PHILIBERT BERTHELIER THE MARTYR OF LIBERTY. TERROR AND OPPRESSION IN
GENEVA.
(AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 1519.)
The prisoner was soon diverted from these wholesome thoughts by the
arrival of the officers of justice. According to the privileges
of Geneva, he could only be tried by the syndics; but the bastard
suspected this lawful tribunal, and finding no honest man that would
undertake to act against the law, he issued a provost’s commission to
Jean Desbois, a man of Chambéry, then living at Geneva, and ‘formerly
a tooth-drawer,’ say contemporary documents. This extemporised judge,
vain of his functions, wished to begin the examination. ‘When the
syndics, who are my judges, question me, I will answer them,’ said
Berthelier, ‘but not you, who have no right to do so.’--‘I shall come
again,’ said Desbois after this futile attempt, ‘and shall compel you
to answer me then.’ The provost went and reported to the bishop the
unsatisfactory commencement of his high functions.[266]
The emotion was universal in Geneva. The friend of its liberties, the
founder of the league _Who touches one touches all_, was about to pay
with his life for his enthusiasm in the cause of independence. The
bold spirits, who braved the papal tyrant, proposed that they should
consider this act of the bishop’s as mere brigandage (which it was in
fact), and that they should support the laws by rescuing Berthelier.
But the magistrates preferred a more moderate course. The Great
Council was hastily assembled, and at their order the syndics waited
upon the bishop. ‘My lord,’ said they, ‘Berthelier has been acquitted
according to law; and now he is arrested without accuser, and without a
preliminary information. If he is innocent, let him be set at liberty;
if he is guilty, let him be tried by us; do not permit an infringement
of the franchises in your city.’--‘It is true there is no accuser,’
said the bishop, ‘but common rumour stands in his stead; there is no
preliminary information, but the notoriety of the deed supplies its
place; as for what judges it concerns, the injury having been committed
against the prince, it is the business of his officers to prosecute.’
Having thus dragged the sheep into his den, the wolf would not let it
go.[267]
When they were informed of this denial of justice, the more energetic
party protested loudly. They asked if there was any duty more sacred
than to deliver innocence? Could the people see with indifference
the rights which belonged to them from time immemorial trodden under
foot by a prince who had sworn to defend them? The bishop and his
creatures, fearing lest the storm should burst, resolved to put the
rebel speedily out of the way. The proceedings did not last two days,
as Bonivard writes; all was done in one (August 23) between six and
seven in the morning and four in the afternoon.[268] Berthelier saw
what was preparing, but his calmness never failed him. He remembered
that, according to the sages of antiquity, the voluntary sacrifice
which men make of their lives, out of love for their fellow-countrymen,
has a mysterious power to save them. Had this not been seen among the
Greeks and the Romans? And among those very leaguers whom Berthelier
had so loved, was it not by thrusting the lances of the enemy into
his bosom that Arnold of Winkelried delivered Switzerland?... But if
Berthelier desired to save Geneva, Geneva desired to save him. Good
men, the friends of right and maintainers of the sworn franchises of
the citizens, felt that the ancient laws of the State deserved more
respect than the despotic will of a perjured and cruel prince. The
castle where the liberator was confined (a private possession of the
house of Savoy) had long since been put into a condition to resist
surprise; but Champel, the usual place of execution, was at a little
distance from the city; the moment when Berthelier was conducted there
would be the favourable opportunity. He will hardly have taken a
hundred steps beyond the bridge when the huguenots, rising like one man
and issuing from every quarter, will rescue him from the executioners
who are nothing but murderers before the laws of men and the justice of
God.
These rumours reached the ears of the bastard, who took his measures
accordingly. Six hundred men-at-arms were drawn out, and all the
mamelukes joined them. The vidame posted a detachment on the side of
St. Gervais (right bank) to cut off the inhabitants of the faubourg
from all access to the island; he stationed the greater part ‘under
arms and in line of battle’ along the left bank, so as to occupy the
bridge, the Rue du Rhone, and the cross streets. Among the Savoyard
captains who gave the sanction of their presence to this legal murder
was François de Ternier, seignior of Pontverre, a violent and energetic
man and yet of a generous disposition. The blood of Berthelier, which
was about to be shed, excited a thirst in his heart which the blood
of the huguenots alone could quench; from that hour Pontverre was the
deadliest enemy of Geneva and the Genevans. But (as pagan antiquity
would have said) the terrible Nemesis, daughter of Jupiter and Night,
goddess of vengeance and retribution, holding a sword in one hand and a
torch in the other, was one day to overtake him, a few steps only from
the spot where the blood of Berthelier was about to flow, and divine
justice commissioned to punish crime would avenge this unjust death in
his own blood.[269]
All was ready. Desbois entered the prison with a confessor and
the headsman. ‘I summon you a second time to answer,’ said he to
Berthelier. The noble citizen refused. ‘I summon you a third time,’
repeated the ex-dentist, ‘under pain of losing your head.’ Berthelier
answered not a word: he would reply only to his lawful judges, the
syndics. He knew, besides, that these appeals were empty forms, that
he was not a defendant but a victim. Then, without other formality,
the provost pronounced sentence: ‘Philibert Berthelier, seeing that
thou hast always been rebellious against our most dread lord and thine,
we condemn thee to have thy head cut off to the separation of the
soul from the body; thy body to be hung to the gibbet at Champel, thy
head to be nailed to the gallows near the river Arve, and thy goods
confiscated to the prince.’ The provost then introduced the confessor,
‘with whom Berthelier did not hold long discourse.’ After that the
third personage, the headsman, came forward and pinioned him.[270]
In every quarter of Geneva men’s eyes were fixed on the Château de
l’Ile. Its old gates fell back, the guards marched out first, the
provost came next, followed by the headsman holding Berthelier. The
martyr’s countenance proclaimed the greatness of his soul. There
was and still is, between the castle and the river, a narrow space
so protected by the Rhone and the fortress, that fifty men could
hold it against all the inhabitants of Geneva. The prince-bishop, so
learned in the art of tyranny, was not ignorant that if the victim to
be sacrificed is loved by the people, the death-blow must be given
in prison, in a court-yard, on a narrow beach, or in a castle moat.
Berthelier having advanced a few steps found himself between the
château and the river. ‘Say thy prayers,’ said the provost. The hero
knew he was about to be murdered: he made ‘a short prayer,’ and,
rising from his knees, was preparing ‘to utter a few words before
dying,’ to give a last testimony to the liberties of Geneva; but the
provost would not permit him. Turning to the executioner, he said:
‘Make haste with your work.’--‘Kneel down,’ said the man to his victim.
Then Berthelier, whether he desired to express his sorrow at the
gloomy future of his fellow-citizens, or was moved at seeing himself
sacrificed and none of his friends appearing to defend him, exclaimed
as he fell on his knees: ‘Ah!... Messieurs of Geneva’ .... It was all
he said; he had no sooner uttered the words ‘than the executioner cut
off his head: it was the 23rd of August, 1519.’ The bishop had managed
matters well. That cruel man was more like the wild beast that devours
the flock than the shepherd who protects them; he had shown himself
truly _tremendæ velocitatis animal_, ‘an animal of terrible swiftness,’
as Pliny says of the tiger; but unlike that animal, he was cowardly as
well as cruel. The Genevans, whose father he should have been, turned
from him with horror, and the avenging angel of the innocent prepared
to visit him with a terrible retribution at his death. Vainly would the
waters of the Rhone flow for ages over this narrow space--there are
stains of blood that no waters can ever wash out.[271]
The bishop intended, however, that Berthelier should be conveyed to
the place of execution for criminals; he only found it more prudent to
have him taken thither dead than alive, being sure that in this way
the ‘youths of Geneva’ could not restore him to liberty. The lifeless
body of the martyr was placed on a waggon; the executioner got in and
stood beside it, holding the victim’s head in his hand. A universal
horror fell upon the people, and many, heartbroken at being unable to
save their friend, shut themselves up in their houses to veil their
hatred and their shame. The long procession, starting from the castle,
moved forward, preceded and closed by foreign soldiers; in the middle
was the waggon bearing the dead body, and close behind followed many
mamelukes, ‘not the least of their party, in great insolence, mocking
at their own calamity; but good men dared not breathe, seeing that when
force reigns, the good cause must keep still.’[272] A few huguenots,
however, mournful and indignant, appeared in the streets or at their
doors. Meanwhile the executioner, parading in his triumphal car,
swung derisively to and fro the martyr’s bleeding head, and cried:
‘This is the head of the traitor Berthelier: let all take warning by
it.’ The procession continued its march as far as Champel, where the
executioner suspended the body of the father of Genevese liberty to the
gibbet. Thence, by a singular refinement of cruelty, they proceeded
to the bridge of Arve, and the head of the dead man, who had so
often terrified the bishop, was fastened up in the place where those
of Blanchet and Navis had hung so long. The prelate seemed to take
pleasure in reviving the recollection of his former butcheries.
Thus that kind-hearted man whom everybody loved, that heroic citizen
around whom were concentrated all the hopes of the friends of liberty,
had been sacrificed by his bishop. That death so hurried, so illegal,
so tragical, filled the Genevans with horror. The fate of his widow
and children moved them; but that of Geneva moved them more profoundly
still. Berthelier had fallen a victim to his passion for his country;
and that passion, which made many other hearts beat high, drew tears
even from the most selfish. The body hanging from the gibbet, the head
nailed up near the bridge of Arve, the memory of that sad procession,
did not speak to the senses only; men’s hearts were rent as if by a
violent blow, and many refused all consolation. There were also some
proud firm spirits who, unable to weep, gave vent to maledictions.
They might be met silent and frowning in the streets, and their
air, the tone of their voice, their gait, their ironical and bitter
words, expressed an indescribable contempt for the murderers. They
retraced in their minds that strange struggle, between cruel princes
and a generous, simple-minded, poor but free man. On one side were
the splendours of the throne, the majesty of the priesthood, armies,
executioners, tortures, scaffolds, and all the terrors of power; on
the other, a humble man, opposing his enemies by the nobleness of his
character and the unshrinking firmness of his courage.... The combat
was unequal, and the head of the great citizen had fallen. A bishop
looked with an ecstasy of joy on the blood of one of his flock, in
which he bathed his feet while impudently violating all the laws of the
country. But--and it was the consolation of these proud citizens--the
blood that had been shed would awaken a terrible voice. Outraged
justice and bleeding liberty would utter a long and mournful cry, which
would reach the ears of the Swiss League. Then would mountain and
valley, castle and cottage, city and hamlet, and every echo of the Alps
repeat it one to another, and thousands of arms would one day unite to
defend that little city so unworthily oppressed.[273]
Berthelier’s death was to have still more serious consequences. His
enemies had hoped to stifle liberty by killing him. Perhaps ... but it
was one of those deaths which are followed by a glorious resurrection.
In the battle which had just been fought noble blood had been spilt,
but it was blood that leads to victory at last. _Except a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit._ Religious liberty had many victims three
centuries ago in all the countries of the Reformation; but the noblest
martyrs of political liberty, in modern times, have fallen at Geneva
(if my judgment does not mislead me), and their death has not been
useless to the universal cause of civilisation. _Cruciate, torquete,
damnate ... sanguis christianorum, semen._ The blood of the martyrs is
a seed--a seed which takes root and bears fruit, not only in the spot
where it has been sown, but in many other parts of the world.
Berthelier’s friends were struck by his contempt of death and assurance
of eternal life. They still seemed to hear the noble testimony he had
borne to immortality. Hence one of them wrote this noble epitaph for
him:--
Quid mihi mors nocuit? Virtus post fata virescit;
Nec cruce nec gladio sævi perit illa tyranni.[274]
As we see, the idea of a resurrection, of a life after death, over
which man has no power, seems to have been uppermost in the mind of
Berthelier as well as of his friends. This man was not a common martyr
of liberty.
‘Verily,’ said some, ‘the maxim lately set forth is a true one: Heroes
and the founders of republics and empires have, next to God, the
greatest right to the adoration of men.’[275]
The bishop hastened to take advantage of his victory. ‘Berthelier’s
death,’ said his friend Bonivard, ‘gives the tyrant great comfort,
for the watch-dog being killed, he can easily manage the scattered
sheep.’ The bishop began, therefore, to move onwards, and undertook to
revolutionise Geneva. At first he resolved to change the magistrature.
Four days after the execution he assembled the general council, and,
assuming the airs of a conqueror, appeared at it with a numerous train.
‘We John of Savoy,’ said he in the document which has been preserved,
‘bishop and prince of Geneva, being informed of the dissensions of this
city, have not feared to come hither at great expense to administer by
force of arms the most effectual remedy; and we have behaved like a
good shepherd. My lord the Duke of Savoy, who singularly loves this
city, having desired to enter it, the syndics and the seditious have
with incredible annoyance rebelled against a prince so gentle;[276] and
if this illustrious prince had not been touched with compassion, if
he had not surpassed by his clemency the charity of the Redeemer[277]
... we should all have been destroyed.’ After these strange words from
a bishop, who placed the duke above Jesus Christ, at the very time
when this prince had made himself the accomplice in a murder, Master
Chappuis, the official, called out: ‘Say is it not so?’ None but
mamelukes were present at the assembly, and among them several persons
who had no right to be there. Many voices shouted, ‘Yes, yes!’ for it
was then the reign of terror. The syndics, ‘more ready to yield the
bishop their maces than their heads,’ says Bonivard, laid down before
him the insignia of their office. The next day another general council
elected four mameluke syndics: P. Versonay, P. Montyon, P. de Fernex,
and G. Danel, ‘who everywhere and in everything did what the bishop and
the duke desired.’ The same day, all huguenots were excluded from the
two councils; and the bishop forbade the citizens to carry arms or to
assemble by night, under penalty of a fine of twenty-five livres and
ten stripes of the cord.
Sorrow and dismay filled men’s hearts. Geneva lay as it were under
one of those funeral palls which are stretched over the dead. No
one stirred out, no one spoke; all was motionless and silent; the
air of despotism could be felt, as it hung over and benumbed the
soul. Besançon Hugues, A. Lévrier, and the other patriots retired
to their homes; but they had not lost hope; they waited in silence
until God should make the cause of liberty to triumph again in their
country.[278] Erelong, however, a few courageous spirits awoke and
began to stir. The patriots felt the need of pouring out their sorrows
together; and it was told the bishop ‘that several persons of the
huguenot sect[279] were in the habit of meeting secretly in various
places.’ Then the persecutions began afresh: ‘They spared the good as
little as the bad,’ says Bonivard, ‘and accused them of false crimes to
be revenged on them.’
A short time before the period we are describing, Amadeus de Joye, one
of Berthelier’s friends, had committed an act of little importance in
itself, but which was the first sign of opposition in Geneva to the
Romish superstitions. Two years earlier Luther had written to Spenlein
his beautiful letter on justification by faith; he had expounded the
epistle to the Galatians, and probably posted up his theses. Zwingle,
who had been appointed preacher at Einsiedeln, was declaiming against
pilgrimages, offerings, images, and the invocation of the Virgin and
the saints. Had the report of these sermons reached Geneva? It is
possible, for, as we have seen, there was constant intercourse between
this city and the German cantons. However that may be, many Genevans
were already asking if the glory of God ‘was not defiled by so foolish
and lifeless a thing as an image?’ Amadeus de Joye, whom we have met
before at the Molard assembly, and whom his enemies accused of being
the friend of Berthelier, Pécolat, ‘and many other villains,’ felt
little respect for the bishop’s _dolls_. Now there was at Geneva a
famous black image of wood, between two and three feet high, called
St. Babolin. Certain catholics held it in great devotion, carrying it
in long processions, and rendering it every sort of honour. One night
when the worshippers of St. Babolin had assembled in the house of Ami
Motey, one of their number, De Joye, indignant at their idolatry and
thinking the ugly figure was more like a devil than a god, carried it
off, and, with the intention of giving a lesson to the partisans of the
idol, took it to Motey’s house. The window was open; he listened to the
conversation of this devout little circle, and taking courage raised
the image as high as the casement and flung it into the midst of its
worshippers. It must be acknowledged that this was not controversy of
the right sort; but it was the sixteenth century, and the Genevans were
of a bold and scoffing humour. The startled followers of Babolin looked
with astonishment at their saint, which appeared to have fallen from
heaven. All of a sudden the door was opened and a loud voice called
out: ‘It is the devil ... he will eat you all!’ At these words, Motey
jumped up, caught hold of a javelin and prepared to hurl it at the
intruder; but De Joye hastily retired. There were no blows given, and
no blood was shed.[280]
This incident had been almost forgotten, when the bishop’s agents, who
were resolved to be severe upon the friends of liberty, shut up De Joye
in the Château de l’Ile, where Berthelier had been imprisoned, and
asked the syndics’ permission to question and to torture him in order
to get at the truth (7th September, 1519). Besides this affair of the
image, he was charged with ‘having been present at illegal meetings
where the citizens bound themselves by oath to resist any infringement
of their liberties by word or by deed.’[281] The syndics ordered that
De Joye should be examined in prison, _pede ligato_, with the feet
bound. The proceedings commenced.
‘I was born of worthy, upright, and distinguished parents,’ said De
Joye when he appeared before the syndics, ‘and by them trained up
virtuously until the age of manhood. Since then I have associated with
all the good men of the city, and in the profession which I follow I
have always borne a good reputation. Far from picking quarrels, I have
carefully avoided them, and have reconciled many. Finally, I have been
all my life faithful and obedient to my lord the bishop.’[282] These
words, which we transcribe from the documents in the trial, were of a
nature to inspire the judges with a certain respect; but they did not.
First Claude du Bois, the vidame’s lieutenant, and next the governor
of the castle, proposed that De Joye should be put to the torture to
force him to confess the crimes imputed to him;[283] but it was decided
to begin by examining the witnesses, who told what they had _heard
say_ by persons _whose names they could not remember_. Fine evidence on
which to put a man to the torture![284] The governor did not abandon
his project; the vidame came in person to urge the syndics to _do him
this pleasure_.[285] Could they be denied, when it concerned only a
contemner of St. Babolin? Amadeus knew not the Gospel; his opposition
to the black image proceeded merely from the disgust which superstition
inspires in intelligent minds, and there was in his character more fire
than firmness, more impetuosity than perseverance. The mild, weak, and
infirm man, who was scared by the idea of torture, fancied his limbs
already dislocated, and beginning to weep he offered to make oath of
his innocence on the relics of St. Anthony. To all the questions put
to him he replied only by groans and tears. The vidame, whose heart
was hardened, again demanded that he should be put to the torture. ‘My
right arm is crippled,’ exclaimed the poor wretch; ‘the sinews are
contracted.’ Two surgeons declared, after examination, that he might be
able to bear the strappado, but could not support the torture of the
_chatte_ without fainting.[286] There were in the executioner’s list
punishments for all temperaments, for the sick and crippled as well
as for the strong. De Joye, who, after he had sown his wild oats, had
become a respectable citizen, was neither a hero nor a revolutionist.
The embarrassed judges, not finding sufficient cause in the Babolin
joke to put a man to death, helped him to escape during the night, and
so saved appearances. The persecutions of the bishop were not limited
to a single individual. John of Savoy took delight in power, and
wished to show the cardinals that he was strong enough to put down
revolt. ‘They imprisoned,’ says Bonivard, ‘they beat, they tortured,
they beheaded and hanged, so that it was quite pitiful.’[287] Geneva
was crushed.
As it was not enough to lay their hands upon men, the princes of Savoy
laid their hands upon the constitution. War was made against principles
still more than against persons. It was necessary to stifle those
strange aspirations which carried men’s minds towards new ideas, and
to put an end to imaginations which denied the lawfulness of absolute
power. The duke, in accord with the bishop, published, although he
was a foreign prince, an act restricting the liberties of Geneva,
which banished from the general council all young men (for they were
suspected of independence), and deprived the people of the direct
election of syndics. On the 3rd of September, the general council,
at which few but mamelukes were present, accepted these articles in
silence. Thus did the Duke of Savoy, with the bishop’s help, triumph
over principles, rights, and liberties, and think he had strangled in
their nest the young eagles whom he had once feared to see soaring into
the heavens. Geneva, humbled and silenced by a bad prince and a maimed
constitution, was no longer to be feared.
The sorrow was general, and it might have been supposed that the
community only possessed strength enough to yield its last breath. But
as was seen formerly in Israel, in moments of crisis, how prophets and
prophetesses arose, so voices were heard in Geneva--voices of the
weakest creatures--proclaiming the ruin of the people and denouncing
the awful judgments of God. A poor girl for three days walked up and
down the city, neither eating nor drinking, but crying everywhere as
she went: _Le maz mugnier! le maz molin! le maz molu! ... tout est
perdu._ ‘Wicked miller! wicked mill! wicked meal!.... All is lost!’
The miller was the prince, the mill was the constitution, the meal
was the people.... It seems that this monotonous and doleful voice
affected everybody, even the mamelukes; the world readily believed
in the marvellous in those days; and the vidame dared not arrest the
prophetess. Syndic Balard, one of the most enlightened men in Geneva at
that time, saw a deep meaning in the poor girl’s mission.[288]