Glorious repatriation of the Vaudois

A 250 km march through Savoy, led in 12 days by a thousand men under the leadership of the Waldensian pastor Henri Arnaud, who in August 1689 faced French troops to defend their valleys. That, in a few words, is the venture of the "Glorious Repatriation" of the Waldensians, which this route celebrates and retraces.
To understand the historical reasons for this story, it is necessary to know the history of the Waldensians, initially called "the poor of Lyon," who were long forced to live hidden and perpetually sought after by the Inquisition. Scattered in various parts of Europe, they concentrated particularly in the alpine region of Dauphiné and in western Piedmont. At the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, the Waldensians, who survive today almost exclusively in the Cottian Alps, adhered to the new perspective of faith and organized their communities on the model of Swiss Protestant Churches. Subjected to harsh repression by the Dukes of Savoy, they managed to survive thanks to the political situation and the particular geographical reality of their lands.
In 1686, the Waldensians formed a population of about 12,500 people in the valleys of Perosa (today lower Val Chisone), San Martino (today Val Germanasca), and Luserna (today Val Pellice).
When the Duke of Savoy Victor-Amadeus II, loyal to the policy of the Sun King, ordered his subjects of reformed religion to cease all public manifestations, demolish places of worship, and baptize their children in the Roman Church, the Waldensians rejected the hypothesis of exile and decided to resist, thus facing the harsh repression of the French. Deported to prisons and fortresses, the majority of them died of hunger, and only a little more than 3,000 managed to find refuge in Switzerland. Three years later, in August 1689, the international situation turned in their favor: William III of Orange, having become King of England, rebuilt the anti-French front with the League of Augsburg and, in the context of the war against France, financed a military expedition in Piedmont, organized by the Waldensian pastor Arnaud and composed of a thousand men, mostly Waldensians. Departing from Lake Geneva on August 26, they crossed Savoy for a 250 km march, clashing with French troops at Salbetrand, in the Susa Valley. Finally regaining possession of their valleys, and surrounded by French troops, they found themselves engaged in months of guerrilla warfare and were forced to barricade themselves in Balsiglia, a hamlet above Massello, in the Germanasca valley. The attack of the Franco-Savoyard troops in May 1690 was about to mark their end, but they were saved by the sudden change of political alliances, which led the Duke of Savoy to go to war against his former French allies. The route proposed here stops at the end of the epic march with the arrival of the Waldensians in the village of Bobbio, in Val Pellice. The venture of the "Glorious Repatriation" has always generated a lot of interest, first for its military aspect: Napoleon was already deeply impressed by it, and in 1872, the Italian Ministry of War commissioned Captain Gallet to repeat the route on foot. Secondly, the Repatriation has been popularized from a tourist perspective by several travelers, notably English, in search of authentic nature and a people able to live simply. Starting from the 19th century, renewed attention to the event also emerged in the Waldensian Church: on the occasion of the 1889 celebrations, a group of six Waldensians retraced the route on foot from Lake Geneva to the Waldensian valleys; a similar initiative took place in 1989, this time with the participation of about a hundred people. Currently, this route is part of the European itinerary project: "The Huguenot and Waldensian Routes" which goes from southern France, through Switzerland, to northern Germany.