INDIGNATION AGAINST THE MAMELUKES; THE DUKE APPROACHES WITH AN ARMY;
FLIGHT OF THE PATRIOTS.
(1524-1525.)
The duke had no sooner departed than there was a general burst of
indignation against him, and against the mamelukes who had delivered
up the greatest of the citizens to his sword. Bernard Boulet, the
city treasurer, was one of the proudest of these ducal partisans.
He had built a fine house, where he gave splendid entertainments to
his party and kept a good table, by which means he soon squandered
away all his property. But unwilling to renounce his gay life, he
clandestinely appropriated the property of the State, and still
continued to entertain magnificently. ‘Boulet,’ said the huguenots,
‘thinks only of indulging with his friends in all kinds of pleasure,
in drunkenness, and in voluptuousness. Foppish in dress, dainty at
table, he has no thought for the hunger and nakedness of the poor.
Dissipation, bad management, fraud, robbery make up his whole life.’
Boulet, who furnished no accounts, owed the city ‘at least 6,400
florins’[355]--a very large sum for those days. But they feared his
influence and malice; and nobody was willing ‘to bell the cat.’ Syndic
Richardet, a good patriot, courageous but hot-headed, entered the
council one day determined to put an end to these manifest peculations.
‘I call upon the treasurer,’ he said, ‘to produce the accounts of
his office.’ The embarrassed Boulet attempted to evade the question;
but, being determined to make him give an account of his conduct,
the syndic persisted. The mameluke, driven into a corner, exclaimed:
‘Are we to be governed by these _huguenots_?’--‘He spoke thus from
contempt,’ says Bonivard. The fiery Richardet could not restrain
himself; exasperated because the treasurer insulted him at the very
moment he was discharging the duties of his office, he acted after
the style of Homer’s heroes, and, raising his syndic’s staff above
the dishonest mameluke, dealt him such a blow that the staff flew to
pieces. It must be remembered that in the middle ages deeds of violence
were sometimes reckoned lawful. For instance, an old charter bore that
if a respectable man or woman were insulted, every prud’homme who
came up was permitted to punish such misconduct by one, two, or three
blows; only the prud’homme was required to make oath afterwards that he
had given the blows for the sake of peace.[356] There was instantly a
great commotion in the hall; the mameluke councillors uttered cries of
anger; the huguenots protested that Richardet had acted without their
approval; and the syndic, who was sincere and good at heart, frankly
apologised. Throughout all the disturbance Boulet did not utter a word;
he was secretly calculating the advantages he could derive from this
assault, and was delighted to have suffered it. ‘He swallowed it as
mild as milk,’ says Bonivard.[357] Chance, he thought, favoured him,
and had opportunely extricated him from a desperate position. What a
providence in this violent act of the syndic! The greedy dishonest
treasurer would put on the airs of a martyr; his fidelity to the duke,
he would say, had drawn upon him this savage assault. He would excite
Charles III. against Geneva; he would urge him to take the city by
storm; and in the midst of all these agitations his accounts would be
forgotten--which was the essential thing for him.
Boulet did not rejoice alone. His friends the mamelukes having met,
agreed to work this assault in such a way as to make the blow which
had severed Lévrier’s head be forgotten. ‘Good!’ said they; ‘we have
now an opportunity of beginning the old dance again;[358] that is, to
surrender Geneva to Savoy. Go to Chambéry,’ they continued; ‘make your
complaint; say that you are not safe in this huguenot city, and entreat
his Highness’s council to summon the syndic who offended you to appear
before them--even at Chambéry.’
Boulet did all he could to exaggerate his injury. He bandaged his head,
he carried his arm in a sling. In vain the surgeon assured him that his
left arm was but slightly bruised, and that he had no other wound; no
matter: ‘I will make my complaint to the bishop,’ he said; ‘I will make
it to the duke!’[359] He would have gone even to the emperor. The wrath
of Achilles, after he had been robbed of Briseis, hardly equalled the
wrath of this wretch, and, in his opinion, Geneva deserved to receive
a punishment as severe as that under which Troy fell. He had retired
across the Arve, like Pelides to his tent. Some of his friends, his
father-in-law and the judge of Gex in particular, called upon him and
sought to pacify him; but he remembered the affront that had been done
him, and was implacable. ‘Geneva shall pay dearly for it,’ he repeated
to his friends.
He set out for Chambéry, asked an audience of the ducal council, and
reported the syndic’s violence. People were very uneasy at Geneva.
‘These Savoyards,’ said the prior of St. Victor, ‘would like nothing
better than to plunder the huguenots.’ The Savoy bailiffs soon
appeared; they set up posts at the bridge of Arve, at Les Grottes, and
at the Mint--all round the city--and fastened letters of citation to
them. The council of Geneva was summoned to appear before the council
of Savoy. That was not all: the macers (massarii) of the Savoyard
council declared the possessions of the Genevans in Savoy confiscated,
and consequently forbade the farmers and vine-dressers to till the land
or to grind at the mill. Meadows, fields, vineyards, all were to remain
uncultivated. Hitherto it had pertained to God alone to send years of
famine; now Messieurs of Chambéry claimed to have the same privilege;
and some Genevese farmers, who had begun to till the earth with the
permission of the local magistrates, were put in prison by the superior
authority. Almost at the same time other citizens were arrested on
frivolous pretexts and thrown into one of the dungeons of Château
Gaillard. These poor creatures climbed by turns to the loophole, by
means of a beam placed against the wall, in order to breathe the fresh
air and speak to their wives and children. One day when they were
indulging in this consolation, the beam was taken away by the duke’s
order, and the unhappy wretches were compelled to crouch at the bottom
of their filthy prison.
Boulet wished, however, to enjoy his triumph; he longed to set the
magistrates at defiance and ask them whether a blow might not cost them
too dear. A bailiff of Chambéry arrived at Geneva, just as if that city
had been within his jurisdiction, and posted a ‘protection’ on the
door of Boulet’s house. This was a daring usurpation, an insult; but
if the treasurer suffered the least harm, the duke would consider it
as if done to himself. Boulet reappeared, and had the audacity to show
himself at a general council. This was a little too much: the wretch
who had brought so many calamities upon the citizens, dared appear
among them! Did he hope to receive another blow? Who can say? The
Genevans restrained themselves; no one raised a hand against him; but
he overheard some persons speaking of his peculations: ‘I will produce
my books and accounts,’ he said. He met with looks that alarmed him.
Suppose they were to put him in prison, as they had the right, for he
was accused of malversation towards the State. Fearing some mischance,
he disappeared again, and went to beseech the ducal council to ‘vex’
the Genevans. All this was threatening. The syndics gave orders that
prayers should be offered up and masses sung for the safety of the
city.[360]
During this time, the bishop was beginning one of his frequent
evolutions; his rule being to go with the wind, he turned his prow
more to the southward, that is, towards Savoy. He feared lest the
Genevans should offend the duke, and wrote to them from Piedmont: ‘So
conduct yourselves that _God and the world_ may have reason to be
satisfied.’[361] He returned to Geneva, but did not stay there. He
ought to have intervened between the duke and his own subjects, exposed
the serious crimes of the dishonest treasurer, and prevailed upon the
council of Chambéry to withdraw their violent threats; but though he
was both bishop and prince of the Genevans, he took care not to do
them justice. He escaped to St. Claude, more sensible to the charms of
a worldly life and of the wine of Arbois, than to the misfortunes of
the city. In his eyes the epitome of wisdom was to satisfy _God and
the world_, but the seductions of the world were so attractive that he
forgot to be the friend of God. Some Genevans even asserted that ‘he
cared no more for the life to come than a brute beast.’ Pierre de la
Baume had noticed that since the accession of Clement VII. the house
of Savoy had been in greater favour than ever at the court of Rome; it
was his policy to keep on good terms with it, to flatter it, in order
to obtain a cardinal’s hat through its influence, as he did a little
later. For a red hat it was worth while abandoning his sheep to the
wolves.
But if the bishop turned to every wind, the duke did not. The council
of Savoy increased its severity towards Geneva. Richardet had raised
his staff against one man; Charles raised his against a whole people.
All Geneva was agitated. The citizens besieged the syndics with their
complaints; the syndics assembled the council. They described the
scenes that were taking place in the country, and all the violence of
Savoy. Two of the noblest magistrates, Syndic Dumont and Aimé Girard,
hastened to St. Claude to inform the bishop of the oppressions of the
Savoyards. Girard possessed a lofty soul and impetuous disposition; he
described with such spirit the outrages heaped upon Geneva, that De
la Baume seemed touched, and promised the Genevans his support. ‘If
needs be,’ he exclaimed, ‘I will go to the pope myself.... I will go
to the emperor.... I will beseech them to protect my good right and
the franchises of your city.’ The deputation was delighted. But the
bishop hastened to restrain himself: the duke, the duke’s power, and
the red hat recurred to his mind. ‘Do not let us be in a hurry,’ he
said more coldly; ‘I shall first send the noble Albalesta to the duke.’
A month having elapsed, while Albalesta had obtained nothing, the
Genevese resolved to take their cause into their own hands. This was
what the bishop desired to avoid at any cost. He swore that he would
cite the officers of Savoy before the pope, under a penalty of 10,000
ducats.[362] But Geneva, which placed little trust in the bishop,
resolved to maintain its independence, and to resist that foreign
Pharaoh who had dared to punish with barrenness that earth which God
waters with the rain from heaven.
The new campaign required a new leader. Berthelier, Lévrier, those
noble-hearted men, were no more.... But there was a third, and he the
very man they required. Besançon Hugues had neither the impulsiveness
of Berthelier nor the firmness of Lévrier; but, mild and tender, he
felt a love for his country, the fire of which never ceased to animate
him. Moderate, friendly, and of insinuating manners, he was able to win
over even his enemies, and often exercised great influence over Pierre
de la Baume. Possessing great physical strength, bold, devoted, never
sparing himself, he braved the most inclement seasons, and rushed,
sword in hand, into the midst of the most furious enemies. Gifted with
a rare discernment, which permitted him to see clearly into the most
complicated questions, a keen diplomatist, a wise politician, a warm
patriot, he was able by his consummate wisdom to remove obstacles,
by his powerful eloquence to convince the most obstinate, even the
senators of Berne, and to draw tears from those iron hearts. He bore
in his person a _prestige_ that secured him an irresistible influence
in the councils, and with a few lines, a few words, he could still the
popular waves ere they came into collision. He has been called the
Nestor, the Sully, the Washington, of Geneva. This is perhaps saying
too much: this Nestor was only twenty-five when he began his struggles
with the duke, thirty-four at this period of our narrative, and when he
died, two or three years before the final Reformation of Geneva, he
was under forty. Yet Hugues was, on a small scale and on a small stage,
what these great men were on a large one.
The period for electing the syndics having arrived, it was determined
to raise to the chief magistracy citizens fitted to maintain the
rights of the country; and the name of Hugues was in every mouth. He
was returned, as well as Montyon, Pensabin, and Balard. With Hugues
for their chief, Geneva feared nothing. But the honest citizen refused
the office to which he had been elected. His friends came round him
and entreated him to accept: he seemed the only pilot able to steer
the ship of the State through the numerous shoals. ‘The bishop is your
friend; he will protect you,’ they said.--‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘as he
protected Lévrier.’--‘If you refuse,’ said Balard, ‘we shall refuse
also.’--‘The duke,’ replied Hugues, ‘has forbidden me personally to
meddle in city affairs; I have given him my promise. Lévrier’s death
has taught us what the duke’s wrath can do. I would rather be a
confessor than a martyr.’ Did Hugues give way to a momentary weakness?
We may be allowed to doubt it. He desired to keep the promise he had
made, and had other motives besides. Thinking that he would be of
little use in the council, and that Geneva must be saved by other
means, he wished to remain free in his movements. But many could not
understand him, and their anger broke through all restraint. ‘Hugues is
wanting in his most sacred duties,’ they said. These proud republicans
spared nobody. His friend and brother-in-law, the ex-syndic Baud,
captain of the artillery, proposed to the council-general to deprive
him of his citizenship for one year. Strange contradiction! almost at
the same moment this man was raised to the head of the republic and
in danger of being expelled from it. But the people seemed to have an
instinctive sentiment that Hugues would not be wanting at last: ‘He
gives way now,’ they said, ‘only to succeed better hereafter.’ Baud’s
proposition was rejected.[363]
Geneva began by a singular measure. The general council having
assembled in the church of St. Pierre on the 10th of January, 1525, it
was resolved to appeal to the pope against the attacks of Savoy, and
delegates were despatched to lay the appeal before him. The Genevans
were men of precedent: they desired to have recourse to a tribunal
recognised for ages. ‘The popes,’ observed some of them, ‘are the
defenders of the liberties of the people.’ But others, like Bonivard,
well read in history, shook their heads, and argued that if princes
had been excommunicated by popes, it was not for having violated the
liberties of their people, but for resisting the ambition of pontiffs.
They mentioned Philip Augustus and Philip the Fair. The appeal to
the pope would serve to show that he took part with oppressors only.
However, the deputies of Geneva started on their journey. It was ten
years before the day when the Reformation was proclaimed within its
walls. This measure is a remarkable indication of the peaceful and
loyal sentiments by which the magistrates were animated.
At the same time the syndics waited upon the bishop’s official; they
would have liked for the bishop himself to plead their cause before the
pope. ‘If my lord consents to pass the mountains and support us at
Rome,’ said they, ‘we will give him a hundred gold crowns, and will add
five-and-twenty for you.’ The official smiled: ‘A hundred crowns!’ he
said, ‘that will not be enough to shoe his horses.’--‘We will give him
two hundred, then,’ answered the syndics. The bishop, who was always
short of money, put this sum into his purse, and then endeavoured to
arrange the matter without disturbing himself, by merely sending a
deputy to Chambéry.
Never was deputy worse received. The president of the ducal council,
annoyed that so small a city should dare resist a prince so mighty
as his master, looked contemptuously at the deputy and exclaimed:
‘The duke is sovereign prince of Geneva. What was Geneva a hundred
years ago? a paltry town. Who is it that made this town into a city?
The duke’s subjects who owe him toll and service.[364] The Genevans
desire us to cancel the penalties pronounced against them.... Ha,
ha! Messieurs of Geneva, we will increase them. If within a month
from this you do not make your submission, we will send you so many
soldiers, that you must e’en take the trouble to obey his Highness.’
The destruction of the liberties of Geneva seemed to be at hand.
The Genevans now had recourse to the bishop a second time, and conjured
him to pass the Alps. Between this second demand and the first, many
events had occurred in the political world. Pierre de la Baume was a
zealous agent of the imperialist party, and the emperor had informed
him that he wanted him for certain matters. Flattered that Charles V.
should send for him, he appeared to grant the Genevese their prayer.
‘I will go,’ he said, and immediately quitted Geneva. Bonivard, who
knew La Baume well, smiled as he saw the simple burgesses giving
their prince-bishop two hundred crowns to defend them. ‘He is a great
spendthrift,’ said the prior, ‘and in his eyes the sovereign virtue of
a prelate consists in keeping a good table and good wine; he indulges
beyond measure. Besides, he is very liberal to women, and strives to
show the nobility of his descent by great pomp and not by virtue....
You have given him two hundred crowns ... what will he do with the
money? He will gamble or squander it away in some other manner.’[365]
And in fact he had hardly arrived at Turin, when, without pleading the
cause of Geneva, without visiting Rome to defend it before the pope, he
set off instantly for Milan, where, as agent of Charles V., he plotted
against Francis I. But of the pope and of Geneva, not a word.
Such was the episcopal tenderness of Pierre de la Baume. To deliver
from foreign and tyrannical oppression the country of which he was both
prince and bishop was not in his opinion worth the trouble of taking a
single step; but if it were required to go and intrigue in Lombardy for
the potentate whom he looked upon as the arbiter of the world, a nod
was sufficient to make him hasten thither.
As for the Genevese delegates, Rome saw no more of them than of their
bishop: the court of Turin had found the means of stopping them on
the road. Besides, had they reached the banks of the Tiber, there was
no danger that Clement VII. would have taken up their cause; he would
have laughed at such strange ambassadors. All was going on well for
the duke; he had succeeded in completely isolating the weak and proud
city.[366]
This prince resolved to bring matters to an end with a restless people
who gave him more trouble than his own states. He quitted Turin,
crossed the mountains, and ‘lodged at Annecy,’ says Bonivard. In order
to succeed, he resolved to employ a smiling lip and a strong hand; the
use of such contrary means was as natural as it was politic in him:
Charles was always blowing hot and cold. If Geneva sent him deputies,
he said: ‘Upon the honour of a gentleman, I desire that the letters I
have granted in your favour should be observed.’ But another day, the
same man who had appeared as gentle as a lamb became as fierce as a
wolf; he had the deputies seized and thrown into dungeons, as well as
any Genevans who ventured into his territories. The soldiers ransacked
the country-houses lying round Geneva, carried away the furniture, and
drank the wine; they also cut off the supplies of the city, which was a
scandalous violation of the most positive treaties.[367]
Still the appeal to Rome made the duke uneasy. The prince of Rome was
a priest, the prince of Geneva was a priest also: Charles feared that
the two priests would play him some ugly trick behind his back. He
determined, therefore, to employ intrigue rather than force, to induce
the people to confer on him the superior jurisdiction, which would
put him in a position to monopolise the other rights of sovereignty;
he resolved to ask for it as if he were doing the Genevese a great
favour. Accordingly on the 8th of September the vidame appeared before
the council as if he had come to make the most generous proposition
in behalf of his Highness. ‘On the one hand,’ he said, ‘you will
withdraw the appeal from Rome; and on the other, the duke will put an
end to all the annoyances of which you complain.’ And then he demanded
the superior jurisdiction in Geneva for the duke, as if it were mere
surplusage. Charles expected this time to attain his end. Indeed,
his numerous partisans in the city, seeing that the decisive moment
had arrived, everywhere took up the matter warmly. ‘Let us accept,’
said the mameluke Nergaz. ‘If we refuse these generous proposals,
our property and our fellow-citizens will never be restored, and
none of us will be able to leave our narrow territory without being
shut up in his Highness’s prisons.’--‘Let us accept,’ answered all
the ducal partisans. Geneva was about to become Savoyard; and the
humble but real part reserved for her in history would never have
existed. Then the most courageous patriots--Besançon Hugues, Jean
Philippe, the two Bauds, Michael Sept, Syndic Bouvier, who had been
named in place of Hugues, Ami Bandière, the two Rosets, John Pécolat,
and John Lullin--exclaimed: ‘If we love the good things of this life
so much, our only gain will be to lose them and our liberty with
them. The duke entices us to-day, only to enslave us to-morrow. Let
us fear neither exile, nor imprisonment, nor the axe. Let us secure
the independence of Geneva, though it be at the price of our blood.’
Even Bouvier, a weak and wavering character, was electrified by these
noble words, and added: ‘Rather than consent to this demand, I will
leave the city and go to Turkey!’ ... ‘No compromise with the duke!’
repeated all the independents. The mamelukes persisted: they pointed
to the fields lying fallow, to the Genevans in prison ... and without
touching upon the question of the superior jurisdiction (for that was
inadmissible) they demanded that the appeal of Geneva against the duke
should be withdrawn. There was a majority of eleven in favour of this
proposition; forty-two votes were given against it, and fifty-three for
it. It was strange that the huguenots supported the appeal to the pope.
The pope (very innocently, it must be confessed) seemed to be on the
side of liberty.... The party of independence was vanquished.[368]
Charles was not satisfied, however. He hated these majorities and
minorities, and all these republican votes; he wanted a passive and
unanimous obedience; he attended only to the votes of the minority,
and meditated setting every engine to work to get rid of the forty-two
huguenots who opposed his designs. At court they were delighted with
the result; they made a jest of the forty-two independents who had
had the simplicity to give their names, and thus point themselves out
to the court of Turin as persons to be despatched first of all. The
list was read over and over again: they picked it to pieces--a sarcasm
against this man, an insult against that. All necessary measures were
taken for the great act of purification which was to be accomplished.
The duke gave orders to move up the army that was to enter the city and
free it from the rebels.
The enemies of Geneva were not less active within than without. The
vidame, a servile agent of Charles, assembled the chiefs of the
mamelukes in his house. As all the citizens whose deaths they desired
were not included among the forty-two, they occupied themselves at
these meetings in drawing up proscription lists. Vidame, mamelukes,
Savoyards, congratulated each other on ‘cutting off the heads of
their adversaries,’ and wrote down the names of many of the best
citizens.[369] The disease, according to these conspirators, had spread
widely; it was necessary to get rid of the friends of independence at
one blow and not singly. They prepared to seize the patriots in the
city, and to slay them outside the city; the parts were distributed;
this man will arrest, that man will try, and the other will put to
death. At the same time, to prevent the free Genevans from escaping,
the duke stationed soldiers on every road. Geneva will be very
fortunate if it escapes the plot this time, and if it does not see its
old liberties and its new hopes of the Gospel and of reformation perish
under the sword of Savoy.
Charles III., leading the way to Charles IX., began his persecution of
the huguenots. He commenced with his own territories, where he could
do as he pleased; Pierre de Malbuisson was seized at Seyssel; Beffant
at Annecy; Bullon was arrested on Sunday (frightful sacrilege in the
eyes of the catholics!) in the church of Our Lady of Grace, during high
mass. ‘That matters not,’ said the ducal party; ‘there are cases where
the privileges of the Church must give way to the interests of the
State.’ During this time, the patriots remaining at Geneva went up and
down the city, showing themselves brave even to imprudence, and boldly
demanded the convocation of a general council of the people to annul
the division which by a majority of eleven had given such satisfaction
to the duke. This inflamed Charles’s anger to the highest degree; he
swore to be avenged of such an insult, and everything was prepared to
crush these audacious citizens. The sky grew dark; a dull murmur was
heard in the city; there was a general uneasiness; every man asked his
neighbour what was going to happen ... alarm was everywhere.
At last the storm burst. It was the 15th of September. One, two,
three--several persons not known in Geneva, peasants, or tradespeople,
and men of little importance, appeared at the gates: they were
messengers sent to the patriots by their friends and relations settled
in Savoy. One message succeeded another. The ducal army is in motion,
they were told; it is preparing to quit the villages where it was
stationed. Leaders and soldiers declare loudly that they are going to
Geneva to put the duke’s enemies to death. Nothing else can be heard
but threats, boasts, and shouts of joy.... A few minutes later the
people of the neighbourhood ran up and announced that the army was
only a quarter of a league distant. The people hastened to the higher
parts of the city: they saw the arquebusiers, halberdiers, and flags;
they heard the drums and fifes, the tramp of the march, and the hurrahs
of the soldiers. The Savoyards were in the fields and the mamelukes
in the streets. It was not even possible for the citizens to expose
themselves to death on the ramparts. The ducal faction would not
permit them to approach. ‘Make your escape,’ said some to the huguenot
leaders; ‘if you delay an instant, you are lost.’ The mamelukes lifted
their heads and exclaimed: ‘Now is the day of vengeance!’
The noble citizens threatened by the sword of Charles, or rather by
the axe of his executioners, wished to come to some understanding with
each other, but they had not the time to confer together. They knew
the fate that awaited them, and the alarm of their friends and wives,
of those who had nothing to fear, drove them out like a blast of wind.
Some would have sold their lives dearly; others said that their task
was not yet completed, that if the duke attacked them perfidiously,
if the bishop basely abandoned them, they must retire elsewhere, pray
for the hour of justice, and procure powerful defenders for Geneva.
Their resolution was hardly formed when the field-sergeants approached
the gates. The huguenots pursued by the sword of Savoy could neither
carry away what would be necessary during their exile, nor take leave
of their friends; people in the streets had hardly time to enter their
houses. All departed amid the tears of their wives and the cries of
their children.
The exodus began, not the exodus of a whole people, but of the flower
of the citizens. Many were seen leaving the gates of the city. There
was Jean Baud, captain of the artillery, with his brother Claude, a
zealous episcopalian, but a friend of independence; Girard, who had
succeeded Boulet as treasurer of the city; Jean Philippe, afterwards
first syndic; the intrepid Jean Lullin, Hudriot du Molard, and Ami
Bandière, who were syndics in the year of the Reformation; Jean
d’Arloz, afterwards one of the Council of Two Hundred; Michael Sept,
a frequent deputy to Switzerland; G. Peter, Claude Roset, father of
the celebrated syndic and chronicler; J. L. Ramel, Pierre de la Thoy,
Chabot, and Pécolat. Others quitted Geneva secretly; some by day, some
by night, in disguise, on foot or on horseback, ‘in great haste, by
different roads, without consulting one another.’ Some crept along the
edge of the lake, others hastened towards the mountains. Melancholy
dispersion, sad calamity![370] And yet as they departed, these generous
men kept up the hope of seeing liberty victorious. In this dread and
critical hour, they cast their eyes over the walls of the old city,
and swore that they left it not to escape death, but to save it from
oppression. They were going in search of help--not towards the enslaved
banks of the Tiber, as they did once in their folly; but towards
those noble mountains of Switzerland, which had thrown off the yoke
of foreign tyrants. The sword of Savoy pursues them; but, wonderful
providence of God! it drives them towards those countries where a new
light has dawned, and where they will meet at nearly every step the
friends of Zwingle and of the Reformation. It is a prince, a friend of
the pope, that is sending them to the school of the Gospel.
The most threatened of all was Besançon Hugues: if he had been taken,
his head would have been the first to fall. At that time he happened
to be at a farm he possessed at Chatelaine, a short distance from
Geneva, in the direction of Gex. He was serious, but calm, for he
felt the importance of the crisis, and was tranquilly preparing to
gather his grapes, for it was vintage time. On the evening of the 15th
of September he received a visit from his friend Messire Vuillet,
commandant of Gex, who rode up on horseback, and asked him, with an air
of frankness, to give him a bed for the night. Hugues had no suspicion;
the horse was put into the stable; a room was prepared for Vuillet,
and the two friends, sitting down at table, talked a long while over
their supper. The commandant of Gex, commissioned by the duke to arrest
Hugues, had ordered his officers to be at Chatelaine early in the
morning of the 16th; and to make sure of not losing his victim, he had
thought the cleverest way was to come and sup as a friend with the man
whom he was to deliver up to the death of Berthelier and of Lévrier, to
sleep under his roof, to arrest him next morning, and hand him over to
the executioners. Hugues as yet knew nothing of what was going on at
Geneva.
The flight had already become general: the huguenots hurried away, some
in the direction of Friburg by way of Lausanne; others to St. Claude,
by the Jura. The bishop, as we have said, had gone into Italy, probably
in March, six months before; but he had devoted partisans at St.
Claude. Accordingly the fugitives, who still hoped something from the
episcopal power, took the latter road. Let us follow the first of these
two companies.
At the head of those who had taken the road to Switzerland were De
la Thoy and Chabod. They galloped their horses full speed along the
Lausanne road; on reaching Versoix, they fell unexpectedly into the
midst of the soldiers posted there with orders to stop the Genevans
in their flight. De la Thoy, who was well mounted, gave his horse the
spur, and escaped; but Chabod was taken and carried to Gex. The news
of this arrest spread immediately, and caused great trouble among the
fugitives who followed them. They threw themselves into the by-roads,
they skirted the foot of the mountains, and in vain did Charles’s
men-at-arms follow in their track: many of them arrived at Lausanne.
Yet it was Friburg they wished to reach, and to do that they had to
cross difficult passes where the duke had stationed his soldiers
in order to seize them. The Sieur d’Englisberg, avoyer of Friburg,
possessed vineyards on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, and was
gathering his grapes at La Vaux. While busy with his vats and presses,
he learnt what was going on, and, full of compassion for the unhappy
men, he sent off a courier to his colleagues. The Friburg council
immediately despatched an officer with thirty horsemen, with orders to
protect the fugitive huguenots.
During this time, those who had taken the road to Franche-Comté (the
bishop’s followers) crossed the Jura mountains and ‘made a thousand
windings to escape,’ says Bonivard. They walked but little during the
day, much during the night; they flung themselves into the woods and
scaled the rocks. These worthy episcopalians fancied that it would be
sufficient to see their pastor’s face and be saved. And even if he
had not returned to St. Claude, that city would afford them a secure
asylum. But, cruel disappointment! not only was there no bishop, but
his officers repulsed his persecuted subjects. Nobody in the city would
give shelter even to the most catholic of the fugitives.
The Genevans, disappointed in their expectations and disconcerted in
their plans, determined to continue their flight. It was indeed time:
just as they were leaving St. Claude by one gate, the Savoyard soldiers
entered by another. Terror added wings to their feet; they hurried
along, the rain beating upon them, the horsemen following them hard, at
every moment on the brink of falling into the hands of their enemies,
and the dangers of their country adding to the wretchedness of their
flight. At last they arrived at Besançon, then at Neufchatel, and
finally at Friburg, where they met their friends who had come by way of
Lausanne. They embraced and grasped each other’s hands. But Besançon
Hugues ... they sought him everywhere ... he could not be found. The
anxiety was general. It was known what zeal the ducal archers would
have employed to seize him; it was besides so easy to surprise him in
his quiet retreat at Chatelaine. Alas! the murderers of Cæsar’s tower
and of the castle of Bonne might perhaps already have shed the blood of
a third martyr!
Hugues and the governor of Gex had passed the evening together;
and as the Genevan had, says a manuscript, ‘a keener scent than
his treacherous friend,’ he had led on Vuillet to speak of the
circumstances of the times, and had guessed the object of his visit.
He had learnt that the only means of saving Geneva was to claim the
support of the Swiss. The hour for retiring had come; Hugues with
a cheerful look conducted the commandant to the room prepared for
him, and bade him good night. The latter had hardly fallen asleep
when, saddling his guest’s horse, Hugues galloped off with one or two
companions; they took the direction of St. Claude, intending to go from
thence to Friburg. At daybreak he found himself on the summit of the
mountain of Gex, and at the pass of La Faucille bade farewell to the
beautiful valley of the Leman, on which the rays of the rising sun were
beginning to fall.
At this moment Messire Vuillet awoke, got up noiselessly, and, seeing
from the window that his soldiers were posted round the house,
stealthily advanced to seize his prey.... The bed was empty, the bird
had flown. The commandant of Gex immediately ordered the door to be
opened, summoned the provost-marshal, and directed him to pursue the
fugitive with the duke’s cavalry. The squadron set off at a gallop.
Some hours earlier, the archers of Gex had started in pursuit of the
other fugitives, making sure of catching them. The road across the
mountains wound about in consequence of the valleys and precipices, so
that pursuers and pursued, being sometimes on opposite slopes, might
see and even hear one another, although there was an abyss between
them. When the flight of Hugues was made known, the zeal of the
soldiers increased; and the former, knowing his danger, threw himself
into impassable roads in order to escape his enemies. ‘Ah!’ said he
afterwards, ‘it was not pleasant; for the archers of Monsieur of Savoy
followed us as far as St. Claude, then from St. Claude to Besançon and
beyond.... We were forced to journey day and night, through the woods,
through the rain, not knowing where to find a place of safety.’ At
length he reached Friburg, six days after the arrival of his friends
who had gone by Lausanne. Friburgers and Genevese, all welcomed him
with transport.[371]