viceroy immediately ordered a proclamation to be made throughout all
the Neapolitan territories, that all outlaws, deserters, and other
proscribed persons should be surely pardoned for their respective
offences, on condition of making a campaign against the inhabitants of
St. Xist, and continuing under arms till those people were exterminated.
Many persons of desperate fortunes, came in upon this proclamation, and
being formed into light companies, were sent to scour the woods, and put
to death all they could meet with of the reformed religion. The viceroy
himself likewise joined the cardinal, at the head of a body of regular
forces; and, in conjunction, they did all they could to harass the poor
people in the woods. Some they caught and hanged up upon trees, cut down
boughs and burnt them, or ripped them open and left their bodies to be
devoured by wild beasts, or birds of prey. Many they shot at a distance,
but the greatest number they hunted down by way of sport. A few hid
themselves in caves, but famine destroyed them in their retreat; and
thus all these poor people perished, by various means, to glut the
bigoted malice of their merciless persecutors.
The inhabitants of St. Xist were no sooner exterminated, than those of
La Garde engaged the attention of the cardinal and viceroy.
It was offered, that if they should embrace the Roman catholic
persuasion, themselves and families should not be injured, but their
houses and properties should be restored, and none would be permitted to
molest them; but, on the contrary, if they refused this mercy, (as it
was termed) the utmost extremities would be used, and the most cruel
deaths the certain consequence of their non-compliance.
Notwithstanding the promises on one side, and menaces on the other,
these worthy people unanimously refused to renounce their religion, or
embrace the errors of popery. This exasperated the cardinal and viceroy
so much, that 30 of them were ordered to be put immediately to the rack,
as a terror to the rest.
Those who were put to the rack were treated with such severity, that
several died under the tortures; one Charlin, in particular, was so
cruelly used, that his belly burst, his bowels came out, and he expired
in the greatest agonies. These barbarities, however, did not answer the
purposes for which they were intended; for those who remained alive
after the rack, and those who had not felt the rack, remained equally
constant in their faith, and boldly declared, that no tortures of body,
or terrors of mind, should ever induce them to renounce their God, or
Several were then, by the cardinal's order, stripped stark naked, and
whipped to death with iron rods; and some were hacked to pieces with
large knives; others were thrown down from the top of a large tower, and
many were covered over with pitch, and burnt alive.
One of the monks who attended the cardinal, being naturally of a savage
and cruel disposition, requested of him that he might shed some of the
blood of these poor people with his own hands; when his request being
granted, the barbarous man took a large sharp knife, and cut the throats
of fourscore men, women, and children, with as little remorse as a
butcher would have killed so many sheep. Every one of these bodies were
then ordered to be quartered, the quarters placed upon stakes, and then
fixed in different parts of the country, within a circuit of 30 miles.
The four principal men of La Garde were hanged, and the clergyman was
thrown from the top of his church steeple. He was terribly mangled, but
not quite killed by the fall; at which time the viceroy passing by,
said, is the dog yet living? Take him up, and give him to the hogs,
when, brutal as this sentence may appear, it was executed accordingly.
Sixty women were racked so violently, that the cords pierced their arms
and legs quite to the bone; when, being remanded to prison, their wounds
mortified, and they died in the most miserable manner. Many others were
put to death by various cruel means; and if any Roman catholic, more
compassionate than the rest, interceded for any of the