Among the principal evidences in favour of the Vaudois, I must here refer to the large collection of edicts respecting them, published by the court of Turin. It is deemed unnecessary to recapitulate their dates. The Monk Belvedere, chief of a mission, sent to convert the Vaudois in 1630, in his answer to the College of Propaganda fide,* excuses himself for not having converted a single person, because "the valleys of Angrogna have always, and at every period, been inhabited by heretics."—Again, Reynerus Sacco, expressly appointed by the court of Rome, Inquisitor against the Vaudois, goes still farther than Belvedere; and in a book he published against them, calls them Leonists, from one of their ministers named Leon, who lived in the third century; he affirms that no sect was so pernicious to the church as the Leonists; and this for three reasons: 1st. Because it was the most ancient of all; some deriving its origin from the time of Pope Sylvester (the fourth century), and others from the Apostles themselves. 2ndly, Because it was the most extensive, there being scarcely any country into which it had not penetrated; and, 3dly, That instead of inspiring horror as other sects did, by their frightful blasphemies against the Divinity, it had a great appearance of piety; since its members "lived justly before men, believed rightly on God, and received the Apostles' Creed; but they blasphemed against the Roman church and clergy."**

The most obstinate opponents of the antiquity of the Vaudois must give way before the authority of Claude de Seyssel, Archbishop of Turin, who has this passage in his book against us, printed by privilege of Francis the First of France: "The sect of Vaudois," says he, "took its origin from one Leon, a truly religious man, who, in the time of Constantine the Great, detesting the extreme avarice of Pope Sylvester, and the lavish expenditure of Constantine, preferred living in poverty, with simplicity of faith, to the reproach of accepting a rich benefice with Sylvester. To this Leon all attached themselves who thought rightly of their Creed." The same author, after having made useless researches after the commencement of the Vaudois sect, concludes with these remarkable words: "That there must be some important and efficacious reason why this Vaudois sect had endured during so many ages. Again; all kind of different attempts to extirpate them have been made at different times, but they always remained victorious, and absolutely invincible, contrary to the expectation of all."

The reader will observe that this expression, "during so many ages," was written by Seyssel in 1500.

I have already quoted Rorenco, one of the most zealous of the missionaries sent against the Vaudois; his family still remains in the valleys. One of his descendants bearing the title of Count of La Tour, in his Memorie Historiche, addressed to the Duke Victor Amadeus, allows that the Vaudois doctrine was not new, in the time of Claude, many persons having opposed the Roman See before him; he also asserts that their doctrine remained the same in the 11th and 12th centuries. Rorenco will not, however, allow that the doctrine was derived from the Apostles, but avows (which nearly amounts to the same thing) that there is no ascertaining when it was first received in the valleys.

In fine, Samuel Casini, a Franciscan monk, says positively, in his work entitled Victoria Triomphale, printed at Coni, 1510, that "the errors of the Vaudois consisted in not admitting the Roman to be the sacred mother church, or obeying her traditions; although he could not, for his own part, deny that they acknowledged the Christian church, and had always been and still continued to be members of it."

Now it seems to me hardly possible, after these proofs, that anyone should venture to deny the truly Apostolic succession of the Vaudois church; but as some people have supposed that the Vaudois, after receiving the opinions of the court of Rome, have subsequently been reformed, like all those who are called Protestants; let them say when and where the Vaudois reformation took place; and let them also account for the silence of all historians on such an event! But as long as the testimony above quoted, of Catholics, Protestants, Vaudois; nay, of the very edicts of their princes, and their own petitions and replies, exists, I shall consider it as proved that the Vaudois church, having received the Gospel in the earliest days of Christianity, is the parent of all the reformed churches, and has never herself been reformed.

These truths having been established by such incontestable proofs, it remains only to give a sketch of the manners of the Vaudois, and the discipline of their churches, before we come to the historical part of my labours.