Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/174

 -I^gg FRANCE. but as soon as he can absent himself without prejudice to the faith his first duty will be to attend the council. Evidently the harvest was abundant and the reapers were few.^ In Un the Inquisitor of Provence, Jean Yoyle, made some effort at persecution, but apparently with little result, and the "Waldensian churches seem to have enjoyed a long respite, for the terrible episode of the so-called Yaudois of Arras, in 1460, as we shall see hereafter, was merely a delirium of witchcraft. In France, so completely had the AValdenses monopohzed the field of misbehef in the public mind that sorcery became popularly known as vauderie and witches as vaudoises. Accordingly, when, in 1465, at Lille, five "Poor Men of Lyons" were tried, and four of them recanted and one was burned, it was necessary to find som.e other name for them, and they were designated as Turelu- pins.f It is not until 1475 that we find the inquisitors again at work in their old hunting-ground among the valleys around the head- waters of the Durance. The Waldenses had quietly multiplied again. They held their conventicles undisturbed, they dared openly to preach their abhorred faith, and their missionary zeal was rewarded with abundant conversions. Worse than aU, when the bishops and inquisitors sought to repress them in the accus- tomed manner, they appealed to the royal court, which was so un- true to its duty that it granted them letters of protection and they waxed more insolent than ever. In vain Sixtus IV. sent special commissions armed with full powers to put an end to this disgrace- ful state of things. Men at this time in France recked little of papal authority, and the commissioners found themselves scorned. Sixtus, therefore, July 1, 1475, addressed an earnest remonstrance to Louis XL The king was surely ignorant of the acts of his representatives; he would hasten to disavow them and lend the (Harduin. VIII. 1459).-Martcne Ampl. Coll. VII. 161-3. • t Leger, Hist, des l^glises vaudoises, II. 24.-Duverger, La Vauderie dans les
 * Mary-Lafon,Hist. du midi de la France, III. 384.-C. Bituricens. ann. 1432
 * i:tats de Philippe le Bon, Arras, 1885, p. 113.

Even in the early part of the sixteenth century, Robert Gaguin,in speaking of ridino- on a broomstick and worshipping Satan, adds ^^ qvod impietatis genus Valdenslum esse dicitu7' " (Rer. Gallican. Annal. Lib. x. p. 242. Francof. ad M. 1587).