WAR WITH SAVOY
The situation righted itself by degrees, with the help of subscriptions
from other Swiss cities; but then there was another deadly peril to be
faced. The pretensions of Savoy were not yet extinguished. The Duke was
still determined to capture Geneva, whether by violence or by stealth,
believing that the act would be equally advantageous to the Church and
to himself. Two attempts to ‘rush’ the town in time of peace--once by
means of soldiers who were to enter concealed in barges laden with
wood, and once by means of armed men disguised as muleteers--induced
the Council to meet and resolve to ‘ask the advice of God and M. de
Bèze’; and, from 1589 onwards, there was open war, in which 2,186
Genevans held their own against 18,000 Savoyards.
The atrocities committed by the Savoyard soldiers were numerous and
terrible. We read of one prisoner of war being skinned alive; of
another who, with his feet amputated, was driven about on a donkey with
his face to the tail, and then flung on a dunghill to die. We also read
of peasants being hung up to be roasted alive over the fire-places in
their own cottages. It is not wonderful that the Genevan soldiers held
that this sort of thing gave them the right to retaliate, at least by
pillaging, when they gained the upper hand. The wonderful thing is
that, when they did pillage, M. de Bèze called them to order, and was
listened to. He told them that they were degrading Geneva to the level
of a brigand’s cave, and bade them make instant restitution of the
plunder which they had taken from the peasantry. It is recorded that
they obeyed him, and there could be no better proof that M. de Bèze was
a strong man.
These hostilities came to an end in 1589, owing to the intervention of
Henri IV. of France; but the peril was not conjured. Baffled in the
field, Duke Charles Emmanuel fell back upon treachery, and planned the
adventure known to history as the Escalade. It is the most notable
episode in all the Genevan annals. Fragments of scaling-ladders, kept
as memorials of the ignominious failure of the enterprise, are still
proudly exhibited in one of the town museums. The story must be told at
length.