Reformation! Reformation! Reformation!

No King But CHRIST!

BOOK I

GENEVA AND THE FIRST HUGUENOTS

CHAPTER 1

THE REFORMATION AND MODERN LIBERTY

FACTS alone do not constitute the whole of history, any more than the members of the body form the complete man. There is a soul in history as well as in the body, and it is this which generates, vivifies, and links the facts together, so that they all combine to the same end.

The instant we begin to treat of Geneva, which, through the ministry of Calvin, was to become the most powerful center of Reform in the sixteenth century, one question starts up before us.

What was the soul of the Reformation of Geneva? Truly, salvation by faith in Christ, who died to save — truly, the renewal of the heart by the word and the Spirit of God. But side by side with these supreme elements, that are found in all the Reformations, we meet with secondary elements that have existed in one country and not in another. What we discover at Geneva may possibly deserve to fix the attention of men in our own days: the characteristic element of the Genevese Reform is liberty.

Three great movements were carried out in this city during the first half of the sixteenth century. The first was the conquest of independence; the second, the conquest of faith; the third, the renovation and organisation of the Church. Berthelier, Farel, and Calvin are the three heroes of these three epics.

Each of these different movements was necessary. The bishop of Geneva was a temporal prince like the bishop of Rome; it was difficult to deprive the bishop of his pastoral staff unless he were first deprived of his sword. The necessity of liberty for the Gospel and of the Gospel for liberty is now acknowledged by all thoughtful men; but it was proclaimed by the history of Geneva three centuries ago.

But it may be said, a history of the Reformation has no concern with the secular, political, and social element. I have been reproached with not putting this sufficiently forward in the history of the Reformation of Germany, where it had relatively but little importance. I may perhaps be reproached with dwelling on it too much in the Reformation of Geneva, where it holds a prominent place. It is a hard matter to please all tastes: the safest course is to be guided by the truth of principles, and not by the exigencies of individuals. Is it my fault if an epoch possesses its characteristic features? if it is impossible to keep back the secular, without wronging the spiritual, element? To cut history in two is to distort it. In the Reform of Geneva, and especially in the constitution of its church, the element of liberty predominates more than in the Reforms of other countries. We can not know the reason of this unless we study the movement which gave birth to that Reform. The history of the political emancipation of Geneva is interesting of itself; liberty, it has been said, ^fta1 has never been common in the world; it has not flourished in all, countries or in all climates, and the periods when a people struggles justly for liberty are the privileged epochs of history. One such epoch occurred at the Commencement of modern times; but strange to say, it is almost in Geneva alone that the struggles for liberty make the earlier decades of the sixteenth century a privileged time.

It is in this small republic that we find men remarkable for their devotion to liberty, for their attachment to law, for the boldness of their thoughts, the firmness of their character, and the strength of their energy. In the sixteenth century, after a repose of some hundreds of years, humanity having recovered its powers, like a field that had long lain fallow, displayed almost everywhere the marvels of the most luxuriant vegetation. Geneva is indeed the smallest theater of this extraordinary fermentation; but it was not the least in heroism and grandeur, and on that ground alone it deserves attention.

There are, however, other reasons to induce us to this study. The struggle for liberty in Geneva was one of the agents of its religious transformation; that we may know one, we must study the other. Again, Calvin is the great man of this epoch; it is needful, therefore, to study the country where he appeared. A knowledge of the history of Geneva before Calvin can alone enable us to understand the life of this great reformer. But there remains a third and more important reason. I am about to narrate the history of the Reformation of the sixteenth century in the time of Calvin. Now, what chiefly distinguishes the Reformation of Calvin from that of Lather is, that wherever it was established, it brought with it not only truth but liberty, and all the great developments which these two fertile principles carry with them. Political liberty, as we shall see, settled, upon those hills at the southern extremity of the Leman lake where stands the city of Calvin, and has never deserted them since. And more than this: earthly liberty, the faithful companion of divine truth, appeared at the same time with her in the Low Countries, in England, in Scotland, and subsequently in North America and other places besides, everywhere creating powerful nations. The Reformation of Calvin is that of modern times; it is the religion destined for the whole world. Being profoundly spiritual, it subserves also in an admirable manner all the temporal interests of man. It has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

The free institutions of Protestant countries are not due solely to the Reformation of Calvin: they spring from various sources, and are not of foreign importation. The elements of liberty were in the blood of these nations, and remarkable men exerted a civilizing influence over them. Magna Charta is older than the Genevese Reform; but we believe (though we may be mistaken) that this Reformation has had some small share in the introduction of those constitutional principles, without which nations can never attain their majority. Whence did this influence proceed?

The people of Geneva and their great doctor have each left their stamp on the Reformation which issued from their walls: Calvin’s was truth, the people’s, liberty. This last consideration compels us to narrate the struggles of which Geneva was the theater, and which, though almost unknown up to the present hour, have aided, like a slender brook, to swell the great stream of modern civilization. But there was a second and more potent cause. Supreme among the great principles that Calvin has diffused is the sovereignty God. He has enjoined us to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; but he has added, “God must always retain the sovereign empire, and all that may belong to man remains subordinate. Obedience towards princes accords with God’s service; but if princes usurp any portion of the authority of God, we must obey them only so far as may be done without offending God.” ^fta2 If my conscience is thoroughly subject to God, I am free as regards men; but if I cling to any thing besides heaven, men may easily enslave me. True liberty exists only in the higher regions. The bird that skims the earth may lose it at any moment; but we can not ravish it from the eagle who soars among the clouds.

The great movements in the way of law and liberty effected by the people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have certain relations with the Reformation of Calvin, which it is impossible to ignore.

As soon as Guy de Bres and many others returned from Geneva to the Low Countries, the great contest between the rights of the people and the revolutionary and bloody despotism of Philip II. began; heroic struggles took place, and the creation of the United Provinces was their glorious termination.

John Knox returned to his native Scotland from Geneva, where he had spent several years; then popery, arbitrary power, and the immorality of a French court made way in that noble country for that enthusiasm for the gospel, liberty, and holiness, which has never since failed to kindle the ardent souls of its energetic people.

Numberless friends and disciples of Calvin carried with them every year into France the principles of civil and political liberty; ^fta3 and a fierce struggle began with popery and the despotism, of the Valois first, and afterwards of the Bourbons. And though these princes sought to destroy the liberties for which the Huguenots shed their blood, their imperishable traces still remain among that illustrious nation.

The Englishmen who, during the bloody persecution of Mary, had sought an asylum at Geneva, imbibed there a love for the gospel and for liberty. When they returned to England, a fountain gushed out beneath their footsteps. The waters confined by Elizabeth to a narrow channel, rose under her successors and swiftly became an impetuous roaring flood, whose insolent waves swept away the throne itself in their violent course.

But restored to their bed by the wise hand of William of Orange, the dashing torrent sank into a smiling stream, bearing prosperity and life afar.

Lastly, Calvin was the founder of the greatest of republics. The ‘pilgrims’ who left their country in the reign of James I., and, landing on the barren shores of New England, founded populous and mighty colonies, are his sons, his direct and legitimate sons; and that American nation which we have seen growing so rapidly boasts as its father the humble reformer on the shores of the Leman.

There are indeed, writers of eminence who charge this man of God with despotism; because he was the enemy of libertinage, he has been called the enemy of liberty. Nobody was more opposed than Calvin to that moral and social anarchy which threatened the sixteenth century, and which ruins every epoch unable to keep it under control. This bold struggle of Calvin’s is one of the greatest services he has done to liberty, which has no enemies more dangerous than immorality and disorder.

Should the question be asked, How ought infidelity to be arrested? we must confess that Calvin was not before his age, which was unanimous, in every communion, for the application of the severest punishments. If a man is in error as regards the knowledge of God, it is to God alone that he must render an account. When men — and they are sometimes the best of men — make themselves the avengers of God, the conscience is startled, and religion hides her face. It was not so three centuries back, and the most eminent minds always pay in one manner or another their tribute to human weakness. And yet, on a well-known occasion, when a wretched man, whose doctrines threatened society, stood before the civil tribunals of Geneva, there was but one voice in all Europe raised in favor of the prisoner; but one voice that prayed for some mitigation of Servetus’s punishment, and that voice was Calvin’s. ^fta4

However inveterate the prejudices against him may be, the indisputable evidence of history places Calvin among the fathers of modern liberty. It is possible that we may find impartial men gradually lending their ear to the honest and solemn testimony of past ages; and the more the world recognises the importance and universality of the Reformation which came forth from Geneva, the more shall we be excused for directing attention for a few moments to the heroic age of this obscure city.

The sixteenth century is the greatest in Christian times; it is the epoch where (so to speak) every thing ends and every thing begins; nothing is paltry, not even dissipation; nothing small, not even a little city lying unobserved at the foot of the Alps.

In that renovating age, so full of antagonist forces and energetic struggles, the religious movements did not proceed from a single center; they emanated from opposite poles, and are mentioned in the well-known line —

Je ne decide pas entre Geneve et Rome. ^fta5

the Catholic focus was in Italy — in the metropolis of the ancient world; the evangelical focus in Germany was transferred from Wittemberg to the middle of European nations — to the smallest of cities — to that whose history I have to relate.

When history treats of certain epochs, as for instance the reign of Charles V., there may be a certain disadvantage in the vastness of the stage on which the action passes; we may complain that the principal actor, however colossal, is necessarily dwarfed. This inconvenience will not be found in the narrative I have undertaken. If the empire of Charles V. was the largest theater in modern history, Geneva was the smallest. In the one case we have a vast empire, in the other a microscopical republic. But the smallness of the theater serves to bring out more prominently the greatness of the actions: only superficial minds turn with contempt from a sublime drama because the stage is narrow and the representation devoid of pomp. To study great things in small is one of the most useful exercises. What I have in view — and this is my apology — is not to describe a petty city of the Alps, for that would not be worth the labor; but to study in that city a history which is in the main a reflection of the history of Europe, — of its sufferings, its struggles, its aspirations, its political liberties, and its religious transformations. I will confess that my attachment to the land of my birth may have led me to examine our annals rather too closely, and narrate them at too great length. This attachment to my country which has cheered me in my task, may possibly expose me to reproach; but I hope it will rather be my justification. ‘This book,’ said Tacitus, at the beginning of one of his immortal works, ‘was dictated by affection: that must be its praise, or at least its excuse.’ ^fta6 Shall we be forbidden to shelter ourselves humbly behind the lofty stature of the prince of history?

Modern liberties proceed from three different sources, from the union of three characters, three laws, three conquests — the Roman, the German, and the Christian. The combination of these three influences, which has made modern Europe, is found in a rather striking manner in the valley of the Leman. The three torrents from north, south, and east, whose union forms the great stream of civilisation, deposited in that valley which the Creator hollowed out between the Alps and the Jura that precious sediment whose component parts can easily be distinguished after so many ages.

First we come upon the Roman element in Geneva. This city was for a long while part of the empire; ‘it was the remotest town of the Allobroges,’ says Caesar. ^fta7 About a league from Geneva there once stood an antique marble in honor of Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, who, 122 years before Christ, had triumphed over the people of this district; ^fta8 and the great Julius himself, who constructed immense works round the city, bequeathed his name to a number of Roman colonists, or clients at least. More remarkable traces — their municipal institutions — are found in most of. the cities which the Romans occupied; we may be permitted to believe that Geneva was not without them.

In the fifth century the second element of modern liberties appeared with the Germans. The Burgundians — those Teutons of the Oder, the Vistula, and the Warta — being already converted to Christianity, poured their bands into the vast basin of the Rhone, and a spirit of independence, issuing from the distant forests of the north, breathed on the shores of the Leman lake. The Burgundian tribe, however, combined with the vigor of the other Germans a milder and more civilizing temperament. King Gondebald built a palace at Geneva; an inscription placed fifteen feet above the gate of the castle, and which remains to this day, bears the words, Gundebadus rex clementissimus, etc.. ^fta9 From this castle departed the king’s niece, the famous Clotilda, who, by marrying Clovis, converted to Christianity the founder of the French monarchy. If the Franks then received the Christian faith from Geneva, many of their descendants in the days of Calvin received the Reformation from the same place.

Clotilda’s uncle repaired the breaches in the city walls, and having assembled his ablest counsellors, drew up those Burgundian laws which defended small and great alike, and protected the life and honor of man against injury. ^fta10

The first kingdom founded by the Burgundians did not, however, last long. In 534 it fell into the hands of the Merovingian kings, and the history of Geneva was absorbed in that of France until 888, the epoch when the second kingdom of Burgundy rose out of the ruins of the majestic but ephemeral empire of Charlemagne.

But long before the invasion of the Burgundians in the fifth century, a portion of Europe, and Geneva in particular, had submitted to another conquest. In the second century Christianity had its representatives in almost every part of the Roman world. In the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and of Bishop Irenmus (177) some persecuted Christians of Lyons and Vienne, in Dauphiny, wishing to escape from the flames and the wild beasts to which Rome was flinging the children of God, and desirous of trying whether their pious activity could not bear fruit in some other soil, had ascended the formidable waters of the Rhone, and, coming to the foot of the Alps — refuge and refugees are of old date in this country — brought the gospel thither, as other refugees, coming also from Gaul, and also fleeing their persecutors, were fourteen centuries later to bring the Reformation. It seems they were only disciples, humble presbyters and evangelists, who in the second and third century first proclaimed the divine word on the shores of the Leman; we may therefore suppose that the Church was instituted in its simplest form. At least it was not until two centuries later, in 381, that Geneva had a bishop, Diogenes, ^fta11 and even this first bishop is disputed. ^fta12 Be that as it may, the gospel which the refugees brought into the valley lying between the Alps and the Jura, proclaimed, as it does everywhere, the equality of all men before God, and thus laid the foundations of its future liberties.

Thus were commingled in this region the generating elements of modern institutions. Caesar, Gondebald, and an unknown missionary represent, so to speak, the three strata that form the Genevese soil.

38 Let us here sketch rapidly a few salient points of the ancient history of Geneva. The foundations upon which a building stands are certainly not the most interesting part, but they are perhaps the most necessary.

CHAPTER 2

FIRST USURPATIONS AND FIRST STRUGGLES

GENEVA was at first nothing but a rural township (vicus), with a municipal council and an edile. Under Honorius in the fourth century it had become a city, having probably received this title after Caracalla had extended the rights of citizenship to all the Gauls. From the earliest times, either before or after Charlemagne, Geneva possessed rights and liberties which guaranteed the citizens against the despotism of its feudal lord. But did it possess political institutions? was the community organized? Information is wanting on these points. In the beginning of the sixteenth century the Genevese claimed to have been free so long that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. ^fta13 But this ‘memory of man’ might not embrace many centuries.

The pope having invited Charlemagne to march his Franks into Italy, for the love of God, and to fight against his enemies, that prince proceeded thither in 773 with a numerous army, part of which crossed Mount St. Bernard, thus pointing the way to another Charlemagne who was to appear a thousand years later, and whose empire, more brilliant but still more ephemeral than the first, was also in its dissolution to restore liberty to Geneva, which had been a second time absorbed into France. ^fta14 Charlemagne, while passing through with his army, halted at Geneva and held a council. ^fta15 This word has led to the belief that the city possessed liberties and privileges, and that he confirmed them; ^fta16 but the council was probably composed of the councillors around the prince, and was not a city council. Be that as it may, the origin of the liberties of Geneva seems to be hidden in the night of time.

Three powers in their turn threatened these liberties. First came the counts of Geneva. They were originally, as it would seem, merely officers of the Emperor; ^fta17 but gradually became almost independent princes.

As early as 1091, we meet with an Aymon, count of Genevois. ^fta18 The rule of these counts of Genevois soon extended over a wide and magnificent territory. They resided not only at their hereditary manor-seat in Geneva, which stood on the site of Gondebald’s palace, but also in various castles scattered in distant parts of their domain — at Annecy, Rumilly, La Roche, Lausanne, Meudon, Romont, Rue, Les Clees, and other places. ^fta19 In those days, the counts lived both a solitary and turbulent life, such as characterized the feudal period. At one time they were shut up in their castles, which were for the most part surrounded by a few small houses, and begirt with fosses and drawbridges, and on whose walls could be seen afar the arms of the warders glittering in the rising sun. At other times, they would sally forth, attended by a numerous escort of officers, with their seneschal, marshal, cup-bearers, falconers, pages, and esquires, either in pursuit of the chase on the heights of the Jura and the Alps; or it might be with the pious motive of visiting some place of pilgrimage; or not unfrequently indeed to wage harassing crusades against their neighbors or their vassals. But during all these feudal agitations another power was growing in Geneva — a power humble indeed at first

— but whose mouth was to speak great things. ( ^<270708> Daniel 7:8.)

At the period of the Burgundian conquest Geneva possessed a bishop, and the invasion of the Germans soon gave this prelate considerable power. Gifted with intelligence far superier to that of the men by whom they were surrounded, respected by the barbarians as the high-priests of Rome, knowing how to acquire vast possessions by slow degrees, and thus becoming the most important personages in the cities where they resided, the bishops labored to protect the city from abroad and to govern it at home. Finally, they confiscated without much ceremony the independence of the people, and united the quality of prince with that of bishop.

In 1124 Aymon, Count of Genevois, by an agreement made with Humbert of Grammont, Bishop of Geneva, gave up the city to the latter, ^fta20 reserving only the old palace and part of the criminal jurisprudence, but continuing to hold the secondary towns and the rural district.

The institution of bishop-princes, half religious and half political, equally in disaccord with the Gospel of past ages and the liberty of the future, may have been exceptionally beneficent; but generally speaking it was a misfortune for the people of the middle ages, and particularly for Geneva. If at that time the Church had possessed humble but earnest ministers to hold up the light of the Gospel to the world, why should not the same spiritual power, which in the first century had vanquished Roman polytheism, have been able in later times to dispel the darkness of feudalism? But, what could be expected of prelates who turned their croziers into swords, their flocks into serfs, their pastoral dwellings into fortified castles? Corruptio optimi pessima. The prince-bishop, that amphibious offspring of the barbaric invasion, cannot be maintained in Christendom. The petty people of Geneva — and this is one of its titles to renown — was the first who expelled him in modern times; and the manner in which it did this is one of the pages of history we desire to transcribe. It needed truly a powerful energy — the arm of God — to undertake and carry through this first act which wrested from episcopal hands the temporal scepter they had usurped. Since then the example of Geneva has often been followed; the feudal thrones of the bishops have fallen on the banks of the Rhine, in Belgium, Bavaria, Austria, and elsewhere; but the first throne that fell was that of Geneva, as the last will be that of Rome.

If the bishop, owing to the support of the emperors, succeeded in ousting the count from the city of Geneva, leaving him only the jurisdiction over his rural vassals, he succeeded also, in the natural course of things, in suppressing the popular franchises. These rights, however, still subsisted, the prince-bishop being elected by the people — a fact recorded by Saint Bernard at the election of Ardutius. ^fta21 The prince even made oath of fidelity to the people. Occasionally the citizens opposed the prelate’s encroachments, and refused to be dragged before the court of Rome. ^fta22

Christianity was intended to be a power of liberty; Rome, by corrupting it, made it a power of despotism; Calvin, by regenerating it, set it up again and restored its first work.

But what threatened most the independence and liberty of Geneva, was not the bishops and counts, but a power alien to it, that had begun by robbing the counts of their towns and villages. The house of Savoy, devoured by an insatiable ambition, strove to enlarge its dominions with a skill and perseveranace that were crowned with the most rapid success. When the princes of Savoy had taken the place of the counts of Genevois and the dukes of Zoehringen in the Pays de Vaud, Geneva, which they looked upon as an enclave, became the constant object of their desires. They hovered for centuries over the ancient city, like those Alpine vultures which, spreading their wings aloft among the clouds, explore the country beneath with their glance, swoop down upon the prey, and return day after day until they have devoured each fragment. Savoy had her eyes fixed upon Geneva, — first, through ambition, because the possession of this important city would round off and strengthen her territory; and second, through calculation, because she discovered in this little state certain principles of right and liberty that alarmed her. What would become of the absolute power of princes, obtained at the cost of so many usurpations, if liberal theories should make their way into European law? A nest built among the craggy rocks of the Alps may perhaps contain a brood of inoffensive eaglets; but as soon as their wings grow, they will soar into the air, and with their piercing eyes discover the prey and seize it from afar. The safer course, then, is for some strong hand to kill them in their nest while young.

The relations between Savoy and Geneva — one representing absolutism, the other liberty — have been and are still frequently overlooked. They are of importance, however, to the history of Geneva, and even of the Reformation. For this reason we are desirous of sketching them.

The terrible struggle of which we have just spoken began in the first half of the thirteenth century. The house of Savoy finding two powers at Geneva and in Genevois, the bishop and the count, resolved to take advantage of their dissensions to creep both into the province and into the city, and to take their place. It declared first in favor of the bishop against the count, the more powerful of the two, in order to despoil him. Peter of Savoy, Canon of Lausanne, became in 1229, at. the age of twenty-six, Provost of the Canons of Geneva; and having thus an opportunity of knowing the city, of appreciating the importance of its situation, and discovering the beauties that lay around it, he took a liking to it. Being a younger son of a Count of, Savoy, he could easily have become a bishop; but under his amice, the canon concealed the arm of a soldier and the genius of a politician. On the death of his father in 1232, he threw off his cassock, turned soldier, married Agnes whom the Count of Faucigny made his heiress at the expense of her elder sister, and then took to freebooting. ^fta23 Somewhat later, being the uncle of Elinor of Provence, Queen of England, he was created Earl of Richmond by his nephew Henry III., and studied the art of government in London. But the banks of the Thames could not make him forget those of the Leman. The castle of Geneva remained, as we have seen above, the private property of his enemy the Count of Geneva, and this he made tip his mind to seize. ‘A wise man,’ says an old chronicler, ‘of lofty stature and athletic strength, proud, daring, terrible as a lion, resembling the most famous paladins, so brave that he was called the valiant (preux) Charlemagne’ — possessing the organising genius that founds states and the warlike disposition that conquers them — Peter seized the castle of Geneva in 1250, and held it as a security for 35,000 silver marks which he pretended the count owed him. He was now somebody in the city. Being a man of restless activity, enterprising spirit, rare skill, and indefatigable perseverance, he used this foundation on which to raise the edifice of his greatness in the valley of the Leman. ^fta24 The people of Geneva, beginning to grow weary of ecclesiastical authority, desired to enjoy freely those communal franchises which the clergy called ‘the worst of institutions.’ ^fta25 When he became Count of Savoy, Peter, who had conceived the design of annexing Geneva to his hereditary states, promised to give the citizens all they wanted; and the latter, who already (two centuries and a half before the Reformation) desired to shake off the temporal yoke of their bishop, put themselves under his guardianship. But ere long they grew alarmed, they feared the sword of the warrior more than the staff of the shepherd, and were content with their clerical government

De peur d’en rencontrer un pire. ^fta26

In 1267 the second Charlemagne was forced to declare by a public act that he refused to take Geneva under his protection. ^fta27 Disgusted with this failure, weakened by age, and exhausted by his unceasing activity, Peter retired to his castle at Chillon, where every day he used to sail on that beautiful lake, luxuriously enjoying the charms of nature that lay around; while the harmonious voice of a minstrel, mingling with the rippling of the waters, celebrated before him the lofty deeds of the illustrious paladin. He died in 1268. ^fta28

Twenty years later Amadeus V. boldly renewed the assault in which his uncle had failed. A man full of ambition and genius, and surnamed ‘the Great,’ he possessed all the qualities of success. The standard of the prince must float over the walls of that free city. Amadeus already possessed a mansion in Geneva, the old palace of the counts of Genevois, situated in the upper part of the city. He wished to have more, and the canons gave him the opportunity which he sought of beginning his conquest. During a vacancy of the episcopal see, these reverend fathers were divided, and those who were hostile to Amadeus, having been threatened by some of his party, took refuge in alarm in the Chateau de l’Ile. This castle Amadeus seized, being determined to show them that neither strong walls nor the two arms of the river which encircle the island could protect them against his wrath. This conquest gave him no authority in the city; but Savoy was able more than once to use it for its ambitious projects. It was here in 1518, shortly after the appearance of Luther, that the most intrepid martyr of modern liberty was sacrificed by the bishop and the duke.

Amadeus could not rest satisfied with his two castles: in order to be master in Geneva, he did not disdain to become a servant. As it was unlawful for bishops, in their quality of churchmen, to shed blood, there was an officer commissioned in all the ecclesiastical principalities to inflict the punishment of death, vice domini, and hence this lieutenant was called vidomne or vidame. Amadeus claimed this vidamy as the reward of his services. In vain did the citizens, uneasy at the thought of so powerful a vidame, meet in the church of St. Magdalen (November, 1288); in vain did the bishop forbid Amadeus, ‘in the name of God, of the glorious Virgin Mary, of St. Peter, St. Paul, and all the saints, to usurp the office of lieutenant,’ ^fta29 the vulture held the vidamy in his talons and would not let it go. The citizens jeered at this sovereign prince who turned himself into a civil officer. ‘A pretty employment for a prince — it is a ministry (ministere) not a magistry (magistere) — service not dominion.’ ‘Well, well,’ replied the Savoyard, ‘I shall know how to turn the valet into a master.’ ^fta30

The princes of Savoy, who had combined with the bishop against the Count of Geneva to oust the latter, having succeeded so well in their first campaign, undertook a second, and joined the citizens against the bishop in order to supplant him. Amadeus became a liberal. He knew well that you can not gain the hearts of a people better than by becoming the defender of their liberties. He said to the citizens in 1285, ‘We will maintain, guard, and defend your city and goods, your rights and franchises, and all that belongs to you. ^fta31 If Amadeus was willing to defend the liberties of Geneva, it is a proof that they existed: his language is that of a conservative and not of an innovator. The year 1285 did not, as some have thought, witness the first origin of the franchises of Geneva, but their revival. There was however at that time an outgrowth of these liberties. The municipal institutions became more perfect. The citizens, taking advantage of Amadeus’s support, elected rectors of the city, voted taxes, and conferred the freedom of the city upon foreigners. But the ambitious prince had calculated falsely. By aiding the citizens to form a corporation strong enough to defend their ancient liberties, he raised with imprudent hand a bulwark against which all the plans of his successors were doomed to fail.

In the fifteenth century the counts of Savoy, having become dukes and more eagerly desiring the conquest of Geneva, changed their tactics a third time. They thought, that as there was a pope at Rome, the master of the princes and principalities of the earth, a pontifical bull would be more potent than their armies and intrigues to bring Geneva under the power of Savoy.

It was Duke Amadeus VIII. who began this new campaign. Not satisfied with having enlarged his estates with the addition of Genevois, Bugey, Verceil, and Piedmont, which had been separated from it for more than a century, he petitioned Pope Martin V. to confer on him, for the great advantage of the Church, the secular authority in Geneva. But the syndics, councillors, and deputies of the city, became alarmed at the news of this fresh manoeuvre, and knowing that ‘Rome ought not to lay its paw upon kingdoms,’ determined to resist the pope himself, if necessary, in the defense of their liberties, and placing their hands upon the Gospels they exclaimed: ‘No alienation of the city or of its territory — this we swear.’ Amadeus withdrew his petition; but Pope Martin V., while staying three months at Geneva, on his return in 1418 from the Council of Constance, began to sympathize with the ideas of the dukes. There was something in the pontiff which told him that liberty did not accord with the papal rule. He was alarmed at witnessing the liberties of the city. ‘He feared those general councils that spoil every thing,’ says a manuscript chronicle in the Turin library: ‘he felt uneasy about those turbulent folk, imbued with the ideas of the Swiss, who were always whispering into the ears of the Genovese the license of popular government.’ ^fta32 The liberties of the Swiss were dear to the citizens a century before the Reformation.

The pope resolved to remedy this, but not in the way the dukes of Savoy intended. These princes desired to secure the independence of Geneva in order to increase their power; while the popes preferred confiscating it to their own benefit. At the Council of Constance, from which Martin was then returning, it had been decreed that episcopal elections should take place according to the canonical forms, by the chapter, unless for some reasonable and manifest cause the pope should think fit to name a person more useful to the Church. ^fta33 The pontiff thought that the necessity of resisting popular liberty was a reasonable motive; and accordingly as soon as he reached Turin, he translated the Bishop of Geneva to the archiepiscopal see of the Tarentaise, and heedless of the rights of the canons and citizens, nominated Jean de Rochetaillee, Patriarch in partibus of Constantinople, Bishop and Prince of Geneva. Four years later Martin repeated this usurpation. Henry V. of England, at that time master of Paris, taking a dislike to Jean de Courte-Cuisse, bishop of that capital, the pope, of his sovereign authority, placed Courte-Cuisse on the episcopal throne of Geneva, and Rochetaillee on that of Paris. Thus were elections wrested by popes from a Christian people and their representatives. This usurpation was to Geneva, as well as to many other parts of Christendom, an inexhaustible source of evils.

It followed, among other things, that with the connivance of Rome, the princes of Savoy might become princes of Geneva. But could they insure this connivance? From that moment the activity of the court of Turin was employed in making interest with the popes in order to obtain the grant of the bishopric of Geneva for one of the princes or creatures of Savoy. A singular circumstance favored this remarkable intrigue. Duke Amadeus VIII., who had been rejected by the citizens a few years before, succeeded in an unexpected manner. In 1434 having abdicated in favor of his eldest son, he assumed the hermit’s frock at Ripaille on the Lake of Geneva; and the Council of Basle having nominated him pope, he took the name of Felix V. and made use of his pontifical authority to create himself bishop and prince of Geneva. A pope making himself a bishop... strange thing indeed! Here is the key to the enigma: the pope was a prince of Savoy: the see was the see of Geneva. Savoy desired to have Geneva at any price: one might almost say that Pope Felix thought it an advancement in dignity to become a Genevan bishop. It is true that Felix was pope according to the episcopal, not the papal, system; having been elected by a council, he was forced to resign in consequence of the desertion of the majority of European princes. Geneva and Ripaille consoled him for Rome.

As bishop and prince of Geneva, he respected the franchises of his new acquisition; but the poor city was fated somewhat later to serve as food to the offspring of this bird of prey. In 1451, Amadeus being dead, Peter of Savoy, a child eight or ten years old, grandson of the pope, hermit, and bishop, mounted the episcopal throne of Geneva; in 1460 came John Louis, another grandson, twelve years of age; and in 1482 Francis, a third grandson. To the Genevans the family of the pope seemed inexhaustible. These bishops and their governors were as leeches sucking Geneva even to the bones and marrow.

Their mother, Anne of Cyprus, had brought with her to Savoy a number of ‘Cypriote leeches’ as they were called, and after they had drained the blood of her husband’s states, she launched them on the states of her children. One Cypriote prelate, Thomas de Sur, whom she had appointed governor to little Bishop Peter, particularly distinguished himself in the art of robbing citizens of their money and their liberty. It was Bishop John Louis, the least wicked of the three brothers, who inflicted the most terrible blow on Geneva. We shall tell how that happened; for this dramatic episode is a picture of manners, carrying us back to Geneva with its bishops and its princes, and showing us the family of that Charles III. who was in the sixteenth century the constant enemy of the liberties and Reformation of the city.

Duke Louis of Savoy, son of the pope-duke Amadeus, was good-tempered, inoffensive, weak, timid, and sometimes choleric; his wife, Anne of Cyprus or Lusignan, was arrogant, ambitious, greedy, intriguing, and domineering; the fifth of their sons, by name Philip-Monsieur, was a passionate, debauched, and violent young man. Anne who had successively provided for three of her sons by placing them on the episcopal throne of Geneva, and who had never met with any opposition from the eldest Amadeus IX., a youth subject to epilepsy, had come into collision with Philip. The altercations between them were frequent and sharp, and she never missed an opportunity of injuring him in his father’s affections; so that the duke, who always yielded to his wife’s wishes, left the young prince without appanage. Philip Lackland (for such was the name he went by) angry at finding himself thus deprived of his rights, returned his mother hatred for hatred; and instead of that family affection, which even the poets of heathen antiquity have often celebrated, an implaccable enmity existed between the mother and the son. This Philip was destined to fill an important place in history; he was one day to wear the crown, be the father of Charles III. (brother-in-law to Charles V.) and grandfather of Francis I. through his daughter Louisa of Savoy. But at this time nothing announced the high destiny which he would afterwards attain. Constantly surrounded by young profligates, he passed a merry life, wandering here and there with his troop of scapegraces, establishing himself in castles or in farms; and if the inhabitants objected, striking those who resisted, killing one and wounding another, so that he lived in continual quarrels. ‘As my father left me no fortune,’ he used to say, ‘I take my property wherever I can find it.’ — ‘All Savoy was in discord,’ say the old annals, ‘filled with murder, assault, and riot.’ ^fta34

The companions of the young prince detested the Cypriote (as they called the duchess) quite as much as he did; and in their orgies over their brimming bowls used the most insulting language towards her. One day they insinuated that ‘if she plundered her husband and her son it was to enrich her minions.’ Philip swore that he would have justice. Duke Louis was then lying ill of the gout at Thonon, on the southern shore of the Lake of Geneva. Lackland went thither with his companions, and entering the chapel where mass was going on, killed his mother’s steward, carried off his father’s chancellor, put him in a boat and took him to Morges, ‘where he was drowned in the lake.’ Duke Louis was terrified; but whither could he flee? In his own states there was no place where he could feel himself safe; he could see no other refuge but Geneva, and there he resolved to go.

John Louis, another of his sons, was then bishop, and he was strong enough to resist Philip. Although destined from his infancy for the ecclesiastical estate, he had acquired neither learning nor manners, ‘seeing that it is not the custom of princes to make their children scholars,’ say the annals. But on the other hand he was a good swordsman; dressed not as a churchman but as a soldier, and passed his time in ‘dicing, hawking, drinking, and wenching.’ Haughty, blunt, hot-headed, he was often magnanimous, and always forgave those who had rightfully offended him. ‘As appears,’ says the old chronicle, ‘from the story of the carpenter, who having surprised him in a room with his wife, cudgelled him so soundly, that he was left for dead. Nevertheless, the bishop would not take vengeance, and went so far as to give the carpenter the clothes he had on when he was cudgelled.’

John Louis listened favorably to his father’s proposals. The duke, Anne of Cyprus, and all the Cypriote officers arrived at Geneva in July 1642, and were lodged at the Franciscan convent and elsewhere; but none could venture outside Geneva without being exposed to the attacks of the terrible Lackland. ^fta35

The arrogant duchess became a prey to alarm: being both greedy and avaricious, she trembled lest Philip should succeed in laying hands upon her treasures; and that she might put them beyond his reach, she despatched them to Cyprus after this fashion. In the mountains near Geneva the people used to make very excellent cheeses; of these she bought a large number, wishing (she said) that her friends in Cyprus should taste them. She scraped out the inside, carefully stored her gold in the hollow, and therewith loaded some mules, which started for the East. Philip having received information of this, stopped the caravan near Friburg, unloaded the mules, and took away the gold. Now that he held in his hands these striking proofs of the duchess’s perfidy, he resolved to slake the hatred he felt towards her: he would go to Geneva, denounce his mother to his father, obtain from the exasperated prince the Cypriote’s dismissal, and receive at last the appanage of which this woman had so long deprived him.

Philip, aware that the bishop would not let him enter the city, resolved to get into it by stratagem. He repaired secretly to Nyon, and thence despatched to Geneva the more skillful of his confidants. They told the syndics and the young men of their acquaintance, that their master desired to speak to his father the duke about a matter of great importance. One of the syndics (the one, no doubt, who had charge of the watch) seeing nothing but what was very natural in this, gave instructions to the patrol; and on the 9th of October, Philip presenting himself at the city gate — at midnight, according to Savyon, who is contradicted by other authorities — entered and proceeded straight to Rive, his Highness’s lodging, with a heart full of bitterness and hatred against his cruel mother. We shall quote literally the ancient annals which describe the interview in a picturesque manner: — ‘Philip knocks at the door; thereupon one of the chamberlains coming up, asks who is there? He answers: “I am Philip of Savoy, I want to speak to my father for his profit.” Whereupon the servant having made a report, the duke said to him: “Open to him in the name of all the devils, happen what may,” and immediately the man opened the door. As soon as he was come in Philip bowed to his father, saying: “Good day, father!” His father said: “God give thee bad day and bad year! What devil brings thee here now?” To which Philip replied meekly: “It is not the devil, my lord, but God who brings me here to your profit, for I warn you that you are robbed and know it not. There is my lady mother leaves you nothing, so that, if you take not good heed, she will not only make your children after your death the poorest princes in Christendom, but yourself also during your life.”’

At these words Philip opened a casket which contained the gold intended for Cyprus, and ‘showed him the wherewithal,’ say the annals. But the duke, fearing the storm his wife would raise, took her part. Monsieur then grew angry: “You may bear with it if you like,’ he said to his father, ‘I will not. I will have justice of these thieves.’ With these words he drew his sword and looked under his father’s bed, hoping to find some Cypriotes beneath it, perhaps the Cypriote woman herself. He found nothing there. He then searched all the lodging with his band, and found nobody, for the Cypriotes had fled and hidden themselves in various houses in the city. Mousieur did not dare venture further, ‘for the people were against him,’ say the annals, ‘and for this cause he quitted his father’s lodging and the town also without doing other harm.’ ^fta36

The duchess gave way to a burst of passion, the duke felt very indignant, and Bishop John Louis was angry. The people flocked together, and as they prevented the Cypriotes from hanging the men who had opened the gate to Monsieur, the duke chose another revenge. He represented to the bishop that his son-in-law Louis XI., with whom he was negotiating about certain towns in Dauphiny, detested the Genevans, and coveted their large fairs to which people resorted from all the country round. He begged him therefore to place in his hands the charters which gave Geneva this important privilege. The bishop threw open his archives to the duke; when the latter took the documents in question, and carrying them to Lyons, where Louis XI. happened to be, gave them to him. The king immediately transferred the fairs first to Bourges and then to Lyons, forbidding the merchants to pass through Geneva. This was a source of great distress to all the city. Was it not to her fairs, whose privileges were of such old standing, that Geneva owed her greatness? While Venice was the mart for the trade of the East, and Cologne for that of the West, Geneva was in a fair way to become the mart of the central trade. Now Lyons was to increase at her expense, and the city would witness no longer in her thoroughfares that busy, restless crowd of foreigners coming from Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Lucca, Brittany, Gascony, Spain, Flanders, the banks of the Rhine, and all Germany. Thus the catholic or episcopal power, which in the eleventh century had stripped Geneva of her territory, stripped her of her wealth in the fifteenth. It needed the influx of the persecuted Huguenots and the industrial activity of Protestantism to recover it from the blow that the Romish hierarchy had inflicted. ^fta37

This poor tormented city enjoyed however a momentary respite. In the last year of the fifteenth century, after the scandals of Bishop Francis of Savoy, and his clergy and monks, a priest, whom we may in some respects regard as a precursor of the Reformation, obtained the episcopal chair.

This was Anthony Champion, an austere man who pardoned nothing either in himself or others. ‘I desire,’ he said, ‘to sweep the filth out of my diocese.’ He took some trouble to do so. On the 7th of May, 1493, five hundred priests convened by him met in synod in the church of St. Pierre. ‘Men devoted to God’s service,’ said the bishop with energy, ‘ought to be distinguished by purity of life; now our priests are given to every vice, and lead more execrable lives than their flocks. Some dress in open frocks, others assume the soldier’s head-piece, others wear red cloaks or corselets, frequent fairs, haunt taverns and houses of ill fame, behave like mountebanks or players, take false oaths, lend upon pawn, and unworthily vend indulgences to perjurers and homicides.’ Thus spoke Champion, but he died eighteen months after the synod, and the priestly corruption increased. ^fta38 In proportion as Geneva grew weaker, Savoy grew stronger. The duke, by circumstances which must have appeared to him providential, had lately seen several provinces settled on different branches of his house, reunited successively to his own states, and had thus become one of the most powerful princes of Europe. La Bresse, Bugey, the Genevois, Gex, and Vaud, replaced under his scepter, surrounded and blockaded Geneva on all sides. The poor little city was quite lost in the midst of these wide provinces, bristling with castles; and its territory was so small that, as they said, there were more Savoyards than Genevans who heard the bells of St. Pierre. The states of Savoy enfolded Geneva as in a net, and a bold stroke of the powerful duke would, it was thought, be sufficient to crush it.

The dukes were not only around Geneva, they were within it. By means of their intrigues with the bishops, who were their fathers, sons, brothers, cousins, or subjects, they had crept, into the city, and increased their influence either by flattery and bribes, or by threats and terror. The vulture had plumed the weak bird, and imagined that to devour him would now be an easy task. The duke by means of some sleight-of-hand trick, in which the prelate would be his accomplice, might in the twinkling of an eye entirely change his position — rise from the hospitable chair which My Lords of Geneva so courteously offered him, and seat himself proudly on a throne. How was the feeble city, so hunted down, gagged and lettered by its two oppressors, able to resist and achieve its glorious liberties? We shall see.

New times were beginning in Europe, God was touching society with his powerful hand; I say ‘society’ and not the State. Society is above the State; it always preserves its right of priority, and in great epochs makes its initiative felt. It is not the State that acts upon society: the movements of the latter produce the transformations of the State, just as it is the atmosphere which directs the course of a ship, and not the ship which fixes the direction of the wind. But if society is above the State, God is above both. At the beginning of the sixteenth century God was breathing upon the human race, and this divine breath worked strange revivals in religious belief, political opinions, civilisation, letters, science, morals, and industry. A great reformation was on the eve of taking place.

There are also transformations in the order of nature; but their march is regulated by the creative power in an unchangeable manner. The succession of seasons is always the same. The monsoons, which periodically blow over the Indian seas, continue for six months in one direction, and for the other six months in a contrary direction. In mankind, on the contrary, the wind sometimes comes for centuries from the same quarter. At the period we are describing the wind changed after blowing for nearly a thousand years in the same direction; God impressed on it a new, vivifying, and renovating course. There are winds, we know, which, instead of urging the ship gently forward, tear the sails, break the masts, and cast the vessel on the rocks, where it goes to pieces. A school, whose seat is at Rome, pretends that such was the nature of the movement worked out in the sixteenth century. But whoever examines the question impartially, confesses that the wind of the Reformation has wafted humanity towards the happy countries of light and liberty, of faith and morality.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century there was a living force in Geneva. The ostentatious mitre of the bishop, the cruel sword of the duke appeared to command there; and yet a new birth was forming within its bosom. The renovating principle was but a puny, shapeless germ, concealed in the heroic souls of a few obscure citizens: but its future developments were not doubtful. There was no power in Christendom able to stem the outbreak of the human mind, awakening at the mighty voice of the eternal Ruler. What was to be feared was not that the progress of civilisation and liberty, guided by the Divine word, would fail to attain its end; but that on the contrary, by abandoning the supreme rule, the end would be overshot.

Let us enter upon the history of the preparations for Reform, and contemplate the vigorous struggles that are about to begin at the foot of the Alps between despotism and liberty, ultramontanism and the Gospel.

CHAPTER 3

A BISHOP SENT BY THE POPE TO ROB GENEVA OF ITS INDEPENDENCE

(APRIL TO OCTOBER, 1513.)

ON the 13th of April, 1513, there was great excitement in Geneva. Men were dragging cannon through the streets, and placing them on the walls. The gates were shut and sentries posted everywhere. ^fta39 Charles de Seyssel, bishop and prince of Geneva, had just died on his return from a pilgrimage. He was a man of a mild and frank disposition, ‘a right good person,’ says the chronicler, ‘and for a wonder a great champion of both ecclesiastical and secular liberty.’ Duke Charles of Savoy, who was less attached to liberty than this good prelate, had recently had several sharp altercations with him. ‘It was I who made you bishop,’ haughtily said the angry duke, ‘but I will unmake you, and you shall be the poorest priest in the diocese.’ ^fta40 The bishop’s crime was having wished to protect the liberties of the city against Charles’s usurpations. The prince kept his word, and, if we may believe the old annals, got rid of him by poison. ^fta41

When the news of this tragical and unexpected death reached Geneva, the citizens were alarmed: they argued that no doubt the secret intention of the duke was to place a member of his family on the episcopal throne, in order thus to obtain the seigniory of the city. The excited citizens gathered in groups in the streets, and impassioned orators, among whom was Philibert Berthelier, addressed the people. The house from which this great citizen sprang appears to have been of high position, as early as the twelfth century; but he was one of those noble natures who court glory by placing themselves at the service of the weak. No man seemed better fitted to save Geneva. Just, generous, proud, decided, he was above all firm, true, and attached to what was right. His glorious ambition was not revolutionary: he wished to uphold the right and not to combat it. The end he set before himself was not, properly speaking, the emancipation of his country, but the restoration of its franchises and liberties. He affected no great airs, used no big words, was fond of pleasure and the noisy talk of his companions; but there were always observable in him a seriousness of thought, great energy, a strong will, and above all a supreme contempt of life. Enamored of the ancient liberties of his city, he was always prepared to sacrifice himself for them.

‘The duke,’ said Berthelier and his friends in their animated meetings, ‘received immediate news of the death of the bishop, as did the pope also. The messengers are galloping with the news, each wants to have his share of the skin of the dead beast.’ The patriots argued that if the pope bad long since laid hands on the Church, the Duke of Savoy now desired to lay his upon the State. Geneva would not be the first place that had witnessed such usurpations. Other cities of Burgundy, Grenoble, Gap, Valence, Die, and Lyons, had fallen one after the other beneath a foreign power. ‘We ourselves,’ said the citizens in the energetic and somewhat homely language of the day, ‘have had our wings cut so short already, that we can hardly spit from our walls without bespattering the duke. Having begun his conquest, he now wishes to complete it. He has put his snout into the city and is trying to get in all his body. Let us resist him. Is there a people whose franchises are older than ours? We have always been free, and there is no memory of man to the contrary.’ ^fta42 The citizens were resolved accordingly to close their gates against the influence of Savoy, and to elect a bishop themselves. They called to mind that when Ardutius, descending from his eyrie in the rocks of the Mole, was named bishop of Geneva, it was by the accord of clergy and people. ^fta43 ‘Come, you canons,’ said they, ‘choose us a bishop that will not let the duke put his nose into his soup.’ ^fta44 This rather vulgar expression meant simply this: ‘Elect a bishop who will defend our liberties.’ They had not far to seek.

There was among the canons of Geneva one Aime de Gingins, abbot of Bonmont and dean of the chapter, a man of noble house, and well connected in the Swiss cantons. His father Jacques, seignior of Gingins, Divonne, and other places, had been councillor, chamberlain, and high steward to the Duke of Savoy, and even ambassador from him to Pope Paul II. Aime, who had been appointed canon of St. Pierre’s in Geneva when very young, was forty-eight years old at this time. He was ‘the best boon-companion in the world, keeping open house and feasting joyously the friends of pleasure,’ fond of hearing his companions laugh and sing, and of rather free manners, after the custom of the Church; but he excused himself with a smile, saying, without blush or shame: ‘It is a slippery sin.’

M. de Bonmont was the most respected of the priests in Geneva, for while his colleagues were devoted heart and soul to the house of Savoy, the dean stood by Geneva, and was no stranger to the aspirations which led so many generous minds to turn towards the ancient liberties. The people named him bishop by acclamation, and the chapter confirmed their choice; and forthwith the citizens made every effort to uphold the election. They prayed the Swiss cantons to support it before the pope, and sent to Rome ‘by post both letters and agents.’ ^fta45

If this election by the chapter had been sustained, it is probable that M. de Gingins would have lived on good terms with the council and citizens, and that harmony would have been preserved. But the appointment of bishops, which had in olden times belonged to the clergy and the people, had passed almost everywhere to the prince and the pope. The election of a superior by the subordinates had given way to the nomination of an inferior by a superior. This was a misfortune: nothing secures a good election like the first of these two systems, for the interest and honor of the governed is always to have good governors. On the other hand, princes or popes generally choose strangers or favorites, who win neither the affection nor esteem of their flocks or of the inferior clergy. The last episcopal elections at Geneva, by separating the episcopacy from the people and the clergy, deprived the Church of the strength it so much needed, and facilitated the Reformation.

Duke Charles understood the importance of the crisis. This prince who filled for half a century the throne of Savoy and Piedmont, was all his life the implacable enemy of Geneva. Weak but irritable, impatient of all opposition yet undecided, proud, awkward, wilfill, fond of pomp but without grandeur, stiff but wanting firmness, not daring to face the strong, but always ready to be avenged on the weak, he had but one passion — one mania rather: to possess Geneva. For that he needed a docile instrument to lend a hand to his ambitious designs — a bishop with whom he could do what he pleased. Accordingly he looked around him for some one to oppose to the people’s candidate, and he soon hit upon the man. In every party of pleasure at court there was sure to be found a little man, weak, slender, ill-made, awkward, vile in body but still more so in mind, without regard for his honor, inclined rather to do evil than good, and suffering under a disease the consequence of his debauchery. This wretch was John, son of a wench of Angers (communis generis, says Bonivard) whose house was open to everybody, priests and laymen alike; sparely liberal with her money (For she had not the means) ‘she was over-free with her venal affections.’ Francis of Savoy, the third of the pope-duke’s grandsons, who had occupied in turn the episcopal throne of Geneva, and who was also archbishop of Aux and bishop of Angers, used to ‘junket with her like the rest.’ This woman was about to become a mother, ‘but she knew not,’ says the chronicler, ‘whom to select as the father; the bishop being the richest of all her lovers, she fathered the child upon him, and it was reared at the expense of the putative parent.’ The Bishop of Angers not caring to have this child in his diocese, sent it to his old episcopal city, where there were people devoted to him. ^fta46 The poor little sickly child was accordingly brought to Geneva, and there he lived meanly until being called to the court of Turin, he had a certain retinue assigned him, three homes, a servant, a chaplain, and the title of bastard of Savoy. He then began to hold up his head, and became the greediest, the most intriguing, the most irregular priest of his day. ‘That’s the man to be bishop of Geneva,’ thought the duke: ‘he is so much in my debt, he can refuse me nothing.’ There was no bargain the bastard would not snap at, if he could gain either money or position: to give up Geneva to the duke was an easy matter to him. Charles sent for him. ‘Cousin,’ said he, ‘I will raise you to a bishopric, if in return you will make over the temporality to me.’ The bastard promised everything: it was an unexpected means of paying his debt to the duke, which the latter talked about pretty loudly. ‘He has sold us not in the ear but in the blade,’ said Bonivard, ‘for he has made a present of us before we belonged to him.’ ^fta47

The duke without loss of time despatched his cousin to Rome, under the pretext of bearing his congratulations to Leo X. who had just succeeded Julius II. ^fta48 John the Bastard and his companions traveled so fast that they arrived before the Swiss. At the same time the court of Turin omitted nothing to secure the possession of a city so long coveted. First, they began to canvass all the cardinals they could get at. On the 24th February the Cardinal of St. Vital, and on the 1st March the Cardinal of Flisco promised their services to procure the bishopric of Geneva for John of Savoy. ^fta49 On the 20th of April the Queen of Naples wrote to the duke, that she had recommended John to her nephew, the Cardinal of Aragon. ^fta50 This was not enough. An unforeseen circumstance favored the designs of Savoy.

The illustrious Leo X. who had just been raised to the papal throne, had formed the design of allying his family to one of the oldest houses in Europe. With this intent he cast his eyes on the Princess Philiberta of Savoy; a pure simple-hearted young girl, of an elevated mind, a friend to the poor, younger sister to the duke and Louisa of Savoy, aunt of Francis

I. and Margaret of Valois. Leo X. determined to ask her hand for his brother Julian the Magnificent, lieutenant-general of the armies of the Church. Up to this time Julian had not lived a very edifying life; he was deeply enamored of a widow of Urbino, who had borne him a son.

To tempt the duke to this marriage, which was very flattering to the parvenus of Florence, the pope made ‘many promises,’ say the Italian documents. ^fta51 He even sent an envoy to the court of Turin to tell Charles that he might expect from him all that the best of sons may expect from the tenderest of fathers. ^fta52

The affair could only be decided at Rome, and Leo X. took much trouble about it. He received the bastard of Savoy with the greatest honor, and this disagreeable person had the chief place at banquet, theater, and concert. Leo took pleasure in talking with him, and made him describe Philiberta’s charms. As for making him bishop of Geneva, that did not cause the least difficulty. The pope cared nothing for Dean de Bonmont, the chapter, or the Genevans. ‘Let the duke give us his sister, and we will give you Geneva,’ said he to the graceless candidate. ‘You will then make over the temporal power to the duke... The court of Rome will not oppose it; on the contrary, it will support you.’ Everything was settled between the pope, the duke, and the bastard. ‘John of Savoy,’ says a manuscript, ‘swore to hand over the temporal jurisdiction of the city to the duke, and the pope swore he would force the city to consent under pain of incurring the thunders of the Vatican.’ ^fta53

This business was hardly finished when the Swiss envoys arrived, empowered to procure the confirmation of Dean de Bonmont in his office of bishop. Simple and upright but far less skillful than the Romans and the Piedmontese, they appeared before the pope. Alas! these Alpine shepherds had no princess to offer to the Medici. ‘Nescio vos,’ said Leo

X. ‘Begone, I know you not.’ He had his reasons for this rebuff; he had already nominated the bastard of Savoy bishop of Geneva.

It was impossible to do a greater injury to any church. For an authority, and especially an elective authority, to be legitimate, it ought to be in the hands of the best and most intelligent, and he who exercises it, while administering with zeal, should not infringe the liberties of those he governs. But these are ideas that never occurred to the worthless man, appointed by the pope chief pastor of Geneva. He immediately however found flatterers. They wrote to him (and the letters are in the Archives of Geneva) that his election had been made by the flock... ‘not by mortal favor, but by God’s aid alone.’ It was however by the favor of the Queen of Naples, of Charles III., and by several other very mortal favors, that he had been nominated. He was exhorted to govern his church with integrity,

fta54 _The

justice, and diligence, as became his singular gravity and virtue. bastard did not make much account of these exhortations; his reign was a miserable farce, a long scandal. Leo X. was not a lucky man. By the traffic in indulgences he provoked the Reformation of Wittemberg, and by the election of the bastard he paved the way for the Reformation of Geneva. These are two false steps for which Rome has paid dearly.

The news of this election filled the hearts of the Genevan patriots with sorrow and indignation. They assembled in the public places, murmuring and ‘complaining to one another,’ and the voices of Berthelier and Hugues were heard above all the rest. They declared they did not want the bastard, that they already had a bishop, honored by Geneva and all the league, and who had every right to the see because he was dean of the chapter. They insinuated that if Leo X. presumed to substitute this intrusive Savoyard for their legitimate bishop, it was because the house of Savoy wished to lay hands upon Geneva. They were especially exasperated at the well-known character of the Romish candidate. ‘A fine election indeed his Holiness has honored us with!’ said they. ‘For our bishop he gives us a disreputable clerk; for our guide in the paths of virtue, a dissipated bastard; for the preserver of our ancient and venerable liberties, a scoundrel ready to sell them.’... Nor did they stop at murmurs; Berthelier and his friends remarked that as the storm came from the South, they ought to seek a shelter in the North; and though Savoy raised her foot against Geneva to crush it, Switzerland stretched out her hand to save it. ‘Let us be masters at home,’ they said, ‘and shut the gates against the pope’s candidate.’

All did not think alike: timid men, servile priests, and interested friends of Savoy trembled as they heard this bold language. They thought, that if they rejected the bishop sent from Rome, the pope would launch his thunders and the duke his soldiers against Geneva. The canons of the cathedral and the richest merchants held lands in the states of Charles, so that (says a manuscript) the prince could at pleasure ‘starve them to death.’ These influential men carried the majority with them, and it was resolved to accept the bishop nominated at Rome. When the leaders of the independent party found themselves beaten, they determined to carry out forthwith the plan they had formed. On the 4th of July, 1513, Philibert Berthelier, Besancon Hugues, Jean Taccon, Jean Baud, N. Tissot, and H. Pollier petitioned Friburg for the right of citizenship in order to secure their lives and goods; and it was granted. This energetic step might prove their ruin; the duke might find the means of teaching them a bloody lesson. That mattered not: a great step had been taken; the bark of Geneva was made fast to the ship that would tow them into the waters of liberty. As early as 1507 three patriots, Pierre Levrier, Pierre Taccon, and D. Fonte, had allied themselves to Switzerland. Now they were nine, drawn up on the side of independence, a small number truly, and yet the victory was destined to remain with them. History has often shown that there is another majority besides the majority of numbers. ^fta55

While this little band of patriots was on its way to embrace the altar of liberty in Switzerland, the ducal and clerical party was making ready to prostrate itself slavishly before the Savoyard prince. The more the patriots had opposed him, the more the episcopalians labored to give him a splendid reception. On the 31st of August, 1513, the new prince-bishop entered the city under a magnificent canopy; the streets and galleries were hung with garlands and tapestry, the trades walked magnificently costumed to the sound of fife and drum, and theatres were improvised for the representation of miracles, dramas, and farces. It was to no purpose that a few citizens in bad humor shrugged their shoulders and said: ‘He is truly as foul in body as in mind.’ The servile worshipped him, some even excusing themselves humbly for having appeared to oppose him. They represented that such opposition was not to his lordship’s person, but simply because they desired to maintain their right of election. John of Savoy, who had said to himself, ‘I will not spur the horse before I am firm in the saddle,’ answered only by a smile of his livid lips: both people and bishop were acting a part. When he arrived in front of the cathedral, the new prelate met the canons, dressed in their robes of silk and damask, with hoods and crosses, each according to his rank. They had felt rather annoyed in seeing the man of their choice, the abbot of Bonmont, unceremoniously set aside by the pope; but the honor of having a prince of the ducal family for their bishop was some compensation. These reverend gentlemen, almost all of them partisans of Savoy, received the bastard with great honor, bowing humbly before him. The bishop then entered the church, and standing in front of the altar, with an open missal before him, as was usual, made solemn oath to the syndics, in presence of the people, to maintain the liberties and customs of Geneva. Certain good souls took him at his word and appeared quite reassured; but the more intelligent wore a look of incredulity, and placed but little trust in his protestations. The bishop having been recognised and proclaimed sovereign, quitted the church and entered the episcopal palace to recruit himself after such unusual fatigue. There he took his seat in the midst of a little circle of courtiers, and raising his head, said to them: ‘Well, gentlemen, we have next to savoyardise Geneva. The city has been quite long enough separated from Savoy only by a ditch, without crossing it. I am commissioned to make her take the leap.’ These were almost the first words the bastard uttered after having sworn before God to maintain the independence of the city. ^fta56

The bishop, naturally crafty and surrounded by counsellors more crafty still, was eager to know who were the most influential men of the party opposed to him, being resolved to confer on them some striking mark of his favor. First he met with one name which was in every mouth — it was that of Philibert Berthelier. The bishop saw this citizen mingling with the people, simple, cheerful, and overflowing with cordiality, taking part in all the merry-makings of the young folks of Geneva, winning them by the animated charm of his manners, and by the important services he was always ready to do them. ‘Good!’ thought John of Savoy, ‘here is a man I must have. If I gain him, I shall have nothing to fear for my power in Geneva.’ He resolved to give him one of the most honorable charges at his disposal. Some persons endeavored to dissuade the bishop: they told him that under a trifling exterior Berthelier concealed a rebellious, energetic, and unyielding mind. ‘Fear nothing,’ answered John, ‘he sings gaily and drinks with the young men of the town.’ It was true that Berthelier amused himself with the Enfans de Geneve, ^fta57 but it was to kindle them at his fire. He possessed the two qualities necessary for great things: a popular spirit, and an heroic character; practical sense to act upon men, and an elevated mind to conceive great ideas.

The bishop, to whom all noble thoughts were unknown, appeared quite enchanted with the great citizen; being always ready to sell himself, he doubted not that the proud Genevan was to be bought. The Castle of Peney, situated two leagues from the city, and built in the thirteenth century by a bishop of Geneva, happened at that time to be without a commandant: ‘You shall have the governorship of Peney,’ said the prelate to Berthelier. The latter was astonished, for it was, as we have said, one of the most important posts in the State. ‘I understand it all,’ said he, ‘Peney is the apple which the serpent gave to Eve.’ ‘Or rather,’ added Bonivard, ‘the apple which the goddess of Discord threw down at the marriage of Peleus.’ Berthelier refused; but the bastard still persisted, making fine promises for the future of the city. At last he accepted the charge, but with the firm intention of resigning it as soon as his principles required it. The bishop could not even dream of a resignation: such an act would be sheer madness in his eyes; so believing that he had caught Berthelier, he thought that Geneva could not now escape him. This was not all; the bishop elect, M. de Gingins, whose place the bastard had taken, possessed great influence in the city. John gave him a large pension. Believing he had thus disposed of his two principal adversaries, he used to joke about it with his courtiers, ‘It is a bone in their mouths,’ said, they, laughing and clapping their hands, ‘which will prevent their barking.’ ^fta58

The people had next to be won over. ‘Two features characterise the Genevans,’ said the partisans of Savoy to the bishop, ‘the love of liberty and the love of pleasure.’ Hence, the counsellors of the Savoyard prince concluded, that it would be necessary to manoeuvre so as to make one of these propensities destroy the other. The cue was accordingly given.

Parties, balls, banquets, and entertainments were held at the palace and in all the houses of the Savoyard party. There was one obstacle however. The bastard was naturally melancholy and peevish, and his disease by no means tended to soften this morose disposition. But John did violence to himself, and determined to keep open house. ‘Nothing was seen at the palace but junketing, dicing, dancing, and feasting.’ The prelate leaving his apartments, would appear at these joyous entertainments, with his wan and gloomy face, and strive to smile. Go where you would, you heard the sound of music and the tinkling of glasses. The youth of Geneva was enchanted; but the good citizens felt alarmed. ‘The bishop, the churchmen, and the Savoyards,’ they said, ‘effeminate and cowardise our young men by toothsome meats, gambling, dancing, and other immoderate delights.’ Nor did they rest satisfied with complaining; they took the young citizens aside, and represented to them that if the bishop and his party were lavish of their amusements, it was only to make them forget their love for the common weal. ‘They are doing as Circe did with the companions of Ulysses,’ said a man of wit, ‘and their enchanted draughts have no other object than to change men into swine.’ But the bastard, the canons, and the Savoyard nobles continued to put wine upon their tables and to invite the most charming damsels to their balls. The youths could not resist; they left the old men to their dotage; in their intoxication they indulged with all the impetuosity of their age in bewitching dances, captivating music, and degrading disorders. Some of the young lords, as they danced or drank, whispered in their ears: ‘Fancy what it would be if the duke established his court with its magnificent fetes at Geneva.’ And these thoughtless youths forgot the liberties and the mission of their country. ^fta59

Among the young men whom the courtiers of Savoy were leading into vice, was the son of the bishop’s procurator-fiscal. One of the ablest devices of the dukes who desired to annex Geneva to their states, had been to induce a certain number of their subjects to settle in the city. These Savoyards, being generally rich men and of good family, were joyfully welcomed and often invested with some important office, but they always remained devoted to the ducal interests. Of this number were F. Cartelier of La Bresse, M. Gullet, seignior of Montbard, and Pierre Navis of Rumilly in Genevois; all these played an important part in the crisis we are about to describe. Navis, admitted citizen in 1486, elected councillor in 1497, was a proud and able man, a good lawyer, thoroughly devoted to the duke, and who thought he was serving him faithfully by the unjust charges he brought against the patriots. Andrew, the youngest of his sons, was a waggish, frolicsome, noisy boy who, if sometimes showing a certain respect to his father, was often obstinate and disobedient. When he passed from boyhood to youth, his passions gained more warmth, his imagination more fire: family ties sufficed him no longer, and he felt within him a certain longing which urged him towards something unknown. The knowledge of God would have satisfied the wants of his ardent soul; but he could find it nowhere. It was at this period, he being twenty-three years old, that John of Savoy arrived in Geneva, and his courtiers began to lay their toils. The birth of Andrew Navis marked him out for their devices, and it was his fate to be one of their earliest victims. He rushed into every kind of enjoyment with all the impetuosity of youth, and pleasure held the chief place in his heart. Rapidly did he descend the steps of the moral scale: he soon wallowed in debauchery, and shrank not from the most shameful acts. Sometimes his conscience awoke and respect for his father gained the upper hand; but some artful seduction soon drew him back again into vice. He spent in disorderly living his own money and that of his family. ‘When I want money,’ he said, ‘I write in my father’s office; when I have it, I spend it with my friends or in roaming about.’ He was soon reduced to shifts to find the means of keeping up his libertinism. One day his father sent him on horseback to Chambery, where he had some business to transact. Andrew fell to gambling on the road, lost his money, and sold his horse to have the chance of winning it back. He did worse even than this: on two several occasions, when he was short of money, he stole horses and sold them. He was not however the only profligate in Geneva: the bishop and his courtiers were training up others; the priests and monks whom John found at Geneva, also gave cause for scandal. It was these immoralities that induced the citizens to make early and earnest complaints to the bishop. ^fta60

CHAPTER 4

OPPOSITION TO THE DESIGNS OF THE DUKE, THE POPE, AND THE BISHOP

(1513-1515.)

THE opposition to the bishop was shown in various ways and came from different quarters. The magistrates, the young and new defenders of independence, and lastly (what was by no means expected) the cardinals themselves thwarted the plan formed to deprive Geneva of its independence. Opinion, ‘the queen of the world,’ as it has been called, overlooked worldliness its priests but not libertinism. Debauchery had entered into the manners of the papacy. The Church of the middle ages, an external and formal institution, dispensed with morality in its ministers and members. Dante and Michael Angelo place both priests and popes in hell, whether libertines or poisoners. The crimes of the priest (according to Rome) do not taint the divine character with which he is invested. A man may be a holy father — nay, God upon earth — and yet be a brigand. At the time when the Reformation began there were certain articles of faith imposed in the Romish church, certain hierarchies, ceremonies, and practices; but of morality there was none; on the contrary, all this framework naturally tended to encourage Christians to do without it. Religion (I reserve the exceptions) was not the man: it was a corpse arrayed in magnificent garments, and underneath all eaten with worms. The Reformation restored life to the Church. If salvation is not to be found in adherence to the pope and cardinals, but in an inward, living, personal communion with God, a renewal of the heart is obligatory. It was within the sphere of morality that the first reforming tendencies were shown at Geneva.

In the month of October, 1513, the complaints in the council were very loud: ‘Who ought to set the people an example of morality, if not the priests?’ said many noble citizens; ‘but our canons and our priests are gluttons and drunkards, they keep women unlawfully, and have bastard children as all the world knows.’ ^fta61 Adjoining the Grey Friars’ convent at Rive stood a house that was in very bad repute. One day a worthless fellow, named Morier, went and searched the convent for a woman who lived in this house, whom these reverend monks had carried off. The youth of the city followed him, found the poor wretch hidden in a cell, and carried her away with great uproar. The monks attracted by the noise appeared at their doors or in the corridors but did not venture to detain her. Morier’s comrades escorted her back in triumph, launching their jokes upon the friars. ^fta62 The Augustines of our Lady of Grace were no better than the Franciscans of Rive, and the monks of St. Victor did no honor to their chief. All round their convents were a number of low houses in which lived the men and women who profited by their debauchery. ^fta63

The evil was still greater among the Dominicans of Plainpalais: the syndics and council were forced to banish two of them, Brother Marchepalu and Brother Nicolin, for indulging in abominable practices in this monastery. ^fta64 The monks even offered accommodation for the debaucheries of the town; they threw open for an entrance-fee the extensive gardens of their monastery, which lay between the Rhone and the Arve, and whose deep shades served to conceal improper meetings and midnight orgies. ^fta65 Nobody in Geneva had so bad a reputation as these monks: they were renowned for their vices. In the way of avarice, impurity, and crime, there was nothing of which they were not thought capable. ‘What an obstinate devil would fear to do,’ said some one, ‘a reprobate and disobedient monk will do without hesitation.’ ^fta66

What could be expected of a clergy at whose head were popes like John XXIII., Alexander VI., or Innocent VIII., who having sixteen illegitimate children when he assumed the tiara, was loudly proclaimed ‘the father of the Roman people?’ ^fta67 The separation between religion and morality was complete; every attempt at reform, made for centuries by pious ecclesiastics, had failed: there seemed to be nothing that could cure this inveterate, epidemic, and frightful disease: — nothing save God and his Word.

The magistrates of Geneva resolved however to attempt some reforms, and at least to protest against insupportable abominations. On Tuesday, 10th October, the syndics appeared in a body before the episcopal council, and made their complaints of the conduct of the priests. ^fta68 But what could be expected from the council of a prelate who bore in his own person, visibly to all, the shameful traces of his infamous debaucheries? They hushed up complaints that compromised the honor of the clergy, the ambition of the duke, and the mitre of the bishop. However the blow was struck, the moral effect remained. One thought sank from that hour deep into the hearts of upright men: they saw that something new was wanted to save religion, morality, and liberty. Some even said that as reforms from below were impossible, there needed a reform from heaven.

It was at this moment when the breeze was blowing towards independence, and when the liberal party saw its defenders multiplying, that there came to Geneva a brilliant young man, sparkling with wit, and full of Livy, Cicero, and Virgil. The priests received him heartily on account of his connection with several prelates, and the liberals did the same on account of his good-humor; he soon became a favorite with everybody and the hero of the moment. He had so much imagination: he knew so well how to amuse his company! This young man was not a superficial thinker: in our opinion he is one of the best French writers of the beginning of the 16th century, but he is also one of the least known. Francis Bonivard — such was the name of this agreeable scholar — had, in the main, little faith and little morality; but he was to play in Geneva by his liberalism, his information, and his cutting satires, a part not very unlike that played by Erasmus in the great Reformation. As you left the city by the Porte St. Antoine, you came almost immediately to a round church, and by its side a monastery inhabited by some monks of Clugny, ^fta69 whose morals, as we have seen, were not very exemplary. This was the priory of St. Victor, and within its walls were held many of the conversations and conferences that prepared the way for the Reformation. St. Victor was a small state with a small territory, and its prior was a sovereign prince. On the 7th of December, 1514, the prior, John Aime Bonivard, was on his death-bed, and by his side sat his nephew Francis, then one-and-twenty. He was born at Seyssel; ^fta70 his father had occupied a certain rank at the court of Duke Philibert of Savoy, and his mother was of the noble family of Menthon. Francis belonged to that population of nobles and churchmen whom the dukes of Savoy had transplanted to Geneva to corrupt the citizens. He was educated at Turin, where he had become the ringleader of the wild set at the university; and ever carrying with him his jovial humor, he seemed made to be an excellent bait to entice the youth of the city into the nets of Savoy. But it was far otherwise, he chose the path of liberty.

For the moment he thought only of his uncle whose end seemed to have arrived. He did not turn from him his anxious look, for the old prior was seriously agitated on his dying bed. Formerly, in a moment of irritation, he had ordered four large culverins to be cast at the expense of the Church in order to besiege the seigniory of Viry, one of his neighbors, in his castle at the foot of Mount Saleve. Old Bonivard had committed many other sins, but he troubled himself little about them, compared with this. These large guns, purchased out of the ecclesiastical revenues, with a view to kill men and batter down the castle of an old friend, gave him a fearful pang. ^fta71 In his anguish he turned towards his nephew. He had found an expedient, a meritorious work which seemed calculated to bring back peace to his agitated conscience. ‘Francis,’ he said to his nephew, ‘listen to me; you know those pieces of Cannon... they ought to be employed in God’s service. I desire that immediately after my death they may be cast into bells for the church.’ Francis gave his promise, and the prior expired satisfied, leaving to his nephew the principality, the convent, and the culverins.

A close sympathy soon united Berthelier and Bonivard. The former had more energy, the latter more grace; but they both belonged to the new generation; they became brothers in arms, and promised to wage a merciless war against superstition and arbitrary power. They gave each other mutual marks of their affection, Bonivard standing godfather for one of Berthelier’s sons. Berthelier, having paid his friend a visit of condolence on the very day of his uncle’s death, heard from his lips the story of the culverins. ‘What!’ said he, ‘cast cannons to make into bells! We will give you as much metal as you require to make a peal that shall ring loud enough to stun you; but the culverins ought to remain culverins.’ Bonivard represented that, according to his uncle’s orders, the cannon were to be employed in the service of the Church. ‘The Church will be doubly served,’ retorted Berthelier; ‘there will be bells at St. Victor, which is the church, and artillery in the city, which is the church land.’ He laid the matter before the council, who voted all that Berthelier required. ^fta72 But the Duke of Savoy had no sooner heard of this than he claimed the guns from the monastery. The Council of Fifty was convened to discuss the affair, and Berthelier did not stand alone in supporting the rights of the city. A young citizen of twenty-five, of mild yet intrepid temper, calm and yet active, a friend to law and liberty, without meanness and without arrogance, and who had within him deep-seated and vigorous powers, — this man feared not to provoke a contest between Geneva and the most formidable of his neighbors. He was Besancon Hugues, who had just lost his father and was beginning to enter into public life. One idea governed him: to maintain the independence of his country and resist the usurpations of Savoy, even should it draw upon him the duke’s hatred. ‘In the name of the people,’ he said, ‘I oppose the surrender of this artillery to his Highness, the city cannot spare them.’ The four guns remained at Geneva, but from that hour Charles III. looked with an angry eye upon Berthelier, Hugues, and Bonivard. ‘I will be even with them,’ said he. — ‘When I paid him my respects after the death of my uncle,’ said Bonivard, ‘his highness turned up his nose at me.’ ^fta73

Charles III., son of Philip Lackland, was not much like that adventurous prince. When Philip reached a certain age, he became reformed; and after having several natural children, he married Margaret of Bourbon, and on her death Claudine of Penthievre or Brittany, and in 1496 ascended the throne of Piedmont and Savoy. Charles III., his son by the second wife, rather took after his grandfather Duke Louis; like him he was steady but weak, submissive to his wife, and inherited from Monsieur only his bursts of passion. His understanding was not large; but his councillors who were very able made up for this. One single thought seemed to possess him: to annex Geneva to Savoy. It was almost his whole policy. By grasping after Geneva he lost his principalities. Aesop’s fable of the dog and the shadow has never been better illustrated.

In 1515 everything seemed favorable to the plans of this prince. The marriage of the Princess Philiberta, which had not been solemnised in 1513 in consequence of her youth was about to take place. The Bishop of Geneva, then at Rome for the Lateran Council, backed his cousin’s demand touching the temporal sovereignty. The ministers of Charles, the court, nobility, and priests, all of them pressed the annexation of Geneva. Was not that city the market for the provinces neighboring on Savoy? Was it not necessary for the strategic defense of the duchy? Claude de Seyssel, a skillful diplomatist, author of the Monarchie de France, ‘a bitter despiser of every republic, and soon after made archbishop of Turin, was continually repeating to the duke that if Geneva remained in his territory without being of it, Savoy would incur great danger’ ‘Truly,’ said Bonivard, when he heard of Seyssel’s arguments, ‘there is no need to push his Highness to make him run. He has begun to beat the tabor, and is now going to open the dance.’ ^fta74

But would the pope take part in the dance? would he surrender up Geneva to Savoy? That was the question. Leo X. loved wealth, the arts, pleasure, and all the enjoyments of life; he was generous, liberal, prodigal even, and did not care much for business. He had prepared a magnificent palace in the city of the popes and of the Caesars, for Julian and his young wife. Entertainments of unusual splendor celebrated the union of the Medici with the old family of Humbert of the white hand. ‘I will spare no expense,’ Leo said, and in fact these rejoicings cost him the enormous sum of 15,000 ducats.

How could a pontiff always occupied in plundering others to enrich and exalt his own kindred, compromise so glorious an alliance in order to maintain the independence of an unknown city in the wild country of the Alps? Besides, the situation at Geneva was disquieting; the free institutions of the city threatened the temporal power of the bishop, and if that were destroyed, what would become of his spiritual power? But if the Duke of Savoy should become sovereign prince there, he would revoke the insolent liberties of the citizens, and thus save the episcopal prerogative. Such had been the history of most cities in the middle ages: was it also to be that of Geneva? ^fta75 Lorenzo de’ Medici had been accustomed to say: ‘My son Julian is good; my son John (Leo X.) is crafty; my son Peter is mad.’ Leo thought he was displaying considerable tact by sacrificing Geneva to the glory of the Medici and the ambition of Savoy. ‘The Duke of Savoy,’ says a catholic historian, ‘took advantage of this circumstance (the marriage) to procure a bull confirming the transfer of the temporal authority.’ ^fta76 Charles III. triumphed. He had reached the end which his predecessors had been aiming at for centuries: he had done more than Peter, surnamed Charlemagne; more than Amadeus the Great; he fancied himself the hero of his race. ‘I am sovereign lord of Geneva in temporal matters,’ he told everybody. ‘I obtained it from our holy father the reigning pope.’ But what would they say at Geneva? Would the ancient republic meekly bow its head beneath the Savoyard yoke? ^fta77

The whole city was in commotion when this important news arrived. Berthelier, Bonivard, Hugues, Vandel, Bernard, even the most catholic of the citizens, exasperated at such a usurpation, hurried to and fro, conversing eagerly and especially blaming the pontiff. ‘The power of the popes,’ they said, ‘is not over pricipalities but over sins — it is for the purpose of correcting vices, and not to be masters of sovereigns and peoples, that they have received the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ There was at Geneva a small number of scholars (Bonivard was one) who opened the dusty tomes of their libraries in search of arguments against the papal resolution. Did not St. Bernard say to Pope Eugene: ‘To till the vineyard of the Lord, to root out the noxious plants, is your task... You need not a scepter but a hoe.’ ^fta78

On the 25th of May a deputation from the council waited on the bishop. ‘My lord,’ said the first syndic, ‘we conjure you to leave the community in the same state as your predecessors transmitted it to you, enjoying its rightful customs and ancient franchises.’ The bishop was embarrassed; on the one hand he feared to irritate men whose energy was not unknown to him, and on the other to displease his cousin whose slave he was; he contented himself with muttering a few words. The syndics waited upon the chapter next: ‘Prevent this iniquity,’ they said to the canons, ‘seeing that it touches you as much as the city.’ But the reverend fathers, who possessed fat benefices in the duke’s territory, and feared to have them confiscated, replied in such complicated phrases that nobody could understand them. Both bishop and canons surrendered Geneva to the man who claimed to be its master.

The report that the city was decidedly given to Savoy spread farther and farther every day: people wrote about it from every quarter. The syndics, moved by the letters they received, returned to the bishop. ‘It is now a general rumor,’ said they; ‘protest, my lord, against these strange reports, so that the usurpation, although begun, may not be completed.’ The bishop looked at them, then fixing his hollow, sunken eyes upon the ground, preserved an obstinate silence. The syndics withdrew without obtaining anything. What was to be done now? The last hour of liberty seemed to have struck in the old republic. The citizens met one another without exchanging a word; their pale faces and dejected looks alone expressed their sorrow. One cry, however, was heard among them; ‘Since justice is powerless,’ said the most spirited, ‘we will have recourse to force, and if the duke is resolved to enter Geneva, he shall pass over our bodies.’ But the majority were uneasy; knowing their own weakness and the power of Savoy, they considered all resistance useless. Old Rome had destroyed the independence of many a people; new Rome desired to imitate her... The city was lost. Salvation came from a quarter whence no one expected it. ^fta79

The sacred college had assembled, and the princes of the Church, robed in purple, had examined the affair. To deprive a bishop of his temporal principality... what a dangerous example for the papacy itself! Who knows whether princes will not some day desire to do as much by his Holiness? To hear them, you would have fancied, that catholicism would decline and disappear if it did not join the scepter of the Caesars with the shepherd’s crook. The cardinals resolved that for it to be lawful for a prince of the Church to alienate his temporal jurisdiction, it was necessary ‘first, that subjects be in rebellion against their prince; second, that the prince be not strong enough to reduce them; third, that he should have a better recompense.’ Was this recompense to be another temporality or simply a pecuniary compensation? This the documents do not say. In any case, the sacred college refused its consent to the papal decision, and the bull was recalled. ^fta80

The duke was surprised and irritated. His counsellors reassured him: they pointed out to him that, according to the decision of the cardinals, it only required a revolt in order to withdraw the temporal jurisdiction from the bishop. ‘The Genevans, who are hot-headed and big talkers,’ said they, ‘will commit some imprudence by means of which we shall prove to the sacred college that it needs a stronger shepherd than a bishop to bring them back to their duty.’ To these representations they proposed adding certain crafty devices. The judicial officers of the ducal party would draw up long, obscure, unintelligible indictments against the citizens; my lords the cardinals at Rome, who are indolence itself, would waive the reading of these tiresome documents, the matter would be explained to them viva voce; they would be told that the only means of saving the bishop was to give the duke the sovereignty over the city. Charles felt comforted and sent his cousin fresh instructions. ‘Since I cannot have the tree,’ he said, ‘I wish at least to taste the fruit. Set about plundering right and left (ab hoc et ab hac) to fill my treasury.’ By means of this plundering, the Genevans would be irritated; they would be driven to take up arms, and thus the duke would succeed in confiscating their independence with the consent not only of the pope but of the cardinals also. ^fta81

CHAPTER 5

BERTHELIER AND THE YOUTH OF GENEVA AROUSED BY THE BISHOP’S VIOLENCE

(1515-1517.)

THE bishop, the humble servant of the duke, prepared to act according to his instructions. Charles had set a trustee over him, who allowed him only what was absolutely necessary for his bare maintenance. One day, when an eminent citizen asked him a favor, John of Savoy exclaimed: ‘I have only my crozier and my mitre, the property belongs to the duke. He is bishop and abbot.’... ‘For,’ adds the chronicler, ‘the duke being very rapacious, John was forced to give the reign to his Highness’s extortioners.’ They imposed excessive fines; where in the inferior courts the penalty should not exceed sixty sols, they exacted fifty livres. No prince ever made such efforts to suppress revolt as the bastard to foment it. He was almost brave in his devices for losing his principality, but it was the result of servility. He deprived the syndics of their judicial functions; he threw men into prison to avenge private or imaginary offenses. The people began to murmur: ‘A singular shepherd this!’ they said. ‘He is not satisfied with shearing his flock, but tears and worries them with his dogs.’ The partisans of Savoy were delighted. By one of these exploits the bastard very nearly revolutionized Geneva. ^fta82

Claude Vandel was one of the most respected citizens of Geneva. A distinguished lawyer, a man of noble character and spotless integrity, of retiring and respectful manners, but also of great courage, he protected at his own expense the weak and poor against the violence of the great. A citizen having been unjustly prosecuted by a bishop’s officer, Vandel undertook his defense and so enraged the prelate that he swore to be revenged on him. But how was he to begin? The people respected Vandel; his ancestors had filled the highest offices in the State; his wife, Mie du Fresnoir, belonged to a good family allied to the Chatillons and other Savoyard houses of the best blood. Moreover Vandel possessed four sons, united by the closest affection, full of veneration for their father, and all destined one day to be called to important duties. Robert, the eldest, was a syndic; Thomas, a canon, procurator-fiscal, and one of the first priests that embraced the Reformation; of the two youngest, who were still youths, Hugo was afterwards the representative of the republic in Switzerland, and Peter captain-general. It was known at the bishop’s palace that Vandel’s sons would not permit a hand to be laid upon their father; and that even the people would take up his defense. Nevertheless it was decided to make the Genevans bend under the yoke of absolute authority. Thomas, who was then incumbent of Morges, hurried to Geneva on hearing of the design that threatened his father. He was a man of most decided character, and ‘handled the sword better than his breviary.’ When they learned what were the bishop’s intentions, his brothers and he had felt in their hearts one of those sudden and unlookedfor impulses that proceed from the noblest of affections, and they swore to make their bodies a rampart for their father. The bishop and his courtiers had recourse to stratagem. Vandel was in the country, Robert and Thomas keeping guard beside him. A rumor was set afloat that the bishop’s bailiffs would come at nightfall and seize the lawyer. Consequently, ‘before night came on,’ Robert and Thomas went out to watch for the men who were to carry off their father. But these, instead of leaving at the appointed hour, had started earlier and hidden themselves near the house. As soon as it was dark they left their hiding-place, and while Vandel’s sons and friends were looking for them in another direction, they seized the republican Claude, bound him, took him into the city by a secret postern, and conducted him along a subterranean passage to the bishop’s prison. ^fta83

The next morning, Vandel’s sons ran in great distress to their friends and appealed to the people whom they met. They represented that the syndics alone had the right of trial in criminal matters, and that by arresting their father the bishop had trampled the franchises of the city under foot. The people were excited, the council assembled; the syndics went to the bishop and called upon him to let Vandel go, or else hand over to them, his lawful judges, the papers in his case.

‘My council,’ the bishop answered, ‘will examine whether this arrest is contrary to your liberties, in which case I will amend what is to be amended.’ Even the episcopal council decided for Vandel’s discharge; but the bastard obstinately refused.

The anger of the people now grew fiercer against the citizens who had accepted the bishop’s pensions.

‘The bishop knows very well,’ they said, ‘that some of them prefer his money to the liberties of the city. Why should he fear to infringe our rights, when traitors have sold them to him?’ Thomas Vandel, the priest, the most ardent of the family, hastened to Berthelier. ‘The irritation is general,’ he said, ‘and yet they hesitate. Nobody dares bell the cat.’ Berthelier joined Vandel’s sons, and their bold representations, as well as the murmurs of the people, aroused the syndics. The day (June 29) was already far advanced; but that mattered not, and at the unusual hour of eight in the evening the council met, and ‘all the most eminent in the city to the number of about three hundred,’ joined the assembly. The people gathered in crowds and filled the hall.

Berthelier was present. He was still governor of Peney, the bishop’s gift; and the latter made merry with his courtiers at having put ‘a bone in his mouth to prevent his barking.’ There were some Genevans who looked frowningly upon him, as if that great, citizen had betrayed his country. But Berthelier was calm, his countenance determined: he was prepared to strike the first blow. The syndics described the illegal act of the bishop; the sons of the prisoner called upon them to avenge their father; and Berthelier exclaimed: ‘To maintain the liberties of the city, we must act, without fear; let us rescue the citizen whom traitors have seized.’ John Taccon, captain-general., and at the same time a pensioner of the bishop’s, stopped him: ‘Gently,’ said he, ‘if we do as you advise, certain inconveniences may follow.’ Berthelier in great excitement exclaimed: ‘Now the pensioners are showing themselves!’ At these words Taccon could not contain himself: ‘It was you,’ he said, ‘yes, you, who showed me the way to take a pension.’ On hearing this reproach Berthelier pulled out the bishop’s letters appointing him governor of Peney, and which he had brought with him to the council, and tore them in pieces before the meeting, saying: ‘Since I showed you the way to take them, look, I now show you the way to resign them.’ These words acted like an electric shock. A cry of ‘No more pensions!’ was raised on all sides. All the pensioners declared themselves ready to tear up their letters patent like Berthelier. The commotion was very great. ‘Toll the bell for the general council,’ cried some. ‘No, no,’ said the more prudent, ‘it would be the signal for a general outbreak, and the people would right themselves.’ ^fta84

Something however must be done. A portion of the assembly went off to the bishop’s palace, and began to shout for the prelate: ‘Release the prisoner!’ But the bishop did not appear; the doors and windows of the palace remained closely barred. The irritation grew general. ‘As the bishop will not show himself,’ they said, ‘we must assemble the people.’ Upon this John Bernard, whose three sons played an important part in the Reformation, ran off to the tower of St. Pierre to ring the bell for the general council. But the priests, anticipating what would happen, had fastened the belfry door. Bernard did not renounce his purpose: he caught up a huge hammer and was beginning to batter the door, when some citizens came up and stopped him. They had just learned that the bastard did not appear because, dreading the fury of the people, he had left Geneva in great haste. One thought consoled the bishop in all his terror: ‘Surely here is an argument that will convince the sacred college: my people are in revolt!’ But the episcopal council thought differently: Vandel’s arrest was illegal, and they restored him to liberty. From that hour the bishop’s hatred grew more deadly against those who would not bend to his tyranny. ^fta85

The energy displayed by the citizens showed the bastard what he would have to expect if he laid hands on their independence. His creatures resolved therefore to set to work in another way: to enervate this proud and resolute people, and with that view to encourage superstition and profligacy in Geneva. Superstition would prevent the citizens from thinking about truth and reform, while profligacy would make them forget their dignity, their rights, and their dearest liberties.

At the commencement of 1517 — the year when the Reformation began in Germany — a bare-footed friar, named Thomas, came and preached at Geneva in Italian, and the people who did not understand a word listened to him with admiration. The Virgin Mary, the saints, and the departed wer