they could
be put to the sword. For instance, in Val Fressinieres--also opening
into the valley of the Durance a little lower down than Val
Louise--the Vaudois Church has never ceased to exist, and to this day
the majority of the inhabitants belong to it. From the earliest times
the people of the valley were distinguished for their "heresy;" and as
early as the fourteenth century eighty persons of Fressinieres and
the neighbouring valley of Argentieres,--willing to be martyrs rather
than apostates,--were burnt at Embrun because of their religion. In
the following century (1483) we find ninety-nine informations laid
before John Lord Archbishop of Embrun against supposed heretics of Val
Fressinieres. The suspected were ordered to wear a cross upon their
dress, before and behind, and not to appear at church without
displaying such crosses. But it further appears from the records,
that, instead of wearing the crosses, most of the persons so informed
against fled into the mountains and hid themselves away in caves for
the space of five years.

The nest steps taken by the Archbishop are described in a Latin
manuscript,[103] of which the following is a translation:--

"Also, that in consequence of the above, the monk Francis
Splireti, of the order of Mendicants, Professor in Theology, was
deputed in the quality of Inquisitor of the said valleys; and
that in the year 1489, on the 1st of January, knowing that those
of Freyssinier had relapsed into infamous heresy, and had not
obeyed their orders, nor carried the cross on their dress, but on
the contrary had received their excommunicated and banished
brethren without delivering them over to the Church, sent to them
new citation, to which not having appeared, an adjournment of
their condemnation as hardened heretics, when their goods would
be confiscated, and themselves handed over the secular power, was
made to the 28th of June; but they remaining more obstinate than
ever, so much so that no hope remains of bringing them back, all
persons were forbidden to hold any communication whatsoever with
them without permission of the Church, and it was ordered by the
Procureur Fiscal that the aforesaid Inquisitor do proceed,
without further notice, to the execution of his office."

[Footnote 103: This was one of the MSS deposited by Samuel
Morland (Oliver Cromwell's ambassador to Pied