The syndics, transported with joy, manifested all their gratitude to the

prelate. They told him he had nothing to fear, either from the Genevans

or even from the duke. Then turning to the people, they said: 'Let every

citizen draw his sword to defend Monseigneur. If he should be attacked,

we desire that, at the sound of the tocsin, all the burgesses, and even

the priests, should fly to arms.'—'Yes, yes!' shouted the citizens; 'we

will be always faithful to him!' A transformation seemed to have been

effected in their hearts. They knew the great value of the sacrifice the

bishop had made, and showed their thankfulness to him. Upon this, the

bishop, 'raising his right hand towards heaven, and placing his left on

his breast (as was the custom of prelates),' said: 'I promise, on my

faith, loyally to perform all that is required of a citizen, to prove

myself a good prince, and never to separate myself from you!' The

delighted people also raised their hands and exclaimed: 'And we also, my

lord, will preserve you from harm as we would our own heads!'[739] The

poor prelate would have sacrificed still more to protect himself from

Charles's attacks, which filled him with indescribable terror.

It seemed as if this concession, by uniting the bishop and the Genevans

more closely, ought to have put off the Reformation; but it was not so.

In proportion as the Genevans obtained any concession, they desired

more; accordingly, when the citizens had returned home, or when they met

at one another's houses, they began to say that it was something to have

obtained the civil judicature from the bishop, but that there were other

restitutions still to be made. Some men asked by what right he held the

temporal authority; and others—those who knew best what was passing at

Zurich—desired to throw off the spiritual jurisdiction of the prelate in

order to acknowledge only that of Holy Writ.

Opposition to ecclesiastical principalities began, then, three centuries

ago at Geneva. 'The bishop grants us the civil jurisdiction,' said

Bonivard; 'an act very damaging to himself, and very profitable to

us.... But ... this is an opening to deprive him entirely of his

authority. Neither La Baume nor the other bishops were lawfully elected,

that is to say by the clergy at the postulation of the people. They were

thrust into the see by the pope.... They are but tyrants set over us by

other tyrants. We can therefore reject them without danger to our souls;

and since they came in by the caprice of arbitrary power, it is lawful

for us to expel them by the free authority of the city. Geneva has never

acknowledged other princes than those whom the people themselves

elected.' Some were astonished at Bonivard's language; but the larger

number listened to him with enthusiasm. The catholics, growing more and

more uneasy, anticipated great disasters. The edifice of popery,

continually undermined in Geneva, was tottering; its pillars and

buttresses were giving way; and the keystone of the arch, the episcopal

power itself, was on the point of crumbling to dust. Alas! catholic

Geneva was a dismantled fortress.[740]

[Sidenote: THE DUKE'S IRRITATION.]

When the duke heard of the bishop's concessions, he was seized with one

of his fits of anger. And not without cause: by transferring the civil

authority to a lay tribunal, La Baume had been guilty of a new offence

against the duke; for it was in reality the jurisdiction of the vidame

(that is to say, of the duke) which the bishop had thus ceded; and hence

it was that he had been induced to do it so readily.

Charles had no need of this new grievance. When they learnt at the court

of Turin that the canons had been put in prison by the prelate, there

was a violent commotion; the friends and relatives of those reverend

gentlemen made a great noise, and the duke resolved to send the most

urgent remonstrances to the Genevans, reserving the right to have

recourse to more energetic measures if words did not suffice. He

commissioned M. de Jacob, his grand equerry, to go and set this little

people to rights, and the ducal envoy arrived in Geneva about the middle

of July. He carried his head very high, and behaved with great reserve,

as if he had been injured: he had come with the intention of making that

city, so small and yet so arrogant, feel how great is the power of a

mighty prince. On the 20th of July, the Sire de Jacob being introduced

before the council, haughtily represented to them, not that the reverend

fathers imprisoned as criminals were innocent, but that they belonged to

high families and were his highness's subjects, and added that the duke

consequently ordered them to be immediately set at liberty. 'Otherwise,'

added the ambassador in an insolent tone, 'my lord will see to it, as

shall seem good to him.' The tone and look of the ducal envoy explained

his words, and every one felt that Charles III. would come and claim the

canons at the head of his army. The embarrassed magistrates and prelates

answered the envoy by throwing the blame upon one another. The former

declared that they had not interfered in the matter, which concerned

Monseigneur of Geneva only; and the bishop, in his turn, laid all the

blame on the people. 'I was obliged to do so,' he said, 'to save the

canons from being killed.' Nevertheless, he showed himself merciful. The

avoyer of Friburg, who had been delegated for this purpose by his

council, added his entreaties to the ducal summons; and, pressed at once

by Switzerland and Savoy, the bishop thought he could not resist. The

arrest of the canons was in reality, on his part, an act of passion as

much as of justice. 'I release them,' he said; 'I pardon them. I leave

vengeance to God.'

The canons quitted the place where they had been confined, bursting with

anger and indignation. Having had time to reflect on what was passing in

Geneva, on the impetuous current that was hurrying the citizens in a

direction contrary to Rome, they had made up their minds to quit a city

where they had been so unceremoniously thrown into the receptacle for

criminals. De Montrotier, De Veigy, and their colleagues had hardly

returned to their houses when they told everybody who would listen to

them that they would leave Geneva and the Genevans to their miserable

fate. This strange resolution immediately spread through the city, and

excited the people greatly; it was important news, and they could hardly

believe it. The canons of Geneva were a very exalted body in the opinion

of catholicity. In order to be received among them, the candidate must

show titles of nobility or be a graduate in some famous university; and

since the beginning of the century their number included members of the

most illustrious families of Savoy—De Gramont, De la Foret, De

Montfalcon, De Menthon, De la Motte, De Chatillon, De Croso, De Sablon,

and others as noble as they.[741]

[Sidenote: THE CANONS LEAVE THE CITY.]

The canons kept their word. As soon as they had made the necessary

arrangements for their departure, they mounted their mules or got into

their carriages, and set off. The Genevans, standing at the doors of

their houses and in groups in the streets, watched these Roman

dignitaries thus abandoning their homes, some with downcast heads,

others with angry looks, who moved along sad and silent, and went out by

the Savoy gate with hearts full of resentment against a city which they

denounced as ungrateful and rebellious. Out of thirty-two, only seven or

eight remained.[742] The citizens, assembling in various places, were

agitated with very different thoughts. The huguenots said to themselves

that these high and reverend clerks, true cardinals, who supported the

papacy much better than the bishop, would no longer be there to prevent

the new generation from throwing off the shackles of the middle ages;

that this unexpected exodus marked a great revolution; and that the old

times were departing, and the Reformation beginning. On the other hand,

the creatures of Rome felt a bitter pang, and flames of vengeance were

kindled in their hearts. Lastly, those citizens who were both good

Genevans and good catholics, were seized with fear and melancholy. 'No

more canons, erelong perhaps no more bishop!... Will Geneva, without its

canons and bishops, be Geneva still?' But the great voice, which drowned

all the rest, was that of the partisans of progress, of liberty, of

independence, and of reform, who desired to see political liberty

developed among the community, and the Church directed by the Word of

God and not by the bulls of the pope. Among them were Maison-Neuve,

Bonivard, Porral, Bernard, Chautemps, and others. These men, the

pioneers of modern times, felt little respect and no regret for the

canons. They said to one another that these noble and lazy lords were

pleased with Geneva so long as they could luxuriously enjoy the

pleasures of life there; but that when the hour of combat came, they

fled like cowards from the field of battle. The canons did fly in fact;

they arrived at Annecy, where they settled. As for Geneva, they were

never to enter it again.

[Footnote 731: 'Pro summa ducatorum auri largorum duorum millia.'—

Galiffe fils, _Besançon Hugues_, p. 454; _Pièces Justificatives_, No. 4.]

[Footnote 732: Spon, _Hist. de Genève_, i. p. 407, note.]

[Footnote 733: Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 468. _Journal de Balard_, p.

112. Gautier MS. _Mém. d'Archéologie_, iv. p. 161.]

[Footnote 734: In his journal recently published, Balard, one of the

most respected and most catholic magistrates of the time, describes this

plot at full length, pp. 117, 118. See also Bonivard, _Police de

Genève_, p. 396.]

[Footnote 735: _Journal de Balard_, p. 118. Bonivard, _Police de

Genève_, p. 396.]

[Footnote 736: 'On regratia Dieu.'—_Journal de Balard_, p. 117.

Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 467.]

[Footnote 737: _Journal de Balard_, p. 119. Registres du Conseil, _ad

locum_.]

[Footnote 738: Registres du Conseil des 13 et 14 juillet 1527. Bonivard,

_Chroniq._ ii. p. 467. Galiffe, _Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève_,

ii. pp. 421, 517. _Journal de Balard_, p. 119.]

[Footnote 739: Registres du Conseil du 15 juillet 1527. Bonivard,

_Chroniq._ ii. p. 471. _Journal de Balard_, p. 119.]

[Footnote 740: Registres du Conseil du 15 juillet 1527. _Journal de

Balard_, p. 119. Bonivard, _Chroniq._ pp. 471, 472.]

[Footnote 741: Besson, _Mémoire du Diocèse de Genève_, p. 87.]

[Footnote 742: Registres du Conseil des 18, 19, 23, 24 juillet 1527.

Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 468. _Journal de Balard_, pp. 121-124.]

CHAPTER IV.

THE BISHOP-PRINCE FLEES FROM GENEVA.

(JULY AND AUGUST 1527.)

[Sidenote: BISHOPERS AND COMMONERS.]

From this time parties in Geneva took new forms and new names. There

were not simply, as before, partisans of the foreign domination and

Savoy, and those of independence and Switzerland: the latter were

divided. Some, having Hugues and Balard as leaders, declared for the

bishop; others, with Maison-Neuve and Porral at their head, declared for

the people. They desired not only to repel the usurpations of Savoy, but

also to see the fall of the temporal power of the bishop in Geneva.

'Now,' said Bonivard, 'that the first division into mamelukes and

huguenots has almost come to an end, we have the second—that of

bishopers (_évêquains_) and commoners (_communiaires_).' These two

parties had their men of sense and importance, and also their hotheaded

adherents; as, for instance, De la Thoy on the side of the commoners,

and Pécolat, the man of whom it would have been least expected, among

the bishopers. A singular change had been effected in this former martyr

of the bishop: the _jester_ had joined the episcopal band. Was it

because he was at heart catholic and even superstitious (he had

ascribed, it will be remembered, the healing of his tongue to the

intervention of a saint), or because, being a thorough parasite, he

preferred the well-covered tables of the bishopers? We know not. These

noisy partisans, the vanguard of the two parties, were frequently

quarrelling. 'They murmured, jeered, and made faces at each other.'

At the same time this new division marked a step made in advance by this

small people. Two great questions were raised, which sooner or later

must rise up in every country. The first was _political_, and may be

stated thus: 'Must we accept a traditional dominion which has been

established by trampling legitimate rights under foot?' (This was the

dominion of the bishop.) The second was _religious_, and may be

expressed thus: 'Which must we choose, popery or the Gospel?' Many of

the _commoners_, seeing the bishop and the duke disputing about Geneva,

said that these two people were fighting for what belonged to neither of

them, and that Geneva belonged to the Genevans. But there were

politicians also among them, lawyers for the most part, who founded

their pretensions on a legal basis. The bishops and princes of Geneva

ought by right, as we have seen, to be elected at Geneva and not at

Rome, by Genevans and not by Romans. The issue of the struggle was not

doubtful. How could the bishop make head against magistrates and

citizens relying on positive rights, and against the most powerful

aspirations of liberty that were awaking in men's hearts? How could the

Roman doctrine escape the floods of the Reformation? Certain scandals

helped to precipitate the catastrophe.

On the 12th of July some huguenots appeared before the council. 'The

priests of the Magdalen,' they said, 'keep an improper house, in which

reside several disorderly women.' There were among the Genevans, and

particularly among the magistrates, men of good sense, who had the fear

of God before their eyes and confidence in him in their hearts. These

respectable laymen (and there may have been priests who thought the

same) had a deep conviction that one of the great defects of the middle

ages was the existence of popes, bishops, priests, and monks, who had

separated religion from morality. The council attended to these

complaints to a certain extent. They banished from Geneva the persons

who made it their business to facilitate illicit intercourse, obliged

the lewd women to live in a place assigned them, and severely

remonstrated with the priests.[743] The first breath of the Reformation

in Geneva attacked immorality. It was not this affair, however, which

gave the bishop his death-blow; it was a scandal occasioned by himself,

and in his own house. 'Halting justice' was about to overtake the guilty

man at last.

[Sidenote: ABDUCTION OF A YOUNG WOMAN.]

One day a report suddenly got abroad which put the whole city in

commotion. 'A young girl, of respectable family,' said the crowd, 'has

just been carried off by the bishop's people: we saw them dragging her

to the palace.' It was an electric spark that set the whole populace on

fire. The palace gates had been immediately closed upon the victim, and

the bishop's servants threatened to repel with main force the persons

who demanded her. 'Does the bishop imagine,' said some of the patriots,

'that we will put up with his beatings as quietly as the folks of St.

Claude do?' It would seem that La Baume permitted such practices among

the Burgundians, who did not complain of them. The girl's mother,

rushing into the street, had followed her as fast as possible, and had

only stopped at the closed gates of the episcopal palace. She paced

round and round the building, roaring like a lioness deprived of her

whelp. The citizens, crowding in front of the palace, exclaimed: 'Ha!

you are now throwing off the mask of holiness which you held up to

deceive the simple. In your churches you kiss God's feet, and in your

life you daringly spit in his face!' Many of them called for the bishop,

summoning him to restore the young woman to her mother, and hammering

violently at the gate.

The prelate, who was then at dinner, did not like to be disturbed in

this important business; being puzzled, moreover, as to the course which

he ought to adopt, it appeared that the best thing he could do was to be

deaf. He therefore answered his servants, who asked him for orders, 'Do

not open the door;' and raising the glass to his lips, he went on with

his repast. But his heart was beginning to tremble: the shouts grew

louder, and every blow struck against the gate found an echo in the soul

of the guilty priest. His servants, who were looking stealthily out of

the windows, having informed him that the magistrates had arrived,

Pierre de la Baume left his chair, paler than death, and went to the

window. There was a profound silence immediately, and the syndics made

the prelate an earnest but very respectful speech. The bishop, terrified

at the popular fury, replied: 'Certainly, gentlemen, you shall have the

young woman.... I only had her carried off for a harper, who asked me

for her in return for his services.' Monseigneur had not carried off the

girl in the violence of passion, but only to pay the wages of a

musician! It was not more guilty, but it was more vile. The palace gates

were opened, and the girl was restored to her mother. Michael Roset does

not mention the harper, and leads us to believe that the bishop had

taken her for himself. This scandalous abduction was the last act done

in Geneva by the Roman bishops.[744]

From that moment the deposition of the bishop was signed, as it were, in

the hearts of most of the citizens. 'These, then, are the priests'

works,' they said, 'debauchery and violence!... Instead of purifying the

manners of the people, they labour to corrupt them! Ha! ha! you

bishopers, a fine religion is that of your bishop!'

Opposition to a corrupt government soon began to appear a duty to them.

The right of resistance was one of the principles of that society in the

middle ages, which some writers uphold as a model of servility. In the

Great Charter of England, the king authorised his own subjects, in case

he should violate any one of their liberties, 'to pursue and molest him

to the uttermost of their power, by seizing his castles, estates,

possessions, and otherwise.' In certain cases, the vassals could

separate themselves entirely from their suzerain. Some vassals, it is

true, might carry this principle too far, and claim to throw off the

feudal authority _whenever it pleased them_; but the law made answer:

'No, not unless there is _reasonable cause_.'[745] When freeing herself

from the bishop-princes, who had so often violated the franchises and

connived with the enemies of the city, Geneva thought she was acting

with very reasonable cause, and not going beyond the bounds of legality.

The ruin of the bishops and princes of Geneva, already prepared by their

political misdeeds, was completed by their moral disorders.

But if the friends of law and morality desired to break by legal means

the bonds which united them to the bishop-prince, other persons, the

wits and brawlers, envenomed against his partisans, began to get up

quarrels with the bishopers. One day 'the young men of Geneva,'

returning from a shooting match, where, says the chronicler, they had

'had many a shot at the pot' (that is, had drunk deeply), determined to

give a smart lesson to two of the bishop's friends, Pécolat and Robert

Vandel. The latter, at that time attached personally to Pierre de la

Baume, afterwards became one of the most zealous patriots. 'They are at

St. Victor's,' somebody said; 'let us go and fetch them.' The party,

headed by a drummer, went to the priory, where Bonivard told the

ringleaders that the two bishopers and others were diverting themselves

at Plainpalais. Just as the band arrived, the episcopals were entering

the city: one of the 'sons of Geneva,' catching sight of Pécolat and

Vandel, exclaimed: 'My lord, you have traitors among you there!' The

bishop spurred his mule and rode off; Pécolat drew his sword; his

opponent, De la Thoy, did the same, and they began to cut at each other.

The fray was so noisy that the guards in alarm shut the gates, when a

few reasonable men parted the combatants. A more serious movement was

accomplishing in the depths of men's minds. Nothing but secularisation

and reformation could put an end to the almost universal discontent.[746]

[Sidenote: THE DUKE'S MENACES.]

The Duke of Savoy wished for another solution. His councillors

represented to him that the bishop had lost his credit among the nobles

and clergy, through his desire to ally himself with the Swiss; that he

was ruined with the citizens by his unedifying mode of life; and that

the moment had come for giving these restless people a _stronger

shepherd_, who would cure them of their taste for political and religious

liberty. In consequence of this, the duke summoned the Genevans, on the

30th of July, to recognise his claims, and his ambassadors added that,

if the citizens refused, 'Charles III. would come in person with an

army, and then they would have to keep their city ... if they could.'

The Genevans made answer: 'We will suffer death rather.' The Bernese,

informed of the threats of Savoy, sent ambassadors to Chambéry to

admonish (_admonester_) the duke. 'I have a grudge against the city,' he

said, 'and against the bishop also, and I will do my pleasure upon him

in defiance of all opposition.'—'Keep a good look-out,' said the Bernese

ambassadors to the syndics, on their return, 'for the duke is preparing

to carry off the bishop and confiscate the liberties of the city.' The

bishop and the citizens were exceedingly agitated. Men, women, and

children set to work: they cut down the trees round the walls, pulled

down the houses, and levelled the gardens, while four gangs worked at

the fortifications. 'We would rather die defending our rights,' said the

Genevans, 'than live in continual fear.'[747]

It might have been imagined that the duke, by declaring war at the same

time against the bishop and the city, would have brought them nearer

each other; but the popular irritation against the bishop and clergy was

only increased by it. The citizens said that all the misfortunes of

Geneva proceeded from their having a bishop for a prince; and La Baume

saw a conspirator in every Genevan. More than one bishop, the oppressor

of the liberties of his people, had fallen during the middle ages under

the blows of the indignant burgesses. For instance, the wretched Gaudri,

bishop of Laon in the twelfth century, having trampled the rights of the

citizens under foot, had been compelled to flee from their wrath, and

hide himself in a cask in the episcopal cellar. But, being discovered

and dragged into the street, he was killed by the blow of an axe, and

his body covered with stones and mud.[748] If good _catholics_ had

practised such revenge upon their bishop, what would _huguenots_ do?

[Sidenote: THE BISHOP RESOLVES TO LEAVE GENEVA.]

La Baume had other fears besides. An intriguing woman, his cousin Madame

de Besse, generally known as Madame de la Gruyère, being gained over by

the duke, alarmed the bishop by insinuating that he was to be kidnapped,

and that this time his mule would not save him. That lady had scarcely

left the palace when the Bernese entered and said to the frightened

bishop: 'Make haste to go! for the duke is coming to take you.' They may

have said this with a mischievous intention, desiring to free the city

from the bishop. La Baume had not a minute of repose afterwards. His

servants, threatened by the huguenots, began to be afraid also, and thus

increased their master's alarm. He passed the day in anguish, and awoke

in the night uttering cries of terror. At times he listened as if he

heard the footsteps of the men coming to carry him off. He did not

hesitate: his residence in the episcopal city had become insupportable.

He had too much sense not to see that the cause of his temporal

principality was lost, and, to add to his misfortune, the only prince

who could defend him was turning against him. Whatever the risk, he must

depart. 'Whereat the bishop was so vexed,' says Bonivard, 'that he

meditated retiring from Geneva into Burgundy.' He flattered himself that

he would be quiet in the midst of his good vassals of St. Claude, and

happy near his cellars of Arbois![749]

It was, however, no easy thing to do. He would have to get out of

Geneva, pass through the district of Gex, and cross the Jura mountains,

all filled with armed men. Feeling the want of some one to help him, he

determined to apply to Besançon Hugues. He invited him to come to the

palace, but in the night, so that no one might see him. When Hugues got

there, the wretched and guilty prelate squeezed his hand, and told him

all his troubles. 'I can no longer endure the wrong, violence, and

tyranny which the duke does me,' he said. 'I know that he is plotting to

kidnap me and shut me up in one of his monasteries. On the other hand, I

mistrust my own subjects, for they are aiming at my life. I am day and

night in mortal torment. You alone can get me out of the city, and I

hope you will manage so that it shall not be talked of.' Besançon Hugues

was touched when he saw the man whom he recognised as his lord agitated

and trembling before him. How could he refuse the alarmed priest the

favour he so earnestly demanded?... He left the bishop, telling him that

he would go and make preparations for a nocturnal flight.[750]

[Sidenote: FLEES BY NIGHT TO ST. CLAUDE.]

In the night of the 1st and 2nd of August, 1527, Hugues went secretly to

the palace, accompanied by Michael Guillet, a leading mameluke. The

prelate received his friends like liberating angels. They all three went

down into the vaults, where La Baume ordered a private door to be opened

which led into the street now called the Rue de la Fontaine. He had to

go along this street to reach the lake; but might not some of those

terrible huguenots stop him in his flight? He crept stealthily and in

disguise out of the palace, put himself between his two defenders, and,

a prey to singular alarm, went forward noiselessly. On arriving at the

brink of the water, the fugitive and his two companions descried through

the darkness the boatmen whom Hugues had engaged. La Baume and Besançon

entered the boat, while Michael Guillet returned to the city. The

boatmen took their oars, and crossed the lake at the point where the

Rhone flows out of it. La Baume looked all round him; but he could see

nothing, could hear nothing but the dull sound of the oars. The danger,

however, was far from being passed. The right bank might be occupied by

a band of his enemies.... When the boat touched the shore, La Baume

caught sight of two or three men with horses. They were friends. Hugues

and the bishop got into their saddles without a moment's loss, and

galloped off in the direction of the Jura. The bishop had never better

appreciated his good luck in being one of the best horsemen of his day;

he drove the spurs into his steed, fancying at times that he heard the

noise of Savoyard horses behind him. In this way the bishop and his

companion rode on, all the night through, along by-roads and in the

midst of great dangers, for all the passes were guarded by men-at-arms.

At last the day appeared. In proportion as they advanced, La Baume

breathed more freely. After four-and-twenty hours of cruel fright, the

travellers arrived at St. Claude. Pierre de la Baume was at the summit

of happiness.[751]

The day after his departure, the news of the bishop's flight suddenly

became known in Geneva, where it caused a great sensation. 'Alas!' said

the monks in their cloisters, 'Monseigneur, seeing the approaching

tribulation, has got away by stealth across the lake.' The patriots, on

the contrary, collecting in groups in the public places, rejoiced to

find themselves delivered by one act both from their bishop and their

prince. At the same time the Savoyard soldiers, posted round Geneva,

were greatly annoyed; they had been on the watch night and day, and yet

the bishop had slipped through their fingers. To avenge themselves, they

swore to arrest Besançon Hugues on his return. The latter, making no

stay at St. Claude, reappeared next morning at daybreak in the district

of Gex, when he soon noticed that gentlemen and soldiers were all

joining in the chase after him. The bells were rung in the village

steeples, the peasants were roused, and every one shouted: 'Hie! hie!

the traitor Besançon!' It seemed impossible for him to escape. Having

descended the mountain, he followed the by-roads through the plain, when

suddenly a number of armed men fell upon him. Hugues had great courage,

a stout sword, and a good horse; fording the water-courses, and

galloping across the hills, he saved himself, 'as by a miracle,' says

his friend Balard.[752]

[Sidenote: THE HIRELING FORSAKES THE SHEEP.]

The Genevans were very uneasy about him, for they all loved him. The

drums beat, the companies mustered under their officers, and they were

about to march out with their arms to protect him, when suddenly he

arrived, panting, exhausted, and wounded. They would have liked to speak

to him, and, above all, to hear him; but Hugues, hardly shaking hands

with his friends, rode straight to his own house and went to bed; he was

completely knocked up. The syndics went to his room to investigate the

circumstances of which he had to complain. But erelong the brave man

recovered from his fatigue, and the city was full of joy. The bishop's

flight still further increased their cheerfulness: it snapped the bonds

of which they were weary. 'The _hireling_,' they said, 'leaveth the

sheep, and fleeth, when he seeth the wolf coming.'[753] 'Therefore,'

they added, 'he is not the shepherd.'

[Footnote 743: Registres du Conseil du 12 juillet 1527.]

[Footnote 744: Roset MS. _Chronol._ liv. ii. ch. xv. Bonivard,

_Chroniq._ ii. p. 455.]

[Footnote 745: Beaumanoir, _Coutumes de Beauvaisis_, p. 61. Guizot,

_Histoire de la Civilisation en France_, iv. p. 72.]

[Footnote 746: Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 464.]

[Footnote 747: Registres du Conseil des 30 juillet et 25 août 1527.

_Journal de Balard_, pp. 125, 126.]

[Footnote 748: 'Quot saxis, quot et pulveribus corpus oppressum.'—G. de

Novigento, _Opp._ p. 507.]

[Footnote 749: Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 473. Spon, _Hist. de Genève_,

ii. p. 410. Gautier MS.]

[Footnote 750: Savyon, _Annales_, p. 139. Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p.

474. Galiffe, _Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève_, pp. 427, 428, &c.]

[Footnote 751: _Journal de Balard_, p. 126. Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p.

474. _Mém. d'Archéol._ ii. p. 12.]

[Footnote 752: _Journal de Balard_, p. 127. Registres du Conseil du 6

août 1527, La Sœur de Jussie, p. 4.]

[Footnote 753: John x. 12.]

CHAPTER V.

EXCOMMUNICATION OF GENEVA AND FUNERAL PROCESSION OF

POPERY.

(AUGUST 1527 TO FEBRUARY 1528.)

The Duke of Savoy was the wolf. When he heard of the bishop's flight,

his vexation was greater than can be imagined. He had told the Bernese:

'I shall have Monsieur of Geneva at my will,'[754] and now the wily

prelate had escaped him a second time. At first Charles III. lost all

self-control. 'I will go,' he said, 'and drag him across the Alps with a

rope round his neck!' After which he wrote to him: 'I will make you the

poorest priest in Savoy;' and, proceeding to gratify his rage, he seized

upon the abbeys of Suza and Pignerol, which belonged to La Baume.

Gradually his anger cooled down; the duke's counsellors, knowing the

bishop's irresolute and timid character, said to their master: 'He is of

such a changeable disposition[755] that it will be easy to bring him

over again to the side of Savoy.' The prince yielded to their advice,

and sent Ducis, governor of the Château de l'Ile, to try to win him

back. It appeared to the ducal counsellors that Pierre de la Baume,

having fled from Geneva, could never return thither, and would have no

wish to do so; and that the time had come when a negotiation, favourable

in other respects to the prelate, might put the duke in possession of a

city which he desired by every means to close against heresy and liberty.

[Sidenote: THE DUKE TRIES TO WIN THE BISHOP.]

The bishop, at that moment very dejected, was touched by the duke's

advances; he sent an agent to the prince, and peace seemed on the point

of being concluded. But Charles had uttered a word that sounded ill in

the prelate's ears. 'The duke wishes me to subscribe myself _his

subject_,' he wrote to Hugues. 'I think I know why.... It is that he may

afterwards lay hands on me.' Nevertheless, the duke appeared to restrain

himself. 'I will give back all your benefices,' he told the bishop, 'if

you contrive to annul the alliance between Geneva and Switzerland.' La

Baume consented to everything in order to recover his abbeys, whose

confiscation made a large gap in his revenues. He did not care much

about living at Geneva, but he wished to be at his ease in Burgundy. At

this moment, as the duke and the Genevans left him at peace, he was

luxuriously enjoying his repose. Instead of being always in the presence

of huguenots and mamelukes, he walked calmly in his garden 'among his

pinks and gilly-flowers.'[756] He ordered some beautiful fur robes,

lined with black satin, for the winter; he kept a good table, and said:

'I am much better supplied with good wine here than we are at

Geneva.'[757]

The bishop having fled from his bishopric like a hireling,—the prince

having run away from his principality like a conspirator,—the citizens

resolved to take measures for preserving order in the State, and to make

the constitution at once stronger and more independent. The general

council delegated to the three councils of Twenty-five, Sixty, and

Two-Hundred the duty of carrying on the necessary business, except in

such important affairs as required the convocation of the people. A

secret council was also appointed, composed of the four syndics and of

six of the most decided huguenots. A distinguished historian says that

the Genevan constitution was then made democratic;[758] another

historian affirms, on the contrary, that the power of the people was

weakened.[759] We are of a different opinion from both. In proportion as

Geneva threw off foreign usurpation, it would strengthen its internal

constitution. Undoubtedly, this little nation desired to be free, and

the Reformation was to preserve its liberties; there is a democracy in

the Reform. Philosophy, which is satisfied with a small number of

disciples, has never formed more than an intellectual aristocracy; but

evangelical christianity, which appeals to all classes, and particularly

to the lowly, develops the understanding, awakens the conscience, and

sanctifies the hearts of those who receive it, in this way spreading

light, order, and peace all around, and forming a true democracy on

earth, very different from that which does without Christ and without

God. But Geneva, at that time surrounded by implacable enemies,

required, as necessary to its existence, not only liberty, but order,

power, and consequently authority.

[Sidenote: THE DUCAL ARMS FALL AT GENEVA.]

The bishop had hardly disappeared from Geneva when the insignia of ducal

power disappeared also. Eight years before this, Charles III. had caused

the white cross of Savoy, carved in marble, to be placed on the Château

de l'Ile, 'at which the friends of liberty were much grieved.'—'I have

placed my arms in the middle of the city as a mark of sovereignty,' he

had said haughtily, 'and have had them carved in hard stone. Let the

people efface them if they dare!' On the morning of the 6th of August

(five days after the bishop's flight), some people who were passing near

the castle perceived to their great astonishment that the ducal arms had

disappeared.... A crowd soon gathered to the spot, and a lively

discussion arose. Who did it? was the general question. 'Oh!' replied

some, 'the stone has accidentally fallen into the river;' but although

the water was clear, no one could see it. 'It was you,' said the duke's

partisans to the huguenots, 'and you have hidden it somewhere.'

Bonivard, who stood thoughtful in the midst of the crowd, said at last:

'I know the culprit.'—'Who is it? who is it?' 'St. Peter,' he replied.

'As patron of Geneva, he is unwilling that a secular prince should have

any ensign of authority in his city!' This incident, the authors of

which were never known, made a great impression, and the most serious

persons exclaimed: 'Truly, it is a visible sign, announcing to us a

secret and mysterious decision of the Most High. What the hand of God

hath thrown down, let not hand of man set up again!'[760]

The Genevans wanted neither duke nor bishop; they went farther still,

and being harassed by the court of Rome, they were going to show that

they did not care for the pope. They had hardly done talking of La

Baume's flight and of the Savoy escutcheon, when they were told strange

news. A report was circulated that an excommunication and interdict had

been pronounced against them, at the request of the mamelukes. This

greatly excited such citizens as were still attached to the Roman

worship. 'What!' said they; 'the priests will be suspended from their

functions, the people deprived of the benefit of the sacraments, divine

worship, and consecrated burial ... innocent and guilty will be involved

in one common misery.'... But the energy of the huguenots, whom long

combats had hardened like steel, was not to be weakened by this new

attack. The most determined of them resolved to turn against Rome the

measure plotted against Geneva. The council, being resolved to prevent

the excommunication from being placarded in the streets,[761] ordered 'a

strict watch to be kept at the bridge of Arve, about St. Victor and St.

Leger, and that the gates should be shut early and opened late.' This

was not enough. Five days later (the 29th of December, 1527), the

people, lawfully assembled, caused the _Golden Bull_ to be read aloud

before them, which ordered that, with the exception of the emperor and

the bishop, there should be no authority in Geneva. Then a daring

proposition was made to the general council, namely, 'that no

metropolitan letters, and further still no apostolical letters (that is

to say, no decrees emanating from the pope's courts), should be executed

by any priest or any citizen.'—'Agreed, agreed!' shouted everybody. It

would seem that the vote was almost unanimous. In this way the bishop on

the banks of the Tiber found men prepared to resist him on the obscure

banks of the Leman.

This vote alarmed a few timid persons of a traditional tendency.

Advocates of the _status quo_ entreated the progressionists to restrain

themselves; but the latter had no wish to do so. They answered that the

Reformation was triumphing among the Swiss; that Zwingle, Œcolampadius,

and Haller were preaching with daily increasing success at Zurich,

Basle, and Berne. They added that on the 7th of January, 1528, the

famous discussion had begun in the last-named city, and that the Holy

Scriptures had gained the victory; that the altars and images had been

thrown down 'with the consent of the people;' that a spiritual worship

had been substituted in their place, and that all, including children

fourteen years old, had sworn to observe 'the Lutheran law.' The

huguenots thought that if excommunication came to them from Rome,

absolution would come to them from Berne—or rather from heaven.

[Sidenote: FUNERAL PROCESSION OF POPERY.]

The more light-hearted among them went further than this. For ages the

Roman Church had accustomed its followers to unite masquerades with the

most sacred recollections. In some cantons there had been great

rejoicings over the abolition of the mass. Such a fire could not be

kindled in Switzerland without scattering a few sparks over Geneva.

Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, a great enemy to superstition, an active

and even turbulent man, and daring enough to attempt anything, resolved

to organise a funeral procession of the papacy. He would attack Rome

with the weapons that the Roman carnival supplied him, and would arrange

a great procession. Whilst serious men were reading the epistle from

heaven (the Gospel), which absolved them from the excommunication of its

pretended vicar, the young and thoughtless were in great excitement;

they dressed themselves in their houses in the strangest manner; they

disguised themselves, some as priests, some as canons, and others as

monks; they came out, met together, drew up in line, and soon began to

march through the streets of the city. There were white friars, grey

friars, and black friars, fat canons, and thin curates. One was begging,

another chanting; here was one scourging himself, there another

strutting solemnly along; here a man carrying a hair shirt, there a man

with a bottle. Some indulged in acts of outrageous buffoonery; others,

the more completely to imitate the monks, went so far as to take

liberties with the women who were looking on, and when some fat friar

thus made any burlesque gesture, there was loud applause, and the crowd

exclaimed: 'That is not the worst they do.' In truth the reality was

more culpable than the burlesque. When they saw this tumultuous

procession and heard the doleful chanting, mingled with noisy roars of

laughter, every one said that popery was dying, and singing its _De

profundis_, its burial anthem.

The priests took the jest in very bad part, and the procession was

hardly over before they hurried, flushed with anger, to complain to the

syndics of 'the enmity raised against them by Baudichon and others.' The

syndics referred their complaint to the episcopal council, and the

latter severely reprimanded the offenders. But Maison-Neuve and his

friends withdrew, fully convinced that the priests were in the wrong,

and that the victory would ultimately be on their side.[762]

[Sidenote: BONIVARD AT THE PRIORY.]

They were beginning in Geneva to estimate a papal excommunication at its

proper value. No one knew more on this subject than Bonivard, and he

instructed his best friends on this difficult text. Among the number was

François Favre, a man of ardent character, prompt wit, and rather

worldly manners, but a good citizen and determined huguenot. Favre was

one day, on a famous occasion, to be at the head of Bonivard's

liberators. He went sometimes to the priory, where he often met Robert

Vandel, a man of less decision than his two friends. Vandel, who still

kept on good terms with the bishop, was at heart one of the most

independent of men, and Bonivard had made him governor of the domain of

St. Victor.

These Genevans and others continued the conversations that Bonivard had

formerly had with Berthelier in the same room and at the same table.

They spoke of Berne, of Geneva, of Switzerland, of the Reformation, and

of excommunication. Bonivard found erelong a special opportunity of

enlightening his two friends on the acts of the Romish priesthood.

[Sidenote: BONIVARD ON EXCOMMUNICATION.]

There was no one in Geneva whom the papal party detested more than him.

The ultramontanists could understand why lawyers and citizens opposed

the clergy; but a prior!... His enemies, therefore, formed the project

of seizing the estates of St. Victor, and of expelling Bonivard from the

monastery. The huguenots, on hearing of this, ardently espoused his

cause, and the council gave him, for his protection (20th of January,

1528) six arquebuses and four pounds of gunpowder. These were hardly

monastic weapons; but the impetuous Favre hastened to offer him his

heart and his arm; and, to say the truth, Bonivard in case of need could

have made very good use of an arquebuse. He had recourse, however, to

other defenders; he resolved to go and plead his cause before the

League. But this was not without danger, for the duke's agents might

seize him on the road, as he afterwards had the misfortune to know.

Favre, ever ready to go where there was any risk to be run, offered to

accompany him to Berne. Vandel had to go as governor of St. Victor: they

set off. Arriving at a village in the Pays de Vaud, the three huguenots

dismounted and took a stroll while their horses were resting. Bonivard,

as he was riding along, had noticed some large placards on the doors of

the churches, and being curious to know what they were about, he went up

to them, and immediately called his friends; 'Come here,' he said; 'here

are some curious things—letters of excommunication.' He was beginning to

read them, when one of his companions cried out: 'Stop! for as soon as

you have read them, you will thereby be excommunicate!' The worthy

huguenot imagined that the best plan was to know nothing about such

anathemas, and then to act as if the excommunication did not exist—which

could not be done if they were read. Bonivard, a man of great good

sense, profited by the opportunity to explain to his friends what these

earthly excommunications were worth. 'If you have done what is wrong,'

he told them, 'God himself excommunicates you; but if you have acted

rightly, the excommunication of priests can do you no harm. There is

only one tribunal which has power over the conscience, and that is

heaven. The pope and the devil hurt only those who are afraid of them.

Do therefore what is right, and fear nothing. The bolts which they may

hurl at you will be spent in the air.' Then he added with a smile: 'If

the pope or the metropolitan of Vienne excommunicate you, pope Berthold

of Berne will give you absolution.'[763] Bonivard's words were repeated

in Geneva, and the papal excommunications lost credit every day.

This became alarming: the episcopal officers informed the bishop; but

the latter, who was enjoying himself in his Burgundian benefices, put

aside everything that might disturb his meals and his repose. It was not

the same with the duke and his ministers. That prince was not content

with coveting the prelate's temporal power; looking upon La Baume as

already dispossessed of his rights, he made himself bishop, nay almost

pope, in his place. The cabinet of Turin thought that if the principles

of civil liberty once combined with those of religious liberty, Geneva

would attempt to reform Savoy by means of conversations, letters, books,

and missionaries. Charles III. therefore sent a message to the council,

which was read in the Two-Hundred on the 7th of February. 'I hear,' said

the prince, 'that the Lutheran sect is making way among you.... Make

haste to prevent the ravages of that pestilence, and, to that intent,

send on the 17th two men empowered by you to hear some very important

things concerning _my authority in matters of faith_.'

What would the Genevans answer? If a bishop is made prince, why should

not a prince be made bishop? The confusion of the two provinces is a

source of continual disturbance. Christianity cannot tolerate either

Cæsars who are popes, or popes who are Cæsars; and yet ambition is

always endeavouring to unite these two irreconcilable powers. The duke

did not presume to abolish definitively the episcopal power and confer

it on himself; but he wished to take advantage of the bishop's flight to

acquire an influence which he would be able to retain when the episcopal

authority was restored. He spoke, therefore, like a Roman pontiff ... of

his authority in matters of faith.

'Really,' said the council, 'we have had enough and too much even of one

pope, and we do not care to have two—one at Rome and the other at our

very gates.' The citizens were so irritated at Charles's singular claim,

that they did not return an answer in the usual form. 'We will not write

to the duke,' said the syndics; 'we will delegate no one to him, seeing

that we are not his subjects; but we will simply tell the bearer of his

letter that _we are going on very well_, and that the duke, having no

authority to correct us, ought to _mind his own business_.' Such is the

minute recorded in the council register for this day. As for La Baume,

the poor prelate, who did not trouble himself much either about pope or

Lutheranism, wrote the same day to the Genevans, that he permitted them

'to eat milk-food during the coming Lent.' This culinary permission was

quite in his way, and it was the most important missive from the bishop

at that time.[764]

[Sidenote: THE DUKE REPRIMANDS THE CANONS.]

When the episcopal council heard of the syndics' answer, they were in

great commotion. They thought it rude and unbecoming, and trembled lest

Charles should confound them with these arrogant burgesses. They

therefore sent M. de Veigy, one of the most eminent canons, to the duke,

in order to pacify him. The reverend father set off, and while on the

road, he feared at one moment Charles's anger, and at another enjoyed in

anticipation the courtesies which the ducal court could not fail to show

him. But he had scarcely been presented to the duke, and made a profound

bow, when Bishop de Belley, standing at the left of his highness, and

commissioned to be the interpreter of his sentiments, addressed him

abruptly, and, calling him traitor and huguenot, insulted him just as De

la Thoy might have done. But this abuse was nothing in comparison with

Charles's anger: unable to restrain himself, he burst out, and, giving

utterance to the terrible schemes he had formed against Geneva, declared

he would reduce that impracticable city to ashes, and ended by saying:

'If you do not come out of it, you will be burnt in it with all the

rest.' The poor canon endeavoured to pacify his highness: 'Ah, my lord,'

he said, 'I shall not remain there: all the canons now in the city are

about to leave it!' And yet De Veigy was fond of Geneva, and thought

that to reside in Annecy would be terribly dull. Accordingly, on his

return to the city, he forgot his terror and his promises, whereupon he

received this short message from Charles III.: 'Ordered, under pain of

death, to quit Geneva in six days.'—'He left on the 3rd of March, and

with great regret,' adds Balard.[765] Charles wished to put the canons

in a place of safety, before he burnt the city.

[Footnote 754: 'Que qui en volisse contredire' (whatever any one may do

to oppose it), he added.—_Journal de Balard_, p. 124.]

[Footnote 755: 'Il est d'un esprit si changeant.'—_Hist. de Genève_, MS.

of the 17th century. Bibliothèque de Berne, _Hist. Helvét._ v. p. 12.]

[Footnote 756: Letter from La Baume to Hugues. Galiffe, _Matériaux_.]

[Footnote 757: Galiffe, _Matériaux_, ii. pp. 424-475. _Mém.

d'Archéologie_, ii. pp. 14, 15.]

[Footnote 758: Mignet, _Réforme à Genève_, p. 34.]

[Footnote 759: James Fazy, _Hist. de la République de Genève_, p. 158.]

[Footnote 760: _Journal de Balard_, p. 127. Roset MS. _Chronol._ liv.

ii. ch. xx. Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 448. Gautier MS.]

[Footnote 761: Registres du Conseil des 24 et 29 décembre 1527.

Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. pp. 473, 474. Gautier MS. _Journal de Balard_.]

[Footnote 762: Registres du Conseil des 15 et 17 janvier 1528. _Journal

de Balard_, p. 146. Gautier MS.]

[Footnote 763: 'Hominum anathemata a Bertholdo papa facile solvenda.'—

Spanheim, _Geneva Restituta_, p. 35.]

[Footnote 764: Registres du Conseil du 7 février 1528. _Journal de

Balard_, p. 147.]

[Footnote 765: Registres du Conseil du 7 février et du 3 mars 1528.

_Journal de Balard_, pp. 147-149.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE KNIGHTS OF THE SPOON LEAGUE AGAINST GENEVA

AT THE CASTLE OF BURSINEL.

(MARCH 1528.)

[Sidenote: BONIVARD COMPLAINS OF GENEVA.]

The partisans of absolutism and the papacy rose up on every side against

Geneva, as if the Reformation were already established there. It was not

so, however. Although Geneva had come out of Romanism, it had not yet

entered Reform: it was still in those uncertain and barren places, that

land of negations and disputes which lies between the two. A few persons

only were beginning to see that, in order to separate really from the

pope, it was necessary, as Haller and Zwingle said, to obey Jesus

Christ. Bonivard, a keen critic, was indulging in his reflections, in

his large arm-chair, at the priory of St. Victor, and carefully studying

the singular aspect Geneva at that time presented. 'A strange

spectacle,' he said; 'everybody wishes to command, and no one will obey.

From tyranny we have fallen into the opposite and worse vice of

anarchy.... There are as many tyrants as heads ... which engenders

confusion. Everybody wishes to make his own profit or private pleasure

out of the common weal; profit tends to avarice; and pleasure consists

in taking vengeance on him whom you hate. Men are killed, but they are

not the real enemies of Geneva.... If you wound a bear, he will not

spring upon the man who wounded him, but will tear the first poles or

the first tree in his way.... And this, alas! is what they are doing

among us. Having groaned under a tyrannical government, we have the love

of licence instead of the love of liberty. We must be apprentices before

we can be masters, and break many strings before we can play upon the

lute. The huguenots have driven out the tyrant, but have not driven out

tyranny. It is not liberty to do whatever we desire, if we do not desire

what is right. O pride! thou wilt be the ruin of Geneva! Pride has

always envy for its follower; and when pride would mount too high, the

old crone catches her by the tail and pulls her back, so that she falls

and breaks her neck.... The huguenot leagues are not sufficient; the

Gospel must advance, in order that popery may recede.' It is Bonivard

himself who has transmitted these wise reflections.[766]

He was not the only person who entertained such thoughts. The affairs of

the alliance often attracted Bernese to Geneva; and being convinced that

the Reformation alone could save that city, they continued Ab Hofen's

work. Being admitted into private families, they spoke against human

traditions and extolled the Scriptures. 'God speaks to us of the

Redeemer,' they said, 'and not of Lent.' But the Friburgers, thrusting

themselves into these evangelical conferences, exclaimed: 'Obey the

Church! If you separate from the Church, we will break off the

alliance!'[767]

[Sidenote: BONIVARD'S ANSWER TO THE HUGUENOTS.]

The _bishopers_ were with Friburg, the _commoners_ with Berne. The

latter were divided into three classes: there were politicians, to whom

religion was only a means of obtaining liberty; serious and peaceful

men, who called for true piety (Bonivard mentions Boutelier as one of

these); and, lastly, the enemies of the priests, who saw the Reformation

from a negative point of view, and regarded it essentially as a war

against Roman superstitions. One day these sincere but impatient men

said they could wait no longer, and went out to St. Victor to invite the

prior to put himself at their head. They rang at the gate of the

monastery, and the janitor went and told Bonivard, who ordered them to

be admitted: 'We wish to put an end to all this papal ceremony,'

they told him; 'we desire to drive out all its ministers, priests, and

monks ... all that papistical rabble; and then we mean to invite the

ministers of the Gospel, who will introduce a true christian reformation

among us.'

The prior smiled as he heard these words: 'Gentlemen,' he said, in a

sarcastic tone, 'I think your sentiments very praiseworthy, and confess

that all ecclesiastics (of whom I am one) have great need to be

reformed. But ought not those who wish to reform others to begin by

reforming themselves? If you love the Gospel, as you say you do, you

will live according to the Gospel. But if you wish to reform us without

reforming yourselves, it is evident that you are not moved by love for

the Gospel, but by hatred against us. And why should you hate us? It is

not because our manners are contrary to yours, but because they are like

them. Aristotle says in his _Ethics_,' continued the learned prior, 'and

experience confirms the statement, that animals which eat off the same

food naturally hate each other. Two horses do not agree at the same

manger, nor two dogs over the same bone. It is the same with us. We are

unchaste, and so are you. We are drunkards, and so are you. We are

gamblers and blasphemers, and so are you. Why then should you be so

opposed to us?... We do not hinder you from indulging in your little

pleasures; pray do the same by us. You desire to expel us, you say, and

put Lutheran ministers in our place.... Gentlemen, think well of what

you are about: you will not have had them two years before you will be

sorry for it. These ministers will permit you to break the commandments

of the pope, but they will forbid your breaking those of God. According

to their doctrines, you must not gamble or indulge in debauchery, under

severe penalty.... Ah! how that would vex you!... Therefore, gentlemen,

you must do one of two things: either leave us in our present condition;

or, if you wish to reform us according to the Gospel, reform yourselves

first.'

These remarks were not quite so reasonable as they appeared to be. _It

is the sick that have need of a physician_, and as these 'sons of

Geneva' wished to invite the ministers of the Gospel, _in order to

introduce a true christian reform_, Bonivard should have encouraged

instead of opposing them. These worldly men might have had a real desire

for the Gospel at the bottom of their hearts. Reprimanded by the prior,

they withdrew. Bonivard watched them as they retired. 'They are going

off with their tails between their legs.[768] Certainly, I desire a

reformation; but I do not like that those who are more qualified to

deform than to reform should presume to be its instruments.'

[Sidenote: DETERMINATION TO EAT MEAT IN LENT.]

When they got home, these huguenots deliberated whether they would allow

themselves to be stopped by Bonivard's irony; they resolved to follow

out his precept—to reform themselves first; but, not knowing that

reformation consists primarily in reestablishing faith and morality in

the heart, they undertook simply to prune away certain superstitions. As

the episcopal letter permitted them to take milk in Lent, De la

Maison-Neuve and his friends said: 'We are permitted to take milk, why

not meat?' Then repeating the lesson which the Bernese had taught

them—Do not the Scriptures say, _Eat of all that is sold in the

shambles_?—they resolved to eat meat every day. The council saw this

with uneasiness, and forbade the new practice under pain of three days'

imprisonment on bread and water and a fine of five sols.[769] But

wishing to hold the balance even, they had hardly struck one side before

they struck the other, and condemned the forty-four fugitive mamelukes

to confiscation and death.

This last sentence aroused the anger of all the adjacent country; the

Sire de Pontverre, in particular, thought the time had come for drawing

the sword, and immediately messengers were scouring the country between

the Alps and the Jura. They climbed painfully up the rocky roads that

led to the mountain castles; they crossed the lake, everywhere summoning

the gentlemen, the friends of the mamelukes. The knights did not need to

be pressed; they put on their armour, mounted their coursers, left their

homes, and proceeded towards the appointed rendezvous, the castle of

Bursinel, near Rolle, on the fertile slope which, running out from the

Jura, borders the lake opposite Mont Blanc. These rough gentlemen

arrived from La Vaux, Gex, Chablais, Genevois, and Faucigny: one after

another they alighted from their horses, crossed the courtyard, and

entered the hall, which echoed with the clash of their arms; then,

shaking hands, they sat down at a long table, where they began to feast.

The audacity of the Genevans was the principal subject of conversation,

'and heaven knows how they of Geneva were picked to pieces,' says a

contemporary.[770]

Of all these nobles, the most hostile to Geneva was the Sire de

Pontverre. Of athletic frame, herculean strength, and violent character,

bold and energetic, he was, from his marked superiority, recognised as

their chief by the gentlemen assembled at the castle of Bursinel. If

these men despised the burgesses, the latter returned the compliment.

'They are holding a meeting of bandits and brigands at Bursinel,' said

some of the Genevans. We must not, however, take these somewhat harsh

words too literally. The depredations of these gentlemen doubtless

undermined the social organisation, and it was time to put an end to

these practices of the middle ages. Many of them were, however, good

sons and husbands, good fathers, and even good landlords; but they had

no mercy for Geneva. As they sat at table they said that the princes had

succeeded in France and elsewhere in destroying the franchises of the

municipal towns, and that this free city, the last that survived,

deserved a similar fate much more than the others, since it was

beginning to add a new vice to its former vices ... it was listening to

Luther. 'A contest must decide,' they added, 'whether the future times

shall belong to the knights or to the burgesses, to the Church or to

heresy.' If Geneva were overthrown, they thought they would be masters

of the future. Pontverre has been compared to the celebrated Roman who

feared the Carthaginians, and, like him, never forgot to repeat at every

meeting of the nobles: _Delenda Carthago_.[771]

[Sidenote: THE ORDER OF THE SPOON.]

The dinner was drawing to an end; the servants of the lord of Bursinel

had brought the best wines from the castle cellars; the libations were

numerous, and the guests drank copiously. 'It chanced,' says Bonivard,

'that some rice (_papet_) was brought in, with as many spoons as there

were persons at table.'[772] Pontverre rose, took up a spoon with the

same hand that wielded the sword so vigorously, plunged it into the dish

of rice, and, lifting it to his mouth, ate and said: 'Thus will I

swallow Geneva and the Genevese.' In an instant all the gentlemen,

'heated with wine and anger,' took up their spoons, and exclaimed as

they ate, 'that they would make but one mouthful of all the huguenots.'

Pontverre did not stop at this: he took a little chain, hung the spoon

round his neck, and said: 'I am a _knight of the Spoon_, and this is my

decoration.'—'We all belong to the same order,' said the others,

similarly hanging the spoons on their breasts. They then grasped each

other's hands, and swore to be faithful to the last. At length the party

broke up; they mounted their horses, and returned to their mansions; and

when their neighbours looked with surprise at what hung round their

necks, and asked what the spoon meant, they answered: 'We intend to eat

the Genevans with it; will you not join us?' And thus the fraternity was

formed which had the conquest of Geneva for its object.

The Spoon was taken up everywhere, as in the time of the crusades men

took up the Cross: the decoration was characteristic of these

loud-spoken free-living cavaliers. Meetings took place every week in the

various castles of the neighbourhood. New members joined the order, and

hung the spoon round their necks, saying: 'Since the commonalty (the

Genevans and Swiss) form alliances, surely the nobles may do so!' They

drew up 'statutes and laws for their guidance, which were committed to

writing, as in public matters.'[773] Erelong the 'gentlemen of the

Spoon,' as they called themselves, proceeded to perform their vow; they

issued from their castles, plundered the estates of the Genevans,

intercepted their provisions, and blockaded them closer and closer every

day. When they came near the city, on the heights of Pregny, Lancy, and

Cologny, they added derision to violence; they took their spoons and

waved them in the air, as if they wished to use them in swallowing the

city which lay smiling at their feet.

[Sidenote: ALARM AT GENEVA.]

The alarm increased every day in Geneva; the citizens called the Swiss

to their aid, fortified their city, and kept strict watch. Whenever any

friends met together, the story of the famous dinner at Bursinel was

repeated. The Genevans went so far, says a chronicle, as to be unwilling

to make use of the innocent spoon, such a horror they felt at it. Many

of those who read the Scriptures began to pray to God to save Geneva;

and on the 23rd of March, the council entered the following words in

their register: 'May we be delivered from the evils we endure, may we

conquer and have peace!... May the Almighty be pleased to grant it to

us!'[774]

Pontverre was not a mere adventurer; he possessed a mind capable of

discerning the political defects of his party. Two men in Geneva

especially occupied his thoughts at this time: they were the bishop and

the prior. In his opinion, they ought to gain the first and punish the

other.

He began with Bonivard; no one was more detested by the feudal party

than he was. That the head of a monastery should side with the huguenots

seemed a terrible scandal. No one besides, at that time, advocated more

boldly than the prior the principles opposed to absolute power; and this

he showed erelong.

At Cartigny, on the left bank of the Rhone, about two leagues from

Geneva, he possessed a fief which depended on the dukes of Savoy: 'It is

a mere pleasure-house, and not a fortress,' he said; and yet he was in

the habit of keeping a garrison there. The duke had seized it during his

vassal's captivity, and to Bonivard's frequent demands for its

restoration he replied 'that he dared not give it up for fear of being

excommunicated by the pope.' Michaelmas having come, the time at which

the rent was collected, the Savoy government forbade the tenants to pay

it to the prior; the latter felt indignant, and the principles he then

laid down deserve to be called to mind. 'The rights of a prince and his

subjects are reciprocal,' he said. 'If the subject owes obedience to his

prince, the prince owes justice to his subject. If the prince may

constrain his subject, when the latter refuses obedience in a case

wherein it is lawfully due, the subject has also the right to refuse

obedience to his prince, when the latter denies him justice. Let the

subject then be without fear, and rest assured that God is for him. Men,

perhaps, will not be on his side; but if he has strength to resist men,

I can answer for God.'[775]

Bonivard, who was determined to obtain justice, laid before the council

of Geneva the patents which established his rights, and prayed their

help in support of his claim. His petition at first met with some little

opposition in the general council. 'The city has enough to do already

with its own affairs,' said many, 'without undertaking the prior's;' but

most of the huguenots were of a contrary opinion. 'If the duke has at

St. Victor a lord after his fashion,' they said, 'it might be a serious

inconvenience to us. Besides, the energetic prior has always been firm

in the service of the city.' This consideration prevailed and the

general council decided that they would maintain Bonivard's rights by

force of arms if necessary.

The prior now made his preparations. 'Since I cannot have civil

justice,' he said, 'I will have recourse to the law of nations, which

authorises to repel force by force.' The petty sovereign of St. Victor,

who counted ten monks for his subjects, who no longer possessed his

uncle's culverins, and whose only warlike resources were a few

arquebusiers, hired by a Bernese adventurer, besides four pounds of

powder, determined to march against the puissant Duke of Savoy, prince

of Piedmont, and even to brave that pope-king who once upon a time had

only to frown to make all the world tremble. Perish St. Victor rather

than principles!

[Sidenote: BONIVARD DEFENDS CARTIGNY.]

Bonivard sent for a herald and told him: 'The Duke of Savoy has usurped

my sovereignty; you will therefore proceed to Cartigny and make

proclamation through all my lordship, in these terms: "No one in this

place shall execute either ducal or papal letters under pain of the

gallows.'" We see that Bonivard made a large use of his supreme power.

The herald, duly escorted, made the terrible proclamation round the

castle; and then a captain, a commissioner, and a few soldiers, sent by

Bonivard, took possession of the domain in his name, _under the nose of

the pope and the duke_.[776] He was very proud of this exploit. 'The

pope and the duke have not dared send men to prevent my captain from

taking possession,' he said good-humouredly; for Bonivard, though

sparkling with wit, was also a good-tempered man.

The fear ascribed to the duke did not last long. The lands of Cartigny

were near those of Pontverre, and the order of the Spoon was hardly

organised when an expedition directed against the castle was the prelude

to hostilities. A ducal provost, with some men-at-arms, appeared before

the place on the 6th of March, 1528. Bonivard had vainly told his

captain to defend himself: the place was taken. The indignant prior

exclaimed: 'My people allowed themselves to be surprised.' He believed,

as the Genevans also did, that the duke had bribed the commandant: 'The

captain of Cartigny, after eating the fig, has thrown away the basket,'

said the huguenots in their meetings.

The prior of St. Victor, being determined to recover his property from

his highness's troops, came to an understanding with an ex-councillor of

Berne, named Boschelbach, a man of no very respectable character, who

had probably procured him the few soldiers of his former expedition, and

who now, making greater exertions, raised for him a corps of twenty men.

Bonivard put himself at the head of his forces, made them march

regularly, ordered them to keep their matches lighted, and halted in

front of the castle. The prior, who was a clever speaker, trusted more

to his tongue than to his arms: he desired, therefore, first to explain

his rights, and consequently the ex-councillor, attended by his servant

Thiebault, went forward and demanded a parley on behalf of the prior. By

way of answer the garrison fired, and Thiebault was shot dead.

That night all Geneva was agitated. The excited and exasperated citizens

ran armed up and down the streets, and talked of nothing but marching

out to Cartigny to avenge Thiebault's death. 'Be calm,' said

Boschelbach; 'I will make such a report to my lords of Berne that

Monsieur of Savoy, who is the cause of all the mischief, shall suffer

for it.'[777] The syndics had not promised to attack Savoy, which would

have been a serious affair, but only to defend Bonivard. In order,

therefore, to keep their word, they stationed detachments of soldiers in

the other estates belonging to St. Victor, with orders to protect them

from every attack. Cartigny was quite lost to the prior; but he was

prepared to endure even greater sacrifices. He had his faults, no doubt;

and, in particular, he was too easy in forming intimacies with men far

from estimable, such as Boschelbach; but he had noble aspirations. He

knew that by continuing to follow the same line of conduct he would lose

his priory, be thrown into prison, and perhaps put to death: 'But what

does it matter,' he thought, 'if by such a sacrifice right is maintained

and liberty triumphs?'[778]

[Sidenote: BISHOP AND DUKE RECONCILED.]

The lord of Pontverre was occupied with a scheme far more important than

Bonivard's destruction. He wished, as we have said, to win back the

bishop. Possessing much political wisdom, seeing farther and more

clearly than the duke or the prelate, he perceived that if the war

against the new ideas was to succeed, it would be necessary for all the

old powers to coalesce against them. Nothing, in his opinion, was more

deplorable than the difference between Charles III. and Pierre de la

Baume: he therefore undertook to reconcile them. He showed them that

they had both the same enemies, and that nothing but their union would

put it in their power to crush the huguenots. He frightened the bishop

by hinting to him that the Reformation would not only destroy

Catholicism, but strip him of his dignities and his revenues. He further

told him that heresy had crept unobserved into his own household and

infected even his chamberlain, William de la Mouille, who at that time

enjoyed his entire confidence.[779] La Baume, wishing to profit

immediately by Pontverre's information, hastened to write to La Mouille:

'I will permit no opportunity for breeding in my diocese any wicked and

accursed sect—such as I am told already prevails there. _You have been

too slow in informing me of it._... Tell them boldly that I will not put

up with them.'[780]

The prelate's great difficulty was to become reconciled with the duke.

Having the fullest confidence in his talent for intrigue, he thought

that he could return into friendly relations with his highness without

breaking altogether with Hugues and the Genevans. 'He is a fine jockey,'

said Bonivard; 'he wants to ride one and lead the other by the bridle!'

The bishop began his manœuvres. 'I quitted Geneva,' he informed the

duke, 'in order that I might not be forced to do anything displeasing to

you.' It will be remembered, on the contrary, that he had run away to

escape from Charles III., who wanted to 'snap him up;' but that prince,

satisfied with seeing La Baume place himself again under his guidance,

pretended to believe him, and cancelled the sequestration of his

revenues. Being thus reconciled, the bishop and the duke set to work to

stifle the Reformation. 'Good,' said Bonivard; 'Pilate and Herod were

made friends together, for before they were at enmity between

themselves.'

[Sidenote: BISHOP HATEFUL TO THE CITY.]

The bishop soon perceived that he could not be both with the duke and

Geneva; and, every day drawing nearer to Savoy, he turned against his

own subjects and his own flock. And hence one of the most enlightened

statesmen Geneva ever possessed said in the seventeenth century, to a

peer of Great Britain who had put some questions to him on the history

of the republic: 'From that time the bishop became very hateful to the

city, which could not but regard him as a declared enemy.'[781] It was

the bishop who tore the contract that had subsisted between Geneva and

himself.

[Footnote 766: Bonivard, _Police_, &c. pp. 398-400; _Chroniq._ ii. p.

473. Gautier MS.]

[Footnote 767: Ibid.]

[Footnote 768: 'La queue entre les jambes.'—Bonivard, _Advis des

difformes Réformateurs_, pp. 149-151.]

[Footnote 769: Registres du Conseil des 11 et 26 février 1528. Bonivard,

_Chroniq_. ii. p. 479.]

[Footnote 770: 'Dieu sait comme ceux de Genève étaient déchiquetés.']

[Footnote 771: 'Ne taschait, fors à la ruine de Genève.'—Bonivard,

_Chroniq._ ii. p. 482.]

[Footnote 772: Ibid.]

[Footnote 773: Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 483.]

[Footnote 774: Registres du Conseil des 14, 23, 24 mars. _Journal de

Balard_, p. 156. Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. pp. 482, 486, etc.]

[Footnote 775: Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 477.]

[Footnote 776: 'A la barbe du pape et du duc.']

[Footnote 777: 'En portera la pâte au four.']

[Footnote 778: Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. pp. 475, 480, 502. Gautier MS.]

[Footnote 779: See nineteen letters from the bishop to William de la

Mouille, his chamberlain, printed in Galiffe, _Matériaux pour l'Histoire

de Genève_, ii. pp. 461-485.]

[Footnote 780: Galiffe, ii. p. 477.]

[Footnote 781: _Memoir to Lord Townshend on the History of Geneva_, by

Mr. Secretary Chouet. Berne MSS. vi. 57.]

CHAPTER VII.

INTRIGUES OF THE DUKE AND THE BISHOP.

(SPRING AND SUMMER 1528.)

The first measure Charles exacted from his new ally was to revoke the

civil rights he had conceded to the citizens. The bishop consented. In

order to deprive the secular magistrate of his temporal privileges, he

resolved to employ spiritual weapons. Priests, bishops, and popes have

always found their use very profitable in political matters; princes of

great power have been known to tremble before the documents launched

into the world by the high-priest of the Vatican. The bishop, therefore,

caused an order to be posted on the church doors, forbidding the

magistrates to try civil causes under pain of excommunication and a fine

of one hundred pounds of silver. It seems that the bishop had thought it

prudent to attack the purses of those who were not to be frightened by

his _pastorals_. 'Remove these letters,' said the syndics to the

episcopal secretary, 'and carry them back to the bishop, for they are

contrary to our franchises.' At the same time they said to the judges:

'You will continue to administer justice, notwithstanding the

excommunication.' This, be it remarked, occurred at Geneva in the

beginning of the sixteenth century.

[Sidenote: THE BISHOP AND THE SYNDICS.]

When informed of these bold orders, the bishop-prince roused himself....

One might have fancied that the spirit of Hildebrand and Boniface had

suddenly animated the weak La Baume. 'What! under the pretence of

maintaining your liberties,' he wrote to the Genevans, 'you wish to

usurp our sovereignty!... Beware what you do, for if you persevere, we

will with God's help inflict such a punishment that it shall serve for

an example to others.... The morsel you desire to swallow is harder to

digest than you appear to believe.... We command you to resign the

administration of justice; to receive the vidame whom the duke shall be

pleased to send you; to permit him to exercise his power, as was done in

the time of the most illustrious princes his grace's predecessors; and

finally to remit to his highness and us the whole case of the fugitives.

If within a fortnight you do not desist from all opposition to our

authority, we will declare you our enemies, and will employ all our

resources and those of our relations and friends to punish you for the

outrage you are committing against us, and we will strive to ruin you

totally, whatever may be the place to which you flee.'

Great was the commotion in the city at hearing such words addressed by

the pastor of Geneva to his flock; for if the bishop made use of such

threats, it was with the intention of establishing the authority of a

foreign prince among them. The true huguenots, who wanted neither duke

nor bishop, were silent under these circumstances, and allowed the

episcopal party, of which Hugues was the chief, to act. Two ambassadors

from the bishop having been introduced before the general council on the

14th of June, 1528, the premier syndic said to them: 'If the bishop

desires to appoint a vidame to administer justice among us, we will

accept him; but the dukes of Savoy have never had other than an unlawful

authority in Geneva. We have no prince but the bishop. Has he forgotten

the great misfortunes that have befallen the city in consequence of

these Savoyard vidames?... Citizens perpetually threatened, many of them

imprisoned and tortured, their heads cut off, their bodies quartered....

But God has helped us, and we will no longer live in such misery....

No!' continued the speaker with some emotion, 'we will not renounce the

independence which our charters secure to us.... Rather than lose it, we

will sacrifice our lives and goods, our wives, and our children.... We

will give up everything, to our last breath, to the last drop of our

blood.'... Such words, uttered with warmth, always excite the masses;

and, accordingly, as soon as the people heard them, they cried as with

one voice: 'Yes! yes! that is the answer we will make.'

This declaration was immediately sent into Switzerland; and, strange to

say, such patriotic enthusiasm was received with ridicule by some

persons in that noble country. Geneva was so small and so weak, that her

determination to resist a prince so powerful as the duke seemed mere

folly: the Swiss had forgotten that their ancestors, although few in

number, had vanquished Austria and Burgundy. 'These Genevans _are all

mad_,' said they. When they heard of this insult, the council of Geneva

was content to enter in its registers the following simple and spirited

declaration: 'Considering our ambassadors' report of what the Swiss say

of us, it is ordered that they be written to and told that we _are all

in our right minds_.'[782]

On hearing of these proceedings, La Baume, who was at the Tour de May in

Burgundy, flew into a violent passion. He paced up and down his room,

abused his attendants, and uttered a thousand threats against Geneva. He

included all the Genevans in the same proscription, and had no more

regard for conservatives like Besançon Hugues than for reformers like

Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve. He was angry with the citizens who

disturbed him with their bold speeches in the midst of his peaceful

retreat. 'In his opinion the chief virtue of a prelate was to keep a

plentiful and dainty table, with good wines; and,' says a person who

often dined with him, 'he had sometimes more than he could carry.[783]

He was, moreover, liberal to women of doubtful character, very stately,

and fond of great parade.'

[Sidenote: THE BISHOP AND THE MESSENGER.]

One day, as he was leaving the table where he had taken too much wine,

he was told that a messenger from Geneva, bearing a letter from the

council, desired to speak with him. 'Messieurs de Genève, remembering,'

says Balard, 'that _dulce verbum frangit iram_,[784] wrote to him in

friendly terms.' The messenger, Martin de Combes, having been admitted

to the bishop, bowed low, and, courteously approaching, handed him the

letters of which he was the bearer. But the mere sight of a Genevan made

the bishop's blood boil, and, losing all self-control, he said 'in great

fury:' 'Where do you come from?'—'From Geneva.'—'It is a lie,' said the

bishop; and then, forgetting that he was contradicting himself, he

added: 'You have changed the colour of your clothes at Geneva;' wishing

apparently to accuse the Genevans of making a revolution or a

reformation. 'Come hither,' he continued; 'tell the folks in Geneva that

they are all traitors—all of them, men, women, and children, little and

big; that I will have justice done shortly, and that it will be

something to talk about. Tell them never to write to me again....

Whenever I meet any persons from that city, I will have them put to

death.... And as for you, get out of my sight instantly!' The poor

messenger, who trembled like a leaf, did not wait to be told twice.

La Baume, who had forgotten Plutarch's treatise, _De cohibenda ira_,

could not recover from his emotion, and kept walking up and down the

room with agitated step. Suddenly, remembering certain cutting

expressions, uttered in Switzerland by Ami Girard, a distinguished,

well-read, and determined huguenot, who was generally envoy from Geneva

to Berne and Friburg, he said to his servants: 'Bring that man back.'

Poor De Combes was brought back like a criminal whose rope has once

broken, and who is about to be hanged again. 'Mind you tell those folks

at Geneva all that I have ordered you,' exclaimed the bishop. 'There is

one of them (I know him well—it is Ami Girard) who said that I wish to

bridle Geneva in order that Monsieur of Savoy may ride her.... I will be

revenged on him ... or I will die for it.... Out of my sight instantly.

Be off to your huguenots.'

[Sidenote: CALM OF THE GENEVESE.]

De Combes retired without saying a word, and reported in Geneva the

prelate's violent message. He had committed nothing to writing; but the

whole scene remained graven in his memory. 'What!' exclaimed the

huguenots, 'he said all that?' and then they made him tell his story

over again. The murmurs now grew louder: the Genevans said that 'while

in the first centuries the ministers of the Church had conciliated

general esteem by their doctrine and character, modern priests looked

for strength in alliances with the princes of this world; formerly the

vocation of a bishop was martyrdom, but now it is eating and drinking,

pomp, white horses, and ... bursts of anger.' All this was a deadly blow

to the consideration due to the clergy. The council was, however, wiser

than the prelate; they ordered that no answer should be returned him.

This decision was indeed conformable to custom, as the report had been

made to the syndics _viva voce_, and not by official letter. La Baume,

at the time he gave audience to the envoy from Geneva, was too confused

to hold a pen or to dictate anything rational to his secretary; but the

magistrates of Geneva, on the other hand, were always men of rule and

law.[785]

While the bishop was putting himself into a passion like a soldier, the

Duke of Savoy was convoking a synod like a bishop. It was not enough for

the evangelical doctrine to _infect_ Geneva—it was invading his states.

It already numbered partisans in Savoy, and even the Alps had not proved

a sufficient barrier against the new invasion. Some seeds of the Gospel,

coming from Switzerland, had crossed the St. Bernard, in despite of the

opposition of the most zealous prelate in Piedmont—we may even say in

all Italy. This was Pierre Gazzini, Bishop of Aosta, who was afterwards

to contend, in his own episcopal city, with the disciples of Calvin, and

with Calvin himself. Gifted with a lofty intelligence, great energy of

character, and ardent catholicism, Gazzini was determined to wage war to

the death against the heretics, and it was in accordance with his advice

that a synod had been convoked. When the assembly met on the 12th of

July, 1528, Gazzini drew a deplorable picture of the position. 'My

lords,' he said, 'the news is distressing from every quarter. Switzers

and Genevans are circulating _the accursed book_. Twelve gentlemen of

Savoy adhere scrupulously to the doctrines of Luther. All our parishes

between Geneva and Chambéry are infected by forbidden books. The people

will no longer pay for masses or keep the fasts; men go about everywhere

saying that the property of the abbots and prelates ought to be sold to

feed the poor and miserable!' Gazzini did not confine himself to

pointing out the disease; he sought for the cause. 'Geneva,' he said,

'is the focus,' and he called for the most violent measures in order to

destroy it.[786] The duke determined to employ every means to extinguish

the fire, 'which (they said) was continually tossing its burning flakes

from Geneva into Savoy.'

[Sidenote: SYNOD CONVOKED BY THE DUKE.]

Charles III. had been ruminating for some time over a new idea. Seeing

the difficulties that the annexation of Geneva to Savoy would meet with

on the part of the Swiss, he had conceived another combination; that is,

to make his second son, a child four years old, count or prince of

Geneva. Circumstances were favourable to this scheme. Pierre de la Baume

was designated successor to the Archbishop of Besançon; he, doubtless,

would not want much pressing to give up his bishopric when he was

offered an archbishopric. The duke therefore sent commissioners to the

emperor and the pope to arrange the matter with them. Hugues, ever ready

to sacrifice himself to save his country, started immediately, with

three other citizens, for Berne and Friburg; but he found the

confederates much cooled with regard to Geneva. 'You are very proud,'

said the avoyer of Berne to the envoys in full council, and, adds

Hugues, 'they gave us a good scolding.'[787] The duke had set every

engine to work, and, covetous as he was, had distributed profusely his

crowns of the sun. 'Ha!' said the Genevan, 'Monsieur of Savoy never

before sent so much money here at one time,' and then sarcastically

added, with reference to the lords of Berne: 'The _sun_ has blinded

them.'[788]

The Genevans found themselves alone; the monarchical powers of

Christendom—Piedmont, France, and the Empire—were rising against their

dawning liberty; even the Swiss were forsaking them; but not one of them

hesitated. Ami Girard and Robert Vandel, at that time ambassadors to

Switzerland, quivered with indignation, and, filled with an energy that

reminds us of old Rome, they wrote to their fellow-citizens: 'Sooner

than do what they ask you, set fire to the city, and _begin with our

houses_.'[789]

The duke now prepared to support his pretensions by more energetic

means. His agents traversed the districts round Geneva; they went from

door to door, from house to house, and said to the peasants: 'Do not

venture to carry provisions to Geneva.' Others went from castle to

castle, and told the lords: 'Let every gentleman equip his followers

with uniform and arms, and be ready at the sound of the alarm-bell.'

[Sidenote: DUCAL INTRIGUES IN THE CONVENTS.]

But the duke did not confine his intrigues to the outside of the city;

he employed every means inside. Gentlemen of Savoy made visits, gave

dinners, and tampered with certain private persons, promising them a

great sum of money 'if they would do _their duty_.' The monks, feeling

assured that their knell would ring erelong, redoubled their efforts to

secure the triumph of Savoy in Geneva. Three of them, Chappuis, superior

of the Dominicans, a man deep in the confidence of his highness, who had

lodged in his monastery, with Gringalet and Levrat, simple monks, held

frequent conferences in the convent of Plainpalais, in the prior's

chamber, round a table on which lay some little silver keys; by their

side were lists containing the names of the principal Genevese

ecclesiastics and laymen from whom Chappuis believed he might hope for

support. The three monks took up the keys, looked at them complacently,

and then placed them against certain names. The duke, knowing that

intrigue and vanity are the original sins of monks, had sent the prior

these keys (the arms of Faucigny, a province hostile to Geneva):

'Procure for us friends in the convents and the city,' he had told them;

'and for that purpose distribute these keys with discretion. Whoever

wears them will belong to us.' It was a mysterious decoration, by means

of which the duke hoped to gain partisans for the annexation. Chappuis

and Levrat began to tamper with the laity of the city, while Gringalet

undertook to gain the monks. In spite of all the skill they employed,

their manœuvres were not always crowned with success. One day Gringalet

went up to two monks, Bernard and Nicholas, and showed them the

talisman; but they looked coldly on such _toys_, manifesting no desire

to possess them. The ducal monk, perceiving that the keys had no virtue,

said to his colleagues: 'If we do not succeed in our scheme; if Savoy

and the papacy do not triumph in Geneva, we will abandon the ungrateful

city; we will transfer the property of our convent to some other place,

and leave nothing but the bare walls behind!' Bernard and Nicholas, who

inclined to the side of light, were alarmed, and, judging it to be a

matter of high importance, denounced the plot to the council: 'This,

then, is the use of monks,' said the syndics. 'They are traitors, ready

to deliver the city to the foreigner. We will put all to rights.' They

ordered the two monks to say nothing, and when night came the council

proceeded to the Dominican monastery. The beadles knocked at the gate;

the porter opened it, and looked with astonishment at the noble company.

The syndics ordered all the convent to assemble. The monks were greatly

alarmed: Chappuis, Gringalet, and Levrat trembled, having no doubt that

they had been betrayed. They made haste to hide the little keys, and

then proceeded anxiously to the common hall, where the brethren had

already assembled: 'We have heard of your intrigues,' said the premier

syndic; 'we know why you are distributing in Geneva the keys of those

Turks (_Turcanorum_), the Faucignerans.... You had better say your

prayers and not meddle with politics. You pretend to renounce the world,

reverend brethren, and then do nothing else but intrigue for the things

of this world. You intend, we hear, to carry away your property, your

relics, and your jewels; gently ... we will spare you that trouble; we

will take care of them in the grotto of St. Pierre, and put your persons

in a place of safety.'... The council ordered an inventory of the goods

of the convent to be drawn up, and generously left the monks three

chalices for the celebration of mass. They banished Chappuis, Gringalet,

and Levrat, and placed the other brethren under the surveillance of two

deputies of the council. The monks had their wings clipped, and the

Reformation was beginning.[790]

[Footnote 782: Registres du Conseil des 23 et 30 avril; 24 mai; 2, 9, 14

juin; 7 août. _Journal de Balard_, pp. 160-170. La Baume's letters,

_Archéologie_, ii. p. 15. Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 493. Gautier MS.

Bonivard, _Ancienne et nouvelle Police de Genève_, p. 384.]

[Footnote 783: 'Il s'en donnait jusqu'à _passer trente et un_.' This

proverbial expression refers, possibly, to the months whose days never

exceed thirty-one.]

[Footnote 784: 'A soft answer turneth away wrath.']

[Footnote 785: Registres du Conseil du 25 août. _Journal de Balard_, p.

178. Bonivard, _Chroniq._ ii. p. 495.]

[Footnote 786: Gazzini, _Mémoire au Saint Père_. Archives of Turin,

Roman Correspondence. Gaberel, _Hist. de l'Eglise de Genève_, i. p. 95.]

[Footnote 787: 'Ils nous lavèrent bien la tête.']

[Footnote 788: Letter of B. Hugues. Galiffe, _Matériaux_, ii. pp. 525,

526.]

[Footnote 789: Letters of Vandel and Girard. Galiffe, _Matériaux_, ii.

p. 533.]

[Footnote 790: Registres du Conseil des 10, 11 et 20 octobre 1528.

_Journal de Balard_, p. 183.]

CHAPTER VIII.

DEATH OF PONTVERRE.

(OCTOBER 1528 TO JANUARY 1529.)

[Sidenote: PONTVERRE MOWS FOR BONIVARD.]

Chappuis, Gringalet, and Levrat filled the places through which they

passed with their complaints, and all the bigots looked upon them as

martyrs. The knights of the Spoon, being informed of the fate with which

monastic institutions were threatened in Geneva, resolved to avenge

religion and do all the injury they could to the audacious burgesses.

Pontverre had already opened the campaign by a little scene of pillage,

which is of no importance except to show the manners of the age. Wishing

to spoil and plunder the Genevans _under their noses_, he had ordered

his tenants to sharpen their scythes. One day in the beginning of June,

the peasants shouldered their scythes; Pontverre put himself at their

head, his men-at-arms surrounded them, and all marched towards the

meadows of the Genevans on the left bank of the Arve, about a quarter of

an hour's walk from the city. The mowers arrived, whetted their

instruments, and then proceeded to cut down the new grass. At last they

came to a meadow which belonged to Bonivard: to rob the prior was a

_dainty thing_ for Pontverre. Meanwhile the Genevans, having heard of

what was going on, had hurried to the spot, and discovered by the side

of the mowers a body of men whose arms flashed in the rays of the sun.

Bonivard easily recognised the seigneur of Ternier. The huguenots could

hardly contain themselves. The chief of the knights of the Spoon, having

charged his people not to leave a blade of grass standing, approached

the bridge of Arve which separates the two countries, and, calling out

to the Genevans assembled on the right bank, began to insult and defy

them. 'Come, come, cheer up!' he said; 'why don't you cross the bridge

and fetch the hay we have cut for you?' The citizens loaded their arms,

and the two bands began to fire at each other with their arquebuses.

'Let us take him at his word,' said some of the huguenots; 'let us go

over the bridge and drive away the robbers.' Already several young men

were preparing to cross the river; but Bonivard did not think a few

loads of hay worth the risk of a battle that might not end well for

Geneva. 'I dissuaded them,' says he, 'and led them back to the

city.'[791]

The Genevans, seeing the danger with which they were threatened by the

knights, energetically prepared for resistance, and solicited aid from

Berne and Friburg. Two _enseignes_, that is, eight hundred men,

principally from Gessenay, arrived in Geneva and were quartered among

the inhabitants, but especially on the churchmen and in the convents.

The duke, who attached great importance to the Swiss alliance, and

feared to come into collision with their men-at-arms, now permitted

provisions to be carried to the market of Geneva, and, the semblance of

peace having been restored, the allied troops quitted the city on the

30th of October, 1528.

[Sidenote: THE MEETING AT NYON.]

Pontverre's humour was not so pacific. One of the last representatives

of feudal society, he saw that its elements were on the verge of

dissolution, and its institutions about to disappear. Power, which had

long ago passed from the towns to the country, was now returning from

the country to the towns; Geneva, in particular, seemed as if it would

nullify all the seigneurs in its neighbourhood. And, further still, the

Church which puts forward creeds in an absolute manner, so that no

person has the right to examine them, was attacked by the religious

revolution beginning in Geneva. Pontverre desired to preserve the

ancient order of things, and, with that object, to take and (if

necessary) destroy that troublesome city. He therefore, as prior of the

order, convened a general assembly of the knights of the Spoon at Nyon,

in order to arrange, in concert with the duke, the requisite measures

for capturing the city. The bailiwick of Ternier, the lordship of

Pontverre, was situated about a league from Geneva, between the verdant

flanks of the Salève and the smiling shores of the Rhone. It would have

been easy, therefore, for that chief to cross the river between Berney

and Peney, and thus get on the right bank of the lake; but he thought it

more daring and heroic to traverse Geneva. They represented to him, but

to no purpose, the danger to which he would expose himself, for if he

was always quick to provoke the Genevans, they were equally quick to

reply. Pontverre would listen to nothing. There was a treaty by which

Savoyard gentlemen had the right of free passage through the city; and,

armed with a sword, he feared nobody. It was in the month of December,

when, presenting himself at daybreak at the Corraterie gate, Pontverre

passed in; he rode quietly through the city, looking to the right and to

the left at the shops which were still closed, and did not meet a single

huguenot. On arriving at the Swiss gate, by which he had to leave the

city, he found it shut. He summoned the gate-keeper, who, as it appears,

was not yet up. The horse pawed the ground, the rider shouted, and the

porter loitered: he ran out at last and lowered the chain. The impatient

Pontverre paid him by a slap in the face, and said: 'Rascal, is this the

way you make gentlemen wait?' He then added with violent oaths: 'You

will not be wanted much longer. It will not be long before we pull down

your gates and trample them under foot, as we have done before.' He then

set spurs to his horse and galloped away. The porter, exasperated by the

blow he had received, made his report, and the Genevans, who were

irritable folk, became very angry about it. 'It is not enough,' they

said, 'for these Savoyards to do us all sorts of injury outside the

walls, but they must come and brave us within. Wait a little! We will

pay them off, and chastise this insolent fellow.' The council, while

striving to restrain the people, ordered sentinels to be stationed

everywhere.[792]

[Sidenote: CONFERENCE AT NYON.]

The gentry of the district who had taken part in the meeting at

Bursinel, had immediately begun to canvass their neighbours, and a great

number of persons, incensed against Geneva, had taken the Spoon, as in

the time of the crusades men took the Cross. The second meeting,

therefore, promised to be more numerously attended than the first. From

all quarters, from Gex and Vaud and Savoy, the knights arrived at Nyon,

a central situation for these districts, where they usually held their

councils of war. Climbing the hill, they entered the castle, from whose

windows the lake, its shores, and the snowy Alps of Savoy were visible

in all their magnificence. Having taken their places in the great hall,

they began their deliberations. These unpolished gentlemen, descended

from the chevaliers of the middle ages, who thought it enough to build a

tower upon a rock and to pass their lives in crushing the weak and

plundering the innocent, still preserved something of the nature of

their ancestors. Pontverre, who was their president, had no difficulty

in carrying them with him. Feudalism and even catholicism exercised

great influence over him, and gave to his words an energy and deep

conviction which it was hard to resist. He pointed out to these lords

that the authority of the prince and of the pope, religious and

monarchical order, the throne and the altar, were equally threatened by

an insolent bourgeoisie. He showed them how monstrous it was that

lawyers, that men of low birth and no merit, and that even shopkeepers

should presume to take the place of the bishop and the duke. 'We must

make haste,' he said, 'to disperse and crush the seeds of rebellion, or

you will see them spreading far and wide.' The knights of the castle of

Nyon were unanimous. The right of resistance had been the characteristic

of the feudal system; and never had the exercise of that right been more

necessary. One lord exercised it in the middle ages against another

lord, his neighbour. But what were these isolated adversaries compared

with that universal and invisible enemy which threatened the old society

in all its parts, and which, to be surer of triumph, was inaugurating a

new religion? In the valley of the Leman, Geneva was the stronghold of

this new and terrible adversary. 'Down with Geneva! Rome and Savoy for

ever!' was the cry that rose from every heart. It was agreed that all

the gentlemen and their followers should meet at a certain time and

place, armed with sword and lance, in order to seize upon the city and

put an end to its liberties.

Pontverre, delighted at seeing the success of his appeal, sat silent,

and appeared for a time lost in deep meditation. He had a subtle mind,

he did not fear to resort to stratagem, and hoped that an assault would

not be necessary. With the greatest secresy he had gained friends who

occupied a house in the Corraterie, the back door of which opened to the

outside of the city. It would seem that this house belonged to the

hospital of the Pont du Rhone, situated between that bridge and the

Mint, and placed under the patronage of the canons of the

cathedral.[793] The council rose. Pontverre was particularly intimate

with the Sire de Beaufort, governor of Chillon, one of the most valiant

knights of the assembly. Taking him aside, and enjoining secresy, he

said: 'We have a gate in Geneva at our orders. No one knows of it; but

do not fear. I will undertake that you shall all enter.'—'Pontverre did

indeed enter,' said Bonivard, some time after, when he heard of this

remark; 'he went in, but he did not come out.'[794]

[Sidenote: PONTVERRE'S INSOLENCE.]

The knights mounted their horses, and each one rode off to his castle to

prepare for the great enterprise. Pontverre did the same; but, always

daring, and taking a delight in braving the people of Geneva, he

resolved to pass through the city again. His friends reminded him that

the citizens were now on their guard; that he had offended them some

days before; that if he attempted such an imprudent act, he was a dead

man; and that his life was necessary to their enterprise. It was all to

no purpose. 'His hour was come,' says the chronicler of St. Victor, 'and

it pleased God so.'—'Fear not,' answered the daring soldier to his

brothers in arms; 'I will pass through by night, and wrap my face up in

my cloak, so that no one can recognise me. Besides, if they attack me, I

have my sword.' One of his friends, the Sire de Simon, resolved to

accompany him, and some armed attendants followed them. The knights who

remained behind, watched him as he galloped off towards Geneva, and

wondered anxiously what would happen.

Pontverre, checking the speed of his horse, reflected on the work he was

about to undertake. He thought it worthy of the name he bore, and of the

memory of his ancestors. By lending his sword to the Duke of Savoy and

to the pope, he would make absolutism in the Church and in the State

triumphant in Geneva; at one blow he would crush in that restless city

both independence and the Reformation. He reached Geneva between four

and five o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, the 2nd of January, 1529,

and night had set in. Pontverre hid his face in his cloak, presented

himself with his escort at the Pâquis gate, and passed through. He

entered the streets. The commander of an army which purposed capturing

and destroying Geneva, was traversing, like an ordinary traveller, the

city he was about to surround with his forces, besiege, and perhaps

burn.... Such impudent assurance has perhaps never been witnessed in

modern times. He was hardly inside the city, when, no longer able to

contain himself (for pride and anger prevailed over discretion), he put

aside all precaution, threw off his cloak, and, drawing his sword,

'uttered threats and insults out of his haughtiness and insolence.'[795]

He went even further than this: the streets of Geneva, and the presence

of the detested huguenots whom he saw moving about, made his wrath boil

over; and striking one of the citizens on the head with his sword, he

exclaimed with a round oath: 'We must kill these traitors!' The

assaulted citizen turned round, and others ran up: this took place in

the Rue de Coutance, which has witnessed many other fights since then,

even in very recent times.[796] The huguenots surrounded the horseman,

and, recognising him, called out: 'It is Pontverre! it is Pontverre!'

The crowd increased and blocked up the bridge over the Rhone, which the

chief of the knights of the Spoon would have to cross.

[Sidenote: FIGHT ON THE BRIDGE.]

For several days past the citizens had been talking in Geneva about the

conference at Nyon; they said that these gentlemen of the Spoon were

planning some new attack, that they were going once more to plunder and

kill, and that this time they would probably try to carry fire and sword

into Geneva itself. The irritation was excessive among the people; some

of the citizens, meeting in the public places or in their own houses,

were talking about the gentlemen assembled at Nyon, and many jokes were

made upon them. 'These gentlemen!' said one huguenot. 'Call them rob-men

(_gens-pille-hommes_),' said a second; 'or kill-men (_gens-tue-hommes_),'

added a third; and despite the serious state of affairs, they all began

to laugh. On a sudden, here before them, in their very city, was the

leader of the enterprise, the man who never ceased harassing them: he

had drawn his sword and struck one of the citizens. The latter drew in

their turn, and just as the bold cavalier had crossed the suburb of St.

Gervais, and was coming upon the bridge, they surrounded him, and one of

them struck him in the face. The representative of feudalism was

fighting almost alone with the representatives of the bourgeoisie. The

old power and the new were struggling on the Rhone bridge. And while the

blue waters were flowing beneath, as they had ever done; while the old

waters were running on to be lost in the sea, and the new ones were

coming, loosened from the Alpine glaciers by the beams of the sun,—on

the bridge above there were other ancient things passing away, and other

new ones appearing in their place. Amid the flashing of swords and the

shock of arms, amid the indignant shouts of the citizens and the oaths

of the knight, a great transformation was going on; society was passing

over to the system of freedom and abandoning the system of feudalism.