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

The remembrance of Pécolat’s torture long remained in the memory of the citizens of Geneva, and contributed to make them reject the rule of the Romish bishops. 141In fact the interest felt for this victim of episcopal cruelty was manifested in every way. The cell of brother Yvonnet, in the Grey Friars’ convent, was never empty; everybody wished to see the bishop’s victim. The prior of St. Victor was one of the first to come, attended by several friends. The poor man, being tongue-tied, told ‘the mystery of his sufferings with his fingers,’ says Bonivard. It was long since there had been such an interesting sight in Geneva. The citizens, standing or sitting around him, could not turn their eyes away from his thin pale face. By his gestures and attitudes Pécolat described the scenes of the examination, the torture, and the razor, and in the midst of these remembrances which made the tears come to his eyes, he from time to time indulged in a joke. The young men of Geneva looked at each other and trembled with indignation ... and then sometimes they laughed, at which the episcopal officers ‘were terribly enraged.’ The latter were in truth both vexed and angry. What! they receive an order from the bishop, an order from the pope, and only a few minutes before they have issued a contrary order! Strange mishap! Not knowing whom to blame, they imprisoned the governor, who had only released Pécolat by their command, and to cover their responsibility were actually planning to put him to death.

Some timid and alarmed citizens dared not go and see Pécolat; one of these was Blanchet, the friend of Andrew Navis, who had been present at the famous meeting at the Molard and the momon supper, and who, falling not long after beneath the bishop’s violence, was doomed to expiate his errors by a most cruel death. Blanchet is the type of a character frequent at this epoch. Having learnt, shortly after the famous momon banquet, that a certain individual whose name even he did not know, but who, he said, ‘had given him the lie to his face,’ was in Burgundy, Blanchet set off after him, gave him a box on the ears, and returned. He came back to Geneva, thence he went into Faucigny, and afterwards to Italy; he took part in the war between the pope and the Duke of Urbino (who so terribly frightened Leo X.); returned to Pavia, thence to Turin, and finally to Geneva. His cousin Peter, who lived in Turin, had told him that during his travels Pécolat had been arrested for plotting against the bishop. ‘I shall not go and see him,’ he said, ‘for fear of compromising myself.’ In spite of his excessive precaution, he could not finally escape the barbarous vengeance of the prelate. 142

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No one embraced Pécolat with so much joy as Berthelier, who had returned to Geneva within these few days. In fact the duke, desirous to please the Swiss by any means, had given him, and also made the bishop give him, a safe-conduct which, bearing date February 24, 1518, extended to Whitsunday, May 23, in the same year. The favour shown the republican hero was not great, for permission was granted him to return to Geneva to stand his trial ; and the friends of the prelate hoped that he would not only be tried, but condemned and put to death. Notwithstanding these forebodings, Berthelier, a man of spirit and firm in his designs, was returning to his city to accomplish the work he had prepared in Switzerland: namely, the alliance of Geneva with the cantons. He had taken great trouble about it during his residence among the confederates. He was seen continually ‘visiting, eating, drinking in the houses of his friends or at the guilds (called abbeys), talking with the townsfolk, and proving to them that this alliance would be of great use to all the country of the League.’ Berthelier was then full of hope; Geneva was showing herself worthy of liberty; there was an energetic movement towards independence; the people were wearied of the tyranny of princes. Free voices were heard in the general council. ‘No one can serve two masters,’ said some patriots. ‘The man who holds any pension or employment from a prince, or has taken an oath to other authorities than the republic, ought not to be elected either syndic or councillor.’ This resolution was carried by a large majority. And better still, the citizens chose for syndics three men capable of guarding the franchises of the community; they were Ramel, Vandel, and Besançon Hugues. A mameluke, ‘considering the great credit of the party,’ had also been elected, but only one, Montyon; he was the premier syndic. 143

Whilst the patriots were thus making efforts to save the independence of the city, the duke, the bishop, the count, Archbishop Seyssel, and other councillors, meeting at Turin, were pursuing contrary schemes. Would they succeed? Seyssel, the illustrious author of the Grande Monarchie , might tell them that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, the bishop and the lay lord had combined against the liberties of the towns, and aided by arms and anathemas had maintained a war against the communes which had ended in the destruction of the rights and franchises of the citizens. Then the night was indeed dark in the social world. At Geneva, these rights existed still: you could see a flickering light glimmering feebly in the midst of the darkness. But would not the bishop and the duke succeed in extinguishing it? If so, despotism would hold all Europe under its cruel hand, as in the Mahometan and other countries of the world. Why should the operation carried through at Cambray, Noyon, St. Quentin, Laon, Amiens, Soissons, Sens, and Rheims, fail on the shores of the Leman? There was indeed a reason for it, but they did not take it into account. We do not find this reason—at least not alone—in the fact that the heroes of liberty were more intrepid at Geneva than elsewhere. The enfranchisement was to come from a higher source: God then brought forth light and liberty. The middle ages were ending, modern times were beginning. The princes and bishops of Roman Catholicism, in close alliance, had everywhere reduced to ashes the edifice of communal liberties. But in the midst of these ashes some embers were found which, kindled again by fire from heaven, lighted up once more in the world the torch of lawful liberty. Geneva was the obstacle to the definite annihilation of the popular franchises, and in Geneva the strength of the obstacle was Berthelier. No wonder then that the Savoyard princes agreed that in order to check the triumph of the spirit of independence, it was absolutely necessary to get rid of this proud, energetic, and unyielding citizen. They began to prepare the execution of their frightful project. A strange blindness is that which imagines that by removing a man from the world it is possible to thwart the designs of God!

Berthelier, calm because he was innocent, provided besides with an episcopal safe-conduct, had appeared before the syndics to be tried. The duke and the bishop had given orders to their agents, the vidame Conseil and Peter Navis, the procurator-fiscal, to manage his condemnation. The trial began: ‘You are charged,’ said these two magistrates, ‘with having taken part in the riotous amusements of the young men of Geneva.’—‘I desired,’ answered Berthelier frankly, ‘to keep up the good-will of those who were contending for liberty against the usurpations of tyrants.’ The justification was worse than the charge. ‘Let us seize him by the throat, as if he were a wolf,’ said the two judges. ‘You have conspired,’ they continued, ‘against the life of the prince-bishop,’ and they handed in Pécolat’s depositions as proof. ‘All lies,’ said Berthelier coldly, ‘lies extorted by the rack and retracted afterwards.’ Navis then produced the declarations of the traitor Carmentrant, who, as we have seen at the momon supper, undertook the office of informer. ‘Carmentrant!’ contemptuously exclaimed the accused, ‘one of the bishop’s servants, coming and going to the palace every day, eating, drinking, and making merry ... a pretty witness indeed! The bishop has prevailed upon him, by paying him well, to suffer himself to be sent to prison, so that he may sing out against me whatever they prompt him with ... Carmentrant boasts of it himself!’ When they sent the report to the bishop, he perceived, on reading it, that this examination, instead of demonstrating the guilt of the accused, only revealed the iniquity of the accuser; the alarmed prelate therefore wrote to the vidame and Navis to ‘use every imaginable precaution.’ It was necessary to destroy Berthelier without compromising the bishop.