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

Navis’s father, a man detested by the Genevans, was not the last to be informed; some people ran to tell him of the tragic event that was stirring up the whole city. ‘Come,’ said they, ‘come and see the reward the bishop sends you for your faithful services. You are well paid; the tyrants recompense you right royally for the disfavour you have won from all of us; they have sent from Turin, as your pay, the head of your son.’ ... Peter Navis might be an unjust judge, but he was a father: at first he was overwhelmed. Andrew had been disobedient, but the ingratitude of the child had not been able to extinguish the love of the parent. The unhappy man, divided between affection for his son and respect for his prince, shed tears and endeavoured to hide them. Prostrated by grief and shame, pale and trembling, he bent his head in sullen silence. It was not the same with the mother, who gave way to the most violent affection and most extravagant despair. The grief of Navis’s parents, which was expressed in such different ways, struck all the spectators. Bonivard, who at this tragic moment mingled in the agitated groups of the citizens, was heart-stricken by all he saw and heard, and on returning to his priory exclaimed: ‘What horror and indignation such a spectacle excites! even strangers, whom it does not affect, are disgusted at it.... What will the poor citizens do now? the poor relations and friends? their father and mother?’ ...

The Genevans did not confine themselves to useless lamentations; they did not turn their eyes to the blow they had just received, they looked to the hand that struck it; it was the hand of their bishop. Everybody knew the failings of Navis and Blanchet, but at this moment no one spoke of them; they could only see two young and unhappy martyrs of liberty. The anger of the people rose impetuously, and poured itself out on the prelate more than on the duke. ‘The bishop,’ they said, ‘is a wolf under a shepherd’s cloak. Would you know how he feeds his lambs, go to the bridge of Arve!’ Their leaders thought the same: they said, it was not enough for the prince-bishop to plunge families and a whole city into mourning, but his imagination coldly calculated the means of increasing their sorrow. These suspended heads and arms were a notable instance of that cruel faculty of invention which has always distinguished tyrants. To torture in Piedmont the bodies of their young friends did not satisfy the prelate, but he must torture all hearts in Geneva. What is the spirit that animates him? What are the secret motives of these horrible executions?... Despotism, self-interest, fanaticism, hatred, revenge, cruelty, ambition, folly, madness.... It was indeed all these together. Think not that he will stop in the midst of his success: these are only the first-fruits of his tenderness. To draw up proscription lists, to butcher the friends of liberty, to expose their dead bodies, to kill Geneva,—in one word, to take pattern by Sylla in everything, 170—such will henceforward be the cure of souls of this son of the pope.

The resistance of the citizens to the encroachments of the prelate assumed from that hour a character that must necessarily lead to the abolition of the Roman episcopacy in Geneva. There is a retributive justice from which princes cannot escape, and it is often the innocent successors who are hurled from their thrones by the crimes of their guilty predecessors; of this we have seen numerous examples during the past half-century. The penalty which has not fallen on the individual falls on the family or the institution; but the penalty which strikes the institution is the more terrible and instructive. The mangled limbs hanging on the banks of the Arve left an indelible impression on the minds of the Genevan people. If a mameluke and a huguenot happened to pass the bridge together, the first, pointing to the walnut-tree, would say to the second with a smile: ‘Do you recognise Navis and Blanchet?’—the huguenot would coldly reply: ‘I recognise my bishop.’ 171The institution of a bishop-prince, an imitation of that of a bishop-king, became every day more hateful to the Genevans. Its end was inevitable—its end at Geneva: hereafter the judgments of God will overtake it in other places also.

The agitation was not confined to the people: the syndics had summoned the council. ‘This morning,’ they said, ‘before daybreak, two heads and two arms were fastened to a tree opposite the church of Our Lady of Grace. We know not by whose order.’ 172Everybody guessed whose heads they were and by whose order they had been exposed; but the explosion was not so great in the council as in the crowd. They must have understood that this cruel act betokened sinister designs; they heard the thunder-clap that precedes the storm: yet each man drew a different conclusion. Certain canons, monks, and other agents of the Roman Church, accomplices of the tyrant, called for absolute submission. Certain nobles thought that if they were freed from the civic councils, they could display their aristocratic pretensions more at their ease. Certain traders, Savoyards by birth, who loved better ‘large gains in slavery than small gains in liberty,’ amused themselves by thinking that if the duke became master of the city, he would reside there with his court, and they would get a higher price for their goods. But the true Genevans joyfully consented that their country should be small and poor, provided it were the focus of light and liberty. As for the huguenots, the two heads were the signal of resistance. ‘With an adversary that keeps any measure,’ they said, ‘we may relax a little of our rights; but there are no considerations to be observed with an enemy who proceeds by murder.... Let us throw ourselves into the arms of the Swiss.’

The bishop’s crime thus became one of the stages on the road to liberty. No doubt the victims were culpable, but the murderers were still more so. All that was noble in Geneva sighed for independence. The mameluke magistrates strove in vain to excuse an act which injured their cause; they were answered rudely; contrary opinions were bandied to and fro in the council, and ‘there was a great disturbance.’ At last they resolved to send an ambassador to the princes to inquire whether this barbarous act had been perpetrated by their orders, and in that case to make remonstrances. This resolution was very displeasing to the mamelukes, who endeavoured to soften the harsh message by intrusting it to pleasing messengers. ‘To obtain what you desire from princes, you must send them people who are agreeable to them,’ said the first syndic. The assembly accordingly named the vidame Aymon Conseil, an unblushing agent of Savoy; the ex-syndic Nergaz, a bad man and personal enemy of Berthelier; and Déléamont, governor of Peney, against whom the huguenots had more than once drawn the sword. The duke, being at that time in his Savoy provinces, received the deputation coldly at a public audience, but made much of them in private. The ambassadors returned in three days with an unmeaning answer. 173

The bishop was at Pignerol, where he had presided over the terrible butchery. The council were content to write to him, considering the distance; and as he was still proud of his exploit, he replied by extolling the mildness of his government: ‘You have never had prince or prelate with such good intentions as myself,’ he wrote from Turin on the 15th of October; ‘the execution done the other side the bridge of Arve is to give those a lesson who desire to lead evil lives.’ Accordingly the bastard exhorted the Genevans to show themselves sensible of his kindness by returning him a double share of love. These executions, far from causing him any remorse, gave him a longing for more; he invited the Genevans to acknowledge his tender favours by granting him the head of Berthelier and a few others besides. Making confession to the council of his most secret anguish, he expressed a fear that if these heads did not fall before his return, it would prevent his enjoying the pleasures of the table. ‘Discharge your duty,’ said he, ‘so that when I am with you, there may be nothing to do but to make good cheer .’ To live merrily and to put his most illustrious subjects to death were the two chief points of his episcopal cure of souls. To be more sure of obtaining these heads, he threatened Geneva with his vengeance: ‘If you should refuse,’ said he in conclusion, ‘understand clearly that I shall pray my lord (the duke) and his brother (the count) to preserve my good rights; and I have confidence in them, that they will not let me be trampled upon; besides this, I will risk my life and my goods.’ This mild pastoral was signed: The Bishop of Geneva. 174