Читать книгу History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - Страница 34

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The duke had no sooner departed than there was a general burst of indignation against him, and against the mamelukes who had delivered up the greatest of the citizens to his sword. Bernard Boulet, the city treasurer, was one of the proudest of these ducal partisans. He had built a fine house, where he gave splendid entertainments to his party and kept a good table, by which means he soon squandered away all his property. But unwilling to renounce his gay life, he clandestinely appropriated the property of the State, and still continued to entertain magnificently. ‘Boulet,’ said the huguenots, ‘thinks only of indulging with his friends in all kinds of pleasure, in drunkenness, and in voluptuousness. Foppish in dress, dainty at table, he has no thought for the hunger and nakedness of the poor. Dissipation, bad management, fraud, robbery make up his whole life.’ Boulet, who furnished no accounts, owed the city ‘at least 6,400 florins’355—a very large sum for those days. But they feared his influence and malice; and nobody was willing ‘to bell the cat.’ Syndic Richardet, a good patriot, courageous but hot-headed, entered the council one day determined to put an end to these manifest peculations. ‘I call upon the treasurer,’ he said, ‘to produce the accounts of his office.’ The embarrassed Boulet attempted to evade the question; but, being determined to make him give an account of his conduct, the syndic persisted. The mameluke, driven into a corner, exclaimed: ‘Are we to be governed by these huguenots?’—‘He spoke thus from contempt,’ says Bonivard. The fiery Richardet could not restrain himself; exasperated because the treasurer insulted him at the very moment he was discharging the duties of his office, he acted after the style of Homer’s heroes, and, raising his syndic’s staff above the dishonest mameluke, dealt him such a blow that the staff flew to pieces. It must be remembered that in the middle ages deeds of violence were sometimes reckoned lawful. For instance, an old charter bore that if a respectable man or woman were insulted, every prud’homme who came up was permitted to punish such misconduct by one, two, or three blows; only the prud’homme was required to make oath afterwards that he had given the blows for the sake of peace.356 There was instantly a great commotion in the hall; the mameluke councillors uttered cries of anger; the huguenots protested that Richardet had acted without their approval; and the syndic, who was sincere and good at heart, frankly apologised. Throughout all the disturbance Boulet did not utter a word; he was secretly calculating the advantages he could derive from this assault, and was delighted to have suffered it. ‘He swallowed it as mild as milk,’ says Bonivard.357 Chance, he thought, favoured him, and had opportunely extricated him from a desperate position. What a providence in this violent act of the syndic! The greedy dishonest treasurer would put on the airs of a martyr; his fidelity to the duke, he would say, had drawn upon him this savage assault. He would excite Charles III. against Geneva; he would urge him to take the city by storm; and in the midst of all these agitations his accounts would be forgotten—which was the essential thing for him.

Boulet did not rejoice alone. His friends the mamelukes having met, agreed to work this assault in such a way as to make the blow which had severed Lévrier’s head be forgotten. ‘Good!’ said they; ‘we have now an opportunity of beginning the old dance again;358 that is, to surrender Geneva to Savoy. Go to Chambéry,’ they continued; ‘make your complaint; say that you are not safe in this huguenot city, and entreat his Highness’s council to summon the syndic who offended you to appear before them—even at Chambéry.’

Boulet did all he could to exaggerate his injury. He bandaged his head, he carried his arm in a sling. In vain the surgeon assured him that his left arm was but slightly bruised, and that he had no other wound; no matter: ‘I will make my complaint to the bishop,’ he said; ‘I will make it to the duke!’359 He would have gone even to the emperor. The wrath of Achilles, after he had been robbed of Briseis, hardly equalled the wrath of this wretch, and, in his opinion, Geneva deserved to receive a punishment as severe as that under which Troy fell. He had retired across the Arve, like Pelides to his tent. Some of his friends, his father-in-law and the judge of Gex in particular, called upon him and sought to pacify him; but he remembered the affront that had been done him, and was implacable. ‘Geneva shall pay dearly for it,’ he repeated to his friends.

He set out for Chambéry, asked an audience of the ducal council, and reported the syndic’s violence. People were very uneasy at Geneva. ‘These Savoyards,’ said the prior of St. Victor, ‘would like nothing better than to plunder the huguenots.’ The Savoy bailiffs soon appeared; they set up posts at the bridge of Arve, at Les Grottes, and at the Mint—all round the city—and fastened letters of citation to them. The council of Geneva was summoned to appear before the council of Savoy. That was not all: the macers (massarii) of the Savoyard council declared the possessions of the Genevans in Savoy confiscated, and consequently forbade the farmers and vine-dressers to till the land or to grind at the mill. Meadows, fields, vineyards, all were to remain uncultivated. Hitherto it had pertained to God alone to send years of famine; now Messieurs of Chambéry claimed to have the same privilege; and some Genevese farmers, who had begun to till the earth with the permission of the local magistrates, were put in prison by the superior authority. Almost at the same time other citizens were arrested on frivolous pretexts and thrown into one of the dungeons of Château Gaillard. These poor creatures climbed by turns to the loophole, by means of a beam placed against the wall, in order to breathe the fresh air and speak to their wives and children. One day when they were indulging in this consolation, the beam was taken away by the duke’s order, and the unhappy wretches were compelled to crouch at the bottom of their filthy prison.

Boulet wished, however, to enjoy his triumph; he longed to set the magistrates at defiance and ask them whether a blow might not cost them too dear. A bailiff of Chambéry arrived at Geneva, just as if that city had been within his jurisdiction, and posted a ‘protection’ on the door of Boulet’s house. This was a daring usurpation, an insult; but if the treasurer suffered the least harm, the duke would consider it as if done to himself. Boulet reappeared, and had the audacity to show himself at a general council. This was a little too much: the wretch who had brought so many calamities upon the citizens, dared appear among them! Did he hope to receive another blow? Who can say? The Genevans restrained themselves; no one raised a hand against him; but he overheard some persons speaking of his peculations: ‘I will produce my books and accounts,’ he said. He met with looks that alarmed him. Suppose they were to put him in prison, as they had the right, for he was accused of malversation towards the State. Fearing some mischance, he disappeared again, and went to beseech the ducal council to ‘vex’ the Genevans. All this was threatening. The syndics gave orders that prayers should be offered up and masses sung for the safety of the city.360

During this time, the bishop was beginning one of his frequent evolutions; his rule being to go with the wind, he turned his prow more to the southward, that is, towards Savoy. He feared lest the Genevans should offend the duke, and wrote to them from Piedmont: ‘So conduct yourselves that God and the world may have reason to be satisfied.’361 He returned to Geneva, but did not stay there. He ought to have intervened between the duke and his own subjects, exposed the serious crimes of the dishonest treasurer, and prevailed upon the council of Chambéry to withdraw their violent threats; but though he was both bishop and prince of the Genevans, he took care not to do them justice. He escaped to St. Claude, more sensible to the charms of a worldly life and of the wine of Arbois, than to the misfortunes of the city. In his eyes the epitome of wisdom was to satisfy God and the world, but the seductions of the world were so attractive that he forgot to be the friend of God. Some Genevans even asserted that ‘he cared no more for the life to come than a brute beast.’ Pierre de la Baume had noticed that since the accession of Clement VII. the house of Savoy had been in greater favour than ever at the court of Rome; it was his policy to keep on good terms with it, to flatter it, in order to obtain a cardinal’s hat through its influence, as he did a little later. For a red hat it was worth while abandoning his sheep to the wolves.

But if the bishop turned to every wind, the duke did not. The council of Savoy increased its severity towards Geneva. Richardet had raised his staff against one man; Charles raised his against a whole people. All Geneva was agitated. The citizens besieged the syndics with their complaints; the syndics assembled the council. They described the scenes that were taking place in the country, and all the violence of Savoy. Two of the noblest magistrates, Syndic Dumont and Aimé Girard, hastened to St. Claude to inform the bishop of the oppressions of the Savoyards. Girard possessed a lofty soul and impetuous disposition; he described with such spirit the outrages heaped upon Geneva, that De la Baume seemed touched, and promised the Genevans his support. ‘If needs be,’ he exclaimed, ‘I will go to the pope myself.... I will go to the emperor.... I will beseech them to protect my good right and the franchises of your city.’ The deputation was delighted. But the bishop hastened to restrain himself: the duke, the duke’s power, and the red hat recurred to his mind. ‘Do not let us be in a hurry,’ he said more coldly; ‘I shall first send the noble Albalesta to the duke.’ A month having elapsed, while Albalesta had obtained nothing, the Genevese resolved to take their cause into their own hands. This was what the bishop desired to avoid at any cost. He swore that he would cite the officers of Savoy before the pope, under a penalty of 10,000 ducats.362 But Geneva, which placed little trust in the bishop, resolved to maintain its independence, and to resist that foreign Pharaoh who had dared to punish with barrenness that earth which God waters with the rain from heaven.

The new campaign required a new leader. Berthelier, Lévrier, those noble-hearted men, were no more.... But there was a third, and he the very man they required. Besançon Hugues had neither the impulsiveness of Berthelier nor the firmness of Lévrier; but, mild and tender, he felt a love for his country, the fire of which never ceased to animate him. Moderate, friendly, and of insinuating manners, he was able to win over even his enemies, and often exercised great influence over Pierre de la Baume. Possessing great physical strength, bold, devoted, never sparing himself, he braved the most inclement seasons, and rushed, sword in hand, into the midst of the most furious enemies. Gifted with a rare discernment, which permitted him to see clearly into the most complicated questions, a keen diplomatist, a wise politician, a warm patriot, he was able by his consummate wisdom to remove obstacles, by his powerful eloquence to convince the most obstinate, even the senators of Berne, and to draw tears from those iron hearts. He bore in his person a prestige that secured him an irresistible influence in the councils, and with a few lines, a few words, he could still the popular waves ere they came into collision. He has been called the Nestor, the Sully, the Washington, of Geneva. This is perhaps saying too much: this Nestor was only twenty-five when he began his struggles with the duke, thirty-four at this period of our narrative, and when he died, two or three years before the final Reformation of Geneva, he was under forty. Yet Hugues was, on a small scale and on a small stage, what these great men were on a large one.

The period for electing the syndics having arrived, it was determined to raise to the chief magistracy citizens fitted to maintain the rights of the country; and the name of Hugues was in every mouth. He was returned, as well as Montyon, Pensabin, and Balard. With Hugues for their chief, Geneva feared nothing. But the honest citizen refused the office to which he had been elected. His friends came round him and entreated him to accept: he seemed the only pilot able to steer the ship of the State through the numerous shoals. ‘The bishop is your friend; he will protect you,’ they said.—‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘as he protected Lévrier.’—‘If you refuse,’ said Balard, ‘we shall refuse also.’—‘The duke,’ replied Hugues, ‘has forbidden me personally to meddle in city affairs; I have given him my promise. Lévrier’s death has taught us what the duke’s wrath can do. I would rather be a confessor than a martyr.’ Did Hugues give way to a momentary weakness? We may be allowed to doubt it. He desired to keep the promise he had made, and had other motives besides. Thinking that he would be of little use in the council, and that Geneva must be saved by other means, he wished to remain free in his movements. But many could not understand him, and their anger broke through all restraint. ‘Hugues is wanting in his most sacred duties,’ they said. These proud republicans spared nobody. His friend and brother-in-law, the ex-syndic Baud, captain of the artillery, proposed to the council-general to deprive him of his citizenship for one year. Strange contradiction! almost at the same moment this man was raised to the head of the republic and in danger of being expelled from it. But the people seemed to have an instinctive sentiment that Hugues would not be wanting at last: ‘He gives way now,’ they said, ‘only to succeed better hereafter.’ Baud’s proposition was rejected.363

Geneva began by a singular measure. The general council having assembled in the church of St. Pierre on the 10th of January, 1525, it was resolved to appeal to the pope against the attacks of Savoy, and delegates were despatched to lay the appeal before him. The Genevans were men of precedent: they desired to have recourse to a tribunal recognised for ages. ‘The popes,’ observed some of them, ‘are the defenders of the liberties of the people.’ But others, like Bonivard, well read in history, shook their heads, and argued that if princes had been excommunicated by popes, it was not for having violated the liberties of their people, but for resisting the ambition of pontiffs. They mentioned Philip Augustus and Philip the Fair. The appeal to the pope would serve to show that he took part with oppressors only. However, the deputies of Geneva started on their journey. It was ten years before the day when the Reformation was proclaimed within its walls. This measure is a remarkable indication of the peaceful and loyal sentiments by which the magistrates were animated.

At the same time the syndics waited upon the bishop’s official; they would have liked for the bishop himself to plead their cause before the pope. ‘If my lord consents to pass the mountains and support us at Rome,’ said they, ‘we will give him a hundred gold crowns, and will add five-and-twenty for you.’ The official smiled: ‘A hundred crowns!’ he said, ‘that will not be enough to shoe his horses.’—‘We will give him two hundred, then,’ answered the syndics. The bishop, who was always short of money, put this sum into his purse, and then endeavoured to arrange the matter without disturbing himself, by merely sending a deputy to Chambéry.

Never was deputy worse received. The president of the ducal council, annoyed that so small a city should dare resist a prince so mighty as his master, looked contemptuously at the deputy and exclaimed: ‘The duke is sovereign prince of Geneva. What was Geneva a hundred years ago? a paltry town. Who is it that made this town into a city? The duke’s subjects who owe him toll and service.364 The Genevans desire us to cancel the penalties pronounced against them.... Ha, ha! Messieurs of Geneva, we will increase them. If within a month from this you do not make your submission, we will send you so many soldiers, that you must e’en take the trouble to obey his Highness.’ The destruction of the liberties of Geneva seemed to be at hand.

The Genevans now had recourse to the bishop a second time, and conjured him to pass the Alps. Between this second demand and the first, many events had occurred in the political world. Pierre de la Baume was a zealous agent of the imperialist party, and the emperor had informed him that he wanted him for certain matters. Flattered that Charles V. should send for him, he appeared to grant the Genevese their prayer. ‘I will go,’ he said, and immediately quitted Geneva. Bonivard, who knew La Baume well, smiled as he saw the simple burgesses giving their prince-bishop two hundred crowns to defend them. ‘He is a great spendthrift,’ said the prior, ‘and in his eyes the sovereign virtue of a prelate consists in keeping a good table and good wine; he indulges beyond measure. Besides, he is very liberal to women, and strives to show the nobility of his descent by great pomp and not by virtue.... You have given him two hundred crowns ... what will he do with the money? He will gamble or squander it away in some other manner.’365 And in fact he had hardly arrived at Turin, when, without pleading the cause of Geneva, without visiting Rome to defend it before the pope, he set off instantly for Milan, where, as agent of Charles V., he plotted against Francis I. But of the pope and of Geneva, not a word.

Such was the episcopal tenderness of Pierre de la Baume. To deliver from foreign and tyrannical oppression the country of which he was both prince and bishop was not in his opinion worth the trouble of taking a single step; but if it were required to go and intrigue in Lombardy for the potentate whom he looked upon as the arbiter of the world, a nod was sufficient to make him hasten thither.

As for the Genevese delegates, Rome saw no more of them than of their bishop: the court of Turin had found the means of stopping them on the road. Besides, had they reached the banks of the Tiber, there was no danger that Clement VII. would have taken up their cause; he would have laughed at such strange ambassadors. All was going on well for the duke; he had succeeded in completely isolating the weak and proud city.366

This prince resolved to bring matters to an end with a restless people who gave him more trouble than his own states. He quitted Turin, crossed the mountains, and ‘lodged at Annecy,’ says Bonivard. In order to succeed, he resolved to employ a smiling lip and a strong hand; the use of such contrary means was as natural as it was politic in him: Charles was always blowing hot and cold. If Geneva sent him deputies, he said: ‘Upon the honour of a gentleman, I desire that the letters I have granted in your favour should be observed.’ But another day, the same man who had appeared as gentle as a lamb became as fierce as a wolf; he had the deputies seized and thrown into dungeons, as well as any Genevans who ventured into his territories. The soldiers ransacked the country-houses lying round Geneva, carried away the furniture, and drank the wine; they also cut off the supplies of the city, which was a scandalous violation of the most positive treaties.367

Still the appeal to Rome made the duke uneasy. The prince of Rome was a priest, the prince of Geneva was a priest also: Charles feared that the two priests would play him some ugly trick behind his back. He determined, therefore, to employ intrigue rather than force, to induce the people to confer on him the superior jurisdiction, which would put him in a position to monopolise the other rights of sovereignty; he resolved to ask for it as if he were doing the Genevese a great favour. Accordingly on the 8th of September the vidame appeared before the council as if he had come to make the most generous proposition in behalf of his Highness. ‘On the one hand,’ he said, ‘you will withdraw the appeal from Rome; and on the other, the duke will put an end to all the annoyances of which you complain.’ And then he demanded the superior jurisdiction in Geneva for the duke, as if it were mere surplusage. Charles expected this time to attain his end. Indeed, his numerous partisans in the city, seeing that the decisive moment had arrived, everywhere took up the matter warmly. ‘Let us accept,’ said the mameluke Nergaz. ‘If we refuse these generous proposals, our property and our fellow-citizens will never be restored, and none of us will be able to leave our narrow territory without being shut up in his Highness’s prisons.’—‘Let us accept,’ answered all the ducal partisans. Geneva was about to become Savoyard; and the humble but real part reserved for her in history would never have existed. Then the most courageous patriots—Besançon Hugues, Jean Philippe, the two Bauds, Michael Sept, Syndic Bouvier, who had been named in place of Hugues, Ami Bandière, the two Rosets, John Pécolat, and John Lullin—exclaimed: ‘If we love the good things of this life so much, our only gain will be to lose them and our liberty with them. The duke entices us to-day, only to enslave us to-morrow. Let us fear neither exile, nor imprisonment, nor the axe. Let us secure the independence of Geneva, though it be at the price of our blood.’ Even Bouvier, a weak and wavering character, was electrified by these noble words, and added: ‘Rather than consent to this demand, I will leave the city and go to Turkey!’ ... ‘No compromise with the duke!’ repeated all the independents. The mamelukes persisted: they pointed to the fields lying fallow, to the Genevans in prison ... and without touching upon the question of the superior jurisdiction (for that was inadmissible) they demanded that the appeal of Geneva against the duke should be withdrawn. There was a majority of eleven in favour of this proposition; forty-two votes were given against it, and fifty-three for it. It was strange that the huguenots supported the appeal to the pope. The pope (very innocently, it must be confessed) seemed to be on the side of liberty.... The party of independence was vanquished.368

Charles was not satisfied, however. He hated these majorities and minorities, and all these republican votes; he wanted a passive and unanimous obedience; he attended only to the votes of the minority, and meditated setting every engine to work to get rid of the forty-two huguenots who opposed his designs. At court they were delighted with the result; they made a jest of the forty-two independents who had had the simplicity to give their names, and thus point themselves out to the court of Turin as persons to be despatched first of all. The list was read over and over again: they picked it to pieces—a sarcasm against this man, an insult against that. All necessary measures were taken for the great act of purification which was to be accomplished. The duke gave orders to move up the army that was to enter the city and free it from the rebels.

The enemies of Geneva were not less active within than without. The vidame, a servile agent of Charles, assembled the chiefs of the mamelukes in his house. As all the citizens whose deaths they desired were not included among the forty-two, they occupied themselves at these meetings in drawing up proscription lists. Vidame, mamelukes, Savoyards, congratulated each other on ‘cutting off the heads of their adversaries,’ and wrote down the names of many of the best citizens.369 The disease, according to these conspirators, had spread widely; it was necessary to get rid of the friends of independence at one blow and not singly. They prepared to seize the patriots in the city, and to slay them outside the city; the parts were distributed; this man will arrest, that man will try, and the other will put to death. At the same time, to prevent the free Genevans from escaping, the duke stationed soldiers on every road. Geneva will be very fortunate if it escapes the plot this time, and if it does not see its old liberties and its new hopes of the Gospel and of reformation perish under the sword of Savoy.

Charles III., leading the way to Charles IX., began his persecution of the huguenots. He commenced with his own territories, where he could do as he pleased; Pierre de Malbuisson was seized at Seyssel; Beffant at Annecy; Bullon was arrested on Sunday (frightful sacrilege in the eyes of the catholics!) in the church of Our Lady of Grace, during high mass. ‘That matters not,’ said the ducal party; ‘there are cases where the privileges of the Church must give way to the interests of the State.’ During this time, the patriots remaining at Geneva went up and down the city, showing themselves brave even to imprudence, and boldly demanded the convocation of a general council of the people to annul the division which by a majority of eleven had given such satisfaction to the duke. This inflamed Charles’s anger to the highest degree; he swore to be avenged of such an insult, and everything was prepared to crush these audacious citizens. The sky grew dark; a dull murmur was heard in the city; there was a general uneasiness; every man asked his neighbour what was going to happen ... alarm was everywhere.

At last the storm burst. It was the 15th of September. One, two, three—several persons not known in Geneva, peasants, or tradespeople, and men of little importance, appeared at the gates: they were messengers sent to the patriots by their friends and relations settled in Savoy. One message succeeded another. The ducal army is in motion, they were told; it is preparing to quit the villages where it was stationed. Leaders and soldiers declare loudly that they are going to Geneva to put the duke’s enemies to death. Nothing else can be heard but threats, boasts, and shouts of joy.... A few minutes later the people of the neighbourhood ran up and announced that the army was only a quarter of a league distant. The people hastened to the higher parts of the city: they saw the arquebusiers, halberdiers, and flags; they heard the drums and fifes, the tramp of the march, and the hurrahs of the soldiers. The Savoyards were in the fields and the mamelukes in the streets. It was not even possible for the citizens to expose themselves to death on the ramparts. The ducal faction would not permit them to approach. ‘Make your escape,’ said some to the huguenot leaders; ‘if you delay an instant, you are lost.’ The mamelukes lifted their heads and exclaimed: ‘Now is the day of vengeance!’

The noble citizens threatened by the sword of Charles, or rather by the axe of his executioners, wished to come to some understanding with each other, but they had not the time to confer together. They knew the fate that awaited them, and the alarm of their friends and wives, of those who had nothing to fear, drove them out like a blast of wind. Some would have sold their lives dearly; others said that their task was not yet completed, that if the duke attacked them perfidiously, if the bishop basely abandoned them, they must retire elsewhere, pray for the hour of justice, and procure powerful defenders for Geneva. Their resolution was hardly formed when the field-sergeants approached the gates. The huguenots pursued by the sword of Savoy could neither carry away what would be necessary during their exile, nor take leave of their friends; people in the streets had hardly time to enter their houses. All departed amid the tears of their wives and the cries of their children.

The exodus began, not the exodus of a whole people, but of the flower of the citizens. Many were seen leaving the gates of the city. There was Jean Baud, captain of the artillery, with his brother Claude, a zealous episcopalian, but a friend of independence; Girard, who had succeeded Boulet as treasurer of the city; Jean Philippe, afterwards first syndic; the intrepid Jean Lullin, Hudriot du Molard, and Ami Bandière, who were syndics in the year of the Reformation; Jean d’Arloz, afterwards one of the Council of Two Hundred; Michael Sept, a frequent deputy to Switzerland; G. Peter, Claude Roset, father of the celebrated syndic and chronicler; J. L. Ramel, Pierre de la Thoy, Chabot, and Pécolat. Others quitted Geneva secretly; some by day, some by night, in disguise, on foot or on horseback, ‘in great haste, by different roads, without consulting one another.’ Some crept along the edge of the lake, others hastened towards the mountains. Melancholy dispersion, sad calamity!370 And yet as they departed, these generous men kept up the hope of seeing liberty victorious. In this dread and critical hour, they cast their eyes over the walls of the old city, and swore that they left it not to escape death, but to save it from oppression. They were going in search of help—not towards the enslaved banks of the Tiber, as they did once in their folly; but towards those noble mountains of Switzerland, which had thrown off the yoke of foreign tyrants. The sword of Savoy pursues them; but, wonderful providence of God! it drives them towards those countries where a new light has dawned, and where they will meet at nearly every step the friends of Zwingle and of the Reformation. It is a prince, a friend of the pope, that is sending them to the school of the Gospel.

The most threatened of all was Besançon Hugues: if he had been taken, his head would have been the first to fall. At that time he happened to be at a farm he possessed at Chatelaine, a short distance from Geneva, in the direction of Gex. He was serious, but calm, for he felt the importance of the crisis, and was tranquilly preparing to gather his grapes, for it was vintage time. On the evening of the 15th of September he received a visit from his friend Messire Vuillet, commandant of Gex, who rode up on horseback, and asked him, with an air of frankness, to give him a bed for the night. Hugues had no suspicion; the horse was put into the stable; a room was prepared for Vuillet, and the two friends, sitting down at table, talked a long while over their supper. The commandant of Gex, commissioned by the duke to arrest Hugues, had ordered his officers to be at Chatelaine early in the morning of the 16th; and to make sure of not losing his victim, he had thought the cleverest way was to come and sup as a friend with the man whom he was to deliver up to the death of Berthelier and of Lévrier, to sleep under his roof, to arrest him next morning, and hand him over to the executioners. Hugues as yet knew nothing of what was going on at Geneva.

The flight had already become general: the huguenots hurried away, some in the direction of Friburg by way of Lausanne; others to St. Claude, by the Jura. The bishop, as we have said, had gone into Italy, probably in March, six months before; but he had devoted partisans at St. Claude. Accordingly the fugitives, who still hoped something from the episcopal power, took the latter road. Let us follow the first of these two companies.

At the head of those who had taken the road to Switzerland were De la Thoy and Chabod. They galloped their horses full speed along the Lausanne road; on reaching Versoix, they fell unexpectedly into the midst of the soldiers posted there with orders to stop the Genevans in their flight. De la Thoy, who was well mounted, gave his horse the spur, and escaped; but Chabod was taken and carried to Gex. The news of this arrest spread immediately, and caused great trouble among the fugitives who followed them. They threw themselves into the by-roads, they skirted the foot of the mountains, and in vain did Charles’s men-at-arms follow in their track: many of them arrived at Lausanne. Yet it was Friburg they wished to reach, and to do that they had to cross difficult passes where the duke had stationed his soldiers in order to seize them. The Sieur d’Englisberg, avoyer of Friburg, possessed vineyards on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, and was gathering his grapes at La Vaux. While busy with his vats and presses, he learnt what was going on, and, full of compassion for the unhappy men, he sent off a courier to his colleagues. The Friburg council immediately despatched an officer with thirty horsemen, with orders to protect the fugitive huguenots.

During this time, those who had taken the road to Franche-Comté (the bishop’s followers) crossed the Jura mountains and ‘made a thousand windings to escape,’ says Bonivard. They walked but little during the day, much during the night; they flung themselves into the woods and scaled the rocks. These worthy episcopalians fancied that it would be sufficient to see their pastor’s face and be saved. And even if he had not returned to St. Claude, that city would afford them a secure asylum. But, cruel disappointment! not only was there no bishop, but his officers repulsed his persecuted subjects. Nobody in the city would give shelter even to the most catholic of the fugitives.

The Genevans, disappointed in their expectations and disconcerted in their plans, determined to continue their flight. It was indeed time: just as they were leaving St. Claude by one gate, the Savoyard soldiers entered by another. Terror added wings to their feet; they hurried along, the rain beating upon them, the horsemen following them hard, at every moment on the brink of falling into the hands of their enemies, and the dangers of their country adding to the wretchedness of their flight. At last they arrived at Besançon, then at Neufchatel, and finally at Friburg, where they met their friends who had come by way of Lausanne. They embraced and grasped each other’s hands. But Besançon Hugues ... they sought him everywhere ... he could not be found. The anxiety was general. It was known what zeal the ducal archers would have employed to seize him; it was besides so easy to surprise him in his quiet retreat at Chatelaine. Alas! the murderers of Cæsar’s tower and of the castle of Bonne might perhaps already have shed the blood of a third martyr!

Hugues and the governor of Gex had passed the evening together; and as the Genevan had, says a manuscript, ‘a keener scent than his treacherous friend,’ he had led on Vuillet to speak of the circumstances of the times, and had guessed the object of his visit. He had learnt that the only means of saving Geneva was to claim the support of the Swiss. The hour for retiring had come; Hugues with a cheerful look conducted the commandant to the room prepared for him, and bade him good night. The latter had hardly fallen asleep when, saddling his guest’s horse, Hugues galloped off with one or two companions; they took the direction of St. Claude, intending to go from thence to Friburg. At daybreak he found himself on the summit of the mountain of Gex, and at the pass of La Faucille bade farewell to the beautiful valley of the Leman, on which the rays of the rising sun were beginning to fall.

At this moment Messire Vuillet awoke, got up noiselessly, and, seeing from the window that his soldiers were posted round the house, stealthily advanced to seize his prey.... The bed was empty, the bird had flown. The commandant of Gex immediately ordered the door to be opened, summoned the provost-marshal, and directed him to pursue the fugitive with the duke’s cavalry. The squadron set off at a gallop. Some hours earlier, the archers of Gex had started in pursuit of the other fugitives, making sure of catching them. The road across the mountains wound about in consequence of the valleys and precipices, so that pursuers and pursued, being sometimes on opposite slopes, might see and even hear one another, although there was an abyss between them. When the flight of Hugues was made known, the zeal of the soldiers increased; and the former, knowing his danger, threw himself into impassable roads in order to escape his enemies. ‘Ah!’ said he afterwards, ‘it was not pleasant; for the archers of Monsieur of Savoy followed us as far as St. Claude, then from St. Claude to Besançon and beyond.... We were forced to journey day and night, through the woods, through the rain, not knowing where to find a place of safety.’ At length he reached Friburg, six days after the arrival of his friends who had gone by Lausanne. Friburgers and Genevese, all welcomed him with transport.371