The townsmen immediately rose,—and a great number of them came to revenge the death of their countryman. The archbishop, hearing of the cause of this tumult, left his chamber, and kindly addressed them, promising to have the injury immediately repaired, according to their wishes; and, the more to appease them, he delivered up his blacksmith into the hands of the magistrate of the place, who was a lieutenant of Boucicaut marshal of France, then governor of Genoa.
But this was of no avail,—for as the archbishop was speaking to them, without the door of his house, one of the mob thrust his javelin right through his body to the heart, so that he dropped down dead without uttering another word. It was a great pity, for he was a religious prelate, and of a noble family.
This deed, however, did not satisfy them; for instantly after they murdered the magistrate and the aforesaid blacksmith, and also endeavoured to force their way into the house, whither the cardinal de Bar and the greater part of the others had retired, in order to put them likewise to death.
They were, however, at length appeased by the principal inhabitants, and it was concluded that the cardinal should grant them his pardon for what they had done against him,—to which, indeed, he was induced by his attendants, from their fears of being all destroyed.
They never told him of the murder of the archbishop until he was gone two leagues from the town: on the hearing of it, he was so troubled, and sick at heart, that he was near falling off his mule. His attendants, notwithstanding, made him hasten his pace as much as they could; for they were alarmed for their lives, after the instances they had seen, and from the numbers of people they perceived descending the hills, and the accustomed signs they saw when a town is under any apprehension of danger, and the ringing of bells in the manner usual on these occasions.
These signals were sounded throughout the country, and the peasants were seen running down the hills to overtake them; but when they were arrived within a league of Genoa, the marshal Boucicaut[25] came out with a handsome company to meet him. The cardinal made loud complaints to him of the outrages that had been committed on his people at the town of Voltri, and demanded that he would judicially inquire into it. The marshal replied, that he would make so severe an example of that town that all others should take warning from it.
The cardinal was then conducted into the city of Genoa, where he was made welcome by the churchmen and other inhabitants; and this same day the body of the archbishop of Rheims was brought thither, and honourably interred,—and his obsequies were performed in the principal church of Genoa.
Shortly after, the marshal Boucicaut punished most severely all whom he could apprehend that had committed these outrages, with their accomplices: they were put to death in various ways, and their houses also were razed to the ground, that these executions might serve for warnings to others never to commit such cruel murders.
The cardinal de Bar, with his companions, now set out from Genoa, and travelled, by easy day’s journies, to Pisa, where were assembled a prodigious number of cardinals, doctors in theology, and graduates in civil law and other sciences, ambassadors and prelates, in obedience to the two popes, from different kingdoms, and from all parts of Christendom.
After many councils had been held on the schism in the church, they came at last to this conclusion: they unanimously condemned the two rival popes as heretics, schismatics, obstinate in evil, and perturbators of the peace of our holy mother the church. This sentence was passed in the presence of twenty-four cardinals, at the gates of Pisa, before all the people, the 15th day of June, in the year aforesaid.