FRESH TORTURES, PÉCOLAT’S DESPAIR AND STRIKING DELIVERANCE.
Pécolat’s condemnation became the chief business of the court of
Turin in its relations with Geneva. Archbishop Seyssel, who at that
time possessed great influence, was not for despotism: he approved
of moderating the royal authority, but hated republics, and wished
to take advantage of Pécolat’s trial to crush the spirit of liberty,
which was displaying so much energy in Geneva, and which might spread
farther. Feeling the importance of this case, in combating the Huguenot
influence, the archbishop determined to withdraw, if possible, the
Genevan from his natural judges, and resorted to a trick unworthy so
great a statesman. He represented that high treason, the crime of
which Pécolat was accused, was not one of those comprehended under the
constitutions of the city, and that the cognisance belonged therefore
to the prince; but he could not succeed. ‘We have the power,’ answered
the syndics, ‘to take cognisance of every criminal case.’ All that
Seyssel could obtain was that the bishop should appoint delegates who
would sit in court and give their opinion, but not vote.[127]
The judges met in the Château de l’Ile on the 10th of December,
1517; they were surrounded by the duke’s and the bishop’s attorneys,
the governor of Vaud, and other partisans of Savoy. Among the six
councillors who were to sit with the syndics (the judges being thus
ten in number), were some decided ducal partisans, upon whom the
bishop could rely for a sentence of condemnation. Poor Pécolat, still
suffering, was brought in by the vidame. The sight of the syndics--of
the elder Lévrier, Richardet, and Porral--revived his courage: he
knew that they were just men and enemies of episcopal despotism. ‘The
confessions I made at Thiez,’ he said, ‘were wrung from me by torture:
the judge dictated the words and I repeated them after him. I knew that
if I did not say what they wanted, they would break my arms, and maim
me for ever.’[128]
After this declaration, the examination began: the clearness of
Pécolat’s answers, his gentleness and candour, showed all present that
they had before them an innocent man, whom powerful princes desired to
destroy. The syndics having declared that they were bound to acquit
him, the bishop said: ‘Give him the question, and you will see clearly
that he is guilty.’ The syndics refused, whereupon the two princes
accused them of being partial and suspected men. The episcopal council,
therefore, decided, that the city and the bishop should each appoint
four judges--an illegal measure, to which the syndics submitted.
The new examination ought to have taken place on the 20th of January,
1518; but Pécolat, suffering from the torture past and terrified by the
torture to come, had fallen seriously ill, and it was necessary to send
the doctor to him. This man consented to his being carried before the
court. The four episcopal judges immediately called for the question,
but the syndics opposed it, and the episcopal delegates began to study
this living corpse. After examining him attentively they said: ‘He
still affords some hold for the torture; he may be examined with _a few
torments_’ (such is the expression in the report). Nergaz siding with
the Savoyard doctors, the torture was decided upon. Poor Pécolat began
to tremble from head to foot; he knew that he should denounce all his
friends, and cursed his own weakness. They tied his hands behind his
back, they showed him the rack, and interrogated him.... ‘However, they
did not torture him,’ continues the report, ‘considering the weakness
of his body and his long imprisonment.’ They thought that the fear
of the rack would suffice to make him speak; they were deceived; the
sick--we might almost call him the dying man, though tied up and bound,
having the instrument of torture before him, answered with simplicity
and frankness. Even the bishop’s judges were struck with his candour,
and two of them, ‘having the fear of God before their eyes,’ says
Bonivard, rather than the fear of men, declared _roundly_: ‘They have
done this poor man wrong. _Non invenimus in eo causam._ We find no
fault in him.’[129]
This honourable declaration embarrassed the duke all the more that
he had other anxieties on his mind. The news from Piedmont was bad:
every day he received letters urging him to return. ‘The Marquis of
Montferrat.’ they told him, ‘is committing serious depredations.’ But
the headstrong prince was ready to lose his own states, if he could but
get Geneva--and lose them he did not long after. Finding himself on the
point of discovering a conspiracy, calculated to satisfy the cardinals,
he resolved not to yield. His creatures and those of the prelate held
conference after conference; at last they found a means--a diabolical
means--of putting Pécolat to death. Seeing that lay judges were not to
be persuaded to condemn an innocent man, they resolved that he should
be tried by priests. To put this plan into execution, it was necessary
to change the layman--the ex-hosier, the merry fellow who was at every
banquet and every masquerade--into a churchman. They succeeded. ‘To
gratify their appetite,’ said Bonivard, ‘they produced a forged letter,
to the effect that Pécolat was an _ordained clerk_ ... and therefore
his case belonged not to the secular, but to the ecclesiastical judge.’
The fraud found, or seemed to find belief in the official world.
‘Accordingly,’ goes on the chronicle, ‘they transferred him from the
Château de l’Ile, which was the lay prison, to the bishop’s palace
which was the Church court, and he was placed once more in the hands
of the Pharisees.’ This was a stroke worthy of a celebrated religious
order not yet in existence, but which was about to be founded to
combat the Reformation. Henceforth we shall see none of that silly
consideration, of that delicate circumspection, which the laymen had
employed. The bishop, now become judge and party, ‘deliberated how to
handle him well.’ Some persons having asserted that Pécolat could not
endure the rack, the doctors again examined his poor body: some said
yes and others no, so the judges decided that the first were right,
and the instrument of torture was prepared. It was not only heroic men
like the Bertheliers and Lévriers, who, by their daring opposition
to arbitrary power, were then raising the edifice of liberty; but it
was also these wicked judges, these tyrannical princes, these cruel
executioners, who by their wheel and rack were preparing the new and
more equitable times of modern society.[130]
When Pécolat was informed of the fatal decision, his terrors
recommenced. The prospect of a new torture, the thought of the
accusations he would make against his friends, disturbed his conscience
and plunged him into despair.... His features were distorted by it,
his beard was in disorder, his eyes were haggard: all in him expressed
suffering and terror. His keepers, not understanding this state of his
mind, thought that he was possessed by a devil. ‘Berthelier,’ said
they, ‘is a great _charmer_, he has a familiar spirit. He has charmed
Pécolat to render him insensible to the torture; try as we may, he will
say nothing.’ It was the belief at that time that the _charmers_ lodged
certain devils in the patients’ hair. The prisoner’s long rough beard
disquieted the bishop’s officers. It was resolved that Pécolat should
be shaved in order to expel the demon.[131]
According to rule it should have been an exorcist and not a barber
that they should have sent for. Robed in surplice and stole, the
priest should have made the sign of the cross over Pécolat, sprinkled
him with holy water, and pronounced loud-sounding anathemas against
the evil spirit. But no, the bishop was contented to send a barber,
which was much more prosaic; it may be that, besides all his other
vices, the bastard was a freethinker. The barber came and got his
razor ready. The devil whom Pécolat feared, was his own cowardice. ‘I
shall inculpate my best friends,’ he said to himself; ‘I shall confess
that Berthelier wished to kill the bishop; I shall say all they want
me to say.... And then if I die on the rack (which was very possible,
considering the exhaustion of his strength) I shall be eternally
damned for having lied in the hour of death.’ This idea alarmed him;
a tempest agitated his soul; he was already in agony. ‘It is better,’
he thought, ‘to cut off an arm, a foot, or even the tongue, than fall
into everlasting perdition.’ At this moment the barber, who had wetted
the beard, quitted the room to throw the water out of the basin;
Pécolat caught up the razor which the man had left on the table by his
side and raised it to his tongue; but moral and physical force both
failing him, he made only a gash. He was trying again, when the barber
returned, sprang upon him in affright, snatched the razor from his
hand, and raised an alarm. The gaoler, his family, and the prince’s
surgeon rushed in and found Pécolat ‘coughing and spitting out blood
in large quantities.’ They seized him and began to stanch the blood,
which it was not difficult to do. His tongue was not cut off, as some
have asserted; there was only a deep wound. The officers of the duke
and the bishop took extraordinary pains to cure him, ‘not to do him
good,’ say the chronicles, ‘but to do him a greater ill another time,
and that he might use his tongue in singing whatever they pleased.’
All were greatly astounded at this mystery, of which there was great
talk throughout the city.[132] Pécolat’s wound having been dressed,
the bastard demanded that he should be put to the rack, but Lévrier,
feeling convinced that Pécolat was the innocent victim of an illegal
proceeding, opposed it. The bishop still persisted in the necessity
of obtaining a confession from him: ‘Confession!’ replied the judge,
‘he cannot speak.’--‘Well then,’ answered, not the executioner but,
the bishop, ‘let him _write_ his answer.’ Lévrier, as firm when it was
necessary to maintain the respect due to humanity as the obedience due
to the law, declared that such cruelty should not be practised before
his tribunal. The bishop was forced to give way, but he kept account of
this new offence on the part of the contumacious judge.[133]
All Geneva pitied the unhappy man, and asked if there was no one to
deliver him from this den of thieves? Bonivard, a man who afterwards
knew in his own person the horrors of a prison, never ceased thinking
of the means of saving him. He loved Pécolat; he had often admired that
simple nature of his, so impulsive, so strong and yet so weak, and
above all his devotion to the cause of the liberties of the city. He
felt that human and divine rights, the compassion due to the unhappy,
his duty towards Geneva, (‘although I am not a native,’ he said,)--all
bound him to make an effort. He left his monastery, called upon Aimé
Lévrier, and expressed his desire to save Pécolat. Lévrier explained
to him that the bishop had forbidden any further steps, and that the
judges could not act without his consent. ‘There is however one means,’
added he. ‘Let Pécolat’s relations demand justice of me; I shall
refuse, alleging the prince’s good pleasure. Then let them appeal, on
the ground of denial of justice,[134] to the metropolitan court of
Vienne.’ Bonivard, full of imagination, of invention, of resources,
heedless of precedents, and energetic, immediately resolved to try
this course. The Archbishop of Vienne (he argued) being always jealous
of the Bishop of Geneva, would be delighted to humble his powerful
colleague. ‘I have friends, relations, and influence in Savoy,’ said
he, ‘I will move heaven and earth, and we will teach the bastard a
pretty lesson.’ He returned to his monastery and sent for Pécolat’s
two brothers. One of them, Stephen, enjoyed the full confidence of his
fellow-citizens, and was afterwards raised to the highest offices;
but the tyranny of the princes alarmed everybody: ‘Demand that your
brother be brought to trial,’ said Bonivard to the two brothers.--‘No,’
they answered, ‘the risk is too serious.’ ... Bonivard’s eloquence
prevailed at last. Not wishing to leave them time for reflection, he
took them forthwith to Lévrier; the petition, answer, and legal appeal
were duly made; and Stephen Pécolat, who by contact with these two
generous souls had become brave, departed for Vienne in Dauphiny with
a warm recommendation from the prior. The Church of Vienne had enjoyed
from ancient times the title of holy, of _maxima sedes Galliarum_,
and its metropolitan was primate of all Gaul. This prelate, delighted
with the opportunity of making his authority felt by a bishop who was
then more powerful than himself, summoned the procurator-fiscal, the
episcopal council, and the bishop of Geneva to appear before his court
of Vienne within a certain term, to hear judgment. In the meanwhile
he forbade the bishop to proceed against the prisoner under pain of
excommunication. ‘We are in the right road now,’ said Bonivard to
Lévrier. But who would serve this daring summons upon the bishop?
These writs of Vienne were held in such slight esteem by the powerful
prelates of Geneva, that it was usual to cudgel the bearers of them.
It might be foreseen that the bishop and duke would try every means to
nullify the citation, or induce the archbishop to recall it. In short,
this was not an ordinary case. If Pécolat was declared innocent, if his
depositions against Berthelier were declared false, what would become
of the scheme of Charles III. and Leo X. at which the bishop himself
so basely connived? Geneva would remain free.... The difficulties which
started up did not dishearten Bonivard; he thought that the devices set
on foot to enslave the city were hateful, and that as he wished to live
and die there, he ought to defend it. ‘And then,’ adds a chronicler,
‘the commander of St. Victor was more bold than wise.’ Bonivard formed
his resolution. ‘Nobody,’ he said, ‘dares bell the cat ... then I will
attempt the deed.’ ... But his position did not permit him ‘to pass the
river alone.’ It was necessary that the metropolitan citation should
be served on the bishop by an episcopal bailiff. He began to search
for such a man; and recollecting a certain poor clerk who vegetated in
a wretched room in the city, he sent for him, put two crowns in his
hand, and said: ‘Here is a letter from the metropolitan that must be
delivered to the bishop. The duke and the prelate set out the day after
to-morrow for Turin; to-morrow morning they will go and hear mass at
St. Pierre; that will be the latest hour. There will be no time after
that. Hand this paper to my lord.’ The clerk was afraid, though the two
crowns tempted him strongly; Bonivard pressed him: ‘Well,’ said the
poor fellow, ‘I will promise to serve the writ, provided you assist me
personally.’ Bonivard agreed to do so.
The next day the prior and the clerk entered the cathedral. The
princes were present, surrounded with much pomp: it was high mass, a
farewell mass; nobody was absent. Bonivard in his quality of canon
had a place of honour in the cathedral which would have brought him
near the bishop; but he took care not to go there, and kept himself
at a distance behind the clerk in order to watch him; he feared lest
the poor man should get frightened and escape. The consecration, the
elevation, the chanting, all the sumptuous forms of Roman worship,
all the great people bending before the altar, acted upon the unlucky
bailiff’s imagination. He began to tremble, and when the mass was ended
and the moment for action arrived, ‘seeing,’ says Bonivard, ‘that the
game was to be played in earnest,’ he lost his courage, stealthily
crept backwards, and prepared to run away. But Bonivard, who was
watching him, suddenly stepped forward, seized him by the collar, and
placing the other hand upon a dagger, which he held beneath his robe,
whispered in his ear: ‘If you do not keep your promise, I swear I will
kill you.’ The clerk was almost frightened to death, and not without
cause, ‘for,’ adds Bonivard in his plain-spoken ‘Chronicles,’ ‘I should
have done it, which I do not say to my praise; I know now that I acted
foolishly. But youth and affection carried me away.’ He did not kill
the clerk, however; he was satisfied with holding him tightly by the
thumb, and with a firm hand held him by his side. The poor terrified
man wished in vain to fly: Bonivard’s dagger kept him motionless; he
was like a marble statue.[135]
Meanwhile the duke, his brother the count, and the bishop were leaving
the church, attended by their magnificent retinue, and returning to
the episcopal palace, where there was to be a grand reception. ‘Now,’
said Bonivard to the clerk, ‘no more delay, you must discharge your
commission;’ then he put the metropolitan citation into the hand that
was free, and still holding him by the thumb, led him thus to the
palace.
When he came near the bishop, the energetic prior letting go the thumb,
which he had held as if in a vice, and pointing to the prelate, said
to the clerk: ‘Do your duty.’ The bishop hearing these words, ‘was
much afraid,’ says Bonivard, ‘and turned pale, thinking I was ordering
him to be killed.’ The cowardly prelate turning with alarm towards the
supposed assassin cast a look of distress upon those around him. The
clerk trembled as much as he; but meeting the terrible eye of the prior
and seeing the dagger under his robes, he fell on his knees before the
bishop, and kissing the writ, presented it to him, saying: ‘My lord,
_inhibitur vobis, prout in copia_.’[136] He then put the document into
his hand and ran off: ‘Upon this,’ adds the prior, ‘I retired to my
priory of St. Victor. I felt such juvenile and silly arrogance, that I
feared neither bishop nor duke.’ Bonivard had his culverins no longer,
but he would yet have stood a siege if necessary to bring this matter
to a successful issue. The bishop never forgot the fright Bonivard had
caused him, and swore to be even with him.
This energetic action gave courage to others. Fourscore citizens more
or less implicated with Pécolat in the affair of the rotten fish--‘all
honest people’--appeared before the princes, and demanded that if they
and Pécolat were guilty, they should be punished; but if they were
innocent that it should be publicly acknowledged. The princes, whose
situation was growing difficult, were by no means eager to have eighty
cases in hand instead of one. ‘We are sure,’ they answered, ‘that
this poisoning is a thing invented by certain wicked men, and we look
upon all of you as honest people. But as for Pécolat, he was always a
naughty fellow; for which reason we wish to keep him a short time in
prison to correct him.’ Then fearing lest he should be liberated by
force during their absence, the princes of Savoy had him transferred to
the castle of Peney, which was contrary to the franchises of the city.
The transfer took place on the 29th of January, 1518.[137]
A division in the Church came to Pécolat’s assistance. Since the
struggles between Victor and Polycrat in the second century, between
Cyprian and Stephen in the third, dissensions between the catholic
bishops have never ceased; and in the middle ages particularly, there
were often severe contests between the bishops and their metropolitans.
The Archbishop of Vienne did not understand yielding to the Bishop of
Geneva, and at the very moment when Luther’s Theses were resounding
throughout Christendom--in 1517 and 1518--the Roman Church on the banks
of the Rhone was giving a poor illustration of its pretended unity.
The metropolitan, finding his citations useless, ordered the bishop to
liberate Pécolat, under pain of excommunication;[138] but the episcopal
officers who remained in Geneva, only laughed, like their master, at
the metropolitan and his threats.
Pécolat’s friends took the matter more seriously. They feared for his
life. Who could tell whether the bastard had not left orders to get rid
of the prisoner, and left Geneva in order to escape the people’s anger?
These apprehensions were not without cause, for more than one upright
man was afterwards to be sacrificed in the castle of Peney. Stephen
Pécolat and some of his brother’s friends waited on St. Victor; ‘The
superior metropolitan authority has ordered Pécolat to be released,’
they said; ‘we shall go off straight in search of him.’ The acute
Bonivard represented to them that the gaolers would not give him up,
that the castle was strong, and they would fail in the attack; that the
whole people should demand the liberation of the innocent man detained
by the bishop in his dungeons, in despite of the liberties of the city
and the orders of his metropolitan. ‘A little patience,’ he continued;
‘we are near the beginning of Lent, holy week is not far off; the
interdict will then be published by the metropolitan. The christians
finding themselves deprived of the sacrament will grow riotous, and
will compel the bishop’s officers to set our friend at liberty. Thus
the inhibition which we served upon the bishop in his palace, will
produce its effect in despite of him.’ The advice was thought sound,
they agreed to it, and everybody in Geneva waited with impatience for
Easter and the excommunication.
Anthony de la Colombière, official to the metropolitan of Vienne,
arrived to execute the orders of his superior, and having come to
an understanding with the prior of St. Victor and judge Lévrier, he
ordered, on the 18th of March, that Pécolat should be released within
twenty-four hours. He waited eight days, but waited in vain, for the
episcopal officers continued to disobey him. Then, on Good Friday, the
metropolitan officers, bearing the sentence of excommunication and
interdict, proceeded to the cathedral at two o’clock in the afternoon,
and there, in the presence of John Gallatin, notary, and three other
witnesses, they posted up the terrible monition; at four o’clock they
did the same at the churches of St. Gervais and St. Germain. This
was not indeed the thunder of the Vatican, but it was nevertheless
the excommunication of a prelate who, at Geneva, filled the first
place after the pope in the Roman hierarchy. The canons, priests,
and parishioners, as they went to evening prayers, walked up to the
placards and were quite aghast as they read them. ‘We excommunicate,’
they ran, ‘the episcopal officers, and order that this excommunication
be published in the churches, with bell, book, and candle. Moreover,
we command, under pain of the same excommunication, the syndics and
councillors to attack the castles and prisons wherein Pécolat is
detained, and to liberate him by force. Finally we pronounce the
interdict against all places wherein these excommunicates are found.
And if, like the deaf adder, they persist in their wickedness, we
interdict the celebration not only of the sacraments, but also of
divine service, in the churches of St. Pierre, Notre Dame la Neuve,
St. Germain, St. Gervais, St. Victor, St. Leger, and Holy Cross.’[139]
After the canons and priests had read this document, they halted in
consternation at the threshold of the church. They looked at one
another, and asked what was to be done. Having well considered, they
said: ‘Here’s a barrier we cannot get over,’ and they retired.
As the number of devout catholics was still pretty large in Geneva,
what Bonivard had foreseen came to pass; and the agitation was general.
No more services, no more masses, no baptisms, no marriages ... divine
worship suspended, the cross hidden, the altars stripped.[140] ...
What was to be done? The chapter was sitting, and several citizens
appeared before them in great irritation. ‘It is you,’ they said to the
terrified canons, ‘that are the cause of all this.’ ... Nor was this
all. The excommunicates of the Savoyard parishes of the diocese used
to come every year at the approach of Easter and petition the bishop’s
official for letters of _consentment_, in order that their parish
priests might give them the _communion_. ‘Now of such folks there
chanced to be a great number at Geneva. Heyday, they said, it is of no
use putting one obstacle aside, when another starts up immediately, all
owing to the fault of these episcopal officers!’ ... The exasperated
Savoyards united with the Genevans, and the agitated crowd assembled
in front of the cathedral gates; the men murmured, the women wept,
even priests joined the laity. Loud shouts were heard erelong. The
people’s patience was exhausted; they took part against their bishop.
‘To the Rhone,’ cried the devout, ‘to the Rhone with the traitors! the
villains who prevent us from receiving our Lord!’ The excommunicated
episcopal officers had a narrow escape from drowning. All the diocese
fancied itself excommunicated, and accordingly the confusion extended
beyond the city. The syndics came up and entreated the citizens to be
calm; and then, going to the episcopal council, the bishop being still
absent, they said: ‘Release Pécolat, or we cannot protect you against
the anger of the people.’ The episcopal officers seeing the bishop and
the duke on one side, the metropolitan and the people on the other, and
impelled in contrary directions, knew not whom to obey. It was reported
to them that all the city was in an uproar, that the most devout
catholics wished at any cost to communicate on Easter Sunday, and that
looking upon them as the only obstacle which prevented their receiving
the host, they had determined to throw them over the bridge. ‘The first
of you that comes out shall go over,’ cried the crowd. They were seized
with great alarm, and fancying themselves half drowned already, wrote
to the governor of Peney to release Pécolat forthwith. The messenger
departed, and the friends and relations of the prisoner, not trusting
to the episcopal court, accompanied him. During the three-quarters of
an hour that the walk occupied, the crowd kept saying:--suppose the
governor should refuse to give up his victim; suppose the bastard’s
agents have already carried him away--perhaps put him to death? None
of these suppositions was realised. Deep in a dungeon of the castle,
the poor man, heavily chained, in utter darkness, wrecked both in mind
and body, was giving way to the blackest melancholy. Suddenly he hears
a noise. He listens; he seems to recognise well-known voices: it was
his brothers and his friends arriving noisily under the walls of the
castle, and giving utterance to their joy.
Their success was, however, less certain than it appeared to them.
Strange things were, in fact, taking place at that moment in Geneva.
The bishop and the duke had not been so passive as had been imagined,
and at the very instant when the messenger bearing the order from the
episcopal court, and accompanied by a body of Genevans, was leaving by
the French gate, a courier, with an order from the Roman court, entered
by the Savoy gate. The latter went with all speed to the bishop’s
representatives, and handed them the pontifical letters which the
princes had obtained, and by which the pope _annulled the censures of
the metropolitan_. This Roman messenger brought in addition an order
from the bishop forbidding them _on their lives_ to release Pécolat.
The bastard had shuddered at the thought that the wretch whom he had so
successfully tortured, might escape him: he had moved heaven and earth
to keep him in prison. We may imagine the emotion and alarm which fell
upon the episcopal councillors when they read the letters handed to
them. The coincidence of the moment when these two contradictory orders
left Geneva and arrived there is so striking, that we may ask whether
these letters from Rome and Turin were not supposed--invented by the
episcopal officers themselves; but there is nothing in the narrative to
indicate a trick. ‘_Immediately_ on reading the letters, the episcopal
officers _with all diligence_ countermanded the release.’ These words
in the ‘Annals’ show the precipitation with which they endeavoured
to repair the mistake they had committed. There was not, in fact, a
moment to lose, if they wished to keep Pécolat. Several officers got on
horseback and set off full gallop.
The bearers of this order were hardly halfway, when they met a numerous
jubilant and noisy crowd returning from Peney. The friends of Pécolat,
preceded by the official letters addressed to the governor, had
appeared before that officer, who, after reading the despatch over
and over, had thought it his duty to obey. Pécolat’s friends hurried
after the gaoler, who, carrying a bunch of keys in his hand, went to
open the cell; they entered with him, shouting release! They broke the
prisoner’s chains; and, finding him so weak, carried him in their arms
and laid him in the sunshine in the castle yard. Without loss of time
they placed him in a peasant’s cart and all started for Geneva. This
was the crowd met by the episcopal officers. The Genevans were bringing
back their friend with shouts of joy. In vain did the episcopal
officers stop this joyous band, and require that the prisoner should
be led back to Peney; in vain did they speak of the bishop and even
of the pope; all was of no use. Despite the _rogations_ of the pope,
the prelate, and the messengers, the people carried Pécolat back in
triumph. This resistance offered to the Roman pontiff, at the moment
he was lending assistance to the bastard in his oppression of a poor
innocent man, was, as it were, an affair of outposts; and the Genevans
were thus training themselves for more notable battles. ‘Forward,’
they shouted, ‘to the city! to the city!’ and the crowd, leaving the
episcopal officers alone in the middle of the road, hastened to the
gates.
At last they approached Geneva, and there the excitement was not less
great than on the road. Pécolat’s return was the triumph of right over
injustice, of liberty over despotism; and accordingly it was celebrated
with enthusiasm. The poor man, dumb (for his wound was not yet healed),
shattered by the torture, and wasted away by his long captivity, looked
silently on all around him, and experienced an emotion he could hardly
contain. After such trials he was returning into the old city amid the
joyous cries of the population. However, his friends did not forget
the orders of the pope and the bishop; and fearing lest the vidame
should again seize the poor fellow, they took him to the convent of the
Grey Friars of Rive, an asylum reputed inviolable, and quartered him
in the cell of his brother, the monk Yvonnet. There the poor invalid
received all the affectionate attendance he required; he remained some
time without saying much; but at last he recovered his speech, ‘by the
intercession of _a saint_,’ said the priests and Pécolat himself, as
it would appear. Was it devoutly or jestingly that he spoke of this
pretended miraculous cure? We shall not decide. Bonivard, who perhaps
no longer believed in the miracles of saints, assigns another reason:
‘The surgeons dressed the wound in his tongue;’ and he adds: ‘He always
stuttered a little.’ If Bonivard had doubts about the saints, he
believed in the sovereign justice of God: ‘Then came to pass a thing,’
he said, ‘which should not be forgotten; all the judges who condemned
Pécolat to be tortured died this year, one after another, which we
cannot suppose to have happened except as a _divine punishment_.’
The remembrance of Pécolat’s torture long remained in the memory of
the citizens of Geneva, and contributed to make them reject the rule
of the Romish bishops.[141] In fact the interest felt for this victim
of episcopal cruelty was manifested in every way. The cell of brother
Yvonnet, in the Grey Friars’ convent, was never empty; everybody
wished to see the bishop’s victim. The prior of St. Victor was one of
the first to come, attended by several friends. The poor man, being
tongue-tied, told ‘the mystery of his sufferings with his fingers,’
says Bonivard. It was long since there had been such an interesting
sight in Geneva. The citizens, standing or sitting around him, could
not turn their eyes away from his thin pale face. By his gestures
and attitudes Pécolat described the scenes of the examination, the
torture, and the razor, and in the midst of these remembrances which
made the tears come to his eyes, he from time to time indulged in a
joke. The young men of Geneva looked at each other and trembled with
indignation ... and then sometimes they laughed, at which the episcopal
officers ‘were terribly enraged.’ The latter were in truth both vexed
and angry. What! they receive an order from the bishop, an order from
the pope, and only a few minutes before they have issued a contrary
order! Strange mishap! Not knowing whom to blame, they imprisoned the
governor, who had only released Pécolat by their command, and to cover
their responsibility were actually planning to put him to death.
Some timid and alarmed citizens dared not go and see Pécolat; one of
these was Blanchet, the friend of Andrew Navis, who had been present
at the famous meeting at the Molard and the _momon_ supper, and who,
falling not long after beneath the bishop’s violence, was doomed to
expiate his errors by a most cruel death. Blanchet is the type of a
character frequent at this epoch. Having learnt, shortly after the
famous _momon_ banquet, that a certain individual whose name even
he did not know, but who, he said, ‘had given him the lie to his
face,’ was in Burgundy, Blanchet set off after him, gave him a box on
the ears, and returned. He came back to Geneva, thence he went into
Faucigny, and afterwards to Italy; he took part in the war between
the pope and the Duke of Urbino (who so terribly frightened Leo X.);
returned to Pavia, thence to Turin, and finally to Geneva. His cousin
Peter, who lived in Turin, had told him that during his travels Pécolat
had been arrested for plotting against the bishop. ‘I shall not go
and see him,’ he said, ‘for fear of compromising myself.’ In spite of
his excessive precaution, he could not finally escape the barbarous
vengeance of the prelate.[142]