"Had the persecution ended here," says Mr. Hugh Acland, "humanity would yet have been saved from an indelible stain. The marquess of Pianessa entered the valleys at the head of fifteen thousand men; the consequent massacre is too horrible for detailed narration." Only a part of the Waldenses had suffered from the decree of Gastaldo, but the fixed object of the propaganda was the extirpation of the entire race. The marquess, being well aware of the desperate resistance he must encounter if the Vaudois should flee and unite in the mountains, betook himself to the old weapon of Jezebel-treachery. He feigned a wish for conciliation, and invited deputies to confer on the necessary terms. The wiles of the enemy alas! were successful. Well skilled in craftiness, he thoroughly deceived the simple honest-hearted Vaudois, after treating them with great kindness, and assuring them that all would be amicably settled, if they would receive, as a token of fidelity on their part, a small company of soldiers in the different villages. Some of the more sagacious, especially the pastor Leger, suspected treachery; but the people in general, willing to hope for a time of peace, opened the doors of their houses to the soldiers of Pianessa. Two days were spent in great friendliness; the soldiers and the villagers eating at the same table, sleeping under the same roof, and conversing freely together. These two days were employed by the enemy in making preparations for the general massacre. The villages and roads throughout the valleys were occupied by the soldiers.
At four o'clock on the morning of the third day, April 24th, a signal was given from the castle, and the assassins began their work of death. But with the exception of pastor Leger, no historian attempts to give details; and he did it as a matter of duty, being an eyewitness, and had his narrative verified by others. A priest and a monk accompanied each party of soldiers, to set fire to the houses as soon as the inmates had been despatched. "Our valley of Lucerne," exclaims Leger, "which was like a Goshen, was now converted into a Mount Etna, darting forth cinders, and fire, and flames. The earth resembled a furnace, and the air was filled with a darkness like that of Egypt, which might be felt, from the smoke of towns, villages, temples, mansions, granges, and buildings, all burning in the flames of the Vatican." But here, it was not as in the St. Bartholomew massacre, the instant despatch of their victims but the deliberate invention of barbarities and cruelties hitherto unknown. As many of the strongest escaped by their knowledge of the hills, tiny children, their mothers, the sick, and the aged were the chief victims of the soldiers of the propaganda. But we would not subject our readers to the heart-sickening details of Leger's awful narrative.