A treaty made greatly to Berne’s advantage—9,917 golden crowns paid ere the close of the year—the cession of all which Geneva had conquered from Savoy, kept this promise. Henceforth free, the citizens profited by the long wished-for calm to establish order and purity of conduct, to found hospitals and colleges, and a short space of time saw an immoral, superstitious, and ignorant population replaced by one, industrious, serious to austerity, addicted to trades, arts, and sciences, in all which their success became remarkable. The Bernese army, on its march from Geneva, took Morges and Vevey, and besieging Chillon, became masters of this last spot of the Pays de Vaud owned by Savoy, and delivered Bonnivard, who had lain in its dungeons six long years.
In 1536 Calvin appeared in Geneva. Born at Noyon in Picardy, in 1509, and a cooper’s son, he had been destined for the church, and, through the protection of an abbé of his native town, had interest and patrons, which ensured advancement; and before he had taken orders, or attained the age of twenty, he owned titles and revenues attached to several benefices. While pursuing his ecclesiastical studies in Paris, he became acquainted with a young man born, like himself, at Noyon, and his senior by only a few years. The reformed religion was making progress in France, and Olivetan first instilled into his mind the seed which was to spring up a giant tree. He abandoned the study of theology, intending to adopt that of the law; but in consequence of an harangue pronounced at the university, full of the new doctrines, and of which he was believed the composer, he was obliged to fly from Paris, and during the concealment and wanderings, which lasted some months, he patiently continued his researches, and sometimes left his retreat to preach, in public, sermons extraordinary for their success and power. He was well received at the court of Marguerite de Navarre, sister of Francis the First, who at that time, rather with a view to please Rome than from hatred to heresy, had lighted, from one end of his kingdom to the other, the funeral piles of the reformers; and, to conciliate his allies, the protestant princes of Germany, spread abroad pamphlets, in which it was asserted that the men so rigorously treated belonged not to those sectarians, but to “the anabaptists, enemies of all order as well as of all religion.” In his famous work published as their confession of faith, “The Christian Institution,” he refuted the assertions of Francis, respecting the unfortunate victims of his policy; while entering into the subject more clearly and fully than any reformer had yet done, he attacked Rome in all her entrenchments. After its publication he went to Ferrara, and was well received by the Duchesse Renée of France, Louis the Twelfth’s daughter, who afterwards became protestant. Remaining there but a short time, he preached in various towns of Italy, and, discovered in this employment, was obliged to depart in all haste, to ensure his own safety. He returned to Paris, and finding his life endangered by a sojourn there also, he arrived in Geneva, where Farel had for some months borne the whole weight of the affairs of his church, and requested assistance, as unable to continue his labour alone. Become his coadjutor, and leaving to him the care of preaching, he almost entirely consecrated his time to instruction. He determined on reforming the lives as well as the doctrine of the citizens, and commencing this great work with too much promptitude and severity, he roused powerful enemies,—and the faction, profiting by the first favourable moment, demanded and obtained his exile a little less than two years after his coming. He retired first to Berne, and thence to Strasburg, where welcome and distinction waited him: he was regretted at Geneva, and implored to return. Calvin objected his engagements made with Strasburg; but deputies were despatched to the magistrates of this town, begging his restoration to his first flock. His sentence of banishment was unanimously revoked in the public assembly of citizens, and in September, 1541, he re-entered the city. Thenceforward, to the close of his life, his iron authority was undisputed; dancing, light songs, festivals,—pleasures which had always been considered innocent, were strictly forbidden. He, shortly after his arrival, presented in council his proposed changes in ecclesiastical discipline. They were adopted in the following November. In consequence of one of these was instituted a tribunal, called a Consistory, its members half clerical, half laymen, charged with watching over the maintenance of pure doctrine and moral conduct. Its power of censure extended to the most trivial words and actions. No citizen, by his important functions, could be raised above it, or could be sheltered from its reprimands, and the shame of seeing them inscribed on its registers. This new police rendered Calvin master of the occupations as well as the opinions of the Genevese; and as he reigned sovereign in the council to which it referred, as well as in the consistory, the judges pronounced condemnation on all who were opposed to him.
A magistrate was condemned to two months’ imprisonment for irregular life and connexion with Calvin’s enemies; Jacques Gruet to decapitation for writing impious letters and libertine rhymes. The darkest stain on Calvin’s memory is the death of Michael Servet. Born the same year with Calvin, but a Spaniard and destined for the law, he came to Paris early in life for the sake of studying there; but soon abandoning this profession, and also that of medicine afterwards adopted, he abandoned himself to theological dispute, and became, though not denying the divinity of Christ, a violent anti-trinitarian. Having taken up the trade of corrector of the press, he made his occupation subservient to his favourite idea, and, entrusted with a reimpression of the Bible, he added a preface and notes, which Calvin attacked as impertinent and impious. Servet entered into correspondence with him, making use of his talents and learning only to embarrass his adversary, till the paper war grew so violent, that the letters on either side changed to a series of invective. Servet vowed to humiliate his rival, and shortly after brought out a work, whose sole purpose was to call attention to a number of errors he had detected in those of Calvin, above all in his greatest and most valued one, “The Christian Institution.” The reformer was so irritated, that he wrote to his brethren, Farel and Viret, “If ever this heretic falls into my power, my influence with the magistrates shall be used for his destruction.”
From that moment he held no communication with Servet, and the latter, occupied with his system only, spent four years in the compilation of another work attacking the doctrine of the Trinity. It was printed at Vienna, without the author’s or printer’s name; but Calvin, recognising with the opinions the style of Servet, and finding his own writings and himself treated with contempt and bitterness, vowed vengeance on him.
Using unworthy means, he sent to the Cardinal de Tournon, then archbishop of Lyons, and the most violent foe of the reformed faith, some sheets of Servet’s treatise: and the archbishop communicating them to the governor-general of Dauphiné, he made every possible effort to discover from what press they had issued, but in vain; and Servet would have escaped had not Calvin expedited to Lyons the originals (of which he had obtained possession) of some letters contained in the work; affording proof positive of Servet’s being its author.
He was arrested in consequence, and would have been condemned and executed had he not found means to escape from prison. Anxious only to flee from France and to Italy, where he hoped to live unknown, he did not reflect that his shortest road might also prove the most perilous, and, without fear of the consequences, he arrived in Geneva. Made acquainted with his flight, but not with its direction, Calvin’s activity tracked his foe, and, at his demand, he was arrested. The city laws ordained that the accuser should share the prison of the accused, but not choosing to submit to them, this part devolved on one Lafontaine, said to be his valet, while he reserved to himself that of discussing the theological question. In the outset Servet appeared calm and unembarrassed, and even confident in his judges’ equity. As soon as the law process was terminated, copies of it were sent to Zurich, Berne, Bâle, and Schaffhausen. The advice of Zurich was the most severe, but Calvin’s assertion that the Protestant cantons pronounced for the sentence of death, is untrue. The 26th of October, 1553, the tribunal, sitting for the last time, condemned Servet to be burned alive. When its decision was made known to him, the firmness he had hitherto shown gave way, and his shrieks of terror were heart-rending. He hoped to soften Calvin, and had an interview with him two hours before he was led to execution, but his fate had been long decided. He was burned at the stake in a spot called Champey, a stone’s throw from the southern gate of Geneva. He suffered two hours of fearful torments, the wind blowing the flame from him, and cried in his despair, “Unhappy that I am, with the golden pieces and rich collar ye took from me, ye could not purchase wood enough to consume me quicker!”
CHAPTER XI.
A vain Stork—A German coachmaker—Coppet—Ferney—Voltaire’s Church—His habitation—Crockery Cenotaph—Shoe-blacking in his study—The old Gardener—The morning rehearsals in tragic costume—The story of Gibbon—Voltaire catching his pet mare—Gibbon’s opinion of Voltaire’s beauty—Their reconciliation—The tree which shaded Franklin—The increase of his village—The marble pyramid broken—The gardener’s petites antiquités and cross wife—Voltaire’s opinions of his correspondents—His remains the property of a maimed Englishman—Denial to a visitor—His heart in the larder—Genevese pride—Swiss troops—Swiss penitentiaries—Genevese smuggling—The Directeur Général des Douaness an unwilling accomplice—D’Aubigné interred in the cathedral—The Cardinal de Brogny—A swineherd—Shoes bestowed in charity—The boy become a cardinal—The poor shoemaker rewarded—His compassion for John Huss—Courageous death of the latter—De Brogny’s charity—A modest genius and tolerant cardinal.
20th June.