Читать книгу History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - Страница 123

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THE Reformation was necessary to christian society. The Renaissance, daughter alike of ancient and of modern Rome, was a movement of revival, and yet it carried with it a principle of death, so that wherever it was not transformed by heavenly forces, it fell away and became corrupted. The influence of the humanists—of such men as Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, and afterwards of Montaigne—was a balmy gale that shed its odours on the upper classes, but exerted no power over the lower ranks of the people. In the elegant compositions of the men of letters, there was nothing for the conscience, that divinely appointed force of the human race. The work of the Renaissance, had it stood alone, must of necessity, therefore, have ended in failure and death. There are persons in these days who think otherwise: they believe that a new state of society would have arisen without the Reformation, and that political liberty would have renewed the world better than the Gospel. This is assuredly a great error. At that time liberty had scarcely any existence in Europe, and even had it existed, and the dominion of conscience not reappeared along with it, it is certain that, though powerful enough, perhaps, to destroy the old elements of order prevailing in society, it would have been unable to substitute any better elements in their place. If, even in the nineteenth century, we tremble sometimes when we hear the distant explosions of liberty, what must have been the feeling in the sixteenth? The men who were about to appear on the theatre of the world were still immersed in disorder and barbarism. Everything betokened great virtues in the new generation, but also tumultuous passions; a divine heroism, but also gigantic crimes; a mighty energy, but at its side a languishing insensibility. A renewed society could not be constituted out of such elements. It wanted the divine breath to inspire high thoughts, and the hand of God to establish everywhere the providential order.

At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, society was in a state of excitement. The world was in suspense, as when the statuary is about to create a work that shall be the object of universal admiration. The metal is melted, the mass flows from the furnace like glowing brass; but the approaching lava alarms, and not without reason, the anxious spectators. At this period we witness struggles, insurrections, and reaction. The perfumed spirit of the Renaissance was unable to check the evil and to establish order and liberty. Society had appeared to grow young again under the breath of antiquity; but wherever a knowledge of the Gospel was not combined with the cultivation of letters, that purity, boldness, and elevation of youth, which at first had charmed contemporaries, disappeared. The melting was checked, the metal grew cold, and instead of the masterpiece that had been expected, there appeared the repulsive forms of servility, immorality, and superstition.

=CRISIS AND MEANS OF SALVATION.=

Was there any means of preventing so fatal a future? How, in the midst of the old society, which was crumbling to pieces, could a new one be formed, with any certain prospect of vitality? In religion only the coming age was to find its living force. If the conscience of man was awakened and sanctified by christianity, then and then only the world would stand.

Was it possible to look for this regenerating element in the society which was expiring? That would be to search among the dead for the principle of life. It was necessary to have recourse to the primitive sources of faith. The Gospel, more human than literature, more divine than philosophy, exerts an influence over man that these two things cannot possess. It goes down into the depths—that is, into the people—which the Renaissance had not done; it rises towards the high places—that is, towards heaven—which philosophy cannot do. When the Gospel lifted up its voice in the days of the Reformation, the people listened. It spoke to them of God, sin, condemnation, pardon, everlasting life—in a word, of Christ. The human soul discovered that this was what it wanted; and was touched, captivated, and finally renewed. The movement was all the more powerful because the doctrine preached to the people had nothing to do with animosities, traditions, interests of race, dynasties, or courts. True, it got mixed up with these things afterwards; but in the beginning it was simply the voice of God upon earth. It circulated a purifying fire through corrupted society, and the new world was formed.

The old society, whose place was about to be occupied, did all in its power to resist the light. A terrible voice issued from the Vatican; a hand of iron executed its behests in many a country, and strangled the new life in its cradle. Spain, Italy, Austria, and France were the chief theatres of the deplorable tragedies, whose heroes were Philip II. and the Guises. But there were souls, we may even say nations, protected by the hand of God, who have been ever since like trees whose leaves never wither.699 Intelligent men, struck by their greatness, have been alarmed for the nations that are not watered by the same rivers. Against such a danger there is, however, a sure remedy; it is that all people should come and drink at those fountains of life which have given protestant nations 'all the attributes of civilisation and power.'700 Or do they perchance imagine that by shutting their windows against the sun, the light will spread more widely?... A new era is beginning, and all lingering nations are now invited to the great renovation of which the Gospel is the divine and mighty organ.

=NEW SITUATION OF GENEVA.=

In 1526 Geneva was in a position which permitted it to receive the new seed of the new society. The alliance with the cantons, by drawing that city nearer to Switzerland, facilitated the arrival of the intrepid husbandmen who brought with them the seeds of life. At Wittemberg, at Zurich, and even in the upper extremities of Lake Leman, in those beautiful valleys of the Rhone and the Alps which Farel had evangelised, the divine sun had poured down his first rays. When the Genevans made their alliance with the Swiss, they had only thought of finding a support to their national existence; but they had effected more: they had opened the gates of day, and were about to receive a light which, while securing their liberties, would guide their souls along the path of eternal life. The city was thus to acquire an influence of which none of its children had ever dreamt, and by the instrumentality of Calvin, one of the noblest spirits that ever lived, 'she was about to become the rival of Rome,' as an historian says (perhaps with a little exaggeration), 'and wrest from her the dominion of half the christian world.'701

If the alliance with the cantons opened Geneva on the side of Switzerland, it raised a wall of separation between that city and Savoy—which was not less necessary for the part she was called upon to play in the sixteenth century. The valley of the Leman was at that time dotted with châteaux, whose ruins may still be seen here and there. As invasion, pillage, and murder formed part of social life in the middle ages, the nobles surrounded their houses with walls, and some even built their dwelling-places on the mountains. From Geneva might be descried the castle of Monnetier standing on immense perpendicular rocks on Mont Salève....

J'aimais tes murs croulants, vieux moutier ruiné!

Naître, souffrir, mourir! devise triste et forte . . .

Quel châtelain pensif te grava sur la porte?702

Further on, and near Thonon, on an isolated hill, shaded by luxuriant chestnut trees, stood the vast castle of Allinges, which is still a noble ruin. The lords of these places, energetic, rude, freebooting, and often cruel men, growing weary of their isolation and their idleness, would collect their followers, lower their drawbridges, rush into the high roads in search of adventures, and indulge in a life of raids and plunder, violence and murder.

The towns, with their traders and travellers, were especially the abhorrence of these gentlemen robbers. From the tenth century the Genevan travellers and foreign merchants, passing through Geneva with their goods, often fell a prey to the plundering vagabondage of the neighbouring lords. This was not without important consequences for civilisation and liberty. Seeing the nobles perpetually in insurrection against social order, the burghers learnt to revolt against despotism, murder, and robbery. Geneva received one of these lessons, and profited by it better than others.703

=PONTVERRE AND THE SAVOYARD NOBLES.=

In all the castles of Genevois, Chablais, and the Pays de Vaud, it was said, in 1526, that the alliance of Geneva with the free Swiss cantons menaced the rights of Savoy, the temporal (and even the spiritual) power of the bishop, and Roman-catholicism. And hence the irritated nobles ruminated in their strongholds upon the means of destroying the union, or at least of neutralising its effects. François de Ternier, seigneur of Pontverre, whose domains were situated between Mont Salève and the Rhone, about a league from Geneva, thought of nothing else night or day. A noble, upright, but violent man; a fanatical enemy of the burgher class, of liberty, and of the Reformation; and a representative of the middle ages, he swore to combat the Swiss alliance unto death, and he kept his oath. Owing to the energy of his character and the nobility of his house, François possessed great influence among his neighbours. One day, after long meditation over his plans, he left his residence, attended by a few horsemen, and visited the neighbouring castles. While seated at table with the knights, he made his apprehensions known to them, and conjured them to oppose the accursed alliance. He asked them whether it was for nothing that the privilege of bearing arms had been given to the nobles. 'Let us make haste,' he said, 'and crush a new and daring power that threatens to destroy our castles and our churches.' He sounded the alarm everywhere; he reminded the nobles that they had a right to make war whenever they pleased;704 and forthwith many lords responded to his energetic appeals. They armed themselves, and, issuing from their strongholds, covered the district around Geneva like a cloud of locusts. Caring little for the political or religious ideas with which Pontverre was animated, they sought amusement, plunder, and the gratification of their hatred against the citizens. They were observed at a distance, with their mounted followers, on the high roads, and they were not idle. They allowed nobody to enter the city, and carried off property, provisions, and cattle. The peasants and the Genevan merchants, so disgracefully plundered, asked each other if the tottering episcopal throne was to be upheld by banditti.... 'If you return,' said these noble highwaymen, 'we will hang you up by the neck.' Nor was that all: several nobles, whose castles were near the water, resorted to piracy on the lake: they pillaged the country-houses near the shore, imprisoned the men, insulted the women, and cut off all communication with Switzerland.

=NOBLES TURN HIGHWAYMEN.=

One difficulty, however, occurred to these noble robbers: they chanced to maltreat, without their knowing it, some of their own party, who were coming from German Switzerland. Having been much reproached for this, they took counsel on the road: 'What must we do,' they asked, 'to distinguish the Genevans?' They hit upon a curious shibboleth. As soon as they caught sight of any travellers in the distance, they spurred their horses, galloped up, and put some ordinary question to the strangers, 'examining in this way all who passed to and fro.' If the travellers replied in French, the language of Geneva, the knightly highwaymen declared they were huguenots, and immediately carried them off, goods and all. If the victims complained, they were not listened to; and even when they came from the banks of the Loire and the Seine, they were taken and shut up in the nearest castle. Many messengers from France to the Swiss cantons, who spoke like the Genevans, were arrested in this way.

France, Berne, and Geneva complained bitterly; but the lords (for the most part Savoyards) took no notice of it. By chastising these burghers, they believed they were gaining heaven. They laughed among themselves at the universal complaints, and added sarcasm to cruelty. One day a Genevan deputy having appeared before Pontverre, to protest against such brigandage, the haughty noble replied coldly: 'Tell those who sent you, that in a fortnight I will come and set fire to the four corners of your city.' Another day, De la Fontaine, a retired syndic and mameluke, as he was riding along the high road, met a huguenot, and said to him: 'Go and tell your friends that we are coming to Geneva shortly, and will throw all the citizens into the Rhone.' As the Genevan walked away, the mameluke called him back: 'Wait a moment,' he said, and then continued maliciously: 'No, I think it will be better to cut off their heads, in order to multiply the relics.' This was an allusion to Berthelier's head, which had been solemnly buried. In the noisy banquets which these nobles gave each other in their châteaux, they related their feats of arms: anecdotes akin to those just quoted followed each other amid roars of laughter: the subject was inexhaustible. The politicians, although more moderate in appearance, were not less decided. They meditated over the matter in cold blood. 'I will enter Geneva sword in hand,' said the Count of Genevois, the duke's brother, 'and will take away six score of the most rebellious patriots.'705

Thus the middle ages seemed to be rising in defence of their rights. The temporal and spiritual authority of the bishop-prince was protected by bands of highwaymen. But while these powers, which pretended to be legitimate, employed robbery, violence, and murder, the friends of liberty prepared to defend themselves lawfully and to fight honourably, like regular troops. Besançon Hugues, reelected captain-general three days after the alliance with the Swiss, gave the signal. Instantly the citizens began to practise the use of arms in the city; and in the country, where they were placed as outposts, they kept strict watch over all the movements of the gentlemen robbers. Fearing that the latter, to crown their brigandage, would march against Geneva, the syndics had iron gratings put to all the windows in the city walls, built up three of the gates, placed a guard at the others, and stretched chains across every street. At the same time they brought into the harbour all the boats that had escaped the piratical incursions of the nobles, placed a sentry on the belfry of St. Pierre, and ordered that the city should be lighted all the night long. This little people rose like one man, and all were ready to give their lives to protect their goods and trade, their wives and children, and to save their old liberties and their new aspirations.706

=GENEVAN DEPUTATION TO BERNE.=

While thus resolute against their enemies in arms, the citizens showed moderation towards their disarmed foes. Some of those who were most exasperated, wishing to take their revenge, asked permission to forage, that is, to seize the property of the disloyal and fugitive mamelukes. 'It is perfectly fair,' they said, 'for their treason and brigandage have reduced Geneva to extreme misery: we shall only get back what they have taken from us.' But Hugues, the friend of order as well as of liberty, made answer: 'Let us commence proceedings against the accused; let us condemn them in penalties more or less severe; but let us refrain from violence, even though we have the appearance of right in our favour.'—'The ducal faction,' replied these hot-headed men, 'not only plundered us, but conspired against the city, and took part in the tortures and murders inflicted upon the citizens.' The syndics were not convinced, and the property of the offenders was respected; but after a rigorous investigation, they were deprived of the rights of citizenship.707

The Swiss cantons, discontented because the Genevans, who were in great straits, had not repaid the expenses incurred on their behalf, asked more for the mamelukes than the council granted: they demanded that they should all be allowed to return to the city. But to receive those who were making war against them, seemed impossible to the Genevans. They sent two good huguenots to Berne, François Favre and Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, to make representations in this matter. The deputies were admitted to the great council on the 5th of June, 1526. De Lullins, the Savoyard governor, was also received on the same day, and in the duke's name he made great complaints against Geneva. Favre, a quick, impatient, passionate man, replied in coarse terms. The Bernese firmly adhered to their resolution, and reprimanded the Genevan deputy, who candidly acknowledged his fault: 'Yes,' he said, 'I am too warm; but I answered rather as a private individual than as an ambassador.' On returning to his inn, he thought that the payment of the sum claimed by the Bernese would settle everything, and the same day he wrote to the council of Geneva: 'Your humble servant begs to inform you that you must send the money promised to my lords of Berne. Otherwise, let him fly from the city who can! Do you think you can promise and not be bound to keep your word? Find the money, or you are lost. I pray you warn my wife, that she may come to Lausanne. I am serving at my own expense, and yet I must pay for others also. Do not ruin a noble cause for such a trifle. If Berne is satisfied, we shall be all right with the mamelukes.'708

=CARTELIER'S CONDEMNATION.=

Robber nobles were not the only supporters of the middle ages. That epoch has had its great men, but at the time of its fall it had but sorry representatives. The knights of the highway had their companions in the intriguers of the city. Among the latter we may include Cartelier, who had played his part in the plots got up to deliver Geneva to Savoy.709 This man, who hated independence and the Reformation even more than Pontverre did, was, through the anger of the citizens and the avarice of the bishop, to suffer for the crimes of which his party was guilty. Being utterly devoid of shame, he went up and down the city as if he had nothing to fear, and when he chanced to meet the indignant glance of a huguenot, he braved the anger with which he was threatened by assuming an air of contempt and defiance. Rich, clever, but of low character, he had contrived to be made a citizen in order to indulge in the most perfidious intrigues. One day he was apprehended, notwithstanding his insolent airs, and put into prison. A thrill ran through all the city, as if the hand of God had been seen striking that great criminal. Amblarde, Berthelier's widow, and his two children; John, Lévrier's brother; and a hundred citizens who had all just cause of complaint against the wretch, appeared before the council, and called for justice with cries and tears: 'He has spilt the blood of our fathers, our brothers, and our husbands,' said the excited crowd. 'He wished to destroy our independence and subject us to the duke.' Convicted of conspiring against the State, the wretch was condemned to death. The executioner, putting a rope round his neck, led him through the city, followed by an immense crowd. The indignant people were delighted when they saw the rich and powerful stranger reduced to such humiliation. Proud and pitiless, he had plotted to ruin the city, and now he was expiating his crimes. Things did not stop here: while moderate men desired to remain in the paths of justice, the more hot-headed of the party of independence derided him, says a chronicler, and some mischievous boys pelted him with mud. The unhappy man, whose fall had been so great, thus arrived at the place of execution, and the hangman prepared to perform his duty.

Cartelier had but a few minutes more to live, when the bishop's steward was seen hurrying forward with letters of grace, commuting the capital punishment into a fine of six thousand golden crowns payable to the prelate and to the city. To spare the life of the wretched man might have been an act of mercy and equity, especially as his crimes were political; but the angry youths who surrounded the criminal ascribed the bishop's clemency to his covetousness and to the hatred he bore the cause of independence. They desired the execution of the condemned man. Twice the hangman removed the rope, and twice these exasperated young men replaced it round Cartelier's neck. They yielded at last, however, and were satisfied with having made the conspirator feel all the anguish of death. Cartelier was set at liberty. When the bishop was informed of what had happened, he became afraid, imagining his authority compromised and his power endangered. 'It was for good reasons,' he wrote to the syndics, 'that I pardoned Cartelier; however, write and tell me if the people are inclined to revolt on account of this pardon.'710 The people did not revolt, and the rich culprit, having paid the fine, retired quietly to Bourg in Bresse, whence he had come.

=THE BISHOP'S HESITATION.=

The bishop, who had first sentenced, then pardoned, and then repented of his pardon, was continually hesitating, and did not know what party to side with. He was not devoted body and soul to the duke, like his predecessor. Placed between the Savoyards and the huguenots, he was at heart, equally afraid of both, and by turns flung himself into the arms of opposite parties. He was like a stag between two packs of hounds, always afraid and panting. 'I write angrily,' he says in his letters: he was, indeed, always angry with one party or the other. Even the canons, his natural friends, and the members of his council aroused his fears, and not without cause; for these reverend persons had no confidence either in the bishop's character or in the brigandage of the gentry of the neighbourhood. Messieurs De Lutry, De Montrotier, De Lucinge, De St. Martin, and other canons said that the temporal authority of the prelate was too weak to maintain order; that the sword of a secular prince was wanted, and at the bottom of their hearts they called for the duke. 'Ah!' said La Baume to Hugues, 'the chapter is a poisoned body;' he called the canons thieves and robbers: Ille fur et latro est, he said of one of them. The episcopal office appeared a heavy burden to him; but it put him in a position to give good dinners to his friends, and that was one of the most important duties of his life. 'I have wine for the winter,' he wrote in a postscript to the letter in which he made these complaints, 'and plenty to entertain you with.'711 Such were his episcopal consolations.

699 Psalm i.

700 M. Michel Chevalier, on the Prosperity of Protestant Nations.

701 Galiffe, Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève, ii. p. xxviii.

702 Galloix, Salève. The author remembers reading, since the time of his boyhood, these three words on the ruins that have been since restored, Nasci, pati, mori.

703 Spon, Hist. de Genève. Gautier MS. Guizot, Civilisation en France et en Europe. Froment.

704 Ordonnance de Louis Hutin. Guizot, Civilisation en France, v. p. 138.

705 Registres du Conseil du 3 décembre. Lettres de Messieurs de Berne. Galiffe fils, Besançon Hugues, Pièces Justificatives, p. 487.

706 Registres du Conseil des 15, 16, 23, 24, 28 mars.

707 Roset, Chron. MS. liv. ii. ch. ii. Registres du Conseil du 7 septembre 1526. Spon, Histoire de Genève, ii. p. 396. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. pp. 446, 447. Gautier MS.

708 This letter will be found in Galiffe, Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève, ii. p. 489.

709 See above, vol. i. p. 228.

710 Archives de Genève. Lettre de Pierre de la Baume aux syndics, du 24 janvier 1527.

711 Registres du Conseil de décembre 1526, de janvier et avril 1527. Roset MS. bk. ii. ch. v. Galiffe, Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève, ii. pp. 264, 437, 439, 440. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. pp. 452-454. Mém. d'Archéologie, ii. p. 11. La Sœur de Jussie, Le Levain du Calvinisme.