Lambert Maigret, a French general, who appears to have had some leaning to the Gospel—which is a slight excuse for Zwingle—entered into correspondence with the reformer, giving him to understand that the secret designs of Charles V. called for an alliance between the King of France and the Swiss Republics. "Apply yourself," said this diplomatist to him in 1530, "to a work so agreeable to our Creator, and which, by God's grace, will be very easy to your Mightiness."[1138] Zwingle was at first astonished at these overtures. "The King of France," thought he, "cannot know which way to turn."[1139] Twice he took no heed of this prayer; but the envoy of Francis I. insisted that the reformer should communicate to him a plan of alliance. At the third attempt of the ambassador, the simple child of the Tockenburg mountains could no longer resist his advances. If Charles V. must fall, it cannot be without French assistance; and why should not the Reformation contract an alliance with Francis I., the object of which would be to establish a power in the Empire that should in its turn oblige the King to tolerate the Reform in his own dominions? Everything seemed to meet the wishes of Zwingle; the fall of the tyrant was at hand, and he would drag the Pope along with him. He communicated the general's overtures to the secret council, and Collin set out, commissioned to bear the required project to the French ambassador.[1140] "In ancient times," it ran, "no kings or people ever resisted the Roman Empire with such firmness as those of France and Switzerland. Let us not degenerate from the virtues of our ancestors. His most Christian Majesty—all whose wishes are, that the purity of the Gospel may remain undefiled[1141]—engages therefore to conclude an alliance with the Christian co-burghery that shall be in accordance with the Divine law, and that shall be submitted to the censure of the evangelical theologians of Switzerland." Then followed an outline of the different articles of the treaty.
APPROACHING RUIN.
Lanzerant, another of the king's envoys, replied the same day (27th February) to this astonishing project of alliance about to be concluded between the reformed Swiss and the persecutor of the French Reformed, under reserve of the censure of the theologians......This was not what France desired: it was Lombardy, and not the Gospel that the king wanted. For that purpose, he needed the support of all the Swiss. But an alliance which ranged the Roman-catholic cantons against him, would not suit him. Being satisfied, therefore, for the present with knowing the sentiments of Zurich, the French envoys began to look coolly upon the Reformer's scheme. "The matters you have submitted to us are admirably drawn up," said Lanzerant to the Swiss commissioner, "but I can scarcely understand them, no doubt because of the weakness of my mind......We must not put any seed into the ground, unless the soil be properly prepared for it."
Thus, the Reform acquired nothing but shame from these propositions. Since it had forgotten these precepts of the Word of God: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers!"[1142] how could it fail to meet with striking reverses? Already Zwingle's friends began to abandon him. The Landgrave, who had pushed him into this diplomatic career, drew towards Luther, and sought to check the Swiss Reformer, particularly after this saying of Erasmus had sounded in the ears of the great: "They ask us to open our gates, crying aloud—the Gospel! the Gospel!......Raise the cloak, and under its mysterious folds you will find—democracy."
LANDERS.
While the Reform, by its culpable proceedings, was calling down the chastisement of Heaven, the Five Cantons, that were to be the instruments of its punishment, accelerated with all their might those fatal days of anger and of vengeance. They were irritated at the progress of the Gospel throughout the Confederation, while the peace they had signed became every day more irksome to them. "We shall have no repose," said they, "until we have broken these bonds and regained our former liberty."[1143] A general diet was convoked at Baden for the 8th January, 1531. The Five Cantons then declared that if justice was not done to their grievances, particularly with respect to the abbey of St. Gall, they would no more appear in diet. "Confederates of Glaris, Schaffhausen, Friburg, Soleure, and Appenzell," cried they, "aid us in making our ancient alliances respected, or we will ourselves contrive the means of checking this guilty violence; and may the Holy Trinity assist us in this work!"[1144]
VIOLENCE.
But they did not confine themselves to threats. The treaty of peace had expressly forbidden all insulting language—"for fear," it is said, "that by insults and calumnies, discord should again be excited, and greater troubles than the former should arise." Thus was concealed in the treaty itself the spark whence the conflagration was to proceed. In fact, to restrain the rude tongues of the Waldstettes was impossible. Two Zurichers, the aged prior Ravensbühler, and the pensioner Gaspard Gödli, who had been compelled to renounce, the one his convent, and the other his pension, especially aroused the anger of the people against their native city. They used to say everywhere in these valleys, and with impunity, that the Zurichers were heretics; that there was not one of them who did not indulge in unnatural sins, and who was not a robber at the very least;[1145]—that Zwingle was a thief, a murderer, and an arch-heretic; and that, on one occasion at Paris (where he had never been,) he had committed a horrible offence, in which Leo Juda had been his pander.[1146] "I shall have no rest," said a pensioner, "until I have thrust my sword up to the hilt in the heart of this impious wretch." Old commanders of troops, who were feared by all on account of their unruly character; the satellites who followed in their train; insolent young people, sons of the first persons in the state, who thought everything was lawful against miserable preachers, and their stupid flocks; priests inflamed with hatred, and treading in the footsteps of these old captains and giddy young men, who seemed to take the pulpit of a church for the bench of a pot-house: all poured torrents of insults on the Reform and its adherents. "The townspeople," exclaimed with one accord these drunken soldiers and these fanatic priests, "are heretics, soul-stealers, conscience-slayers, and Zwingle—that horrible man, who commits infamous sins—is the Lutheran God."[1147]
They went still further. Passing from words to deeds, the Five Cantons persecuted the poor people among them who loved the Word of God, flung them into prison, imposed fines upon them, brutally tormented them, and mercilessly expelled them from their country. The people of Schwytz did even worse. Not fearing to announce their sinister designs, they appeared at a Landsgemeinde wearing pine-branches in their hats, in sign of war, and no one opposed them. "The Abbot of St. Gall," said they, "is a prince of the Empire, and holds his investiture from the Emperor. Do they imagine that Charles V. will not avenge him?"—"Have not these heretics," said others, "dared to form a Christian Fraternity, as if old Switzerland was a heathen country?" Secret councils were continually held in one place or another.[1148] New alliances were sought with the Valais, the Pope, and the Emperor[1149]—blamable alliances, no doubt, but such as they might at least justify by the proverb: "Birds of a feather go together;" which Zurich and Venice could not say.
FOREBODINGS OF BERKS.