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

782Registres du Conseil des 23 et 30 avril; 24 mai; 2, 9, 14 juin; 7 août. Journal de Balard , pp. 160-170. La Baume's letters, Archéologie , ii. p. 15. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 493. Gautier MS. Bonivard, Ancienne et nouvelle Police de Genève , p. 384.

783'Il s'en donnait jusqu'à passer trente et un .' This proverbial expression refers, possibly, to the months whose days never exceed thirty-one.

784'A soft answer turneth away wrath.'

785Registres du Conseil du 25 août. Journal de Balard , p. 178. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 495.

786Gazzini, Mémoire au Saint Père . Archives of Turin, Roman Correspondence. Gaberel, Hist. de l'Eglise de Genève , i. p. 95.

787'Ils nous lavèrent bien la tête.'

788Letter of B. Hugues. Galiffe, Matériaux , ii. pp. 525, 526.

789Letters of Vandel and Girard. Galiffe, Matériaux , ii. p. 533.

790Registres du Conseil des 10, 11 et 20 octobre 1528. Journal de Balard , p. 183.

Table of Contents

=PONTVERRE MOWS FOR BONIVARD.=

CHAPPUIS, Gringalet, and Levrat filled the places through which they passed with their complaints, and all the bigots looked upon them as martyrs. The knights of the Spoon, being informed of the fate with which monastic institutions were threatened in Geneva, resolved to avenge religion and do all the injury they could to the audacious burgesses. Pontverre had already opened the campaign by a little scene of pillage, which is of no importance except to show the manners of the age. Wishing to spoil and plunder the Genevans under their noses , he had ordered his tenants to sharpen their scythes. One day in the beginning of June, the peasants shouldered their scythes; Pontverre put himself at their head, his men-at-arms surrounded them, and all marched towards the meadows of the Genevans on the left bank of the Arve, about a quarter of an hour's walk from the city. The mowers arrived, whetted their instruments, and then proceeded to cut down the new grass. At last they came to a meadow which belonged to Bonivard: to rob the prior was a dainty thing for Pontverre. Meanwhile the Genevans, having heard of what was going on, had hurried to the spot, and discovered by the side of the mowers a body of men whose arms flashed in the rays of the sun. Bonivard easily recognised the seigneur of Ternier. The huguenots could hardly contain themselves. The chief of the knights of the Spoon, having charged his people not to leave a blade of grass standing, approached the bridge of Arve which separates the two countries, and, calling out to the Genevans assembled on the right bank, began to insult and defy them. 'Come, come, cheer up!' he said; 'why don't you cross the bridge and fetch the hay we have cut for you?' The citizens loaded their arms, and the two bands began to fire at each other with their arquebuses. 'Let us take him at his word,' said some of the huguenots; 'let us go over the bridge and drive away the robbers.' Already several young men were preparing to cross the river; but Bonivard did not think a few loads of hay worth the risk of a battle that might not end well for Geneva. 'I dissuaded them,' says he, 'and led them back to the city.' 791

The Genevans, seeing the danger with which they were threatened by the knights, energetically prepared for resistance, and solicited aid from Berne and Friburg. Two enseignes , that is, eight hundred men, principally from Gessenay, arrived in Geneva and were quartered among the inhabitants, but especially on the churchmen and in the convents. The duke, who attached great importance to the Swiss alliance, and feared to come into collision with their men-at-arms, now permitted provisions to be carried to the market of Geneva, and, the semblance of peace having been restored, the allied troops quitted the city on the 30th of October, 1528.

=THE MEETING AT NYON.=

Pontverre's humour was not so pacific. One of the last representatives of feudal society, he saw that its elements were on the verge of dissolution, and its institutions about to disappear. Power, which had long ago passed from the towns to the country, was now returning from the country to the towns; Geneva, in particular, seemed as if it would nullify all the seigneurs in its neighbourhood. And, further still, the Church which puts forward creeds in an absolute manner, so that no person has the right to examine them, was attacked by the religious revolution beginning in Geneva. Pontverre desired to preserve the ancient order of things, and, with that object, to take and (if necessary) destroy that troublesome city. He therefore, as prior of the order, convened a general assembly of the knights of the Spoon at Nyon, in order to arrange, in concert with the duke, the requisite measures for capturing the city. The bailiwick of Ternier, the lordship of Pontverre, was situated about a league from Geneva, between the verdant flanks of the Salève and the smiling shores of the Rhone. It would have been easy, therefore, for that chief to cross the river between Berney and Peney, and thus get on the right bank of the lake; but he thought it more daring and heroic to traverse Geneva. They represented to him, but to no purpose, the danger to which he would expose himself, for if he was always quick to provoke the Genevans, they were equally quick to reply. Pontverre would listen to nothing. There was a treaty by which Savoyard gentlemen had the right of free passage through the city; and, armed with a sword, he feared nobody. It was in the month of December, when, presenting himself at daybreak at the Corraterie gate, Pontverre passed in; he rode quietly through the city, looking to the right and to the left at the shops which were still closed, and did not meet a single huguenot. On arriving at the Swiss gate, by which he had to leave the city, he found it shut. He summoned the gate-keeper, who, as it appears, was not yet up. The horse pawed the ground, the rider shouted, and the porter loitered: he ran out at last and lowered the chain. The impatient Pontverre paid him by a slap in the face, and said: 'Rascal, is this the way you make gentlemen wait?' He then added with violent oaths: 'You will not be wanted much longer. It will not be long before we pull down your gates and trample them under foot, as we have done before.' He then set spurs to his horse and galloped away. The porter, exasperated by the blow he had received, made his report, and the Genevans, who were irritable folk, became very angry about it. 'It is not enough,' they said, 'for these Savoyards to do us all sorts of injury outside the walls, but they must come and brave us within. Wait a little! We will pay them off, and chastise this insolent fellow.' The council, while striving to restrain the people, ordered sentinels to be stationed everywhere. 792

=CONFERENCE AT NYON.=

The gentry of the district who had taken part in the meeting at Bursinel, had immediately begun to canvass their neighbours, and a great number of persons, incensed against Geneva, had taken the Spoon, as in the time of the crusades men took the Cross. The second meeting, therefore, promised to be more numerously attended than the first. From all quarters, from Gex and Vaud and Savoy, the knights arrived at Nyon, a central situation for these districts, where they usually held their councils of war. Climbing the hill, they entered the castle, from whose windows the lake, its shores, and the snowy Alps of Savoy were visible in all their magnificence. Having taken their places in the great hall, they began their deliberations. These unpolished gentlemen, descended from the chevaliers of the middle ages, who thought it enough to build a tower upon a rock and to pass their lives in crushing the weak and plundering the innocent, still preserved something of the nature of their ancestors. Pontverre, who was their president, had no difficulty in carrying them with him. Feudalism and even catholicism exercised great influence over him, and gave to his words an energy and deep conviction which it was hard to resist. He pointed out to these lords that the authority of the prince and of the pope, religious and monarchical order, the throne and the altar, were equally threatened by an insolent bourgeoisie. He showed them how monstrous it was that lawyers, that men of low birth and no merit, and that even shopkeepers should presume to take the place of the bishop and the duke. 'We must make haste,' he said, 'to disperse and crush the seeds of rebellion, or you will see them spreading far and wide.' The knights of the castle of Nyon were unanimous. The right of resistance had been the characteristic of the feudal system; and never had the exercise of that right been more necessary. One lord exercised it in the middle ages against another lord, his neighbour. But what were these isolated adversaries compared with that universal and invisible enemy which threatened the old society in all its parts, and which, to be surer of triumph, was inaugurating a new religion? In the valley of the Leman, Geneva was the stronghold of this new and terrible adversary. 'Down with Geneva! Rome and Savoy for ever!' was the cry that rose from every heart. It was agreed that all the gentlemen and their followers should meet at a certain time and place, armed with sword and lance, in order to seize upon the city and put an end to its liberties.