Early history of Geneva—Constitution—Duke Amedée the Eighth—Attempt
to become master of Geneva—The Bishop inclined to cede his
rights—The opposition of the citizens—Charles the
Third—Berthelier—Alliance with Fribourg—His courage—Geneva
taken—His refusal to fly—His arrest—A tooth-drawer named his
judge—His execution—The news of his death causing the impression he
had hoped for—Treaty—The Mamelukes—The Confrères de la
Cuiller—Advance of Berne and Fribourg—Charles the Third’s forced
concessions—Want of generosity in the Bernese—Noble conduct of
Geneva—Protestant religion gaining strength—Bonnivard—Seized on
the Jura—Cast into the dungeons of Chillon—Disputes in Geneva—The
Grand Council decides that mass be abolished—Francis the
First—Berne declares war against Savoy—Her alliance with
Francis—The Duke of Savoy’s losses—Berne’s renewed
misconduct—Proud reply of the Genevese—Bonnivard
delivered—Calvin—His early life—His flight from Paris—His
reception by Marguerite of Navarre—Persecution of Francis—Calvin’s
reception by Louis the Twelfth’s Daughter—Geneva—His over
severity—His expulsion—His return—His iron rule—Michael
Servet—His irritating conduct towards Calvin—Calvin’s vow to be
revenged—Servet’s arrest—His escape—Tracked by Calvin—Taken
prisoner on his passage through Geneva—He is accused—Calvin’s
valet—Burned at the stake outside the walls of Geneva.
The early history of Geneva; its foundation by the Allobroges; its
increase under the Romans, Burgundians, and Franks, till it obtained
privileges from Charlemagne, and held fairs; formed part of the second
kingdom of Burgundy, and passed, along with its other relics, into the
feeble power of the German emperors, is too long and uninteresting in
its details for me to call it to your mind now. During the confused
changes of these long revolutions, the clergy had found means at Geneva
as well as at Sion, Lausanne, Constance, and other towns of the empire,
to join to its spiritual jurisdiction a large portion of temporal
authority; and the bishops obtained from the emperor the title of
prince and sovereign of the town, and a part of the land surrounding it.
The inhabitants generally preferred his rule to that of the warlike and
turbulent princes who owned the territories adjoining theirs; not only
because they expected it would be mildly held, but because their own
voices, joined to those of the chapter of his church, elected him, and
having no military force under his command, he found moderation a
necessary virtue. Besides this restraint, the bishop acknowledged
others. He could not exercise authority alone; he was the emperor’s
vassal, and the administration of justice was disputed with him by the
counts of Geneva, who, from being merely imperial officers, had become
the bishop’s first vassals. The people, profiting by their frequent
discords, established their own power, and held fast the privileges
granted by divers emperors. They elected four syndics and a treasurer,
who chose in turn their principal assessors. They deliberated on taxes
to be levied, alliances to be formed; on all important affairs
interesting the general welfare—so that Geneva, being an imperial
town, shared the exercise of sovereign power between her bishop and her
citizens.
This already complicated constitution became still more so, when Amé
the Fifth the Great, count of Savoy, strove to become master of Geneva.
The Genevese, fearing the efforts against their liberty made by their
bishop and the count of Geneva, who was his brother, had had recourse
to Amé’s protection, a circumstance by which he profited. He obliged
the bishop to cede to him the office of Vidomne, in virtue of which he
became judge (from whose decision there was no appeal) of all civil
causes.
Amedée the Eighth, afterwards Pope Felix, united in his person the
necessary powers for following up this project of usurpation. The count
of Geneva had sold him his rights and lands. Created by the Emperor
Sigismund duke of Savoy, he proposed to the bishop to cede to him his
rights also. A bull of Pope Martin the Fifth authorized the latter to
abdicate his sovereignty, but he was sufficiently just to demand, ere
doing so, the consent of the Genevese assembly: “Inasmuch,” the four
syndics replied in the name of the citizens, “as Geneva, subject to the
power of the church, has been governed peaceably and mildly for four
hundred years, it seems neither useful nor honourable for church and
bishop, but rather dangerous to the state, to admit a project of
alienation. We will never suffer, while in our power to oppose it, any
foreign domination. Ourselves and our children will continue beneath
the rule of the church, with our bishop for sovereign, requiring of
him, that, according to his duty and his oath, sworn at his accession,
he shall govern faithfully, and preserve his right as heretofore,—the
syndics and citizens of Geneva, on their side, promising him assistance
in case of need, as also to all his successors who shall be elected
canonically, that is to say, by the people in general council.”
The dukes of Savoy who succeeded Amedée the Eighth renewed the attempts
made by their ancestor. They sometimes succeeded in causing the bishop
to be chosen among the princes, the children, and even the bastards of
their house. Philip of Savoy, brother of Philibert, was thus elected
bishop at the age of seven. Growing older, his childhood was regretted,
for he showed a stirring disposition, and a love of arms, which led him
to sacrifice his subjects’ repose, and urge his brother’s taking
possession of Geneva. Philibert, wiser and more just, voluntarily
abandoned the design, and fixed his residence at Chambéry.
The reign of Charles the Third, who succeeded him in 1504, was that
whose oppression and cruelty finally roused Geneva. He proved himself
the citizens’ open enemy, attacking their liberties in every way, and
unweariedly. Seconded by the bishop, who was his relative, he made
various pompous entries into the town, winning over some few,
intimidating others; seizing the citizens who even faintly opposed his
will, and flinging them into dungeons, where they perished by famine or
torture.
Berthelier, one of the Genevese council, had obtained letters of
“bourgeoisie” at Fribourg, as a safeguard from the duke’s tyranny, and
found them useful when, in 1517, having become involved in a private
quarrel between André Malvenda and a judge named by the duke and
bishop, others implicated like himself were punished by a light fine
only, while he was attacked with a rancour which obliged him first to
conceal himself, and then to escape to Fribourg. The citizens of
Fribourg made an appeal in his favour, insisting on his being tried by
his proper judges, the syndics of Geneva; and returning thither, he was
absolved by them. But during his stay at Fribourg he had negotiated an
alliance between that republic and his own country; and as it protected
the independence of Geneva, (the inhabitants of each town styling those
of the other co-citizens,) the angry duke strove to conceal his
disappointment, and to bribe Berthelier to support his interests by the
most seducing offers.
Notwithstanding the peril in which his refusal placed him;
notwithstanding that an army of seven thousand Savoyards assembled at
the gates of an unfortified town, and the inhabitants of Fribourg had
sent deputies to declare that the Bernese and the whole of the Swiss
confederation pressed them to break through their just concluded
treaty, Berthelier, without a chance of flight or a hope of resistance,
rejected the duke’s offers with disdain; communicated his own courage
to the assembled council, and the alliance of Fribourg was confirmed,
in the midst of menace and danger. The first of April, 1519, the herald
at arms of the duke of Savoy, entering the assembly and seating himself
above the syndics, declared war in the name of _his master and theirs_.
The Genevese armed and prepared for defence; but a message from
Fribourg informing them that its army could not arrive in time to save
them, they suffered the duke to enter their town, this time without his
exercising much violence, for the Fribourg soldiers had advanced into
the Pays de Vaud, and seized on hostages there. Charles the Third
adopted another course: the bishop was prince of Geneva, and had rights
the Fribourg citizens would not contest. He levied an army in Faucigny,
and entered the town the 20th of August. Once more the friends of
Berthelier implored him to fly: “No,” he answered, “our voices are not
loud enough to reach Fribourg; they will hear and they will act when
the blood of a victim calls upon them.” Far from concealing himself, he
every day went to walk in a garden near the entrance of the town.
The third day after the bishop’s arrival, Berthelier met the Vidomne on
his road, surrounded with soldiers come to arrest him. He advanced to
meet them coolly; the Vidomne demanded his sword; Berthelier presented
it: “Keep it carefully,” he said; “you will be called on to account for
it.” He said no more, and allowed himself to be conducted to prison
with perfect calmness. The syndics claimed him as within their
jurisdiction; but the bishop, who with his soldiers held the town,
rejected their demand, and created provost a tooth-drawer of his suite,
to proceed against him. This new made judge vainly questioned the
prisoner: “I am ready to reply to the syndics,” he answered; “of you I
know nothing.”
He was condemned without further trial. Led forth from his prison to
the place near it, he breathed a short prayer, turned towards the
people, saying, “Ah citizens of Geneva!” stooped his head to the block,
and received the death blow. The executioner raised it by the hair, and
showed it to the crowd, saying, “This is the head of a traitor; let the
sight of it be a warning to you.” His body was hung on a gibbet, but
carried thence and buried.
In consequence of this murder, and that of others, victims like him,
many took refuge in Berne, Fribourg, and other towns, and the recital
of what had passed made, as Berthelier had hoped, a strong impression.
Berne and Fribourg sent deputies to Geneva. A new treaty was entered
into by the three towns, and solemnly ratified, the two cantons
engaging to defend the Genevese in their persons, their liberties, and
properties. Geneva in like manner bound herself to assist and protect
Berne and Fribourg, but, being the weaker party, she was to do so at
her own expense; while, on the contrary, she defrayed all that might be
incurred in her favour by her allies. The duke of Savoy opposed the
treaty strongly, but vainly. The office of the vidomne, who
administered justice in the duke’s name, was abolished, and his
partisans, whom the Swiss called Mamelukes, because they said, like the
satellites of the sultan of Egypt, they were the pillars of tyranny,
having retired from the city, and refused to return, were proclaimed
traitors. Their only means of vengeance lay in joining themselves to
the Savoyard nobles, who, under the name of Confrères de la Cuiller,
ravaged the possessions of the Genevese, and the environs of their
town. They had adopted the title at a banquet, where, assembled and
intoxicated, they ferociously engaged to eat them as spoon meat, and
since that time, and in memory of his vow, each of the brotherhood wore
a spoon appended to his collar.
The bishop at this period was Pierre de la Baume, an immoral and
inconsistent man, who, having served the duke at the expense of the
citizens, with like caprice abandoned his cause, and sworn a solemn
oath to consult no interests but theirs, broke it ere the year had
passed away, and, on their refusal to renounce the alliance and restore
the vidomnat, became their implacable enemy and the duke’s friend once
more. His intrigues with Berne and Fribourg induced them to send
deputies to Geneva, offering to cancel the treaty should the Genevese
agree to doing so. But when, admitted before the council, they had
discharged their task, and each member, raising his right hand, swore
rather to die than consent, the ambassadors felt that their unanimous
courage at least commanded esteem, and that, consistently with their
own honour, their native towns could not abandon one so worthy support
and liberty.
The surrounding country ravaged; the insulted faubourgs; the discovery
of divers conspiracies for taking the city by storm, and putting its
inhabitants to the sword, left the cantons no excuse for delaying to
grant their promised assistance. Their army arrived at Morges, while
ten thousand men commanded by the duke besieged Geneva; and, though the
allies were inferior in number, these last, on the news of their
approach, retired in haste and without order, for they were chiefly
recruits and mercenaries. The Swiss came on notwithstanding; pillaging
all on their way, and burning the castles of the brethren of La
Cuiller. The duke sent an ambassador charged to throw the blame of all
that had occurred on the last mentioned fraternity. The conferences
were held at St. Julien, and Charles the Third saw himself obliged to
acquiesce in the conditions proposed to him, engaging that all
hostilities should cease, and placing in the power of Berne and
Fribourg the Pays de Vaud as pledge of his sincerity, abandoning in
their favour all rights he possessed over it, provided it were proved
that he had not fulfilled his part of the treaty.
These concessions made, the chiefs of the allied army thought their
most pressing business in Geneva consisted henceforth in demanding
payment of the expenses of their expedition. The starved and pillaged
Genevese solicited the patience due to their situation, yet by an
effort worthy them and their love of liberty, divesting themselves even
of necessaries, a portion of the debt was defrayed. When the army of
the cantons marched from the town, they found themselves reduced to
seek a last resource in their unshaken courage, which was most
efficient of all. The troops had hardly retreated, ere the duke again
attempted to cut off supplies, and levied a considerable corps with the
design of employing it against them. Some time after, notwithstanding
the alliance made and confirmed at several times, the duke’s intrigues
at Berne influencing the cantons, they again ungenerously proposed its
dissolution; giving, as a reason, that the Genevese were not rich
enough to pay for the assistance they would require at each fresh
attack. This proposal was made in a form painful as was its spirit to
those by whom it was received; for the three deputies who were its
bearers accompanied it with various menaces; yet the small and
struggling nation, in its worst extremity, bore up bravely. “The more
we may be threatened,” they replied, “the more will we be firm and
constant; forasmuch as dying for the right, we will hold ourselves
happy. Nevertheless, we so trust in God and the citizens of the two
towns, believing they will observe the oaths made in presence of their
Creator and fellow-men, that we will satisfy our debt, even if, so to
do, we shall be obliged to pledge all our worldly goods, even to our
wives and our children.”
It was after this that Berne and Fribourg, having vainly attempted to
temporize, and striven to adopt a middle course, which the Genevese
proudly rejected, returned to better feelings, and refused to renew
their alliance with the duke, who had failed to pay to themselves the
sums which he had forfeited. The Protestant religion was now gaining
rapid growth, animating the Swiss with fresh zeal for the liberty it
favoured, and deepening the duke’s hatred, as it changed to a kind of
crusade what had been a mere spoliation. Though Geneva has since borne
the title of reformed Rome, Zwingle and his associates had disseminated
their doctrines over the rest of the Swiss states before it reached
herself in 1528: for its entrance here grew out of the ill conduct and
scandalous lives of their bishops and ecclesiastics, and such
observations as the citizens made during the frequent journeys their
commerce necessitated into Switzerland. Bonnivard, prior of the abbey
of St. Victor, situated close to Geneva, esteemed for his pure life and
profound learning, exhorted the Genevese to reform their conduct and
enlighten their minds, to dare to speak and think freely. Fribourg
(remained faithful to the Catholic creed) employed threats as well as
prayers to prevent their allies falling away; but the Bernese soldiers,
during the brief time they had spent in Geneva, had taught the people
to insult the outward signs of their old faith, to fling down for
firewood the rude wooden statues which decorated the churches; and the
people, finding their bravadoes unpunished, repeated and exaggerated
them daily. In 1530 Bonnivard was betrayed to the duke of Savoy, some
say by false friends, others by bandits, who seized and rifled him on a
wild tract of the Jura; and, delivered to Charles the Third, he was
cast into the dungeon of Chillon. The bishop was leagued with the duke,
though secretly, to make war on Geneva, and the proofs of his collusion
were not wanting. Farel and Saulnier, both reformers, preached publicly
to the excited multitude; and the little state divided by religious
fury, the hand of the father was lifted against his son, and brother
betrayed brother.
The Catholics conspired, and the Protestants resisted; conflicts in
broad day and assassinations in the dark continued; while the laws of
the magistrates were useless, and words of peace were despised. At last
an order in council enacted “that every one should enjoy liberty of
conscience, avoiding to create scandal.” But this species of truce did
not last long. The Catholic priests provoked fresh sedition, and in the
tumult which followed in the streets, a citizen of Fribourg was killed.
Long disputes ensued, the Bernese taking part with the townsmen, the
men of Fribourg with the bishop; till the latter, feigning or feeling
fear, quitted Geneva to join the duke, and returned thither no more,
the citizens shortly after publishing their resolve no longer to
recognize him for their superior. His grand vicar published a charge,
which commanded, on pain of excommunication, the burning of all French
and German Bibles. The Bernese insisted that permission to preach
should be granted to the reformers; and the sermons of Farel, delivered
in consequence in the church of the Cordeliers, attracted multitudes
and converted many. The bishop had excommunicated the citizens as
hardened heretics, and these last could only procure food at the
sword’s point, when the grand council, after long debates, commanded
that the celebration of mass should cease in the city till _further_
orders.
An edict ordained that God should be served according to the rules of
the Gospel, and that all acts of papistical idolatry should be
interdicted for ever.
Geneva was again besieged in 1535, and reduced to the last extremity,
when Francis the First, king of France, not that he hated the heretics
less, but that he hated Savoy more, offered assistance to the Genevese
on condition of their putting him in possession of the rights their
bishop had held. They rejected his proposals, saying, “They had
suffered all things in the cause of freedom, and recommended it to his
generosity.”
A few levies of troops were consequently made in France; but the
Savoyards closed the passage to Geneva, while the duke declared “he
would never permit the Genevese to change their religion without
permission of the pope; and also, that his nobility, of whom he was in
this instance master, was determined on sacrificing life and land to
exterminate the Lutherans.” Under these circumstances, and also because
an ally of the duke’s had made violent inroads on the Bernese
possessions, Berne, aroused at last, declared war against
Savoy,—representing in her manifesto as sole reason for so doing the
“oppression of Geneva, with which it was impossible to bear longer; her
own honour being interested in protecting a people persecuted for their
common religion,—as to abandon her ally would cast upon herself an
ineffaceable stain.”
As the Bernese army came on, the ducal troops fled. Advancing
unresisted, the former burned the castles of the brotherhood of La
Cuiller, and, entering Geneva, brought with their presence the term of
its sufferings and long perplexities. Francis the First, reviving a
former claim made on the death of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan,
despatched at this time (1536) an army to invade the Milanese
territory, which on its march occupied Bresse and a great part of
Savoy. His alliance was offered to Berne and accepted, and the
unfortunate duke lost to France, Bresse, Turin, and Piedmont, as well
as almost all which remained to him of Savoy. The Bernese were wanting
in generosity once more. Their gain in booty and increase of territory
had been great: the Pays de Vaud, with little pains, had become theirs;
yet they demanded of the Genevese, as theirs by _conquest_, the rights
and revenues of their duke and bishops. The Genevese answered proudly:—
“If we could have borne the yoke of a master, we could have spared
ourselves the struggles and expenses our liberty has cost; we will not
lose the fruit of them. We conjure you, who aided us in its
maintenance, not to persist in a demand which tarnishes your glory: by
all reasonable means we will strive to repay your services.”
A treaty made greatly to Berne’s advantage—9,917 golden crowns paid
ere the close of the year—the cession of all which Geneva had
conquered from Savoy, kept this promise. Henceforth free, the citizens
profited by the long wished-for calm to establish order and purity of
conduct, to found hospitals and colleges, and a short space of time saw
an immoral, superstitious, and ignorant population replaced by one,
industrious, serious to austerity, addicted to trades, arts, and
sciences, in all which their success became remarkable. The Bernese
army, on its march from Geneva, took Morges and Vevey, and besieging
Chillon, became masters of this last spot of the Pays de Vaud owned by
Savoy, and delivered Bonnivard, who had lain in its dungeons six long
years.
In 1536 Calvin appeared in Geneva. Born at Noyon in Picardy, in 1509,
and a cooper’s son, he had been destined for the church, and, through
the protection of an abbé of his native town, had interest and patrons,
which ensured advancement; and before he had taken orders, or attained
the age of twenty, he owned titles and revenues attached to several
benefices. While pursuing his ecclesiastical studies in Paris, he
became acquainted with a young man born, like himself, at Noyon, and
his senior by only a few years. The reformed religion was making
progress in France, and Olivetan first instilled into his mind the seed
which was to spring up a giant tree. He abandoned the study of
theology, intending to adopt that of the law; but in consequence of an
harangue pronounced at the university, full of the new doctrines, and
of which he was believed the composer, he was obliged to fly from
Paris, and during the concealment and wanderings, which lasted some
months, he patiently continued his researches, and sometimes left his
retreat to preach, in public, sermons extraordinary for their success
and power. He was well received at the court of Marguerite de Navarre,
sister of Francis the First, who at that time, rather with a view to
please Rome than from hatred to heresy, had lighted, from one end of
his kingdom to the other, the funeral piles of the reformers; and, to
conciliate his allies, the protestant princes of Germany, spread abroad
pamphlets, in which it was asserted that the men so rigorously treated
belonged not to those sectarians, but to “the anabaptists, enemies of
all order as well as of all religion.” In his famous work published as
their confession of faith, “The Christian Institution,” he refuted the
assertions of Francis, respecting the unfortunate victims of his
policy; while entering into the subject more clearly and fully than any
reformer had yet done, he attacked Rome in all her entrenchments. After
its publication he went to Ferrara, and was well received by the
Duchesse Renée of France, Louis the Twelfth’s daughter, who afterwards
became protestant. Remaining there but a short time, he preached in
various towns of Italy, and, discovered in this employment, was obliged
to depart in all haste, to ensure his own safety. He returned to Paris,
and finding his life endangered by a sojourn there also, he arrived in
Geneva, where Farel had for some months borne the whole weight of the
affairs of his church, and requested assistance, as unable to continue
his labour alone. Become his coadjutor, and leaving to him the care of
preaching, he almost entirely consecrated his time to instruction. He
determined on reforming the lives as well as the doctrine of the
citizens, and commencing this great work with too much promptitude and
severity, he roused powerful enemies,—and the faction, profiting by
the first favourable moment, demanded and obtained his exile a little
less than two years after his coming. He retired first to Berne, and
thence to Strasburg, where welcome and distinction waited him: he was
regretted at Geneva, and implored to return. Calvin objected his
engagements made with Strasburg; but deputies were despatched to the
magistrates of this town, begging his restoration to his first flock.
His sentence of banishment was unanimously revoked in the public
assembly of citizens, and in September, 1541, he re-entered the city.
Thenceforward, to the close of his life, his iron authority was
undisputed; dancing, light songs, festivals,—pleasures which had
always been considered innocent, were strictly forbidden. He, shortly
after his arrival, presented in council his proposed changes in
ecclesiastical discipline. They were adopted in the following November.
In consequence of one of these was instituted a tribunal, called a
Consistory, its members half clerical, half laymen, charged with
watching over the maintenance of pure doctrine and moral conduct. Its
power of censure extended to the most trivial words and actions. No
citizen, by his important functions, could be raised above it, or could
be sheltered from its reprimands, and the shame of seeing them
inscribed on its registers. This new police rendered Calvin master of
the occupations as well as the opinions of the Genevese; and as he
reigned sovereign in the council to which it referred, as well as in
the consistory, the judges pronounced condemnation on all who were
opposed to him.
A magistrate was condemned to two months’ imprisonment for _irregular
life and connexion with Calvin’s enemies_; Jacques Gruet to
decapitation for writing impious letters and libertine rhymes. The
darkest stain on Calvin’s memory is the death of Michael Servet. Born
the same year with Calvin, but a Spaniard and destined for the law, he
came to Paris early in life for the sake of studying there; but soon
abandoning this profession, and also that of medicine afterwards
adopted, he abandoned himself to theological dispute, and became,
though not denying the divinity of Christ, a violent anti-trinitarian.
Having taken up the trade of corrector of the press, he made his
occupation subservient to his favourite idea, and, entrusted with a
reimpression of the Bible, he added a preface and notes, which Calvin
attacked as _impertinent_ and _impious_. Servet entered into
correspondence with him, making use of his talents and learning only to
embarrass his adversary, till the paper war grew so violent, that the
letters on either side changed to a series of invective. Servet vowed
to humiliate his rival, and shortly after brought out a work, whose
sole purpose was to call attention to a number of errors he had
detected in those of Calvin, above all in his greatest and most valued
one, “The Christian Institution.” The reformer was so irritated, that
he wrote to his brethren, Farel and Viret, “If ever this heretic falls
into my power, my influence with the magistrates shall be used for his
destruction.”
From that moment he held no communication with Servet, and the latter,
occupied with his system only, spent four years in the compilation of
another work attacking the doctrine of the Trinity. It was printed at
Vienna, without the author’s or printer’s name; but Calvin, recognising
with the opinions the style of Servet, and finding his own writings and
himself treated with contempt and bitterness, vowed vengeance on him.
Using unworthy means, he sent to the Cardinal de Tournon, then
archbishop of Lyons, and the most violent foe of the reformed faith,
some sheets of Servet’s treatise: and the archbishop communicating them
to the governor-general of Dauphiné, he made every possible effort to
discover from what press they had issued, but in vain; and Servet would
have escaped had not Calvin expedited to Lyons the originals (of which
he had obtained possession) of some letters contained in the work;
affording proof positive of Servet’s being its author.
He was arrested in consequence, and would have been condemned and
executed had he not found means to escape from prison. Anxious only to
flee from France and to Italy, where he hoped to live unknown, he did
not reflect that his shortest road might also prove the most perilous,
and, without fear of the consequences, he arrived in Geneva. Made
acquainted with his flight, but not with its direction, Calvin’s
activity tracked his foe, and, at his demand, he was arrested. The city
laws ordained that the accuser should share the prison of the accused,
but not choosing to submit to them, this part devolved on one
Lafontaine, said to be his valet, while he reserved to himself that of
discussing the theological question. In the outset Servet appeared calm
and unembarrassed, and even confident in his judges’ equity. As soon as
the law process was terminated, copies of it were sent to Zurich,
Berne, Bâle, and Schaffhausen. The advice of Zurich was the most
severe, but Calvin’s assertion that the Protestant cantons pronounced
for the sentence of death, is untrue. The 26th of October, 1553, the
tribunal, sitting for the last time, condemned Servet to be burned
alive. When its decision was made known to him, the firmness he had
hitherto shown gave way, and his shrieks of terror were heart-rending.
He hoped to soften Calvin, and had an interview with him two hours
before he was led to execution, but his fate had been long decided. He
was burned at the stake in a spot called Champey, a stone’s throw from
the southern gate of Geneva. He suffered two hours of fearful torments,
the wind blowing the flame from him, and cried in his despair, “Unhappy
that I am, with the golden pieces and rich collar ye took from me, ye
could not purchase wood enough to consume me quicker!”