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

Table of Contents

The cruel butchery of Navis and Blanchet, and the insolent sealed letter, were acts ruinous to those who had committed them. If the bishop had possessed only the spiritual power, he would not have been dragged into such measures; but by wishing to unite earthly dominion with religious direction, he lost both: a just punishment of those who forget the words of Christ: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ The bishop had torn the contract that bound him to the free citizens of the ancient city. The struggle was growing fiercer every day, and would infallibly end in the fall of the Roman episcopate in Geneva. It was not the Reformation that was to overthrow the representative of the pope: it was the breath of liberty and legality that was to uproot that barren tree, and the reformers were to come afterwards to cultivate the soil and scatter abroad the seeds of life. Two parties, both strangers to the Gospel, stood then face to face. On the one side were the bishop, the vicar and procurator-fiscal, the canons, priests, monks, and all the agents of the popedom; on the other were the friends of light, the friends of liberty, the partisans of law, the representatives of the people. The battle was between clerical and secular society. These struggles were not new; but while in the middle ages clerical society had always gained the victory, at Geneva, on the contrary, in the sixteenth century the series of its defeats was to begin. It is easy to explain this phenomenon. Ecclesiastical society had long been the most advanced as well as the strongest; but in the sixteenth century secular society appeared in all the vigour of youth, and was soon to gain the victories of a maturer age. It was all over with the clerical power: the weapons it employed at Geneva (the letter and the walnut-tree) indicated a thorough decline of human dignity. Out of date, fallen into childishness, and decrepid, it could no longer contend against the lay body. If the duel took place on open ground, without secret understandings, without trickery, the dishonoured clerical authority must necessarily fall. The Epicurean hog (if we may be permitted to use an ancient phrase), at once filthy and cruel, who from his episcopal throne trampled brutally under foot the holiest rights, was unconsciously preparing in Geneva the glorious advent of the Reformation.

The meeting of the 5th of December was no sooner dissolved than the citizens dispersed through the town. The insolent request of the princes and the refusal of the people were the subject of every conversation: nothing else was talked of ‘in public or in private, at feast or funeral.’ The letter which demanded on behalf of Geneva an alliance with Friburg was not sealed like the bishop’s; it was openly displayed in the streets, and carried from house to house; a large number of citizens hastened to subscribe their names: there were three hundred signatures. It was necessary to carry this petition to Friburg; Berthelier, who was still under trial, could not leave the city; besides, it would be better to have a new man, more calm perhaps, and more diplomatic. They cast their eyes on the syndic Besançon Hugues, who in character held a certain mean between Berthelier the man of action, and Lévrier the man of law. ‘No one can be more welcome among the confederates than you,’ they said; ‘Conrad Hugues, your father, fought at Morat in the ranks of Zurich.’—‘I will go,’ he replied, ‘but as a mere citizen.’ They wished to give him a colleague of a more genial nature, and chose De la Mare. He had resided for some time on a property his wife possessed in Savoy; but the gentry of the neighbourhood ‘playing him many tricks,’ because he was a Genevan, he had returned to the city burning with hatred against the Savoyard dominion.

The two deputies met with a warm reception and great honour at Friburg. The pensioners of Savoy opposed their demand in vain; the three hundred Genevans who had signed the petition received the freedom of the city, with an offer to make the alliance general if the community desired it. On Tuesday, December 21, the two deputies returned to Geneva, and on the following Thursday the proposal of alliance was brought before the people in general council. It was to be a great day; and accordingly the two parties went to the council determined, each of them, to make a last effort. The partisans of absolutism and those of the civic liberties, the citizens attached to Rome and those who were inclined to throw off their chains, the old times and the new, met face to face. At first there were several eloquent speeches on both sides: ‘We will not permit law and liberty to be driven out of Geneva,’ said the citizens, ‘in order that arbitrary rule may be set up in their place. God himself is the guarantee of our franchises.’ They soon came to warmer language, and at last grew so excited that deliberation was impossible. The deputy from Friburg, who had returned with Hugues and De la Mare, strove in vain to calm their minds; the council was compelled to separate without coming to any decision. Switzerland had offered her alliance, and Geneva had not accepted it. 189

The friends of independence were uneasy; most of them were deficient in information and in arguments; they supplied the want by the instinct of liberty, boldness, and enthusiasm; but these are qualities that sometimes fail and fade away. Many of them accordingly feared that the liberties of Geneva would be finally sacrificed to the bishop’s good pleasure. The more enlightened thought, on the contrary, that the rights of the citizens would remain secure; that neither privilege, stratagem, nor violence would overthrow them; but that the struggle might perhaps be long, and if, according to the proverb, Rome was not built in a day, so it could not be thrown down in a day. These notable men, whose motto was ‘Time brings everything,’ called upon the people to be patient. This was not what the ardent Berthelier wanted. He desired to act immediately, and seeing that the best-informed men hesitated, he said: ‘When the wise will not, we make use of fools.’ He had again recourse to the young Genevans, with whom he had long associated, with a view of winning them over to his patriotic plans. He was not alone. Another citizen now comes upon the scene, a member of one of the most influential families in the city, by name Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, a man of noble and exalted character, bold, welcome everywhere, braving without measure all the traditions of old times, often turbulent, and the person who, more perhaps than any other, served to clear in Geneva the way by which the Reformation was to enter. These two patriots and some of their friends endeavoured to revive in the people the remembrance of their ancient rights. At the banquets where the young men of Geneva assembled, epigrams were launched against the ducal party, civic and Helvetic songs were sung, and among others one composed by Berthelier, the unpoetical but very patriotic burden of which was: Vivent sur tous, Messieurs les alliés!

Every day this chorus was heard with fresh enthusiasm. The wind blew in the direction of independence, and the popular waves continued rising. ‘Most of the city are joining our brotherhood,’ said Bonivard; ‘decidedly the townsfolk are the strongest.’ The Christmas holidays favoured the exultation of the citizens. The most hot-headed of the Genevan youths paraded the streets; at night they kindled bonfires in the squares (which they called ardre des failles ), and the boys, making torches of twisted straw, ran up and down the city, shouting: ‘Hurrah for the League! the huguenots for ever!’ Armed men kept watch throughout the city, and as they passed the houses of the mamelukes, they launched their gibes at them. ‘They were very merry,’ said Bonivard, ‘and made more noise than was necessary.’ The two parties became more distinct every day, the huguenots wearing a cross on their doublets and a feather in their caps, like the Swiss; the mamelukes carrying a sprig of holly on their head. ‘Whoever touches me will be pricked,’ said they, insolently pointing to it. Quarrels were frequent. When a band of the friends of Savoy happened to meet a number of the friends of the League, the former would cry out: ‘Huguenots!’ and the latter would reply: ‘We hold that title in honour, for it was taken by the first Swiss when they bound themselves by an oath against the tyranny of their oppressors!... But you mamelukes have always been slaves!’—‘Beware,’ said the vidame, ‘your proceedings are seditious.’—‘The necessity of escaping from slavery makes them lawful,’ replied Berthelier, Maison-Neuve, and their followers. The mountain torrent was rushing impetuously down, and men asked whether the dykes raised against it would be able to restrain its fury. 190