The Valdois ("Waldensians" in English) were a heretical sect founded in the late twelfth century by Pierre Valdo, a merchant from Lyon, who preached against worldly wealth and the corruption of the clergy, and, practising as he preached, gave his wealth to the poor. Excommunicated in 1186, the Valdois came more and more to deny the authority of the Church, and sought refuge from persecution in the remote mountain valleys of Pelvoux, especially in the area around Vallouise and Argentières.There was a crop of executions for sorcery in the early fifteenth century, and many of the victims were probably Valdois, burnt to death in wooden cabins built for this purpose. In 1488, Charles VIII launched a full-scale crusade against them. There's a spot west of Ailefroide, known as Baume Chapelue, where they were smoked out by the military and butchered. In 1562 they joined the growing Huguenot cause, but after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, they were finally exterminated in the eighteenth century, when 8000 troops went on the rampage, creating total desolation and "leaving neither people nor animals".
| 