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

The period for electing the syndics having arrived, it was determined to raise to the chief magistracy citizens fitted to maintain the rights of the country; and the name of Hugues was in every mouth. He was returned, as well as Montyon, Pensabin, and Balard. With Hugues for their chief, Geneva feared nothing. But the honest citizen refused the office to which he had been elected. His friends came round him and entreated him to accept: he seemed the only pilot able to steer the ship of the State through the numerous shoals. ‘The bishop is your friend; he will protect you,’ they said.—‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘as he protected Lévrier.’—‘If you refuse,’ said Balard, ‘we shall refuse also.’—‘The duke,’ replied Hugues, ‘has forbidden me personally to meddle in city affairs; I have given him my promise. Lévrier’s death has taught us what the duke’s wrath can do. I would rather be a confessor than a martyr.’ Did Hugues give way to a momentary weakness? We may be allowed to doubt it. He desired to keep the promise he had made, and had other motives besides. Thinking that he would be of little use in the council, and that Geneva must be saved by other means, he wished to remain free in his movements. But many could not understand him, and their anger broke through all restraint. ‘Hugues is wanting in his most sacred duties,’ they said. These proud republicans spared nobody. His friend and brother-in-law, the ex-syndic Baud, captain of the artillery, proposed to the council-general to deprive him of his citizenship for one year. Strange contradiction! almost at the same moment this man was raised to the head of the republic and in danger of being expelled from it. But the people seemed to have an instinctive sentiment that Hugues would not be wanting at last: ‘He gives way now,’ they said, ‘only to succeed better hereafter.’ Baud’s proposition was rejected. 363

Geneva began by a singular measure. The general council having assembled in the church of St. Pierre on the 10th of January, 1525, it was resolved to appeal to the pope against the attacks of Savoy, and delegates were despatched to lay the appeal before him. The Genevans were men of precedent: they desired to have recourse to a tribunal recognised for ages. ‘The popes,’ observed some of them, ‘are the defenders of the liberties of the people.’ But others, like Bonivard, well read in history, shook their heads, and argued that if princes had been excommunicated by popes, it was not for having violated the liberties of their people, but for resisting the ambition of pontiffs. They mentioned Philip Augustus and Philip the Fair. The appeal to the pope would serve to show that he took part with oppressors only. However, the deputies of Geneva started on their journey. It was ten years before the day when the Reformation was proclaimed within its walls. This measure is a remarkable indication of the peaceful and loyal sentiments by which the magistrates were animated.

At the same time the syndics waited upon the bishop’s official; they would have liked for the bishop himself to plead their cause before the pope. ‘If my lord consents to pass the mountains and support us at Rome,’ said they, ‘we will give him a hundred gold crowns, and will add five-and-twenty for you.’ The official smiled: ‘A hundred crowns!’ he said, ‘that will not be enough to shoe his horses.’—‘We will give him two hundred, then,’ answered the syndics. The bishop, who was always short of money, put this sum into his purse, and then endeavoured to arrange the matter without disturbing himself, by merely sending a deputy to Chambéry.

Never was deputy worse received. The president of the ducal council, annoyed that so small a city should dare resist a prince so mighty as his master, looked contemptuously at the deputy and exclaimed: ‘The duke is sovereign prince of Geneva. What was Geneva a hundred years ago? a paltry town. Who is it that made this town into a city? The duke’s subjects who owe him toll and service. 364The Genevans desire us to cancel the penalties pronounced against them.... Ha, ha! Messieurs of Geneva, we will increase them. If within a month from this you do not make your submission, we will send you so many soldiers, that you must e’en take the trouble to obey his Highness.’ The destruction of the liberties of Geneva seemed to be at hand.

The Genevans now had recourse to the bishop a second time, and conjured him to pass the Alps. Between this second demand and the first, many events had occurred in the political world. Pierre de la Baume was a zealous agent of the imperialist party, and the emperor had informed him that he wanted him for certain matters. Flattered that Charles V. should send for him, he appeared to grant the Genevese their prayer. ‘I will go,’ he said, and immediately quitted Geneva. Bonivard, who knew La Baume well, smiled as he saw the simple burgesses giving their prince-bishop two hundred crowns to defend them. ‘He is a great spendthrift,’ said the prior, ‘and in his eyes the sovereign virtue of a prelate consists in keeping a good table and good wine; he indulges beyond measure. Besides, he is very liberal to women, and strives to show the nobility of his descent by great pomp and not by virtue.... You have given him two hundred crowns ... what will he do with the money? He will gamble or squander it away in some other manner.’ 365And in fact he had hardly arrived at Turin, when, without pleading the cause of Geneva, without visiting Rome to defend it before the pope, he set off instantly for Milan, where, as agent of Charles V., he plotted against Francis I. But of the pope and of Geneva, not a word.

Such was the episcopal tenderness of Pierre de la Baume. To deliver from foreign and tyrannical oppression the country of which he was both prince and bishop was not in his opinion worth the trouble of taking a single step; but if it were required to go and intrigue in Lombardy for the potentate whom he looked upon as the arbiter of the world, a nod was sufficient to make him hasten thither.

As for the Genevese delegates, Rome saw no more of them than of their bishop: the court of Turin had found the means of stopping them on the road. Besides, had they reached the banks of the Tiber, there was no danger that Clement VII. would have taken up their cause; he would have laughed at such strange ambassadors. All was going on well for the duke; he had succeeded in completely isolating the weak and proud city. 366

This prince resolved to bring matters to an end with a restless people who gave him more trouble than his own states. He quitted Turin, crossed the mountains, and ‘lodged at Annecy,’ says Bonivard. In order to succeed, he resolved to employ a smiling lip and a strong hand; the use of such contrary means was as natural as it was politic in him: Charles was always blowing hot and cold. If Geneva sent him deputies, he said: ‘Upon the honour of a gentleman, I desire that the letters I have granted in your favour should be observed.’ But another day, the same man who had appeared as gentle as a lamb became as fierce as a wolf; he had the deputies seized and thrown into dungeons, as well as any Genevans who ventured into his territories. The soldiers ransacked the country-houses lying round Geneva, carried away the furniture, and drank the wine; they also cut off the supplies of the city, which was a scandalous violation of the most positive treaties. 367

Still the appeal to Rome made the duke uneasy. The prince of Rome was a priest, the prince of Geneva was a priest also: Charles feared that the two priests would play him some ugly trick behind his back. He determined, therefore, to employ intrigue rather than force, to induce the people to confer on him the superior jurisdiction, which would put him in a position to monopolise the other rights of sovereignty; he resolved to ask for it as if he were doing the Genevese a great favour. Accordingly on the 8th of September the vidame appeared before the council as if he had come to make the most generous proposition in behalf of his Highness. ‘On the one hand,’ he said, ‘you will withdraw the appeal from Rome; and on the other, the duke will put an end to all the annoyances of which you complain.’ And then he demanded the superior jurisdiction in Geneva for the duke, as if it were mere surplusage. Charles expected this time to attain his end. Indeed, his numerous partisans in the city, seeing that the decisive moment had arrived, everywhere took up the matter warmly. ‘Let us accept,’ said the mameluke Nergaz. ‘If we refuse these generous proposals, our property and our fellow-citizens will never be restored, and none of us will be able to leave our narrow territory without being shut up in his Highness’s prisons.’—‘Let us accept,’ answered all the ducal partisans. Geneva was about to become Savoyard; and the humble but real part reserved for her in history would never have existed. Then the most courageous patriots—Besançon Hugues, Jean Philippe, the two Bauds, Michael Sept, Syndic Bouvier, who had been named in place of Hugues, Ami Bandière, the two Rosets, John Pécolat, and John Lullin—exclaimed: ‘If we love the good things of this life so much, our only gain will be to lose them and our liberty with them. The duke entices us to-day, only to enslave us to-morrow. Let us fear neither exile, nor imprisonment, nor the axe. Let us secure the independence of Geneva, though it be at the price of our blood.’ Even Bouvier, a weak and wavering character, was electrified by these noble words, and added: ‘Rather than consent to this demand, I will leave the city and go to Turkey!’ ... ‘No compromise with the duke!’ repeated all the independents. The mamelukes persisted: they pointed to the fields lying fallow, to the Genevans in prison ... and without touching upon the question of the superior jurisdiction (for that was inadmissible) they demanded that the appeal of Geneva against the duke should be withdrawn. There was a majority of eleven in favour of this proposition; forty-two votes were given against it, and fifty-three for it. It was strange that the huguenots supported the appeal to the pope. The pope (very innocently, it must be confessed) seemed to be on the side of liberty.... The party of independence was vanquished. 368