The last and most atrocious act of persecution in the reign of Francis I. was directed not against isolated individuals, but against a whole population, harried, despoiled, and banished or exterminated on account of heresy.  About the year 1525 small churches of Reformers began to assume organization between the Alps and the Jura.  Something was there said about Christians who belonged to the Reformation without having ever been reformed.  It was said that, in certain valleys of the Piedmontese Alps and Dauphiny and in certain quarters of Provence, there were to be found believers who for several centuries had recognized no authority save that of the Holy Scriptures.  Some called them Vaudians (Waldensians), others poor of Lyons, others Lutherans.  The rumor of the Reformation was heard in their valleys, and created a lively emotion amongst them.  One of them determined to go and see what this reformation was; and he returned to his valleys with good news and with pious books.  Regular relations were from that time established between the Reformers of Switzerland, France, and Germany, and the Christian shepherds of these mountains.  Visits were exchanged Farel and Saunier went amongst the Vaudians and conversed with them about their common faith, common in spite of certain differences.  Rustic conferences, composed of the principal landholders, barbas or pastors, and simple members of the faithful, met more than once in the open air under the pines of their mountains.  The Vaudians of Provence had been settled there since the end of the thirteenth century; and in the course of the fourteenth other Vaudians from Dauphiny, and even from Calabria, had come thither to join them.  “Their barbas,” says a contemporary monk [Histoire des Guerres excitees dans le Comtat venaissin par les Calvinistes du seizieme siecle, par le pere Justin, capucin], “used to preside at their exercises of religion, which were performed in secret.  As they were observed to be quiet and circumspect, as they faithfully paid taxes, tithe, and seigniorial dues, and as they were besides very laborious, they were not troubled on the score of their habits and doctrines.”  Their new friends from Switzerland and Germany reproached them with concealment of their faith and worship.  As soon as they had overtly separated from the Roman church, persecution began; Francis I. checked its first excesses, but it soon began again; the episcopal prisons were filled with Vaudians, who bristled at the summons to abjure; and on the 29th of March, 1535, thirteen of them were sentenced to be burned alive.  Pope Paul III. complained to Francis I. of their obstinacy; the king wrote about it to the Parliament of Aix; the Parliament ordered the lords of the lands occupied by the Vaudians to force their vassals to abjure or leave the country.  When cited to appear before the court of Aix to explain the grounds of their refusal, several declined.  The court sentenced them, in default, to be burned alive.  Their friends took