“But of those who resisted the encroachments of the papal power, the Waldenses stood foremost.” Great Controversy, page 64.

If the Waldenses were the foremost in resisting the papacy, who was the foremost in persecuting them? The French. When the papacy tried a person for heresy and condemned them, they always handed them over to the civil authority for punishment. They held sway over the civil powers of Europe but were not themselves a civil power, except in Italy, and for at least part of the great tribulation Italy was ruled over by Charlamagne, a French king.