BERTHELIER TRIED AT GENEVA; BLANCHET AND NAVIS SEIZED AT TURIN;
BONIVARD SCANDALISED AT ROME.
(1518.)
No one embraced Pécolat with so much joy as Berthelier, who had
returned to Geneva within these few days. In fact the duke, desirous
to please the Swiss by any means, had given him, and also made the
bishop give him, a safe-conduct which, bearing date February 24, 1518,
extended to Whitsunday, May 23, in the same year. The favour shown
the republican hero was not great, for permission was granted him to
return to Geneva _to stand his trial_; and the friends of the prelate
hoped that he would not only be tried, but condemned and put to death.
Notwithstanding these forebodings, Berthelier, a man of spirit and firm
in his designs, was returning to his city to accomplish the work he
had prepared in Switzerland: namely, the alliance of Geneva with the
cantons. He had taken great trouble about it during his residence among
the confederates. He was seen continually ‘visiting, eating, drinking
in the houses of his friends or at the guilds (called abbeys), talking
with the townsfolk, and proving to them that this alliance would be
of great use to all the country of the League.’ Berthelier was then
full of hope; Geneva was showing herself worthy of liberty; there was
an energetic movement towards independence; the people were wearied
of the tyranny of princes. Free voices were heard in the general
council. ‘No one can serve two masters,’ said some patriots. ‘The man
who holds any pension or employment from a prince, or has taken an
oath to other authorities than the republic, ought not to be elected
either syndic or councillor.’ This resolution was carried by a large
majority. And better still, the citizens chose for syndics three men
capable of guarding the franchises of the community; they were Ramel,
Vandel, and Besançon Hugues. A mameluke, ‘considering the great credit
of the party,’ had also been elected, but only one, Montyon; he was the
premier syndic.[143]
Whilst the patriots were thus making efforts to save the independence
of the city, the duke, the bishop, the count, Archbishop Seyssel, and
other councillors, meeting at Turin, were pursuing contrary schemes.
Would they succeed? Seyssel, the illustrious author of the _Grande
Monarchie_, might tell them that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, the bishop and the lay lord had
combined against the liberties of the towns, and aided by arms and
anathemas had maintained a war against the communes which had ended
in the destruction of the rights and franchises of the citizens. Then
the night was indeed dark in the social world. At Geneva, these rights
existed still: you could see a flickering light glimmering feebly
in the midst of the darkness. But would not the bishop and the duke
succeed in extinguishing it? If so, despotism would hold all Europe
under its cruel hand, as in the Mahometan and other countries of the
world. Why should the operation carried through at Cambray, Noyon,
St. Quentin, Laon, Amiens, Soissons, Sens, and Rheims, fail on the
shores of the Leman? There was indeed a reason for it, but they did
not take it into account. We do not find this reason--at least not
alone--in the fact that the heroes of liberty were more intrepid at
Geneva than elsewhere. The enfranchisement was to come from a higher
source: God then brought forth light and liberty. The middle ages were
ending, modern times were beginning. The princes and bishops of Roman
Catholicism, in close alliance, had everywhere reduced to ashes the
edifice of communal liberties. But in the midst of these ashes some
embers were found which, kindled again by fire from heaven, lighted
up once more in the world the torch of lawful liberty. Geneva was the
obstacle to the definite annihilation of the popular franchises, and in
Geneva the strength of the obstacle was Berthelier. No wonder then that
the Savoyard princes agreed that in order to check the triumph of the
spirit of independence, it was absolutely necessary to get rid of this
proud, energetic, and unyielding citizen. They began to prepare the
execution of their frightful project. A strange blindness is that which
imagines that by removing a man from the world it is possible to thwart
the designs of God!
Berthelier, calm because he was innocent, provided besides with
an episcopal safe-conduct, had appeared before the syndics to be
tried. The duke and the bishop had given orders to their agents, the
vidame Conseil and Peter Navis, the procurator-fiscal, to manage his
condemnation. The trial began: ‘You are charged,’ said these two
magistrates, ‘with having taken part in the riotous amusements of the
young men of Geneva.’--‘I desired,’ answered Berthelier frankly, ‘to
keep up the good-will of those who were contending for liberty against
the usurpations of tyrants.’ The justification was worse than the
charge. ‘Let us seize him by the throat, as if he were a wolf,’ said
the two judges. ‘You have conspired,’ they continued, ‘against the
life of the prince-bishop,’ and they handed in Pécolat’s depositions
as proof. ‘All lies,’ said Berthelier coldly, ‘lies extorted by the
rack and retracted afterwards.’ Navis then produced the declarations of
the traitor Carmentrant, who, as we have seen at the _momon_ supper,
undertook the office of informer. ‘Carmentrant!’ contemptuously
exclaimed the accused, ‘one of the bishop’s servants, coming and going
to the palace every day, eating, drinking, and making merry ... a
pretty witness indeed! The bishop has prevailed upon him, by paying
him well, to suffer himself to be sent to prison, so that he may sing
out against me whatever they prompt him with ... Carmentrant boasts of
it himself!’ When they sent the report to the bishop, he perceived,
on reading it, that this examination, instead of demonstrating the
guilt of the accused, only revealed the iniquity of the accuser; the
alarmed prelate therefore wrote to the vidame and Navis to ‘use every
imaginable precaution.’ It was necessary to destroy Berthelier without
compromising the bishop.
Navis was the man for that. Of a wily and malicious character, he
understood nothing about the liberties of Geneva; but he was a
skilful and a crafty lawyer. ‘He so mixes retail truth with wholesale
falsehood,’ people said, ‘that he makes you believe the whole lump
is true. If any iniquity of the bishop’s is discovered, straight he
cuts a plug to stop the hole. He is continually forging new counts,
and calling for adjournments.’ Navis, finding himself at the end of
his resources, began to turn and twist the safe-conduct every way: it
expressly forbade the detention of Berthelier’s person. That mattered
not. ‘I demand that Berthelier be arrested,’ he said, ‘and be examined
in custody; for the safe-conduct, if you weigh it well, is not opposed
to this.’[144]--‘The first of virtues,’ said Berthelier, ‘is to keep
your promise.’ Navis, little touched by this morality, resolved to
obtain his request by dint of importunity; the next day he required
that ‘Berthelier should be shut up closely in prison;’ on the 20th of
April, he moved that ‘he should be incarcerated;’ and on the following
day, he made the same request; about the end of May he demanded on
two different occasions, not only that ‘the noble citizen should be
arrested but tortured also.’ ... All these unjust prayers were refused
by the court.[145] Navis, being embarrassed and irritated, multiplied
his accusations; his plaint was like an overflowing torrent: ‘The
accused,’ he said, ‘is a brawler, fighter, promoter of quarrels,
illegal meetings, and seditions, rebellious to the prince and his
officers, accustomed to carry out his threats, a debaucher of the
young men of the city, and all without having ever been corrected of
his faults and excesses.’--‘I confess that I am not corrected of these
faults,’ answered Berthelier with disdain, ‘because I never was guilty
of them.’[146] It was determined to associate with the syndics some
commissioners devoted to the bishop; but the syndics replied that this
would be contrary to law. The vidame and Navis, not knowing what to do
next, wrote to the duke and the prelate to find some good grievances.
‘You shall have them,’ they answered; ‘we have certain witnesses to
examine here, this side the mountains.’ ... Who were these witnesses?
Navis little imagined that one of them was his own son, and that the
inquiry would end in a catastrophe that would extort from him a cry of
anguish. Let us now see what was going on at Turin.[147]
Blanchet, disgusted with his condition since he had been to the wars,
cared little for Geneva. During his sojourn at Turin, in the house of
the magnificent lord of Meximieux, the splendour of the establishment
had dazzled him. His love for liberty had cooled down, his taste for
the luxuries and comforts of life had increased. ‘I will seek patrons
and fortune,’ he often repeated. With this object he returned from
Geneva to Turin. It was the moment when the bishop was on the watch to
catch one of the ‘children of Geneva.’ Blanchet was seized and thrown
into prison; and that was not all.[148]
Andrew Navis, who, since the affair of the mule, had led a more regular
life, was dreadfully weary of his father’s office. One Sunday, M. de
Vernier gave his friends a splendid breakfast, to which Navis and
Blanchet had been invited. Andrew was never tired of hearing ‘the
wanderer’ talk about Italy, its delightful landscapes, the mildness
of its climate, its fruits, monuments, pictures, concerts, theatres,
beautiful women, and of the war between the pope and the Duke of
Urbino. A desire to cross the Alps took possession of Andrew. ‘As soon
as there is any rumour at Geneva of a foreign war,’ he said, ‘some of
my companions hasten to it: why should I not do the same?’ The Duke of
Urbino, proud of the secret support of France, was at that time a cause
of great alarm to Leo X. An open war against a pope tempted Navis. The
vices from which he suffered were not those base errors which nullify
a man; but those ardent faults, those energetic movements which leave
some hope of conversion. Leaning on his father’s desk, disgusted with
the pettifogging business, he felt the need of a more active life. An
opportunity presented itself. A woman named Georgia, with whom he had
formerly held guilty intercourse, having to go to Turin, to join a
man who was not her husband, asked Andrew to be her escort, promising
him ‘a merry time of it.’ Navis made up his mind, and without his
father’s knowledge left Geneva and his friends, and reached Turin
at noon of Saturday the 8th of May. One Gabriel Gervais, a Genevan,
was waiting for him: ‘Be on your guard,’ he said; ‘Blanchet has been
taken up for some misunderstandings with the bishop.’ The son of the
procurator-fiscal thought he had nothing to fear. But on the morrow,
about six o’clock in the evening, the same Gabriel Gervais came and
told him hastily: ‘They are going to arrest you: make your escape.’
Andrew started off directly, but was caught as he was about to leave
the city and taken to the castle.[149]
The bishop and the duke wished, by arresting these young Genevans, to
punish their independent spirit, and above all to extort from them
confessions of a nature to procure the condemnation of Berthelier and
other patriots. On the 26th of April the Bishop of Geneva had issued
his warrant to all the ducal officers, and, in his quality of peaceful
churchman, had concluded with these words: ‘We protest we have no
desire, so far as in us lies, that any penalty of blood or death should
result, or any mutilation of limbs, or other thing that may give rise
to any irregularity.’[150] We shall see with what care the bishop
avoided _mutilation of limbs_. The duke issued his warrant the same day.
Blanchet’s examination began on the 3rd of May in the court of the
castle of Turin. He believed himself accused of an attempt upon the
life of the bishop, and doubted not that torture and perhaps a cruel
death were reserved for him; accordingly this young man, of amiable
but weak disposition, became a prey to the blackest melancholy. On the
5th of May, having been brought back to the court of the castle, he
turned to the lieutenant De Bresse, who assisted the procurator-fiscal,
and without waiting to be interrogated, he said: ‘I am innocent of
the crime of which I am accused.’--‘And of what are you accused?’
said the lieutenant. Blanchet made no answer, but burst into tears.
The procurator-fiscal then commenced the examination, and Blanchet
began to cry again. On being skilfully questioned, he allowed himself
to be surprised, and made several depositions against Berthelier and
the other patriots; then perceiving his folly, he stopped short and
exclaimed with many groans: ‘I shall never dare return to Geneva! my
comrades would kill me.... I implore the mercy of my lord duke.’ Poor
Blanchet moved even his judges to pity. Navis, when led before the same
tribunal on the 10th of May, did not weep. ‘Who are you?’ they asked.
‘I am from Geneva,’ he replied, ‘scrivener, notary, a gentleman’s
son, and twenty-eight years old.’ The examination was not long. The
bishop, who was then at Pignerol, desired to have the prisoners in his
own hand, as he had once held Pécolat; they were accordingly removed
thither.[151]
On the 14th, 15th,and 21st of May, Navis and Blanchet were brought into
the great hall of the castle before the magnificent John of Lucerne,
collateral of the council, and Messire d’Ancina. ‘Speak as we desire
you,’ said the collateral, ‘and then you will be in his Highness’s
good graces.’ As they did not utter a word, they were at first
threatened with two turns of the cord, and that not being sufficient,
they were put to the rack; they were fastened to the rope, and raised
an arm’s length from the floor. Navis was in agony; but instead of
inculpating Berthelier, he accused himself. The commandment which says:
‘Honour thy father and thy mother,’ was continually in his mind, and he
felt that it was in consequence of breaking it, that he had fallen into
dissipation and disgrace. ‘Alas!’ said he, when put to the question, ‘I
have been a vagabond, disobedient to my father, roaming here and there,
squandering my own and my father’s money in taverns.... Alas! I have
not been dutiful to my parents.... If I had been obedient, I should not
have suffered as I do to-day.’ On the 10th of June, says the report, he
was again put to the torture and pulled up the height of an ell. After
remaining there a moment, Navis begged to be let down, promising to
tell everything. Then sitting on a bench, he accused himself bitterly
of the crime of which he felt himself guilty; he confessed ... to
having _disobeyed his parents_.[152] Peter Navis was a passionate judge
in the opinion of many; Andrew saw only the father in him; and contempt
of paternal authority was the great sin that agonised the wretched
young man. Looking into himself, foreseeing the fatal issue of the
trial, he did not give way, like Blanchet, to the fear of death, but
bewailed his faults. Family recollections were aroused in his heart,
the most sacred of bonds recovered their strength, and the image of his
father followed him night and day.
The bishop had got thus far in his prosecutions when he learnt that
Bonivard had just passed through Turin on his way to Rome. Delighted
at seeing the prior of St. Victor fall into his net, the prelate gave
orders to seize him on his return. Was it not Bonivard who had caused
him such alarm in the palace on the occasion of the metropolitan
summons? Was it not this man who had robbed him of Pécolat, and who
even aspired to sit some day on his episcopal throne?... It is the
nature of certain animals to carry their prey into their dens to devour
it. The bastard of Savoy had already dragged Navis and Blanchet into
his dungeons, and was preparing to mutilate their limbs; but it would
be much better still if he could catch and rend the hated Bonivard with
his claws.[153]
The latter so little suspected the impending danger, that he had
come into Italy to solicit the prelate’s inheritance. It was evident
that the sickly bastard had not long to live. ‘I will go to Rome,’
said Bonivard to his friends, ‘to obtain the bishop’s benefices by
means of a _cardination_’ (an intrigue of cardinals).[154] He desired
eagerly to be bishop and prince of Geneva; had he succeeded, his
liberal catholicism would perhaps have sufficed for the citizens, and
prevented the Reformation. Bonivard reached Rome without any obstacle
six years after Luther, and like the reformer was at once struck
by the corruption which prevailed there. ‘The Church,’ he said, ‘is
so full of bad humours, that it has become dropsical.’[155] It was
in the pontificate of Leo X.; all that priests, monks, bishops, and
cardinals thought about was being present at farces and comedies, and
of going masked to courtesans’ houses.[156] Bonivard saw all this with
his own eyes, and has left us some stories into which he has admitted
expressions we must soften, and details we must suppress. ‘Having
business one day with the concubinary of the pope’s cubicular (we leave
these unusual expressions, the meaning of which is not very edifying),
I had to go and find him at a courtesan’s.... She wore smart feathers,
waving over a fine gold coif, and a silk dress with slashed sleeves;
you would have taken her for a princess.’[157] Another day, while
walking in the city, he met one of these ‘misses,’ disguised as a man,
and riding on a Spanish jennet; on the crupper behind her was a _janin_
wrapped in a Spanish cape, which he drew carefully over his nose so
that he might not be recognised. ‘Who is he?’ asked Bonivard. ‘It is
Cardinal So-and-so with his favourite,’ was the reply. ‘We say in my
country,’ he rejoined, ‘that all the madmen are not at Rome; and yet I
see you have them in abundance.’[158]
The prior of St. Victor did not lose sight of the object of his
journey, and canvassed unceasingly; but began to despair of success.
‘Do you wish to know,’ he was asked, ‘what you must do to obtain a
request from the pope and cardinals? Tell them that you will kill any
man whom they have a grudge against; or that you are ready to serve
them in their pleasures, to bring them _la donna_, to gamble, play
the ruffian, and rake with them--in short, that you are a libertine.’
Bonivard was not strict; yet he was surprised that things had come to
such a pass in the capital of catholicism. His mind, eager to learn,
asked what were the causes of this decline.... He ascribed it to the
disappearance of christian individualism from the Church, so that a
personal conversion, a new creature, was required no longer. ‘That in
the first place,’ he said, ‘because when princes became christians,
their whole people was baptised with them. Discipline has been since
then like a spider’s web which catches the small flies, but cannot hold
the large ones. And next it comes from the example of the popes....
I have lived to see three pontiffs. First, Alexander VI., a _sharp
fellow_,[159] a ne’er-do-well, an Italianised Spaniard,--and what
was worst of all,--at Rome! a man without conscience, without God,
who cared for nothing, provided he accomplished his desires. Next
came Julius II., proud, choleric, studying his bottle more than his
breviary; mad about his popedom, and having no thought but how he could
subdue not only the earth, but heaven and hell.[160] Last appeared Leo
X., the present pope, learned in Greek and Latin, but especially a good
musician, a great glutton, a deep drinker; possessing beautiful pages
whom the Italians style _ragazzi_; always surrounded by musicians,
buffoons, play-actors, and other jesters; accordingly when he was
informed of any new business, he would say: _Di grazia, lasciatemi
godere queste papate in pace; Domine mio me la ha date. Andate da
Monsignor di Medici_.[161] ... Everything is for sale at the court: red
hats, mitres, judgeships, croziers, abbeys, provostries, canonries....
Above all do not trust to Leo the Tenth’s word; for he maintains that
since he dispenses others from their oaths, he can surely dispense
himself.’[162]
Bonivard, astonished at the horrible state into which popes and
cardinals, priests and monks, had sunk the Church, asked whence could
salvation come.... It was not six months since Prierias, master of
the sacred palace, had published a book entitled: _Dialogue against
the Presumptuous Propositions of Martin Luther_.[163] ‘Leo X. and
his predecessors,’ said Bonivard, ‘have always taken the Germans for
beasts: _pecora campi_, they were called, and rightly too, for these
simple Saxons allowed themselves to be saddled and ridden like asses.
The popes threatened them with cudgelling (excommunication), enticed
them with thistles (indulgences), and so made them trot to the mill to
bring away the meal for them. But having one day loaded the ass too
heavily, Leo made him jib, so that the flour was spilt and the white
bread lost. That ass (he added) is called _Martin_, like all asses, and
his surname is _Luther_, which signifies _enlightener_.’[164]
They found at Rome that Bonivard had not the complaisance necessary
for a Roman bishop; and the prior, seeing that he had no chance
of success, shook the dust off his feet against the metropolis of
catholicism, and departed for Turin. His journey had not, however,
been useless: he had learnt a lesson which he never forgot, and
which he told all his life through to any one that would listen to
him. When he reached Turin, he went to visit his old friends of the
university, but they cried out with alarm: ‘Navis and Blanchet are
within a hair’s-breadth of death, and it has been decided to arrest
you. Fly without losing a moment.’ Bonivard remained. Ought he to leave
in the talons of the vulture those two young men with whom he had so
often laughed at the noisy banquets of ‘the children of Geneva?’ He
resolved to do what he could to interest his friends in their fate.
For a whole week he went from house to house, and walked through the
streets without any disguise. Nothing seemed easier than to lay hands
on him, and the ducal police would have attempted it, but he was
never alone. The scholars, charmed with his spirit and independence,
accompanied him everywhere, and these thoughtless headstrong youths
would have defended him at the cost of their blood. Bonivard, wishing
to employ every means, wrote by some secret channel to Blanchet and
Navis; the gaoler intercepted the letter, and took it to the bishop,
who, fancying he saw in it a conspiracy hatching against him, even in
Turin, pressed the condemnation of the prisoners, and ordered Bonivard
to be seized immediately. Informed of what awaited him, the intelligent
prior displayed great tranquillity. ‘I shall stay a month longer at
Turin,’ he told everybody, ‘to enjoy myself with my old friends.’ Many
invitations being given him, he accepted them all; but the next day,
before it was light, he took horse and galloped off for Geneva.[165]