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

It seemed as if this concession, by uniting the bishop and the Genevans more closely, ought to have put off the Reformation; but it was not so. In proportion as the Genevans obtained any concession, they desired more; accordingly, when the citizens had returned home, or when they met at one another's houses, they began to say that it was something to have obtained the civil judicature from the bishop, but that there were other restitutions still to be made. Some men asked by what right he held the temporal authority; and others—those who knew best what was passing at Zurich—desired to throw off the spiritual jurisdiction of the prelate in order to acknowledge only that of Holy Writ.

Opposition to ecclesiastical principalities began, then, three centuries ago at Geneva. 'The bishop grants us the civil jurisdiction,' said Bonivard; 'an act very damaging to himself, and very profitable to us.... But ... this is an opening to deprive him entirely of his authority. Neither La Baume nor the other bishops were lawfully elected, that is to say by the clergy at the postulation of the people. They were thrust into the see by the pope.... They are but tyrants set over us by other tyrants. We can therefore reject them without danger to our souls; and since they came in by the caprice of arbitrary power, it is lawful for us to expel them by the free authority of the city. Geneva has never acknowledged other princes than those whom the people themselves elected.' Some were astonished at Bonivard's language; but the larger number listened to him with enthusiasm. The catholics, growing more and more uneasy, anticipated great disasters. The edifice of popery, continually undermined in Geneva, was tottering; its pillars and buttresses were giving way; and the keystone of the arch, the episcopal power itself, was on the point of crumbling to dust. Alas! catholic Geneva was a dismantled fortress. 740

=THE DUKE'S IRRITATION.=

When the duke heard of the bishop's concessions, he was seized with one of his fits of anger. And not without cause: by transferring the civil authority to a lay tribunal, La Baume had been guilty of a new offence against the duke; for it was in reality the jurisdiction of the vidame (that is to say, of the duke) which the bishop had thus ceded; and hence it was that he had been induced to do it so readily.

Charles had no need of this new grievance. When they learnt at the court of Turin that the canons had been put in prison by the prelate, there was a violent commotion; the friends and relatives of those reverend gentlemen made a great noise, and the duke resolved to send the most urgent remonstrances to the Genevans, reserving the right to have recourse to more energetic measures if words did not suffice. He commissioned M. de Jacob, his grand equerry, to go and set this little people to rights, and the ducal envoy arrived in Geneva about the middle of July. He carried his head very high, and behaved with great reserve, as if he had been injured: he had come with the intention of making that city, so small and yet so arrogant, feel how great is the power of a mighty prince. On the 20th of July, the Sire de Jacob being introduced before the council, haughtily represented to them, not that the reverend fathers imprisoned as criminals were innocent, but that they belonged to high families and were his highness's subjects, and added that the duke consequently ordered them to be immediately set at liberty. 'Otherwise,' added the ambassador in an insolent tone, 'my lord will see to it, as shall seem good to him.' The tone and look of the ducal envoy explained his words, and every one felt that Charles III. would come and claim the canons at the head of his army. The embarrassed magistrates and prelates answered the envoy by throwing the blame upon one another. The former declared that they had not interfered in the matter, which concerned Monseigneur of Geneva only; and the bishop, in his turn, laid all the blame on the people. 'I was obliged to do so,' he said, 'to save the canons from being killed.' Nevertheless, he showed himself merciful. The avoyer of Friburg, who had been delegated for this purpose by his council, added his entreaties to the ducal summons; and, pressed at once by Switzerland and Savoy, the bishop thought he could not resist. The arrest of the canons was in reality, on his part, an act of passion as much as of justice. 'I release them,' he said; 'I pardon them. I leave vengeance to God.'

The canons quitted the place where they had been confined, bursting with anger and indignation. Having had time to reflect on what was passing in Geneva, on the impetuous current that was hurrying the citizens in a direction contrary to Rome, they had made up their minds to quit a city where they had been so unceremoniously thrown into the receptacle for criminals. De Montrotier, De Veigy, and their colleagues had hardly returned to their houses when they told everybody who would listen to them that they would leave Geneva and the Genevans to their miserable fate. This strange resolution immediately spread through the city, and excited the people greatly; it was important news, and they could hardly believe it. The canons of Geneva were a very exalted body in the opinion of catholicity. In order to be received among them, the candidate must show titles of nobility or be a graduate in some famous university; and since the beginning of the century their number included members of the most illustrious families of Savoy—De Gramont, De la Foret, De Montfalcon, De Menthon, De la Motte, De Chatillon, De Croso, De Sablon, and others as noble as they. 741

=THE CANONS LEAVE THE CITY.=

The canons kept their word. As soon as they had made the necessary arrangements for their departure, they mounted their mules or got into their carriages, and set off. The Genevans, standing at the doors of their houses and in groups in the streets, watched these Roman dignitaries thus abandoning their homes, some with downcast heads, others with angry looks, who moved along sad and silent, and went out by the Savoy gate with hearts full of resentment against a city which they denounced as ungrateful and rebellious. Out of thirty-two, only seven or eight remained. 742The citizens, assembling in various places, were agitated with very different thoughts. The huguenots said to themselves that these high and reverend clerks, true cardinals, who supported the papacy much better than the bishop, would no longer be there to prevent the new generation from throwing off the shackles of the middle ages; that this unexpected exodus marked a great revolution; and that the old times were departing, and the Reformation beginning. On the other hand, the creatures of Rome felt a bitter pang, and flames of vengeance were kindled in their hearts. Lastly, those citizens who were both good Genevans and good catholics, were seized with fear and melancholy. 'No more canons, erelong perhaps no more bishop!... Will Geneva, without its canons and bishops, be Geneva still?' But the great voice, which drowned all the rest, was that of the partisans of progress, of liberty, of independence, and of reform, who desired to see political liberty developed among the community, and the Church directed by the Word of God and not by the bulls of the pope. Among them were Maison-Neuve, Bonivard, Porral, Bernard, Chautemps, and others. These men, the pioneers of modern times, felt little respect and no regret for the canons. They said to one another that these noble and lazy lords were pleased with Geneva so long as they could luxuriously enjoy the pleasures of life there; but that when the hour of combat came, they fled like cowards from the field of battle. The canons did fly in fact; they arrived at Annecy, where they settled. As for Geneva, they were never to enter it again.

731'Pro summa ducatorum auri largorum duorum millia.'—Galiffe fils, Besançon Hugues , p. 454; Pièces Justificatives , No. 4.