ARREST OF BONIVARD AND BERTHELIER.
(APRIL TO SEPTEMBER 1519.)
Neither the duke nor the bishop had exhausted their plans. The heads of
Blanchet and Navis, suspended seven months before on the walnut-tree,
were there still, tossed by every wind, and telling the passers-by
that the wrath of the princes was not yet appeased. The bishop asked
himself whether these commoners, who claimed liberty in the State,
would delay much longer before demanding liberty in the Church....
People spoke of extraordinary things that were happening in Germany. A
Wittemberg doctor had appealed from the pope to a general council, and
was preparing to maintain certain propositions at Leipsic in which the
primacy of the Roman Church was denied as being opposed to the history
of eleven centuries and to the text of Scripture. Would these strange
notions, worthy of the Germans, spread to countries nearer Rome? Would
Wittemberg and Geneva, those two little corners of the earth, be two
volcanoes to shake the ground around them? A remedy must be applied
at any cost, and those principles of civil and religious liberty be
stifled, which, if not seen to in time, might work strange revolutions
in the world.
The bishop on his return from Turin had merely passed through Geneva;
and fleeing from the plague, had taken refuge at Ripaille, near Thonon,
whence he made the most serious complaints to the Genevans. ‘You are
always conspiring,’ he wrote, ‘in order that you may satisfy the
appetites of a _heap_ of individuals who are plotting against their
honour and against me.’[250] About the end of June he removed to the
château of Troches, near Dovaine. The principal mamelukes hastened
to this ancient manorial house.[251] They had no very clear ideas
of what was going on in Germany, and of the consequences that might
result to Europe; their attachment to the ducal and episcopal cause
depended rather upon motives of interest and family tradition; but
they instinctively felt that a struggle had begun in Geneva between
the old and the new times, and that the partisans of the former must
combine all their strength against the latter. They made the halls of
the château reecho with their loud voices; they entered into cowardly
conspiracies; these supporters of feudalism, however honourable they
might be in other matters, shrank not from any crime to check the
advent of liberty. There was one citizen in particular whom they
hated--one life that must be sacrificed. ‘First,’ said they to the
bishop, ‘we require Berthelier’s death, and pray, my lord, let the
blow be prompt. Second, the rebellious councillors must be dismissed.
Third, your grace must come into the city ... with _good swords_!’ The
mamelukes undertook to find employment for these swords, and the bishop
said ‘Amen.’
The cruelties of the princes of Savoy had already fallen upon Bonivard.
The very day when the duke entered the city, the prior of St. Victor
left it, ‘disguised as a monk,’ accompanied by two friends of the
Pays de Vaud with whom he was very familiar, the Sieur de Voruz and
the Abbot of Montheron. ‘Fear nothing,’ said the latter to him; ‘we
will go first to my abbey; then we will conduct you to Echallens, a
town dependent on Berne, where you will be in safety.’ But they were
leading him to a very different place of safety. The priest and the
gentleman had made their account together. They had said that no one in
Geneva was more hated by the bishop and the duke than Bonivard, that
in their eyes he was not a Genevese, but a Savoyard who had betrayed
his prince; so that, to get him into their power, these princes would
give his weight in gold. The priory of St. Victor was a good benefice;
the two perfidious friends had therefore determined to propose an
exchange: they would put the duke in possession of the prior, while the
duke should put them in possession of the priory. This establishment
would naturally fall to the abbot; but the latter engaged to pay the
Sieur de Voruz an annual pension of two hundred florins out of the
stipend. The flashing of the gold dazzled these wretches, and they
concluded their infamous bargain. The gentleman and the abbot appeared
to redouble their vigilance lest any harm should befall the prior.
When the three travellers reached Montheron, in the forest of Jorat,
between Lausanne and Echallens, the prior was courteously conducted
into a room, which, without his suspecting it, was to be his prison.
The next morning Voruz, whom Bonivard trusted like a brother, entered
the chamber, sat down opposite him, and, laying a sheet of paper on
the table, said: ‘Resign your priory of St. Victor in favour of the
abbot.’--‘What!’ exclaimed the startled Bonivard, ‘is it under a show
of friendship that you lay these plots?’--‘You are our prisoner,’ Voruz
answered coldly; ‘all attempts to escape will be useless.’ Bonivard
now understood into what hands he had fallen. ‘So, then, instead of
taking me to Echallens,’ he said, ‘you will prevent my going there.’
He declared that he would set his hand to no such robbery, and bluntly
refused to resign his priory. ‘The duke is going to put Berthelier and
his companions to death,’ resumed Voruz coldly; ‘be careful. If you
will not do what we tell you, we will deliver you into his hands, and
there will be one huguenot the more for the scaffold. You are free;
make your choice--resignation or death!’ Bonivard had no wish to die.
Could he leave so soon this world that he loved so passionately? Could
he see rudely interrupted that beautiful dream of liberty, philosophy,
and poetry, in whose chimeras he had so long indulged? He consented
to everything. ‘Good!’ said Voruz, as he took away with him the
renunciation the prior had signed, and locked the door behind him.
Bonivard, who thought himself free now that he had become poor, had
to learn that the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. He was
immediately given up by Voruz and the abbot to the duke, who had him
conveyed to Gex by the captain of his guards. He asserted in vain
that his only fault was being a friend of the huguenots and of the
Swiss; Charles, in whose eyes that was a great crime, imprisoned him
in the castle of Grolée, on the banks of the Rhone, two leagues from
Belley.[252] This first imprisonment, which lasted two years, was a
foretaste of his harsher and longer captivity in the castle of Chillon.
The duke put the abbot in possession of the priory of St. Victor; Voruz
received his two hundred florins; the wicked triumphed, and Bonivard in
his solitude gave way to gloomy thoughts. Was it at the bottom of an
obscure dungeon that the new times of light and liberty were to begin?
The duke having struck the first blow, it was now the bishop’s turn.
He was taking his holiday, travelling from Ripaille to Troches, from
Troches to the castle of Bonne, thence to other adjoining places, and
employing all his episcopal zeal in raising soldiers. On the 16th
of August the peasants of these districts, who came to the market
at Geneva, mentioned that the bishop was assembling armed men for
his entrance into the city. The syndic De la Mare and one of his
colleagues, alarmed for the future of the republic, set out immediately
for Bonne, and commended the city to John’s episcopal tenderness.
‘Alas!’ they said, ‘it is stricken with the double scourge of the
plague and the sword.’ The prelate, as false as his cousin, replied:
‘You have been deceived, gentlemen; I shall certainly enter Geneva
to-morrow, but only with a hundred or a hundred and fifty footmen for
my guard. I desire to live there merrily with the citizens and protect
each one in his rights.’[253] De la Mare and his friend believed what
John of Savoy told them, and made their report. The people of the city
were somewhat reassured: that little weak and starveling bishop, who
looked so like a corpse, seemed not a very formidable appearance to
them. They resolved at least to hide the discontent and fears that they
felt at heart. ‘The shops will be closed, as on a holiday,’ said the
council, ‘and those who have horses will go out to meet his lordship.’
On Saturday, April 20, 1519, the syndics and a great part of the
city were afoot. At four in the afternoon the bishop’s escort came
in sight; the perfidious prelate, who was coming for the purpose of
putting the noblest of the citizens to death, noted with a cunning look
the handsome reception made him. Six hundred soldiers, stout rough
men, surrounded the pastor of Geneva; ‘the bishop had thought that
number necessary,’ say the annals, ‘to take Berthelier.’ The Genevans,
remembering that John was only to bring with him one hundred or one
hundred and fifty men-at-arms, counted ... and found six hundred. They
saw that the prelate’s entrance was only a second edition of that
of the duke. The bastard, satisfied with the welcome he received,
proceeded immediately to his palace and without delay convened the
general council for the next day. Sadness was in all men’s hearts.
On Sunday morning, when the people were assembled, the bishop appeared,
surrounded by his councillors and courtiers. He seemed scarcely alive,
but his sullen fierce look announced severe measures. ‘My lord not
having many days to live,’ said the official, ‘desires that all things
be put in order before his decease. He has therefore brought some
soldiers with him that he may correct any who shall be mad enough to
resist him.’[254]
After delivering this threatening message, the bishop returned hastily
to his palace, where he remained shut up for two days without giving
any signs of life. He had selected his first victim and was ruminating
in silence on the means of sacrificing him. ‘He kept still,’ said
Bonivard, ‘watching for Berthelier, whom he considered the leader of
the flock.’ During this time his satellites, however, did not keep
quiet. Being quartered on the huguenots, they stole all they could
carry off; if resistance was made, they used insulting language; they
went about marauding. But the bishop still gave no word or sign. This
silence alarmed all the city, and every one expected what was going to
happen.[255]
One man alone in Geneva preserved a tranquil heart and serene look; it
was Berthelier. He had not wished to escape either when Charles or when
the bastard entered; he was vainly entreated to withdraw to Friburg;
all was useless. He waited for death; the ‘cheat’ of hope (to use the
common expression) did not deceive him. ‘The wolf is in the fold,’ said
his friends, ‘and you will be the first victim.’ Berthelier listened,
smiled, and passed on. In his opinion there could be no evil in life
to him who has learnt that the privation of life is not an evil. He
awaited calmly that tragical end which he had himself foretold, every
day exposing himself to the attacks of his enemies. After the bishop’s
arrival, ‘he went and came just as before; one would have said that,
instead of fleeing death, he was running after it.’[256]
Without the city, in a solitary place then called Gervasa (now
corrupted into _Savoises_), was a quiet meadow, which the Rhone bathed
with its swift waters: this was Berthelier’s favourite retreat. Remote
from the noise of the city, seated on the picturesque bank of the
river, watching its blue waves gliding rapidly past, he dwelt on the
swiftness of time, and casting a serious glance into the future, he
asked himself when would Geneva be free? ‘Every day he was in the habit
of taking his pleasure there,’ say the annals, ‘and never omitted doing
so, although at the time he had so many enemies in Geneva.’[257]
On Tuesday, August 23, he went out between six and seven to breathe
the morning air in his favourite retreat.[258] Berthelier was now
forty years of age; everything foretold him that his end was near; but
he preferred, without passion and without fear, to make the passage
from life to death. This active and much-dreaded citizen began to
sport, but with a serious gentleness, upon the brink of the grave. He
had a little weasel which he was very fond of, and ‘for the greater
contempt of his enemies,’ he had taken the tame ‘creature in his bosom,
and thus walked out to his garden, playing with it.’ The vidame, who
knew of these morning walks, had given orders for a certain number of
soldiers to be posted outside the walls of the city, whilst he remained
within, in order to take Berthelier from behind. Just as the latter
was about to pass the gates, the troop that awaited him came forward.
Berthelier, ‘always _booted_ and ready to depart for the unknown shores
of eternity,’ had no thought of returning to the city and arousing the
youth of Geneva; he did not turn aside from the road, but continued
gently caressing his weasel, and ‘walked straight towards the armed
men, as proudly as if he was going to take them.’[259]
‘They met,’ says a manuscript, ‘under the trellis in front of the
hostelry of the Goose,’[260] and the vidame, who was descending the
hill on his mule, coming up with him at the same time, laid his hand
upon his shoulder, saying: ‘In the name of my lord of Geneva, I arrest
you,’ and prepared to take away his sword. Berthelier, who had only to
sound his terrible whistle to collect enthusiastic defenders, stood
calm, without a thought of resistance, and quietly handed his sword to
the vidame, contenting himself with the words: ‘Take care what you do
with this sword, for you will have to answer for it.’
The vidame placed him in the middle of his soldiers, and Berthelier
marched off quietly, still carrying the weasel with him. The little
timid animal thrust its pretty head into its master’s bosom, while the
latter encouraged it by gentle caresses. In this way he arrived at the
Château de l’Ile, and the vidame, stationing guards everywhere, even in
the prisoner’s chamber,[261] shut him up in Cæsar’s tower. On the spot
where walls had formerly been erected by the destroyer of the liberties
of Rome, a humble and almost unknown citizen, one of the founders of
modern liberty, was to find a bloody prison.[262]
Berthelier, shut up in the fortress, and surrounded by guards pacing
up and down his chamber and round the castle, felt more free than all
of them. We do not say that he possessed the freedom that christianity
gives; perhaps it was rather from the _Tusculans_ of Cicero than from
the Gospel that he had derived the calm with which his soul was filled;
yet it is almost impossible not to recognise a noble, serious--we could
almost say christian sentiment in him. As he saw death approaching, he
said that all it had to do was to remove its mask, for underneath was
the face of a friend. To die ... what was that? Does not the meanest
soldier expose himself to it on the battle-field? Was not the death
he was about to suffer for the independence of his country a thousand
times sweeter and more glorious than that of a mercenary?
Dulce et decorum pro patria mori.[263]
Yet his soul was agitated. Those smiling fields he loved so well,
those graceful banks of the lake and river, those mountains where
the setting sun fired the everlasting snows, those friends whose idol
he was, his country above all, and the liberty which he desired to
win for her ... all these images rose before him in his prison, and
deeply stirred his heart. But he soon returned to calmer thoughts.
He hoped that his death would lead to the deliverance of Geneva,
and then his courage returned. Yet he was without bravado, and to
the soldiers around him he showed only a simple and candid soul.
His little favourite animal still played in his bosom; surprised at
everything about it, the weasel at the least noise would prick up its
short wide ears. Berthelier smiled and caressed it. ‘The better to
mock his guards,’ says the prior of St. Victor, ‘he played with his
weasel.’[264] Bonivard, inclined to take things by the wrong side, saw
mockery where there was only good-nature. In fact, the guards, rough
and violent men, touched by so much patience and courage, said to
Berthelier: ‘Ask my lord’s pardon.’--‘What lord’s?’--‘My lord duke of
Savoy, your prince and ours.’--‘He is not my prince,’ he said, ‘and if
he were, I would not ask for pardon, because I have done no wrong. It
is the wicked who should beg for pardon, and not the good.’--‘He will
put you to death, then,’ said the guards. Berthelier made no reply. But
a few minutes after, he went up to the wall and wrote: ‘_Non moriar sed
vivam et narrabo opera Domini_--I shall not die but live and declare
the works of the Lord.’ This quotation from the hundred and eighteenth
Psalm, where the Messiah speaks by the mouth of David, shows that
Berthelier possessed a certain knowledge of Scripture; perhaps it
shows us, too, that his soul had cast all its burdens on the Lord.[265]
At that time (1519), when christians, trusting in the Bible, were
rising at Wittemberg against absolute power in spiritual things,
citizens trusting in the ancient charters of liberty were rising at
Geneva against absolute power in temporal things. At that time there
was no fusion of these two principles. Perhaps Luther did not become
liberal; Berthelier certainly did not become protestant. But in the
presence of death this great citizen sought consolation in the Word
of God and not in the ceremonies of the priest, which is the essence
of protestantism. The passage he wrote on the wall has reference to
the Saviour’s resurrection. Did Berthelier find in this transformation
of the King of believers a solid reason for expecting for himself a
resurrection, a glorious transformation? Did he hope, after this world,
for a glorified world of imperishable felicity, the everlasting abode
of the children of God?--We believe so.