J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8)

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.

Table of Contents

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. 42Charles 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.’ 43The 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. 44

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. Enamoured 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 had 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.’ 45The 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. 46‘Come, you canons,’ said they, ‘choose us a bishop that will not let the duke put his nose into his soup.’ 47This 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 Aimé 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. Aimé, 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.’ 48

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 honour of the governed is always to have good governors. On the other hand, princes or popes generally choose strangers or favourites, 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, wilful, 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 honour, 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. 49The 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 horses, 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.’ 50