was marching nearby in the Susa valley, on its way to attack the Spanish in Lombardy. Why not borrow a few regiments … and finish off the Waldensians? And so it was decided in Turin.

In 1655, on Easter week, 5,000 first-class soldiers were thrown against the Waldensians. Given permission to pillage, the French were merciless: they killed, tortured, raped, and looted. Those who escaped death were put to flight, or were forced to surrender; 1,712 souls breathed their last. The infamous event is known in Waldensian history as the Piedmont Easter Massacre.

The Waldensians finally seemed broken forever.

The French army finished their work and left immediately for the battlefields of Lombardy. The surviving Waldensian population had escaped to the Chisone Valley in French territory, where a “sanctuary” of popular resistance was organized.

The men took up arms, crossed the river Chisone, and attacked the enemy from behind. Guerrilla war tactics were used. The most important leader in this war was Joshua Gianavello. From his headquarters in the Angrogna Valley he led a popular militia of at least 2,000 combatants, with Calvinistic rigor. Victory was won. At the same time, an “international brigade” of 500 volunteers, mostly Huguenots, was organized in French territory at Pinasca. Together with a division of calvary they came to the aid of the Waldensians.

The comeback of the Waldensians was spectacular. But it would have been unthinkable without the mobilization of Protestant Europe. Three days after the massacre inflicted by the French, the news traveled in the direction of Geneva. It soon arrived in Paris, Holland, Germany, and in England.

Pastor John Léger, a leader of the Waldensians during their ordeal, traveled about Europe testifying to his peoples’ woes. The gazzettes of Paris, London, and Amsterdam denounced the unjust massacre. The House of Savoy was put on the defensive, both on ideological and diplomatic fronts. Puritan England, and her Protestant “Lord Protector,” Oliver Cromwell, were shocked by the event; Cromwell soon sealed a pact with France for a solution to “the Waldensian problem” [see the article on Cromwell, “A Friend in the Lord Protector”].

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