Foxe - The Book of Martyrs

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
The marquis of Pianessa wrote a letter to Captain Gianavel, and released a Protestant
prisoner that he might carry it him. The contents were, that if the captain would embrace the
Roman Catholic religion, he should be indemnified for all his losses since the
commencement of the war; his wife and children should be immediately released, and
himself honorably promoted in the duke of Savoy's army; but if he refused to accede to the
proposals made him, his wife and children should be put to death; and so large a reward
should be given to take him, dead or alive, that even some of his own confidential friends
should be tempted to betray him, from the greatness of the sum.
To this epistle, the brave Gianavel sent the following answer.
My Lord Marquis,
There is no torment so great or death so cruel, but what I would prefer to the abjuration
of my religion: so that promises lose their effects, and menaces only strengthen me in my
faith. With respect to my wife and children, my lord, nothing can be more afflicting to me
than the thought of their confinement, or more dreadful to my imagination, than their
suffering a violent and cruel death. I keenly feel all the tender sensations of husband and
parent; my heart is replete with every sentiment of humanity; I would suffer any torment to
rescue them from danger; I would die to preserve them.
But having said thus much, my lord, I assure you that the purchase of their lives must
not be the price of my salvation. You have them in your power it is true; but my consolation
is that your power is only a temporary authority over their bodies: you may destroy the
mortal part, but their immortal souls are out of your reach, and will live hereafter to bear
testimony against you for your cruelties. I therefore recommend them and myself to God,
and pray for a reformation in your heart. -- JOSHUA GIANAVEL.
This brave Protestant officer, after writing the above letter, retired to the Alps, with his
followers; and being joined by a great number of other fugitive Protestants, he harassed the
enemy by continual skirmishes.
Meeting one day with a body of papist troops near Bibiana, he, though inferior in
numbers, attacked them with great fury, and put them to the rout without the loss of a man,
though himself was shot through the leg in the engagement, by a soldier who had hid himself
behind a tree; but Gianavel perceiving whence the shot came, pointed his gun to the place,
and despatched the person who had wounded him.
Captain Gianavel hearing that a Captain Jahier had collected together a considerable
body of Protestants, wrote him a letter, proposing a junction of their forces. Captain Jahier
immediately agreed to the proposal, and marched directly to meet Gianavel.
The junction being formed, it was proposed to attack a town, (inhabited by Roman
Catholics) called Garcigliana. The assault was given with great spirit, but a reinforcement of
horse and foot having lately entered the town, which the Protestants knew nothing of, they
were repulsed; yet made a masterly retreat, and only lost one man in the action.
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