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

Bonivard, who thought himself free now that he had become poor, had to learn that the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. He was immediately given up by Voruz and the abbot to the duke, who had him conveyed to Gex by the captain of his guards. He asserted in vain that his only fault was being a friend of the huguenots and of the Swiss; Charles, in whose eyes that was a great crime, imprisoned him in the castle of Grolée, on the banks of the Rhone, two leagues from Belley. 252This first imprisonment, which lasted two years, was a foretaste of his harsher and longer captivity in the castle of Chillon. The duke put the abbot in possession of the priory of St. Victor; Voruz received his two hundred florins; the wicked triumphed, and Bonivard in his solitude gave way to gloomy thoughts. Was it at the bottom of an obscure dungeon that the new times of light and liberty were to begin?

The duke having struck the first blow, it was now the bishop’s turn. He was taking his holiday, travelling from Ripaille to Troches, from Troches to the castle of Bonne, thence to other adjoining places, and employing all his episcopal zeal in raising soldiers. On the 16th of August the peasants of these districts, who came to the market at Geneva, mentioned that the bishop was assembling armed men for his entrance into the city. The syndic De la Mare and one of his colleagues, alarmed for the future of the republic, set out immediately for Bonne, and commended the city to John’s episcopal tenderness. ‘Alas!’ they said, ‘it is stricken with the double scourge of the plague and the sword.’ The prelate, as false as his cousin, replied: ‘You have been deceived, gentlemen; I shall certainly enter Geneva to-morrow, but only with a hundred or a hundred and fifty footmen for my guard. I desire to live there merrily with the citizens and protect each one in his rights.’ 253De la Mare and his friend believed what John of Savoy told them, and made their report. The people of the city were somewhat reassured: that little weak and starveling bishop, who looked so like a corpse, seemed not a very formidable appearance to them. They resolved at least to hide the discontent and fears that they felt at heart. ‘The shops will be closed, as on a holiday,’ said the council, ‘and those who have horses will go out to meet his lordship.’

On Saturday, April 20, 1519, the syndics and a great part of the city were afoot. At four in the afternoon the bishop’s escort came in sight; the perfidious prelate, who was coming for the purpose of putting the noblest of the citizens to death, noted with a cunning look the handsome reception made him. Six hundred soldiers, stout rough men, surrounded the pastor of Geneva; ‘the bishop had thought that number necessary,’ say the annals, ‘to take Berthelier.’ The Genevans, remembering that John was only to bring with him one hundred or one hundred and fifty men-at-arms, counted ... and found six hundred. They saw that the prelate’s entrance was only a second edition of that of the duke. The bastard, satisfied with the welcome he received, proceeded immediately to his palace and without delay convened the general council for the next day. Sadness was in all men’s hearts.

On Sunday morning, when the people were assembled, the bishop appeared, surrounded by his councillors and courtiers. He seemed scarcely alive, but his sullen fierce look announced severe measures. ‘My lord not having many days to live,’ said the official, ‘desires that all things be put in order before his decease. He has therefore brought some soldiers with him that he may correct any who shall be mad enough to resist him.’ 254

After delivering this threatening message, the bishop returned hastily to his palace, where he remained shut up for two days without giving any signs of life. He had selected his first victim and was ruminating in silence on the means of sacrificing him. ‘He kept still,’ said Bonivard, ‘watching for Berthelier, whom he considered the leader of the flock.’ During this time his satellites, however, did not keep quiet. Being quartered on the huguenots, they stole all they could carry off; if resistance was made, they used insulting language; they went about marauding. But the bishop still gave no word or sign. This silence alarmed all the city, and every one expected what was going to happen. 255

One man alone in Geneva preserved a tranquil heart and serene look; it was Berthelier. He had not wished to escape either when Charles or when the bastard entered; he was vainly entreated to withdraw to Friburg; all was useless. He waited for death; the ‘cheat’ of hope (to use the common expression) did not deceive him. ‘The wolf is in the fold,’ said his friends, ‘and you will be the first victim.’ Berthelier listened, smiled, and passed on. In his opinion there could be no evil in life to him who has learnt that the privation of life is not an evil. He awaited calmly that tragical end which he had himself foretold, every day exposing himself to the attacks of his enemies. After the bishop’s arrival, ‘he went and came just as before; one would have said that, instead of fleeing death, he was running after it.’ 256

Without the city, in a solitary place then called Gervasa (now corrupted into Savoises ), was a quiet meadow, which the Rhone bathed with its swift waters: this was Berthelier’s favourite retreat. Remote from the noise of the city, seated on the picturesque bank of the river, watching its blue waves gliding rapidly past, he dwelt on the swiftness of time, and casting a serious glance into the future, he asked himself when would Geneva be free? ‘Every day he was in the habit of taking his pleasure there,’ say the annals, ‘and never omitted doing so, although at the time he had so many enemies in Geneva.’ 257

On Tuesday, August 23, he went out between six and seven to breathe the morning air in his favourite retreat. 258Berthelier was now forty years of age; everything foretold him that his end was near; but he preferred, without passion and without fear, to make the passage from life to death. This active and much-dreaded citizen began to sport, but with a serious gentleness, upon the brink of the grave. He had a little weasel which he was very fond of, and ‘for the greater contempt of his enemies,’ he had taken the tame ‘creature in his bosom, and thus walked out to his garden, playing with it.’ The vidame, who knew of these morning walks, had given orders for a certain number of soldiers to be posted outside the walls of the city, whilst he remained within, in order to take Berthelier from behind. Just as the latter was about to pass the gates, the troop that awaited him came forward. Berthelier, ‘always booted and ready to depart for the unknown shores of eternity,’ had no thought of returning to the city and arousing the youth of Geneva; he did not turn aside from the road, but continued gently caressing his weasel, and ‘walked straight towards the armed men, as proudly as if he was going to take them.’ 259

‘They met,’ says a manuscript, ‘under the trellis in front of the hostelry of the Goose,’ 260and the vidame, who was descending the hill on his mule, coming up with him at the same time, laid his hand upon his shoulder, saying: ‘In the name of my lord of Geneva, I arrest you,’ and prepared to take away his sword. Berthelier, who had only to sound his terrible whistle to collect enthusiastic defenders, stood calm, without a thought of resistance, and quietly handed his sword to the vidame, contenting himself with the words: ‘Take care what you do with this sword, for you will have to answer for it.’

The vidame placed him in the middle of his soldiers, and Berthelier marched off quietly, still carrying the weasel with him. The little timid animal thrust its pretty head into its master’s bosom, while the latter encouraged it by gentle caresses. In this way he arrived at the Château de l’Ile, and the vidame, stationing guards everywhere, even in the prisoner’s chamber, 261shut him up in Cæsar’s tower. On the spot where walls had formerly been erected by the destroyer of the liberties of Rome, a humble and almost unknown citizen, one of the founders of modern liberty, was to find a bloody prison. 262