# How The Waldenses Were Unjustly Accused By Their Inquisitors And Accusers.

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In the second book of the first part of the History
of the Waldenses, by Jean Paul Perrin, translated
by J. M. V., 3d chapter, page 74, col. 2, there is an
account of one Jan Veileti, a monk, and inquisitor
over the Waldenses, and how very unfaithfully and
deceitfully he or his clerk acted in the case of these
people, from which it can be inferred, how it also
was with others of their accusers. The words read
as follows:

But in the processes which were instituted by
this monk Jan Veileti, we have observed an exquisite
kind of villainy and low cunning; for, having
gotten these proceedings into our hands, we found
in them little billets, upon which this commissary
(Jan Veileti) had noted the answers of the accused,
simply, and just as they had come from their lips;
but these simple answers, we afterwards, in the proceedings,
found extended, and frequently given in a
form contrary to, and quite different from what the
sumptum, that is, the aforementioned answer as
noted in the proceedings, implied and contained;
thereby perverting the meaning of the defendent,
and causing him to say that of which he had never
thought.

For example, when he was asked whether he did
not believe, that as soon as the sacramental words
were pronounced by the priest, in the mass, the
body of Christ was in the host, just as he was on the
tree of the cross, and the Waldenses answered, No,
Veileti or his clerk set down as his answer: That he
had confessed that he did not believe in God.

Again, when it was asked, whether the saints
must not be invoked, the reply was, No, they wrote:
That they had reviled, and spoken evil of, the
saints.

When it was asked, whether the virgin Mary must
not be saluted and invoked in our extremity, and
the answer was, No, they wrote: That they had
reviled the virgin Mary.

“Behold, such was the faithlessness of the monks
and inquisitors in such important matters, and it is
not without a certain evidence of God’s providence,”
says the writer, “that these villainies have been preserved
and have remained to the present time, as a
means by which to show, what spirit actuated those
men having, by manifold frauds, oppressed and ultimately
killed and burnt the believing members of the
church of Christ, yet have the audacity to ask us,
where the church, and the believers, whom they
themselves put to death, were before our coming.”

“Now, if the reader is desirous to know,” says
our author, “how said proceedings fell into our
hands, we reply, that this occurred likewise through
the providence of God.” He then relates, how the
archbishops of Embrun, John Rostan, and others
had these papers and proceedings under lock and
key in their chests and chanceries, until the city
where they resided, was taken, A. D. 1585. The
house of the archbishop having taken fire on this
occasion, many of these processes held in former
times against the Waldenses, were thrown in bags
into the street. One Calignon, chancellor of Navarre
and a certain councilor of Grenoble, who were present,
ordered them to be picked up and delivered
into their hands; and thus, it is stated, the perfidious
calumnies against the Waldenses came to light,
which, otherwise, would have gone among the papists,
as true accusations against them. But it is as
the common adage says: Lies fly swiftly, but truth
overtakes them. We will now close our account of
the true faith and good practice of the Waldenses,
and show, how long and in what times they
existed.

279



## Original source

[Read this passage on Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65855/pg65855-images.html#Page_279)

[Edition details](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65855)

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