Chapter XIII

SYNOD OF ZURICH.--THE BERNESE AMBASSADORS CONDUCT CALVIN BACK
TO GENEVA.--HE CANNOT ENTER THE TOWN.

(END OF APRIL TO END OF MAY, 1538.)

[Sidenote: FAREL AND CALVIN AT ZURICH.]

Farel and Calvin did not allow themselves to hesitate by reason of the obduracy of their enemies. They were determined to do all they could to save the Church and likewise the town of Geneva from the calamities which, in the opinion of good men in Switzerland, must certainly fall upon them. The synod of the reformed Churches of this country, to the decision of which they had appealed, was now sitting at Zurich. They went thither without delay, to inform the assembly of the important events which had taken place at Geneva, and to claim its mediation. The deputies of Basel, Berne, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Glaris, Mulhausen, and Bienne, in conjunction with the doctors of Zurich, constituted the assembly, which sat from April 29 to May 3. Bucer and Capito had also come from Strasburg to be present at it. The principal business of the synod was the union with Luther, who at that time showed a conciliatory disposition. All the members, except Kunz, the Bernese deputy, received the two exiles with true Christian cordiality. It appears that Farel and Calvin found relief and relaxation in this meeting of brethren. From their life at Geneva, constantly in the presence of violent adversaries, they had probably experienced a kind of moral tension. But the loyal affection of the Swiss allowed their minds to unbend, and their souls expanded in the sunshine of charity. After being engaged on matters relating to the _Concordia_ of Wittenberg, the synod passed on to the subject of rites, and decided that with respect to them the Churches ought to retain full liberty--a resolution favorable to Calvin and Farel. After settling this point, the synod took into consideration the state of Geneva. Calvin laid before it the divisions and troubles which afflicted the Church, the forlorn condition to which the good Christians were reduced, and the dangers to which the Reformation was there exposed. He displayed no obstinacy with respect to subordinate points, but immovable firmness on those which he believed to be indispensable to the prosperity of Geneva. He readily assented to the use of baptismal fonts; and also, he added, the introduction ‘into our Church of unleavened bread; but,’ said he, ‘we desire to request of the Bernese that this bread should be broken.’[669] The act of _breaking bread_, according to the institution and the practice of the apostles, appeared to him essential to the symbol which was intended to commemorate the body of the Lord offered in sacrifice. He felt somewhat perplexed about the question of the festivals; but he gave his consent to four of them, on condition that any persons who might desire it should be at liberty to work after the service. He was anxious not to open the door to the uproar and licentiousness which characterize the Roman populations during the latter part of those festival days.[670] He continued: ‘If there be any thought of reëstablishing us at Geneva, we demand first of all that we should be allowed to clear ourselves of the calumnies which have been heaped on us. We have been condemned unheard, and that,’ said he, ‘is an inhuman, a barbarous proceeding, not to be tolerated.[671] Next, it will be essential to establish discipline, for want of which all that we may restore would soon be overthrown. We demand that the town should be divided into parishes, for no order is possible in the church unless the flock be near its pastor, and the pastor near his flock. We demand that a seasonable use of excommunication should be allowed; and that, for this purpose, the council should select in the several quarters of the town upright and wise men to whom, by common consent, its control should be intrusted. We demand that in the institution of pastors legitimate order should be maintained, and that the authority of the magistrate should not supersede the laying-on of hands, which ministers ought to receive. We demand a more frequent administration of the supper; that it should be celebrated, if not according to the custom of the early Church,[672] at least once a month. We demand that with the public preaching should be joined the singing of psalms. Finally, we demand that, as our own townsmen bring forward the example of the countries which are subject to Berne in justification of lascivious songs and dances,[673] the Bernese should be entreated to put an end to such profligacy in their own states, in order that our people may not take advantage of it to justify themselves in similar excesses.’

[Sidenote: THEIR MODERATION.]

The above articles, fourteen in number, were in Calvin’s handwriting, but they were read to the synod by Bucer.[674] Calvin and Farel were probably unwilling to put themselves too forward, and preferred to have the question settled on its merits, independently of their personal leaning; and they selected the most moderate of the theologians of the period to be its exponent. Calvin was not a man to exalt himself in the feeling of his own righteousness; he knew by experience that ‘in many ways we offend all.’ ‘We know,’ he said afterwards to Farel, when speaking to him of what had just taken place, ‘we know that our adversaries cannot calumniate us to any further extent than God permits, and we know the end which He has in view in permitting it at all. Let us therefore humble ourselves; unless we choose to contend with God because He humbles us;[675] but let us not cease to wait on Him. “The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under foot,” said the prophet (Isaiah xxviii. 3). Let us acknowledge before God, and before his people, that it is to some extent owing to our incompetency, indolence, carelessness, and mistakes that the Church committed to our care has fallen into so lamentable a condition. But let us also maintain, as it is our duty to do, our own innocence and purity against those who by their fraud, malignity and wickedness have certainly caused this ruin.’[676] Calvin, in charging himself with indolence, assuredly went too far. But it was not to his colleague only that he spoke in this way; he did not hesitate to express the same views before the synod. While depicting the dangers of Geneva, ‘the destruction which seemed to threaten’ the edifice reared by Farel and himself, ‘We openly acknowledge,’ he said to the deputies of the Swiss Churches assembled at Zurich, ‘that in some things we have perhaps been too severe, and on those points we are ready to listen to reason.’[677]

The synod did not censure the reformers. It advised them, indeed, to use ‘moderation and Christian gentleness, necessary with that uncultivated people;’[678] but it acknowledged that, far from displaying obstinacy in unimportant matters, the reformers in their fourteen articles demanded only what is just, legitimate and important. It is true that a Christian ought not to be appointed minister by the mere decree of a council of state, but, after examination, by the laying-on of hands of the elders or pastors. It is true that a more frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper was according to the Word of God. The subject of greatest delicacy was excommunication. But could not the Genevese commit the management of it _to upright and discreet laymen_, elected by the councils, themselves an elected body? The good sense of the Swiss told them that men entirely destitute of Christian character ought not to form part of a Christian society.

[Sidenote: THE JUSTICE OF THEIR CAUSE.]

Not one of the theologians present at the synod seems to have taken the cause of Calvin more to heart than the man who, with Melanchthon, was perhaps the most cautious of the reformers, Capito. A man of naturally gentle spirit, he had nevertheless displayed courage in recalling Luther to moderation, and in doing the same afterwards with respect to his colleague of Strasburg, Mathias Zell. He approved of the course of Farel and Calvin; he even set himself to console them. ‘There is nothing disgraceful,’ he said to them, ‘in your banishment, and we have no fear that it will prove hurtful to the Church. Your enemies themselves only reproach you with too much warmth of zeal. Unhappily, there are not wanting ministers who teach the Gospel without discipline; who prefer to hold an office which they treat as nothing more than an office that yields profit. This leads to license instead of the liberty of Christ.[679] Discipline is necessary to the Churches. Some persons fancy that what each man may do is no concern of ours; as if Christ had not said that if a man has a hundred sheep, and only one of them go astray he must go in search of it. What! because the authority of the papacy has been cast off, must the power of the Word and of the ministry be treated as likewise abolished? Some one may say, I know enough of the Gospel; I can read; what do I want with you? Preach to those who wish to hear you! Ah! discipline is a thing to which our Churches are not accustomed, a thing which flesh and blood detest. Ought we then to wonder that you have not been able, you two alone, to reform at once a town so large?’[680]

The assembly therefore approved the fourteen articles presented by Calvin and Farel, and then ‘declared the causes of their banishment from Geneva to be not legitimate.’[681] In the eyes of these Swiss Christians assembled at Zurich, these two exiles were the glory of the Reformation; doctors whose praise was in all the Churches; two of the prime movers in the great transformation which was being effected in Christendom. The honor, the duty of the Christians of Switzerland, demanded that these pious and illustrious men, victims of passions hostile to the Gospel, should be restored to the position in which God had set them. The synod, therefore, wrote to Geneva, and earnestly requested measures adapted to raise the Church up again, and particularly the recall of the pastors. At the same time, it recommended the Bernese, and especially Kunz, to support this request; and Kunz accepted the charge. Zurich being desirous likewise of doing something, Bullinger wrote on the subject, May 4, to the provost de Watteville. Farel and Calvin then returned to Berne, disposed to endure with patience and meekness, but at the same time full of hope.[682]

A man of whose ill-will they had already had experience was soon to disturb their joy. Kunz, who had been first a pastor at Erlenbach, had contributed to the Reformation in the lower Siebenthal. He was, so far as we can learn, born of a well-to-do family of peasants of those parts,[683] and had retained a certain rusticity and coarseness. A partisan, of energetic character, passionately earnest for everything that concerned the cause which he had embraced, blind and unjust towards the opposite opinions, with no kindly feeling for his adversaries, he fell easily into the indulgence of animosities, jealousies, and quarrels; and had sometimes as much trouble to get on with those of his own party as to endure those who belonged to the other side. With reference to the matter in hand, his hostility had to his mind an excuse. If he warmly opposed Calvin and Farel, it was because the slight interest which they felt in the question about unleavened bread and in other analogous questions might, in his opinion, annoy the Germans, whose indefatigable champion in Switzerland he had constituted himself. He had appeared to share the sentiments expressed to Calvin and Farel by the synod of Zurich, which was unanimous in their favor. He had no wish, in the presence of so considerable an assembly, to give way to his personal hatred. But the reformers were to lose nothing by this reserve. He awaited them at Berne. There Kunz would be on his own ground, and let the adversaries of human traditions beware!

[Sidenote: HOSTILITY OF KUNZ.]

Calvin and Farel, when they reached Berne, did not find Kunz there. They had to wait for him eight days.[684] He was at Nidau, at a meeting of pastors before whom, forgetting the solemn promise which he had made at Zurich,[685] he had said, ‘I have been requested to go to Geneva to restore those exiles; but I would much rather renounce my ministry and quit my country than assist those men who, I know, have treated me frightfully.’ This delay, considering the present position of the two reformers, put their patience to the proof. They waited, however, convinced that the blame would be thrown on them if the business failed in consequence of their departure. When at length they heard of the arrival of Kunz, they went to his house, and found him in company with Sebastian Meyer and Erasmus Ritter. There, in his own house, he let himself out at his ease. He began with long complaints and finished with violent insults.[686] Calvin and Farel, who had not anticipated this outburst, received it, however, quietly; for they knew that if they answered him with any sharpness, the only effect would be to throw the hotheaded Kunz into a great fit of rage.[687] Ritter and Meyer joined with them in the endeavor to pacify him. When he was a little calm, he said to them, ‘I wish to know whether you ask me to interfere in your business; for I foresee that if it should end otherwise than as you desire, you will blame me for it.’ They assured him three times over that they had no intention of changing anything in the mission with which the synod had charged him and which he had accepted. But they talked to no purpose. Kunz, who was very desirous to be freed from that duty, went on incessantly harping on the same string. At last, exhausted with his passion and wearied with the noise that he had made, ‘I will do,’ said he, ‘what I ought to do.’ They then parted, agreeing to discuss the subject on the following day.

[Sidenote: HIS WRATH.]

The next day, then, at the hour appointed, Calvin and Farel went to the Hôtel de Ville. They had to wait two hours. Then word was brought to them that the ministers had too much business in the Consistory to be able to attend to them. After dinner the two Genevese reformers again presented themselves; and, the assembly having taken up the matter, they were very much surprised to hear that the first thing to do was to examine carefully the fourteen articles already approved by the synod of Zurich. They suppressed the feelings which this indignity excited in them and consented. There was hardly a syllable in the articles to which objection was not taken;[688] and when they came to the question of unleavened bread, Kunz lifted up his voice, and apostrophizing the two reformers, said, ‘You have disturbed all the Churches of Germany, which were till then at peace, by your unseasonable and passionate innovations.’ Calvin replied that it was not they who had introduced the use of leavened bread; that the practice existed in the early Church, and that traces of it were found even in the papacy. But Kunz would listen to nothing, and grew more and more violent.[689] His colleagues, wishing to put an end to this dispute, begged that they would pass on to the third article, which related to festivals. Thereupon matters became much worse. Kunz did not confine himself to loud talking; he rose violently from the table, and his whole body shook with rage, so that his colleagues attempted in vain to restrain him.[690] ‘It is false,’ said he, ‘that the articles have been approved at Zurich.’ ‘On that point we appeal,’ replied Calvin, with firmness, ‘to the testimony of all who were present at the Synod.’ When Kunz had come a little to himself, he accused the two doctors of intolerable craft; the articles, he said, being full of exceptions. ‘We thought, on the contrary,’ Calvin very justly replied, ‘that we gave evidence of sincerity in thus plainly and openly making exceptions where they ought to be made.’ The two reformers withdrew with deep feeling from the strange scene which they had just witnessed. Two years afterwards, Farel still wrote to his friend, ‘Every time that the recollection of Kunz returns to my mind, I am filled with horror at that Fury who had no consideration for the Church, but whom the devil made beside himself with hatred against me.’[691] Kunz pretended that the two reformers wished to withdraw, and not to keep the promise made at Zurich. Calvin, on the contrary, said, ‘We are ready to do anything sooner than not try all means of providing for the wants of religion, and of acquitting ourselves of our duty towards the Church.’[692] As Kunz and his friends declined their mission, there was no one else to take the matter in hand but the senate of Berne.

A few days later, Farel and Calvin were received by that body. The representations which the Bernese were to make at Geneva, in conformity with the decisions of the synod of Zurich, could not but be very disagreeable to those who wished to introduce the Bernese rites into that town. Must Berne plead against Berne? Did ever any one hear of such a thing? No state whatever voluntarily undertakes to discharge such a duty; and least of all a state which, like Berne, had the reputation of being positive and inflexible in its views. The council therefore attempted to induce Calvin and Farel to renounce their fourteen articles, but this they refused to do. They were then asked to retire. When they were recalled the same attempt was again made, three times over, within an hour.[693] ‘It belongs to the Church,’ they replied, ‘to establish uniformity in a lawful manner.’ It has already been established, said the council. ‘Yes,’ they answered, ‘but by a handful of seditious men, who at the same time cried that we should be thrown into the Rhone.[694] We are resolved to endure everything rather than seem to approve the measures adopted for securing uniformity.’ Farel and Calvin could not answer otherwise: one cannot yield to evil. The Bernese council gave way; thus displaying on this occasion an independence and a sense of justice that were most honorable.

[Sidenote: AGITATION IN GENEVA.]

Having once more called in the reformers, the council announced to them that two envoys from the senate should accompany them, and that when they came within four miles of Geneva, Calvin and Farel should stop, while the Bernese lords go on their way. The place named by the Bernese was below the village of Genthod; this was perhaps at that time on the frontier. The deputies of Berne were to require of the council of Geneva the return of Farel and Calvin; and in case they obtained it they were to conduct them into the town, and to see to it that they were reinstated in their ministry. Farel and Calvin represented that if this course were taken they would seem to be restored only because they acknowledged themselves to be in the wrong, which they could not do. They complained also that no minister formed part of the embassy. The council, consequently, adopted a new resolution, according to which the two reformers should immediately enter the town, and the Bernese envoys should present to the people the fourteen articles of Zurich, in the presence of Farel and Calvin, in order that, if any objection should be raised, the latter might reply to it without delay. The reformers should then set forth their cause, and, if their justification were accepted, they should be restored to their offices. Two ministers, Erasmus Ritter and Viret, were to accompany them. ‘We are now setting out on our journey,’ wrote Calvin to Bullinger; ‘may it please the Lord to prosper it. To him we look to guide us in our goings, and it is from his wise disposal that we expect success.’[695] The delegation set out, and was joined by Viret at Lausanne.

Meanwhile it had become known at Geneva that Calvin and Farel were returning, under the conduct and the patronage of delegates from the state of Berne. This news created much astonishment. What! these two ministers were banished for having refused to adopt the ritual of Berne, and now Berne takes them into her favor and brings them back! Berne appreciated the grandeur of the Reformation and the worth of the reformers. But there were some of the Genevese who could not see beyond their own walls, and who seemed to have no apprehension whatever of the great change which was renewing all Christendom, and of which Calvin and Farel were two of the most illustrious agents. The confirmation of the tidings caused a great stir in men’s minds. The council determined to refuse the reformers permission to enter the town, and the most violent of their adversaries resolved to oppose their return by force. An ambush was laid at some distance from the ramparts, and twenty gladiators, as Calvin calls them, were posted in arms at the very gate of the city, as if the repulse of a hostile force were intended.[696] The deputation was not more than a mile from Geneva when a messenger of the council met them.[697] He handed to the Bernese ambassadors a dispatch from the council, in which it was written, ‘To prevent a scandal, do not bring back Farel and Calvin, for it would be in violation of the decree passed by the community, and of the will of the same.’[698] But their conscience bore them witness that their cause was good, and they desired to get this acknowledged on the part of those whom God had committed to their care. They were therefore willing to pursue their journey, not suspecting what awaited them. But the Bernese delegates, who had doubtless been informed by the messenger of the excited state of the people, strongly urged them to give it up. ‘We should have gone on our way calmly,’ said Calvin to his friends, when he had heard of the violent measures taken to stop them, ‘if the delegates had not forcibly resisted our intention; and this saved our lives.’ The fact that their lives were in danger, attested by Calvin in a letter addressed to Bullinger a few days after the event, cannot be called in question. True, it is easy to invent, more than three centuries later, contrary hypotheses; but the state of agitation prevailing in Geneva, far from invalidating the testimony of the reformers, confirms it.

[Sidenote: THE BERNESE EMBASSY.]

The two Bernese ambassadors, accompanied by Viret and Ritter, entered Geneva alone, and were immediately received (May 23) by the council. They stated that the deputies of the cantons who met recently at Zurich had been unanimously of opinion that it was just to allow Farel, Calvin, and Courault to re-enter the town in order to explain and defend themselves from the accusations made against them; and that if their justification were accepted, their restoration to their offices could not be refused. ‘Do you not owe this mark of gratitude to them,’ they said, ‘and especially to Farel, who has undergone so much labor and suffering for the good of this people? In short is it not essential to deprive the enemies of the Reformation of an occasion for rejoicing, as they would rejoice at the banishment without hope of returning of the men who established it in Geneva?’ The council replied that it could not accede to this demand, because the ministers had been sent away by the decision of the Council of the Two Hundred and of the general council; the Little Council having only required that they should be committed to prison. In consequence of this the Council of the Two Hundred was convoked for the next day, May 24. The attendance was not at all numerous, only fourteen members being present, doubtless because the meeting appeared to be a mere formality, and because the battle had to be fought and decided in the general council. The members present, among whom were the most thoroughgoing enemies of the reformers, decreed that the resolutions previously taken must be maintained; and for the rest, they referred the deputies of Berne to the assembly of the people.[699]

On Sunday, May 26, the general council of the citizens met. Louis Amman and his colleague, Viret and Erasmus Ritter, appeared as advocates for the two banished ministers. Amman spoke first. He showed the great injustice involved in the banishment of these excellent men. They had to do with Farel, who was justly designated the apostle of French Switzerland, and with Calvin, the greatest theologian of the age. He earnestly requested that they should be recalled, and that, according to the rules of equity, their justification should be heard, for it was not usual for any man to be condemned unheard. He reminded them of the distinguished services of Farel, of the labors and hardships which he had undergone for the good of that people. Was it not Farel who, in 1532, standing in the midst of the council of priests, had seen them rush at him and knock him down with their blows, crying, ‘Kill him! kill him!’ One of their attendants had discharged his arquebuse at him, and he had been driven from the town with threats of being thrown into the Rhone. Since that time to what tribulations had he not been exposed! Was it not incumbent on the people of Geneva to testify their gratitude to him in some other way than by exile? Then Amman spoke of the joy which the adversaries of the Reformation, the subjects of the pope, would feel, and did already feel, to see Geneva banishing her reformers, and he conjured the citizens not to give them such an occasion of triumph and exultation. Next Viret spoke, in his own name and in the name of his colleague Ritter; and we know how well adapted the mild eloquence of this pious pastor was to soothe exasperated spirits. The union of the pastors and the seriousness of the ambassador in pleading the cause of the reformers did not fail to make an impression. A large assembly is always susceptible of wholesome impressions: there is in it a contagion of good. Hearts were moved, and the disposition of many was changed. It was possible for the deputies to suppose that the battle was won. As they were not to attend the deliberations of the general council, they went out full of hope.[700]

[Sidenote: THE GENERAL COUNCIL.]

But Kunz had spared no pains that this hope might be disappointed. It appears that Pierre Vandel, one of the leaders of the party hostile to the reformers, had been at Berne. Kunz had possession of the fourteen articles proposed by Calvin and approved at Zurich, which doubtless had been intrusted to him because the conduct of the business was especially placed in his hands. Some expressions made use of in them had seemed likely to irritate the people of Geneva. Kunz had placed the articles in the hands of Vandel without the knowledge of the council.[701] Vandel was a man of good family, and one of the most violent opponents of the reformers. ‘I believe,’ said Bonivard, ‘that he was possessed with a demon while yet in his mother’s womb; as is said of St. John with regard to the Holy Spirit. He was not so tall as a spindle when he committed homicide, not with his own hand, but through malice. He and another man killed likewise the bastard son of a canon. He was a great rake, a glutton and a drunkard, talking and acting rashly in his drunken fits. His father, a highly respectable man, had said a hundred times, “Pierre! Pierre! he will never be worth anything; and would God that immediately after his baptism he had been dashed against a wall, for he will bring disgrace on our house.” He was very vainglorious, dressed himself like a nobleman, and was fond of bragging (_usait de braveries_); for this reason his companions called him _Bobereau_.’[702] Vandel was very proud of possessing the fourteen articles; and when he met on his way anyone who took an interest in the exile of the reformers, and who asked him what was likely to happen to them, he answered boastfully, according to his wont, but without entering further into details, ‘I have in my pocket a poison which will be the death of them.’[703] The ambassadors of Berne were themselves the bearers of these articles, but they had been instructed not to read them to the people except in the presence of Calvin and Farel, that they might have the opportunity of at once setting aside the mischievous inferences which would be drawn from them.[704] Vandel was at his post in the general council. Hardly had the deputies of Berne gone out, when he rose, drew the paper from his pocket, and began to read the articles of Zurich,[705] as an important piece of evidence which must cause the rejection of the demand of Berne. When he had read the document he began to comment on it, putting forward ill-natured interpretations, and fastening especially on three points fitted to excite hatred against the two reformers.[706] ‘See,’ said he, ‘how, in speaking of the Church of Geneva, they dare to speak of _our_ Church, as if it were their property. See how, in speaking of the lords of Berne, they call them simply the Bernese, without the honorary formula,[707] thus with the utmost arrogance putting contempt on princes themselves. See how they aspire to tyranny, for what else is excommunication but a tyrannical domination?’ The first two charges were baseless and almost childish; and as to excommunication, Calvin remarks that the general council of Geneva had allowed it, July 29, 1537, as ‘a holy and salutary proceeding among the faithful;’ and now they were horrified at the very word. The question was constantly arising for discussion whether the Church is not, like any other society, a union of persons possessing certain common characteristics, aiming at a certain object and under certain conditions, _a communion of persons united by a like Christian faith_,[708] or whether it is a receptacle for everything (_un tout y va_); which of all definitions would be by far the most opposed to the word of its founder.

[Sidenote: PIERRE VANDEL.]

It had been arranged between Vandel and his friends that, when he read or commented on the articles, they should support him with their acclamations, in order to inflame the minds of those present.[709] This plan succeeded. Cries of displeasure, furious and redoubled, were soon heard; one might have thought that the harmless articles were a statement of the blackest conspiracy. The irritation displayed by these partisans infected the whole assembly. It is well known how easily the crowd passes from any mood to its opposite. The lungs of a few passionate men played the part of bellows in setting all hearts on fire.[710] A spark was enough to kindle a conflagration. The flames spread from place to place; nothing stood against them, at least in appearance; and presently the assembly was in a blaze. ‘Better die,’ they shouted, ‘than hear them give us an account of the motives which have actuated them!’[711]

As soon as order was partially restored, the first syndic, Richardet, a hot-tempered man, as we know, put to the vote the demand made by the ambassadors of Berne; or rather, taking a less regular but more artful course, proposed the rejection of the demand. ‘Let all those,’ he said, ‘who wish that Farel, Calvin, and Courault should not enter the town, hold up their hands.’ The secretary of the council said that almost all hands were held up. This secretary was Ruffi, who had been elected in the place of Claude Rozet on the very day of the banishment of the reformers. His partiality was manifest in the fact that he wrote at the same time that the fourteen articles contained some untruths; untruths which the passionate Vandel himself had not been able to detect. It was a piece of gratuitous falsehood, and imputations of that kind do not inspire much confidence in anything that Ruffi might report. After the voting, the first syndic requested that those who wished the preachers to be readmitted to the town and to be heard should hold up their hands. ‘A few were raised,’ said Michel Rozet, ‘to signify that they wished for the ministers.’ The secretary named two or three of them, amongst others Chautemps, in whose house Olivétan, a kinsman of Calvin, had lived; but he added, ‘and certain others, few in number.’ Timid men, in the presence of the storm which threatened to break out, thought it prudent to be silent; some courage was required to face it. In fact, at the mere sight of these few hands raised, a transport of spite and wrath broke out; they could not endure an act of independence, which was at the same time, with many there, an act of respect for the reformers and the Reformation. _The rage was so great_, says Rozet, _that the first two were compelled to fly_. Many pursued them; some drew their swords; others, ‘glancing at them fiercely,’ cried out, _Kill them! kill them!_ ‘The majority of votes,’ say the Registers, ‘decided that the preachers should not again be admitted into the town.’ The people of Geneva thus adopted a resolution which, if they had not repented of it, would have prevented light going forth from that city, and would have thrown an obstacle in the way of its greatness.[712]

Thus was the matter decided. _Alea jacta est._ The powerful party which, in their contest with the pope, the bishop, and the princes of Savoy, had taken for their flag liberty and the truth, and had transformed Geneva into an evangelical republic, had quarrelled after their victory, as very commonly happens, and those who did not wish for the Gospel had remained conquerors. But the citizens, _few in number_, who had made their voice heard in the general council, were not the only ones who longed for a Christian republic. This minority gradually increased, or rather dared to show itself. It continued united, fervent, determined, active; and to it ultimately the victory was to be given.