Читать книгу History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - Страница 125

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=THE BISHOP'S NEW SCHEMES.=

THE sack of Rome had made a great sensation in catholic countries. Pierre de la Baume almost believed that the reign of popery had come to an end, and was much alarmed for himself. If a prince so powerful as the pope had succumbed, what would become of the Bishop of Geneva? The alliance with the cantons, and the Gospel which a Swiss magistrate had just been preaching, seemed to him the forerunners of his ruin. He had no lansquenets before him, like those who had compelled Clement VII. to flee, but he had huguenots, who, in his eyes, were more formidable still. Liberty seemed to be coming forth, like the sun, from the night of the middle ages; and the bishop thought the safest course would be to turn towards the rising orb, and to throw himself into the arms of the liberals. He had a strong preference for the Savoyard despotism; but, if his interests required it, he was ready to pay court to liberty. Other instances of this have been seen. The bishop, therefore, sanctioned the sequestration of the property of the mamelukes, and made Besançon Hugues a magnificent present. He conferred on him the perpetual fief of the fishery of the lake, the Rhone, and the Arve, reserving to himself (which showed the value of the gift) the right of redemption for two thousand great ducats of gold.731 All this was but a step towards the accomplishment of a strange design.

The bishop had taken it into his head that he would form an alliance with the Swiss, feeling convinced that they alone could protect him against the impetuosity of the huguenots and the tyranny of the Duke of Savoy. He therefore sent Robert Vandel to Friburg and Basle, to entreat these states to admit him into their citizenship. This move caused the greatest surprise among the Genevans. 'What!' said they, 'is Monseigneur turning huguenot?' The Swiss rudely rejected the Romish prelate's request. 'We will not have the bishop for our fellow-citizen,' they made answer, 'and that for four reasons: first, he is fickle and changeable; second, he is not beloved in Geneva; third, he is imperialist and Burgundian; and fourth, he is a priest!' The cantons did not mention the strongest reason. Friburg and Berne, allies of the city, could not be at the same time the allies of the bishop, for how could they have supported the rights of the Genevans against him?732

The bishop was not discouraged. At one time he felt his throne shaking beneath him, and, fearing that it would fall, he clung to liberty with all his might; at another, he fancied he could see the phantom of heresy approaching with slow but sure step, and erelong taking its seat on his throne ... and the sight increased his fear. He therefore sent Besançon Hugues to Berne—a more influential diplomatist than Vandel—who was received with consideration in the aristocratic circles, but had to bear all kinds of reproach. The proud Bernese were indignant at his becoming the advocate of a person so little esteemed as the bishop. One day, in the presence of these energetic men who had witnessed so many struggles, as Hugues was warmly pleading the prelate's cause, his listener suddenly turned away with horror, and, as if he had been waving aside with his hand some satanic vision, he said: 'The name of the bishop is more hateful among us than that of the devil himself.' This was enough for Hugues, who returned to Geneva greatly disheartened. Pierre de la Baume, a vain and frivolous priest, soon consoled himself for this discomfiture, laughing at the reproaches uttered against him. He amused himself with the objections of the Swiss, and was continually repeating to those about him: 'What would you have?... How could the Helvetians receive me into their alliance? I am a priest and Burgundian!'... Thus, at one time trembling, at another laughing, the Bishop of Geneva was moving towards his ruin.733

=THE DUKE PLOTS AGAINST THE BISHOP.=

For some time Charles III., Duke of Savoy, had been watching the prelate, and noting with vexation the interested and (in his opinion) culpable overtures he was making to the Genevans and the confederates. The news that the bishop had sent two envoys in succession to the Swiss put a climax to the prince's anger. It is not sufficient for the citizens to desire to emancipate themselves; even the bishops, whom the dukes have always regarded as their agents, presume to tread in their footsteps. This deserves a terrible punishment. The duke conferred with his advisers on the nature of the lesson to be given the prelate. One of the most decided of Charles's ministers proposed that he should be kidnapped; the motion was supported, and the resolution taken. In order to carry it into execution, it was necessary to gain some of the clergy about him. The canons were sounded, and many of them, already sold to the duke, promised their good offices. 'The bishop is a great devotee of the Virgin,' they said; 'on Saturday, the day dedicated to St. Mary, he generally goes to hear mass at Our Lady of Grace, outside the city. He rides on a mule in company with other members of the cloth. Now, as this church is separated from Savoy only by a bridge, the captain of his highness's archers has simply to lie in ambush near the river to snap up (happer) Monseigneur. The priests and officers about him, being bribed or men of no courage, will run away. Let him be dragged hastily to the other side of the Arve, and, once in the territory of Savoy, he can be put to death as a traitor.' Everything was arranged by good catholics, and the Archbishop of Turin probably had a share in it. The reformers never went to work in so off-hand a manner as regards bishops.

=THE DUKE'S AMBUSCADE.=

Thus war broke out between the two great enemies of Geneva. The Genevans knew not how to get rid of the prelate, and here was Charles, like another Alexander, cutting the Gordian knot. The bishop once carried off, one of the most formidable obstacles to independence, morality, religion, and civilisation will be removed. So long as he is there, nothing that is good can be done in Geneva; and when he is no longer there, the city will become free. This, however, was not his highness's plan: having 'snapped up' the duke, he expected to 'snap up' the city also. This was his scheme for taking Geneva. 'As soon as the Savoyard archers have kidnapped the bishop, certain of his highness's creatures will go to the belfry of Notre Dame and ring the great bell. All the bells of the adjoining villages will answer the signal; the nobles will rush sword in hand from their castles, the country-people will take up their scythes or other weapons, and all will march to Geneva. The Genevans are hot and hasty: when they learn that the Savoyards have crossed the Arve and violated their territory, they will take up arms and march into the domains of Savoy to avenge the offence; but they will find Pontverre and all his friends there ready to meet them. In the midst of this agitation the duke will have a capital excuse for entering the city and taking possession of it. And when he is established there, he will cut off the heads of Hugues, the syndics, the councillors, M. de Bonmont, and many others. Finally, Geneva shall have a bishop who will occupy himself with refuting the heretics, and his highness will undertake to make the hot-headed republicans bow beneath the sword of the temporal power, and expel for ever from the city both reformers and Reformation.'734 The duke, charmed with this plan, made immediate preparations for its execution. To prevent Pierre de la Baume from escaping into Burgundy, he posted soldiers in all the passes of the Jura, whilst his best captains were stationed round the city to carry out the ambuscade.

=THE DUKE'S PLOT FAILS.=

These various measures could not be taken without something creeping out. Geneva had friends in the villages, where an unusual agitation indicated the approaching execution of some act of treachery. On Thursday, the 11th of July, a man, making his way along by-paths, arrived from Savoy, and said to the people of Geneva: 'Be on your guard!' Two days later, Saturday the 13th, which was the day appointed for action, another man, crossing the bridge of Arve, came and told one of the syndics, between eight and nine in the morning, that some horse and foot soldiers had been secretly posted at Lancy, only half a league from the city. The syndics did not trouble themselves much about it; and the bishop, who was naturally a timid man, but whom these warnings had not reached, mounted his mule—it was the day when he went to make adoration to the Virgin—rode out to Our Lady's, took his usual place, and the mass began. Charles's soldiers were already advancing in the direction of the bridge, in order to seize the prelate directly he left the church. Some devout persons had pity on him, and just as the priest had celebrated the mystery, a man, with troubled look, entered the building (whether he came from Geneva or Savoy is unknown), walked noiselessly to the place where the bishop was sitting, and whispered in his ear: 'Monseigneur, the archers of Savoy are preparing to clutch you (gripper).' At these words the startled La Baume turned pale and trembled. He did not wait for the benediction; fear gave him wings; he got up, rushed hastily out of the church, and leaped upon his mule 'without putting his foot in the stirrup, for he was a very nimble person,' says Bonivard; then, using his heels for spurs, he struck the animal's flanks, and galloped off full speed, shouting, at the top of his voice, to the guards as he passed: 'Shut the gates!' The prelate reached the city out of breath and all of a tremble.735

The city was soon in commotion. Besançon Hugues, the captain-general, who was sincerely attached to La Baume, and strongly opposed to the usurpations of Savoy, had divined the duke's plot, and, with his usual energy, began to pass through the streets, saying: 'Close your shops, put up the chains, bolt the city gates, beat the drum, sound an alarm, and let every man take his arquebuse.' Then, leaving the streets, Hugues went to St. Pierre's, and, notwithstanding the opposition of the canons, accomplices in the conspiracy, he ordered the great bell to be rung. A rumour had already spread on the other side of the Arve that the plot had failed, and that the bishop had escaped on his mule. The men-at-arms of Savoy were disconcerted; the village bells were not rung, the nobles remained in their castles, the peasants in their fields. 'Our scheme has got wind,' said the Savoyard captains; 'all the city is under arms; and we must wait for a better opportunity.'

The canons, though siding with the duke, had concealed their game, and employed certain creatures of Savoy to carry out the plot. These people were known; they became alarmed, and saw no other means of escaping death than by leaving the city. But all the gates were shut!... What of that: despair gave them courage. At the very moment when the armed men of Savoy were retiring, several persons were seen to run along the streets, jump into the ditches of St. Gervais, scale the palisades, and scamper away as fast as their legs could carry them. They were the traitors who had corresponded with the enemy outside.

As for La Baume, he had lost his presence of mind. Rejected by the Swiss, despised by the Genevans, persecuted by the duke, what should he do? If he could but escape to his benefices in Burgundy, where the people are so quiet and the wine is so good!—but, alas! all the passes of the Jura are occupied by Savoyard soldiers. He was in great distress. Not thinking himself safe in his palace, he had taken refuge in the house of one of his partisans when he returned on his mule from his visit to Our Lady's. He expected that the duke would follow up his plan, would enter Geneva, and seek him throughout the city. Accordingly, he remained quiet in the most secret hiding-place of the house which had sheltered him. It was only when he was told that the Savoyard soldiers had really retired, that all was tranquil outside the city, and that even the huguenots did not think of laying hands on him, that he took courage, came out of his hiding-place, and returned to the palace. Nevertheless, he looked stealthily out of the window to see if the huguenots or the ducal soldiers were not coming to seize him even in his own house. The Genevans smiled at his terror; but everybody, the creatures of Charles excepted, was pleased at the failure of the duke's treachery. Religious men saw the hand of Heaven in this deliverance. 'They gave God thanks,' says Balard.736

This attack, abortive as it was, had one important consequence; it delivered the city from the canons, and thus paved the way for the Reformation. These men were in Geneva the representatives and supporters of all kinds of religious and political tyranny. To save catholicism, it would have been necessary for the clergy, and particularly for the canons, who were their leaders, to unite with the laity, and, while maintaining the Roman ceremonial, to demand the suppression of certain episcopal privileges and ecclesiastical abuses. Some of the huguenot chiefs—those who, like Hugues, loved the bishop, and those also who subsequently opposed Calvin's reformation—would probably have entered with joy into this order of things. For the execution of such a plan, however, the priests ought to have been upright and free. But the absolute authority of the Church, which had enfeebled the vigour of the human mind, had specially degraded the priests. The clergy of Geneva had fallen too low to effect a transformation of catholicism. Many of the canons and even of the curés could see nothing but the act of a revolutionist or even of a madman in the bishop's desire to ally himself with the Swiss, and had consequently entered into Charles's scheme, which was so hateful to the Genevans.

=THE BISHOP IMPRISONS THE CANONS.=

The huguenots hastened to take advantage of it. If the ducal plot had not delivered them from the bishop, it must at least free them from the canons. These ecclesiastical dignitaries never quitted Geneva, while the bishop often absented himself to intrigue in Italy or to amuse himself in Burgundy. They were besides more bigoted and fanatical than the worldly prelate, and therefore all the more dangerous. And then, if they desired to get rid of the bishop, was it not the wisest plan to begin with his council? Shortly after the famous alert, some Genevan liberal went to the palace and said to La Baume: 'The canons, my lord, are the duke's spies: so long as they remain in Geneva, Savoy will have one foot in the city.' The poor bishop was too exasperated against the canons not to lend an ear to these words, and after ruining himself with the duke, he took steps to ruin himself with the clergy, and to throw overboard the most devoted friends of the Roman institutions. 'Yes,' said he, 'they intrigue (grabugent) against the Church!... Let them be arrested.... It is they who wished to see me kidnapped.... Let them be put in prison!' The next morning the procurator-fiscal, with his sergeants, knocked at the doors of the most influential of the canons, Messieurs De la Madeleine, De Montrotier, De Salery, De Veigy, and others, arrested them, and, to the indescribable astonishment of the servants and neighbours of these reverend gentlemen, carried them off to prison.737

As soon as the gates were shut upon the canons, the bishop began to reflect on the daring act he had just achieved. Still flushed with anger, he did not repent, but he was uneasy, distressed, and amazed at his own courage. If the duke sought to kidnap him but the other day, what will this terrible prince do, now that he, La Baume, has boldly thrown his most devoted partisans into prison?... All Savoy will march against him. He sent for the captain-general, imparted to him all his fears; and Besançon Hugues, his most faithful friend, wishing to dissipate his alarm, placed watchmen on the tower of St. Pierre, on the walls, and at every gate. They had instructions to inform the commander-in-chief if a single horseman appeared on the horizon in the direction of Savoy.

=HE DESIRES TO BE MADE FREE OF THE CITY.=

La Baume began to breathe again; yet he was not entirely at his ease. He smiled to himself at the watch of Besançon Hugues. What can these few armed citizens do against the soldiers of the nephew of Francis I. and brother-in-law of Charles V.? The Duke of Savoy was prowling round him like a wild beast eager to devour him; the bishop thought that the bear of Berne alone could defend him. But alas! Berne would have nothing to do with him, because he was a priest and a Burgundian!... He turned all this over in his mind. He, so wary a politician, he whom the emperor employed in his negotiations—shall not he find some outlet, when it is a question of saving himself? On a sudden he hit upon a scheme for becoming an ally of Berne, in spite of Berne. He will get himself made a citizen of Geneva, and, by virtue of the general co-citizenship, he will thus become the ally of the cantons. Delighted at this bright idea, he communicated it to his intimate friends, and, unwilling to lose a day, ordered the council-general to be convened for the morrow.738

On the next morning (15th of July) the bells of the cathedral rang out; the burgesses, girding on their swords, left their houses to attend the general council, and the bishop-prince, accompanied by his councillors and officers, appeared in the midst of the people, and sat down on the highest seat. Entirely absorbed by the strange ambition of becoming a plain burgess of the city in which he was prince, he was profuse in salutations; and to the huguenots he was particularly gracious. 'I recall,' he said, 'my protest against the alliance with the Swiss. I know how you cling to it; well! ... I now approve of it; I am willing to give my adhesion to it; and, the more clearly to show my approval, I desire that I may be made a freeman of the city.' Great was the astonishment of the people. A bishop made a citizen of Geneva! Such a thing had never been heard of. All the friends of independence, however, were favourable to the scheme. Some wished to gratify the bishop; others were pleased at anything that could separate him more completely from the duke; all agreed that if the bishop were made a citizen of Geneva, and united with their friends the confederates, great advantage would result to the city. If he begins with turning Swiss, who knows if he will not turn protestant? The general council therefore granted his request.

=HE CONCEDES THE CIVIL JURISDICTION.=

Wishing to make him pay for his freedom, and not to lose an opportunity of recovering their liberties, the syndics begged him to transfer all civil suits to lay jurisdiction. Laymen judges in an ecclesiastical principality!... It was a great revolution, and three centuries and more were to pass away before a similar victory was gained in other states of that class. The bishop understood the great importance of such a request; he fancied he could already hear the endless appeals of the clergy who found themselves deprived of their honours and their profits; but at this time he was acting the part of a liberal pope, while the canons were playing the incorrigible cardinals. He said Yes. It was an immense gain to the community, for interminable delays and crying abuses characterised the ecclesiastical tribunals at Geneva as well as at Rome.

The syndics, transported with joy, manifested all their gratitude to the prelate. They told him he had nothing to fear, either from the Genevans or even from the duke. Then turning to the people, they said: 'Let every citizen draw his sword to defend Monseigneur. If he should be attacked, we desire that, at the sound of the tocsin, all the burgesses, and even the priests, should fly to arms.'—'Yes, yes!' shouted the citizens; 'we will be always faithful to him!' A transformation seemed to have been effected in their hearts. They knew the great value of the sacrifice the bishop had made, and showed their thankfulness to him. Upon this, the bishop, 'raising his right hand towards heaven, and placing his left on his breast (as was the custom of prelates),' said: 'I promise, on my faith, loyally to perform all that is required of a citizen, to prove myself a good prince, and never to separate myself from you!' The delighted people also raised their hands and exclaimed: 'And we also, my lord, will preserve you from harm as we would our own heads!'739 The poor prelate would have sacrificed still more to protect himself from Charles's attacks, which filled him with indescribable terror.

It seemed as if this concession, by uniting the bishop and the Genevans more closely, ought to have put off the Reformation; but it was not so. In proportion as the Genevans obtained any concession, they desired more; accordingly, when the citizens had returned home, or when they met at one another's houses, they began to say that it was something to have obtained the civil judicature from the bishop, but that there were other restitutions still to be made. Some men asked by what right he held the temporal authority; and others—those who knew best what was passing at Zurich—desired to throw off the spiritual jurisdiction of the prelate in order to acknowledge only that of Holy Writ.

Opposition to ecclesiastical principalities began, then, three centuries ago at Geneva. 'The bishop grants us the civil jurisdiction,' said Bonivard; 'an act very damaging to himself, and very profitable to us.... But ... this is an opening to deprive him entirely of his authority. Neither La Baume nor the other bishops were lawfully elected, that is to say by the clergy at the postulation of the people. They were thrust into the see by the pope.... They are but tyrants set over us by other tyrants. We can therefore reject them without danger to our souls; and since they came in by the caprice of arbitrary power, it is lawful for us to expel them by the free authority of the city. Geneva has never acknowledged other princes than those whom the people themselves elected.' Some were astonished at Bonivard's language; but the larger number listened to him with enthusiasm. The catholics, growing more and more uneasy, anticipated great disasters. The edifice of popery, continually undermined in Geneva, was tottering; its pillars and buttresses were giving way; and the keystone of the arch, the episcopal power itself, was on the point of crumbling to dust. Alas! catholic Geneva was a dismantled fortress.740

=THE DUKE'S IRRITATION.=

When the duke heard of the bishop's concessions, he was seized with one of his fits of anger. And not without cause: by transferring the civil authority to a lay tribunal, La Baume had been guilty of a new offence against the duke; for it was in reality the jurisdiction of the vidame (that is to say, of the duke) which the bishop had thus ceded; and hence it was that he had been induced to do it so readily.

Charles had no need of this new grievance. When they learnt at the court of Turin that the canons had been put in prison by the prelate, there was a violent commotion; the friends and relatives of those reverend gentlemen made a great noise, and the duke resolved to send the most urgent remonstrances to the Genevans, reserving the right to have recourse to more energetic measures if words did not suffice. He commissioned M. de Jacob, his grand equerry, to go and set this little people to rights, and the ducal envoy arrived in Geneva about the middle of July. He carried his head very high, and behaved with great reserve, as if he had been injured: he had come with the intention of making that city, so small and yet so arrogant, feel how great is the power of a mighty prince. On the 20th of July, the Sire de Jacob being introduced before the council, haughtily represented to them, not that the reverend fathers imprisoned as criminals were innocent, but that they belonged to high families and were his highness's subjects, and added that the duke consequently ordered them to be immediately set at liberty. 'Otherwise,' added the ambassador in an insolent tone, 'my lord will see to it, as shall seem good to him.' The tone and look of the ducal envoy explained his words, and every one felt that Charles III. would come and claim the canons at the head of his army. The embarrassed magistrates and prelates answered the envoy by throwing the blame upon one another. The former declared that they had not interfered in the matter, which concerned Monseigneur of Geneva only; and the bishop, in his turn, laid all the blame on the people. 'I was obliged to do so,' he said, 'to save the canons from being killed.' Nevertheless, he showed himself merciful. The avoyer of Friburg, who had been delegated for this purpose by his council, added his entreaties to the ducal summons; and, pressed at once by Switzerland and Savoy, the bishop thought he could not resist. The arrest of the canons was in reality, on his part, an act of passion as much as of justice. 'I release them,' he said; 'I pardon them. I leave vengeance to God.'

The canons quitted the place where they had been confined, bursting with anger and indignation. Having had time to reflect on what was passing in Geneva, on the impetuous current that was hurrying the citizens in a direction contrary to Rome, they had made up their minds to quit a city where they had been so unceremoniously thrown into the receptacle for criminals. De Montrotier, De Veigy, and their colleagues had hardly returned to their houses when they told everybody who would listen to them that they would leave Geneva and the Genevans to their miserable fate. This strange resolution immediately spread through the city, and excited the people greatly; it was important news, and they could hardly believe it. The canons of Geneva were a very exalted body in the opinion of catholicity. In order to be received among them, the candidate must show titles of nobility or be a graduate in some famous university; and since the beginning of the century their number included members of the most illustrious families of Savoy—De Gramont, De la Foret, De Montfalcon, De Menthon, De la Motte, De Chatillon, De Croso, De Sablon, and others as noble as they.741

=THE CANONS LEAVE THE CITY.=

The canons kept their word. As soon as they had made the necessary arrangements for their departure, they mounted their mules or got into their carriages, and set off. The Genevans, standing at the doors of their houses and in groups in the streets, watched these Roman dignitaries thus abandoning their homes, some with downcast heads, others with angry looks, who moved along sad and silent, and went out by the Savoy gate with hearts full of resentment against a city which they denounced as ungrateful and rebellious. Out of thirty-two, only seven or eight remained.742 The citizens, assembling in various places, were agitated with very different thoughts. The huguenots said to themselves that these high and reverend clerks, true cardinals, who supported the papacy much better than the bishop, would no longer be there to prevent the new generation from throwing off the shackles of the middle ages; that this unexpected exodus marked a great revolution; and that the old times were departing, and the Reformation beginning. On the other hand, the creatures of Rome felt a bitter pang, and flames of vengeance were kindled in their hearts. Lastly, those citizens who were both good Genevans and good catholics, were seized with fear and melancholy. 'No more canons, erelong perhaps no more bishop!... Will Geneva, without its canons and bishops, be Geneva still?' But the great voice, which drowned all the rest, was that of the partisans of progress, of liberty, of independence, and of reform, who desired to see political liberty developed among the community, and the Church directed by the Word of God and not by the bulls of the pope. Among them were Maison-Neuve, Bonivard, Porral, Bernard, Chautemps, and others. These men, the pioneers of modern times, felt little respect and no regret for the canons. They said to one another that these noble and lazy lords were pleased with Geneva so long as they could luxuriously enjoy the pleasures of life there; but that when the hour of combat came, they fled like cowards from the field of battle. The canons did fly in fact; they arrived at Annecy, where they settled. As for Geneva, they were never to enter it again.

731 'Pro summa ducatorum auri largorum duorum millia.'—Galiffe fils, Besançon Hugues, p. 454; Pièces Justificatives, No. 4.

732 Spon, Hist. de Genève, i. p. 407, note.

733 Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 468. Journal de Balard, p. 112. Gautier MS. Mém. d'Archéologie, iv. p. 161.

734 In his journal recently published, Balard, one of the most respected and most catholic magistrates of the time, describes this plot at full length, pp. 117, 118. See also Bonivard, Police de Genève, p. 396.

735 Journal de Balard, p. 118. Bonivard, Police de Genève, p. 396.

736 'On regratia Dieu.'—Journal de Balard, p. 117. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 467.

737 Journal de Balard, p. 119. Registres du Conseil, ad locum.

738 Registres du Conseil des 13 et 14 juillet 1527. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 467. Galiffe, Matériaux pour l'Histoire de Genève, ii. pp. 421, 517. Journal de Balard, p. 119.

739 Registres du Conseil du 15 juillet 1527. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 471. Journal de Balard, p. 119.

740 Registres du Conseil du 15 juillet 1527. Journal de Balard, p. 119. Bonivard, Chroniq. pp. 471, 472.

741 Besson, Mémoire du Diocèse de Genève, p. 87.

742 Registres du Conseil des 18, 19, 23, 24 juillet 1527. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 468. Journal de Balard, pp. 121-124.