Читать книгу History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - Страница 18

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No one embraced Pécolat with so much joy as Berthelier, who had returned to Geneva within these few days. In fact the duke, desirous to please the Swiss by any means, had given him, and also made the bishop give him, a safe-conduct which, bearing date February 24, 1518, extended to Whitsunday, May 23, in the same year. The favour shown the republican hero was not great, for permission was granted him to return to Geneva to stand his trial; and the friends of the prelate hoped that he would not only be tried, but condemned and put to death. Notwithstanding these forebodings, Berthelier, a man of spirit and firm in his designs, was returning to his city to accomplish the work he had prepared in Switzerland: namely, the alliance of Geneva with the cantons. He had taken great trouble about it during his residence among the confederates. He was seen continually ‘visiting, eating, drinking in the houses of his friends or at the guilds (called abbeys), talking with the townsfolk, and proving to them that this alliance would be of great use to all the country of the League.’ Berthelier was then full of hope; Geneva was showing herself worthy of liberty; there was an energetic movement towards independence; the people were wearied of the tyranny of princes. Free voices were heard in the general council. ‘No one can serve two masters,’ said some patriots. ‘The man who holds any pension or employment from a prince, or has taken an oath to other authorities than the republic, ought not to be elected either syndic or councillor.’ This resolution was carried by a large majority. And better still, the citizens chose for syndics three men capable of guarding the franchises of the community; they were Ramel, Vandel, and Besançon Hugues. A mameluke, ‘considering the great credit of the party,’ had also been elected, but only one, Montyon; he was the premier syndic.143

Whilst the patriots were thus making efforts to save the independence of the city, the duke, the bishop, the count, Archbishop Seyssel, and other councillors, meeting at Turin, were pursuing contrary schemes. Would they succeed? Seyssel, the illustrious author of the Grande Monarchie, might tell them that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, the bishop and the lay lord had combined against the liberties of the towns, and aided by arms and anathemas had maintained a war against the communes which had ended in the destruction of the rights and franchises of the citizens. Then the night was indeed dark in the social world. At Geneva, these rights existed still: you could see a flickering light glimmering feebly in the midst of the darkness. But would not the bishop and the duke succeed in extinguishing it? If so, despotism would hold all Europe under its cruel hand, as in the Mahometan and other countries of the world. Why should the operation carried through at Cambray, Noyon, St. Quentin, Laon, Amiens, Soissons, Sens, and Rheims, fail on the shores of the Leman? There was indeed a reason for it, but they did not take it into account. We do not find this reason—at least not alone—in the fact that the heroes of liberty were more intrepid at Geneva than elsewhere. The enfranchisement was to come from a higher source: God then brought forth light and liberty. The middle ages were ending, modern times were beginning. The princes and bishops of Roman Catholicism, in close alliance, had everywhere reduced to ashes the edifice of communal liberties. But in the midst of these ashes some embers were found which, kindled again by fire from heaven, lighted up once more in the world the torch of lawful liberty. Geneva was the obstacle to the definite annihilation of the popular franchises, and in Geneva the strength of the obstacle was Berthelier. No wonder then that the Savoyard princes agreed that in order to check the triumph of the spirit of independence, it was absolutely necessary to get rid of this proud, energetic, and unyielding citizen. They began to prepare the execution of their frightful project. A strange blindness is that which imagines that by removing a man from the world it is possible to thwart the designs of God!

Berthelier, calm because he was innocent, provided besides with an episcopal safe-conduct, had appeared before the syndics to be tried. The duke and the bishop had given orders to their agents, the vidame Conseil and Peter Navis, the procurator-fiscal, to manage his condemnation. The trial began: ‘You are charged,’ said these two magistrates, ‘with having taken part in the riotous amusements of the young men of Geneva.’—‘I desired,’ answered Berthelier frankly, ‘to keep up the good-will of those who were contending for liberty against the usurpations of tyrants.’ The justification was worse than the charge. ‘Let us seize him by the throat, as if he were a wolf,’ said the two judges. ‘You have conspired,’ they continued, ‘against the life of the prince-bishop,’ and they handed in Pécolat’s depositions as proof. ‘All lies,’ said Berthelier coldly, ‘lies extorted by the rack and retracted afterwards.’ Navis then produced the declarations of the traitor Carmentrant, who, as we have seen at the momon supper, undertook the office of informer. ‘Carmentrant!’ contemptuously exclaimed the accused, ‘one of the bishop’s servants, coming and going to the palace every day, eating, drinking, and making merry ... a pretty witness indeed! The bishop has prevailed upon him, by paying him well, to suffer himself to be sent to prison, so that he may sing out against me whatever they prompt him with ... Carmentrant boasts of it himself!’ When they sent the report to the bishop, he perceived, on reading it, that this examination, instead of demonstrating the guilt of the accused, only revealed the iniquity of the accuser; the alarmed prelate therefore wrote to the vidame and Navis to ‘use every imaginable precaution.’ It was necessary to destroy Berthelier without compromising the bishop.

Navis was the man for that. Of a wily and malicious character, he understood nothing about the liberties of Geneva; but he was a skilful and a crafty lawyer. ‘He so mixes retail truth with wholesale falsehood,’ people said, ‘that he makes you believe the whole lump is true. If any iniquity of the bishop’s is discovered, straight he cuts a plug to stop the hole. He is continually forging new counts, and calling for adjournments.’ Navis, finding himself at the end of his resources, began to turn and twist the safe-conduct every way: it expressly forbade the detention of Berthelier’s person. That mattered not. ‘I demand that Berthelier be arrested,’ he said, ‘and be examined in custody; for the safe-conduct, if you weigh it well, is not opposed to this.’144—‘The first of virtues,’ said Berthelier, ‘is to keep your promise.’ Navis, little touched by this morality, resolved to obtain his request by dint of importunity; the next day he required that ‘Berthelier should be shut up closely in prison;’ on the 20th of April, he moved that ‘he should be incarcerated;’ and on the following day, he made the same request; about the end of May he demanded on two different occasions, not only that ‘the noble citizen should be arrested but tortured also.’ ... All these unjust prayers were refused by the court.145 Navis, being embarrassed and irritated, multiplied his accusations; his plaint was like an overflowing torrent: ‘The accused,’ he said, ‘is a brawler, fighter, promoter of quarrels, illegal meetings, and seditions, rebellious to the prince and his officers, accustomed to carry out his threats, a debaucher of the young men of the city, and all without having ever been corrected of his faults and excesses.’—‘I confess that I am not corrected of these faults,’ answered Berthelier with disdain, ‘because I never was guilty of them.’146 It was determined to associate with the syndics some commissioners devoted to the bishop; but the syndics replied that this would be contrary to law. The vidame and Navis, not knowing what to do next, wrote to the duke and the prelate to find some good grievances. ‘You shall have them,’ they answered; ‘we have certain witnesses to examine here, this side the mountains.’ ... Who were these witnesses? Navis little imagined that one of them was his own son, and that the inquiry would end in a catastrophe that would extort from him a cry of anguish. Let us now see what was going on at Turin.147

Blanchet, disgusted with his condition since he had been to the wars, cared little for Geneva. During his sojourn at Turin, in the house of the magnificent lord of Meximieux, the splendour of the establishment had dazzled him. His love for liberty had cooled down, his taste for the luxuries and comforts of life had increased. ‘I will seek patrons and fortune,’ he often repeated. With this object he returned from Geneva to Turin. It was the moment when the bishop was on the watch to catch one of the ‘children of Geneva.’ Blanchet was seized and thrown into prison; and that was not all.148

Andrew Navis, who, since the affair of the mule, had led a more regular life, was dreadfully weary of his father’s office. One Sunday, M. de Vernier gave his friends a splendid breakfast, to which Navis and Blanchet had been invited. Andrew was never tired of hearing ‘the wanderer’ talk about Italy, its delightful landscapes, the mildness of its climate, its fruits, monuments, pictures, concerts, theatres, beautiful women, and of the war between the pope and the Duke of Urbino. A desire to cross the Alps took possession of Andrew. ‘As soon as there is any rumour at Geneva of a foreign war,’ he said, ‘some of my companions hasten to it: why should I not do the same?’ The Duke of Urbino, proud of the secret support of France, was at that time a cause of great alarm to Leo X. An open war against a pope tempted Navis. The vices from which he suffered were not those base errors which nullify a man; but those ardent faults, those energetic movements which leave some hope of conversion. Leaning on his father’s desk, disgusted with the pettifogging business, he felt the need of a more active life. An opportunity presented itself. A woman named Georgia, with whom he had formerly held guilty intercourse, having to go to Turin, to join a man who was not her husband, asked Andrew to be her escort, promising him ‘a merry time of it.’ Navis made up his mind, and without his father’s knowledge left Geneva and his friends, and reached Turin at noon of Saturday the 8th of May. One Gabriel Gervais, a Genevan, was waiting for him: ‘Be on your guard,’ he said; ‘Blanchet has been taken up for some misunderstandings with the bishop.’ The son of the procurator-fiscal thought he had nothing to fear. But on the morrow, about six o’clock in the evening, the same Gabriel Gervais came and told him hastily: ‘They are going to arrest you: make your escape.’ Andrew started off directly, but was caught as he was about to leave the city and taken to the castle.149

The bishop and the duke wished, by arresting these young Genevans, to punish their independent spirit, and above all to extort from them confessions of a nature to procure the condemnation of Berthelier and other patriots. On the 26th of April the Bishop of Geneva had issued his warrant to all the ducal officers, and, in his quality of peaceful churchman, had concluded with these words: ‘We protest we have no desire, so far as in us lies, that any penalty of blood or death should result, or any mutilation of limbs, or other thing that may give rise to any irregularity.’150 We shall see with what care the bishop avoided mutilation of limbs. The duke issued his warrant the same day.

Blanchet’s examination began on the 3rd of May in the court of the castle of Turin. He believed himself accused of an attempt upon the life of the bishop, and doubted not that torture and perhaps a cruel death were reserved for him; accordingly this young man, of amiable but weak disposition, became a prey to the blackest melancholy. On the 5th of May, having been brought back to the court of the castle, he turned to the lieutenant De Bresse, who assisted the procurator-fiscal, and without waiting to be interrogated, he said: ‘I am innocent of the crime of which I am accused.’—‘And of what are you accused?’ said the lieutenant. Blanchet made no answer, but burst into tears. The procurator-fiscal then commenced the examination, and Blanchet began to cry again. On being skilfully questioned, he allowed himself to be surprised, and made several depositions against Berthelier and the other patriots; then perceiving his folly, he stopped short and exclaimed with many groans: ‘I shall never dare return to Geneva! my comrades would kill me.... I implore the mercy of my lord duke.’ Poor Blanchet moved even his judges to pity. Navis, when led before the same tribunal on the 10th of May, did not weep. ‘Who are you?’ they asked. ‘I am from Geneva,’ he replied, ‘scrivener, notary, a gentleman’s son, and twenty-eight years old.’ The examination was not long. The bishop, who was then at Pignerol, desired to have the prisoners in his own hand, as he had once held Pécolat; they were accordingly removed thither.151

On the 14th, 15th,and 21st of May, Navis and Blanchet were brought into the great hall of the castle before the magnificent John of Lucerne, collateral of the council, and Messire d’Ancina. ‘Speak as we desire you,’ said the collateral, ‘and then you will be in his Highness’s good graces.’ As they did not utter a word, they were at first threatened with two turns of the cord, and that not being sufficient, they were put to the rack; they were fastened to the rope, and raised an arm’s length from the floor. Navis was in agony; but instead of inculpating Berthelier, he accused himself. The commandment which says: ‘Honour thy father and thy mother,’ was continually in his mind, and he felt that it was in consequence of breaking it, that he had fallen into dissipation and disgrace. ‘Alas!’ said he, when put to the question, ‘I have been a vagabond, disobedient to my father, roaming here and there, squandering my own and my father’s money in taverns.... Alas! I have not been dutiful to my parents.... If I had been obedient, I should not have suffered as I do to-day.’ On the 10th of June, says the report, he was again put to the torture and pulled up the height of an ell. After remaining there a moment, Navis begged to be let down, promising to tell everything. Then sitting on a bench, he accused himself bitterly of the crime of which he felt himself guilty; he confessed ... to having disobeyed his parents.152 Peter Navis was a passionate judge in the opinion of many; Andrew saw only the father in him; and contempt of paternal authority was the great sin that agonised the wretched young man. Looking into himself, foreseeing the fatal issue of the trial, he did not give way, like Blanchet, to the fear of death, but bewailed his faults. Family recollections were aroused in his heart, the most sacred of bonds recovered their strength, and the image of his father followed him night and day.

The bishop had got thus far in his prosecutions when he learnt that Bonivard had just passed through Turin on his way to Rome. Delighted at seeing the prior of St. Victor fall into his net, the prelate gave orders to seize him on his return. Was it not Bonivard who had caused him such alarm in the palace on the occasion of the metropolitan summons? Was it not this man who had robbed him of Pécolat, and who even aspired to sit some day on his episcopal throne?... It is the nature of certain animals to carry their prey into their dens to devour it. The bastard of Savoy had already dragged Navis and Blanchet into his dungeons, and was preparing to mutilate their limbs; but it would be much better still if he could catch and rend the hated Bonivard with his claws.153

The latter so little suspected the impending danger, that he had come into Italy to solicit the prelate’s inheritance. It was evident that the sickly bastard had not long to live. ‘I will go to Rome,’ said Bonivard to his friends, ‘to obtain the bishop’s benefices by means of a cardination’ (an intrigue of cardinals).154 He desired eagerly to be bishop and prince of Geneva; had he succeeded, his liberal catholicism would perhaps have sufficed for the citizens, and prevented the Reformation. Bonivard reached Rome without any obstacle six years after Luther, and like the reformer was at once struck by the corruption which prevailed there. ‘The Church,’ he said, ‘is so full of bad humours, that it has become dropsical.’155 It was in the pontificate of Leo X.; all that priests, monks, bishops, and cardinals thought about was being present at farces and comedies, and of going masked to courtesans’ houses.156 Bonivard saw all this with his own eyes, and has left us some stories into which he has admitted expressions we must soften, and details we must suppress. ‘Having business one day with the concubinary of the pope’s cubicular (we leave these unusual expressions, the meaning of which is not very edifying), I had to go and find him at a courtesan’s.... She wore smart feathers, waving over a fine gold coif, and a silk dress with slashed sleeves; you would have taken her for a princess.’157 Another day, while walking in the city, he met one of these ‘misses,’ disguised as a man, and riding on a Spanish jennet; on the crupper behind her was a janin wrapped in a Spanish cape, which he drew carefully over his nose so that he might not be recognised. ‘Who is he?’ asked Bonivard. ‘It is Cardinal So-and-so with his favourite,’ was the reply. ‘We say in my country,’ he rejoined, ‘that all the madmen are not at Rome; and yet I see you have them in abundance.’158

The prior of St. Victor did not lose sight of the object of his journey, and canvassed unceasingly; but began to despair of success. ‘Do you wish to know,’ he was asked, ‘what you must do to obtain a request from the pope and cardinals? Tell them that you will kill any man whom they have a grudge against; or that you are ready to serve them in their pleasures, to bring them la donna, to gamble, play the ruffian, and rake with them—in short, that you are a libertine.’ Bonivard was not strict; yet he was surprised that things had come to such a pass in the capital of catholicism. His mind, eager to learn, asked what were the causes of this decline.... He ascribed it to the disappearance of christian individualism from the Church, so that a personal conversion, a new creature, was required no longer. ‘That in the first place,’ he said, ‘because when princes became christians, their whole people was baptised with them. Discipline has been since then like a spider’s web which catches the small flies, but cannot hold the large ones. And next it comes from the example of the popes.... I have lived to see three pontiffs. First, Alexander VI., a sharp fellow,159 a ne’er-do-well, an Italianised Spaniard,—and what was worst of all,—at Rome! a man without conscience, without God, who cared for nothing, provided he accomplished his desires. Next came Julius II., proud, choleric, studying his bottle more than his breviary; mad about his popedom, and having no thought but how he could subdue not only the earth, but heaven and hell.160 Last appeared Leo X., the present pope, learned in Greek and Latin, but especially a good musician, a great glutton, a deep drinker; possessing beautiful pages whom the Italians style ragazzi; always surrounded by musicians, buffoons, play-actors, and other jesters; accordingly when he was informed of any new business, he would say: Di grazia, lasciatemi godere queste papate in pace; Domine mio me la ha date. Andate da Monsignor di Medici.161 ... Everything is for sale at the court: red hats, mitres, judgeships, croziers, abbeys, provostries, canonries.... Above all do not trust to Leo the Tenth’s word; for he maintains that since he dispenses others from their oaths, he can surely dispense himself.’162

Bonivard, astonished at the horrible state into which popes and cardinals, priests and monks, had sunk the Church, asked whence could salvation come.... It was not six months since Prierias, master of the sacred palace, had published a book entitled: Dialogue against the Presumptuous Propositions of Martin Luther.163 ‘Leo X. and his predecessors,’ said Bonivard, ‘have always taken the Germans for beasts: pecora campi, they were called, and rightly too, for these simple Saxons allowed themselves to be saddled and ridden like asses. The popes threatened them with cudgelling (excommunication), enticed them with thistles (indulgences), and so made them trot to the mill to bring away the meal for them. But having one day loaded the ass too heavily, Leo made him jib, so that the flour was spilt and the white bread lost. That ass (he added) is called Martin, like all asses, and his surname is Luther, which signifies enlightener.’164

They found at Rome that Bonivard had not the complaisance necessary for a Roman bishop; and the prior, seeing that he had no chance of success, shook the dust off his feet against the metropolis of catholicism, and departed for Turin. His journey had not, however, been useless: he had learnt a lesson which he never forgot, and which he told all his life through to any one that would listen to him. When he reached Turin, he went to visit his old friends of the university, but they cried out with alarm: ‘Navis and Blanchet are within a hair’s-breadth of death, and it has been decided to arrest you. Fly without losing a moment.’ Bonivard remained. Ought he to leave in the talons of the vulture those two young men with whom he had so often laughed at the noisy banquets of ‘the children of Geneva?’ He resolved to do what he could to interest his friends in their fate. For a whole week he went from house to house, and walked through the streets without any disguise. Nothing seemed easier than to lay hands on him, and the ducal police would have attempted it, but he was never alone. The scholars, charmed with his spirit and independence, accompanied him everywhere, and these thoughtless headstrong youths would have defended him at the cost of their blood. Bonivard, wishing to employ every means, wrote by some secret channel to Blanchet and Navis; the gaoler intercepted the letter, and took it to the bishop, who, fancying he saw in it a conspiracy hatching against him, even in Turin, pressed the condemnation of the prisoners, and ordered Bonivard to be seized immediately. Informed of what awaited him, the intelligent prior displayed great tranquillity. ‘I shall stay a month longer at Turin,’ he told everybody, ‘to enjoy myself with my old friends.’ Many invitations being given him, he accepted them all; but the next day, before it was light, he took horse and galloped off for Geneva.165