Chapter XIII

DANGER TO WHICH GENEVA IS EXPOSED BY THE DEFEAT OF CAPPEL. (OCTOBER 1531 TO JANUARY 1532.)

[Sidenote: GENEVA AGAIN IN DANGER.]

The news of the war between the catholics and the reformed having reached Turin, the duke thought it a favourable opportunity for attacking Geneva. It was reported that five thousand lansquenets were approaching on the side of Burgundy, ten thousand Italians on the side of the Alps, and that all the states of his highness beyond the mountains were in motion to fall upon the city. 'There are certain heads in Geneva,' said the duke, 'that I purpose to set flying.' The Genevans lost not a moment. 'Let everything be destroyed that may obstruct the defence of the city,' said the council. 'Let all the suburbs be levelled—Eaux Vives on the left shore of the lake; St. Victor, at the other side of St. Antoine; St. Leger, up to the Arve; and the Corraterie as far as the Rhone. Let every man keep a good look-out; let no one be absent without leave; let those who are away return to defend the city; and let solemn prayers and processions be made for three days.'[876]

Thus, while Lucerne and the smaller cantons were attacking Zurich, the Duke of Savoy and the gentlemen of the Leman were preparing to attack Geneva. These two cities were in the sixteenth century the capitals of protestantism in Switzerland. Geneva, however, was still filled with priests and monks, while the choirs of all the churches reechoed with the matins and other chants of the Romish ritual,

De pieux fainéants y laissant en leur lieu,
A des chantres gagés, le soin de louer Dieu.

How did it happen that Geneva was at this time coupled with Zurich? It is because that city, though not yet won over to the Reformation, was predestined to be so: a solitary example, probably, of a state exposed to great dangers, not so much on account of what it is, as on account of what it will be. The beginnings of the evangelical faith to be found there were so very small, that they would not have sufficed to draw upon it the anathemas of the bishop and the armies of the duke; but the election of God was brooding over it; God prepared it, tried it, and delivered it, because of the great things for which he destined it. The adversaries of the Gospel seemed to have a secret presentiment of this; and they desired therefore to destroy by the same blow the city of Zwingle and that which was to be the city of Calvin.

[Sidenote: DEFEAT AT CAPPEL: TRIUMPH OF ROME.]

All the citizens were afoot. Some armed with arquebuses mounted guard; others marched out with their mattocks to level the suburbs. At this moment a messenger arrived from Switzerland announcing the defeat at Cappel: Zurich had succumbed.... At first the huguenots could not believe the mournful news; they made the messenger repeat it; but it was soon confirmed from various quarters, and the friends of independence and of the Reformation bent their heads in sorrow. The arm in which they had trusted was rudely broken. The protestant party throughout Switzerland was disheartened, while the Roman party rejoiced. It was told at Geneva that the mass had been restored at Bremgarten, Rapperschwyl, and Soleure, and in all the free bailiwicks, and that the monks were returning in triumph to their deserted cells. Was it possible for the Reformation to plant its banners on the shores of Lake Leman, at the very moment when it was expelled from those places where it seemed to have been so firmly established?

The Genevan catholics anticipated their triumph. The death of the Swiss reformer was (they thought) the end of the Reformation; they had only to strike the final blow. Their secret meetings became more numerous; detestable plots were concocted. The heroes of the old episcopal party, resuming their arrogant look, walked boldly in the streets of Geneva, some rattling their swords, others sweeping the ground with their long robes. If they chanced to meet any _suspected_ persons, they made contemptuous gestures at them, picked quarrels with them, insulted, and even struck them, and the outrages remained unpunished.[877] The Friburgers, in particular, thought everything was lawful against the evangelicals,[878] and desiring to subdue Geneva, emulous of the Waldstettes at the Albis, they marched through the streets in small bands, and whenever they discovered any huguenot, they surrounded him, carried him off, and threw him into prison without trial.[879] In this way the partisans of the bishop expected to restore him to his episcopal throne. Pierre de la Baume was getting ready to ascend it again.

The huguenots, astonished at the perpetration of such outrages in the presence of the Swiss, and even by the Swiss, applied once more to the Bernese, but in vain. The latter were unwilling to countenance a struggle in Geneva which they were checking in other quarters. 'Let there be no petulance, no violence,' they said; 'we have the orders of the senate.' But, as the Genevans were not disposed to remain quiet, the envoys of Berne assumed a grave countenance, and, putting on a magisterial haughtiness, dismissed their unseasonable visitors. The Genevans withdrew murmuring: 'What scandalous neglect and cowardice!' they said; 'Messieurs of Berne think a great deal more of this world than of the world to come.'—'The senate of Berne,' repeated Farel, 'would not put up with the slightest insult to one of their ambassadors, and yet they make light of serious insults offered to the Gospel of Christ.'[880]

[Sidenote: APPROACH OF THE DUKE AND HIS ARMY.]

The defeat of Zurich redoubled the energy of Duke Charles. Desirous of adorning his brows with laurels similar to those of the victors at Cappel, he gave orders for a general attack. The troops of Vaud and Savoy surrounded Geneva, and cut off the supplies; the boats were seized on both shores of the lake, and the duke arrived at Gex, three leagues from the city, with a strong force of cavalry to superintend the assault. Under these gloomy auspices the year 1532 began in Geneva. The danger appeared such that, at seven in the evening of the 2nd of January, all the heads of families assembled and resolved to keep night and day under arms, to wall up the gates, and to die rather than renounce the Swiss alliance and their dearest liberties. A greater misfortune was about to befall them.[881]

On the 7th of January, five days after this courageous resolution, three Bernese deputies, De Diesbach, De Watteville, and Nägueli, appeared before the council. Sadness was depicted on their faces, and everything betokened that they were the bearers of a distressful message. 'We are come from Gex, where the duke is lying,' they said. 'He consents to treat with you, if you will first renounce the alliance with the cantons. Remember, he is a mighty prince, and able to do you much harm. You have not yet paid for the last army we sent you; we cannot set another on foot. We conjure you to come to some arrangement with his highness.'

During this speech the Genevans flushed with anger and indignation. They could not understand how the proud canton of Berne could ask them to renounce the cause of independence and the Swiss alliance. The deputy having ended his address—the general council of the people had been convened to hear it—the premier syndic replied: 'We will listen to no arrangement except how to preserve the alliance. The more we are threatened, the firmer we shall be. We will maintain our rights even till death. We trust in God and in Messieurs of the two cities. And if, to pay you what we owe, we must pawn our property, our wives, and our children, we will do so. As for the alliance, we are resolved to live and die for it.' The syndic had scarcely done speaking, when all the people cried out: 'So be it! We will do nothing else—we will die first!' The arquebusiers of Jean Philippe and of Richardet were of the same mind. The ambassadors thought it strange that they should dare to resist Berne. 'We will carry your answer back to our lords,' they said, 'and they will do what pleases them.' They then retired. The people held up their hands, and all swore to be faithful to the alliance.

The Bernese envoys had left. The people were in great agitation. The cause of liberty had just been vanquished at Cappel; the armies of the duke surrounded the city, and the Swiss desired to cancel the alliance. Geneva was not exempt from secret terrors: the women shed tears, and even the men felt an oppression like that of the nightmare; but enthusiasm for liberty prevailed over every fear. Deprived of the help of men, the Genevans raised their eyes to heaven. Many of them experienced extraordinary emotions, and were the victims of strange spectral hallucinations. One night, the sentries posted on the walls saw seven headless horsemen, dressed in black, keeping guard around the city. They were dressed in black, for all Geneva was in mourning; they were without heads, for no one could reckon upon preserving his own; and then these Genevans fancied, in their enthusiasm, that they could defend Geneva, even when their heads were off. The duke, having learnt that some mysterious allies had come to the help of the city, quitted Gex, and hurried off to Chambéry. It is probable, however, that his conference with the three lords of Berne had more influence in arresting the execution of his designs, than the apparition of the seven black horsemen.[882]

[Sidenote: GOD PREPARES GENEVA BY TRIAL.]

The trials, the terrors, the repeated attacks that Geneva was forced to undergo at the hands of her enemies, are the characteristics of her history at the epoch of the Reformation. Her citizens, plundered, hunted down, captured, thrown into the dungeons of the castles, always between life and death, lived continually in the apprehension of an assault, and almost every year their fears were changed into terrible realities; of this we have seen several instances, and we shall see more. There is probably no city of the sixteenth century which arrived at the possession of truth and liberty through such great perils. When their supplies failed, when their communications, with Switzerland were interrupted, when no one could leave the city, when all around the arms of the Savoyards were seen flashing in the rays of the sun, the citizens no doubt displayed an heroic courage; but yet the women and the aged men, and even men in the vigour of life, felt a mortal fear and anguish. 'Christians are not logs of wood,' it was said subsequently in this city, and we may well apply the words to the Genevans of this epoch; 'they are not so devoid of human feeling, that they are not touched by sorrow, that they do not fear danger, that poverty is not a burden to them, and persecution sharp and difficult to bear. This is why they feel sad when they are tried.'[883] Long ago in the early days of Christianity, famines, earthquakes, plagues, persecution, and afterwards, at the period of the invasion of the barbarians, the devastations with which that calamity was attended, made serious souls feel the presence of God, and led them to the cross. An earthquake which threw down part of the city of Philippi, terrified a gaoler, until then hardened in superstition, humbled him, and made him listen to the teaching of the disciples which he had previously despised;[884] and, later still, a similar calamity in Africa brought a great number of pagans to confess the Gospel and be baptised.

It was by such trials as these that Geneva was now prepared. God was ploughing the field which he wished to sow. Distresses and deliverances continually repeated revealed to thoughtful men the power of God: to this even the Registers of the Council bear witness. Did this rough school lead any souls further? Were there any who sought beyond the world for life incorruptible?... The inward travail of men's minds is generally concealed, and the chroniclers give us no information on this point (it is not their department); but we cannot doubt that the end for which God sent the trial was attained. Perhaps at that time there were souls which, in the midst of the evils they saw around them, were led to discover in themselves the supreme evil—sin; perhaps in some private chamber humble voices were then raised to heaven; perhaps the judgments of God, which were suspended over their heads and those of their wives and children, induced some to dread the last judgment; and perhaps there were many who embraced the eternal love, that inexhaustible source of salvation, who believed in the Gospel of the Son of God and found peace therein. We know not what took place in the secret depths of men's hearts; but certainly the times which we are describing were times of trial which contributed to make Geneva what it subsequently became: it was a 'burning furnace from which came forth fine brass.'[885] If Geneva shone out in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was partly because at the epoch of the Reformation it had been sorely tried, and, if the expression be allowable, 'brightly burnished.'—'We are as it were annealed in the furnace of God,' may be said of this city, 'and the scum of our faith has been thus purged away.'[886]

[Sidenote: SWISS PATRICIANS CANCEL THE ALLIANCE.]

On the 7th of February, 1532, five ambassadors—two from Berne, and three from Friburg—with Sebastian de Diesbach at their head, appeared at Geneva before the Council of Two Hundred; they were the representatives of the Swiss aristocracy, of those proud captains who figured in battles and appeared in the courts of kings. They discharged their mission with as little ceremony as they observed in taking cities, and demanded that Geneva should renounce its alliance with the Swiss and put the Duke of Savoy again in possession of his supremacy.... What will the Genevans do? Even Friburg, which had at first appeared favourable to them, failed them now.... Two hundred voices exclaimed: 'We will die sooner!' The next day, when the general council was assembled, the greatest excitement prevailed among them; everybody seemed eager to speak at once; loud clamours arose on every side: 'All the people began to shout,' say the minutes of this assembly. The language of Diesbach was urgent, imperative, and threatening.... A hurricane was blowing over Geneva; the tree must bend or break. But it neither bent nor broke. The ambassadors, amazed and indignant, returned to their own country.[887]

The Genevans, left alone, asked what was to be done.... The cup was overflowing. Suddenly a happy idea crossed the minds of certain patriots. Although the patricians and pensioners are opposed to the rights of Geneva, will not the people, and the grand council which represents them, be in favour of liberty? When the Reformation was established at Berne, in 1528, the noblest resolutions were formed. The indigent had been clothed with the church ornaments, the pensions of the princes renounced, and the military capitulations which bound the Swiss to the service of foreign powers abolished. Then the enthusiasm had cooled down; the pensioners regretted the old times; they tampered with the more influential people of the city, and exasperated them against the alliance with Geneva which displeased their old master the duke. 'Let us make an attempt,' exclaimed some of the Genevese, 'to revive in Berne the noble aspirations for Reform and liberty.' Robert Vandel and two other deputies departed for the banks of the Aar.

Vandel was well suited for this mission. Ever since the day when he saw his aged father illegally seized by the bishop and thrown into prison, he had given his heart to independence, as he subsequently gave it to the Gospel. He knew that the people had retained their sympathy for Geneva, and that if the patricians prevailed in the little council, the citizens prevailed in the great council: he therefore appeared before this body. He explained to them the dangers of the Genevans, their love of independence, and their resolution to risk everything rather than separate from the Swiss. His language moved the hearts of the Bernese, and the good cause prevailed. 'We will maintain the alliance,' they said; 'and, if necessary, we will march to defend your rights.' Friburg adopted the resolutions of Berne.[888] Thus after the trial came the deliverance; Geneva began to breathe freely. Yet another sorrow was in store for it.

[Sidenote: RESIGNATION AND DEATH OF HUGUES.]

On the 20th of February, Besançon Hugues appeared before the council and resigned all his functions. 'I am growing old,' he said (he was only forty-five); 'I have many children, and I desire to devote myself to my own affairs.' There is no doubt that the motives assigned by Hugues had some part in his determination; we may, however, ask if they were the only ones. He watched attentively the movement of men's minds in Geneva, and, being devoted to Roman-catholicism and the bishop, he could not help seeing that the opposite party was gaining more followers every day. He had spared neither time, trouble, fortune, nor health to bring about the alliance with the Swiss. Seeing that it existed no longer solely in the parchments of the archives, but in the hearts of the people, he thought that he had fulfilled his task, and that for the new work Geneva ought to have new leaders. If Hugues was not old, he was ailing; he already felt the approaches of that disease which carried him off a few months later. He declined rapidly, and breathed his last towards the end of the year.

The death of Besançon Hugues did not proceed from an ordinary sickness: he died of a broken heart. Although still a catholic, at the moment when the Reform was about to enter his country, a crown ought to be laid upon his grave. The continual anxiety which the perils of Geneva had caused him; more than forty official missions; his incessant labours in the Genevan cause; the new burdens continually imposed upon him; the reverses which rent his heart; his precipitate flight, his dangers on the roads and in the cities, cold, watchings, and the cares of a family—('I commend to you my poor household,' he said sometimes in his letters to the council); his disappointments; the reproaches he had to endure from both parties; his struggles with the pensioners, the agents of Savoy, the knights of the Spoon, and some of his fellow-citizens—all these vexations contributed to his disease and death. The head of Besançon Hugues did not fall under the sword of the executioner, like those of Berthelier and Lévrier; but the pacific hero sank under the weight of fatigue and sorrow. An invisible sword struck him; and it may be said that the deaths of the three great men of Genevan emancipation were the deaths of martyrs.

[Footnote 876: Registres du Conseil du 11 octobre 1531.]

[Footnote 877: 'Alii impune injuria afficiuntur.'—Zwingl. _Epp._ ii. p. 648.]

[Footnote 878: 'Nihil pene non licet Friburgensibus in pios.'—Ibid.]

[Footnote 879: 'Indicta causa, rapiuntur in carceres.'—Zwingl. _Epp._ ii. p. 648.]

[Footnote 880: 'Non putarim senatum Bernensem olim ita laturum levem injuriam in nuntium sicut gravem in Evangelium perfert.'—Ibid.]

[Footnote 881: Registres du Conseil du 2 janvier 1532.]

[Footnote 882: Registres du Conseil des 7, 8, 9 janvier 1532. Savyon, _Annales_.]

[Footnote 883: Calvin on 1 Peter i. 7.]

[Footnote 884: Acts xvi. 23, 24.]

[Footnote 885: Revelation i. 15.]

[Footnote 886: Calvin.]

[Footnote 887: Registres du Conseil des 4, 7, 8 février 1532.]

[Footnote 888: _History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century_, bk. xv. ch. iii. Ruchat, ii. p. 83. Galiffe fils, _B. Hugues_, p. 442.]