In proportion as Geneva grew weaker, Savoy grew stronger. The duke, by circumstances which must have appeared to him providential, had lately seen several provinces settled on different branches of his house, reunited successively to his own states, and had thus become one of the most powerful princes of Europe. La Bresse, Bugey, the Genevois, Gex, and Vaud, replaced under his sceptre, surrounded and blockaded Geneva on all sides. The poor little city was quite lost in the midst of these wide provinces, bristling with castles; and its territory was so small that, as they said, there were more Savoyards than Genevans who heard the bells of St. Pierre. The states of Savoy enfolded Geneva as in a net, and a bold stroke of the powerful duke would, it was thought, be sufficient to crush it.
The dukes were not only around Geneva, they were within it. By means of their intrigues with the bishops, who were their fathers, sons, brothers, cousins, or subjects, they had crept into the city, and increased their influence either by flattery and bribes, or by threats and terror. The vulture had plumed the weak bird, and imagined that to devour him would now be an easy task. The duke by means of some sleight-of-hand trick, in which the prelate would be his accomplice, might in the twinkling of an eye entirely change his position—rise from the hospitable chair which My Lords of Geneva so courteously offered him, and seat himself proudly on a throne. How was the feeble city, so hunted down, gagged and fettered by its two oppressors, able to resist and achieve its glorious liberties? We shall see.
New times were beginning in Europe, God was touching society with his powerful hand; I say ‘society’ and not the State. Society is above the State; it always preserves its right of priority, and in great epochs makes its initiative felt. It is not the State that acts upon society: the movements of the latter produce the transformations of the State, just as it is the atmosphere which directs the course of a ship, and not the ship which fixes the direction of the wind. But if society is above the State, God is above both. At the beginning of the sixteenth century God was breathing upon the human race, and this divine breath worked strange revivals in religious belief, political opinions, civilisation, letters, science, morals, and industry. A great reformation was on the eve of taking place.
There are also transformations in the order of nature; but their march is regulated by the creative power in an unchangeable manner. The succession of seasons is always the same. The monsoons, which periodically blow over the Indian seas, continue for six months in one direction, and for the other six months in a contrary direction. In mankind, on the contrary, the wind sometimes comes for centuries from the same quarter. At the period we are describing the wind changed after blowing for nearly a thousand years in the same direction; God impressed on it a new, vivifying, and renovating course. There are winds, we know, which, instead of urging the ship gently forward, tear the sails, break the masts, and cast the vessel on the rocks, where it goes to pieces. A school, whose seat is at Rome, pretends that such was the nature of the movement worked out in the sixteenth century. But whoever examines the question impartially, confesses that the wind of the Reformation has wafted humanity towards the happy countries of light and liberty, of faith and morality.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century there was a living force in Geneva. The ostentatious mitre of the bishop, the cruel sword of the duke appeared to command there; and yet a new birth was forming within its bosom. The renovating principle was but a puny, shapeless germ, concealed in the heroic souls of a few obscure citizens; but its future developments were not doubtful. There was no power in Christendom able to stem the outbreak of the human mind, awakening at the mighty voice of the eternal Ruler. What was to be feared was not that the progress of civilisation and liberty, guided by the Divine word, would fail to attain its end; but that on the contrary, by abandoning the supreme rule, the end would be overshot.
Let us enter upon the history of the preparations for Reform, and contemplate the vigorous struggles that are about to begin at the foot of the Alps between despotism and liberty, ultramontanism and the Gospel.
CHAPTER III.
A BISHOP SENT BY THE POPE TO ROB GENEVA OF ITS INDEPENDENCE.
(APRIL TO OCTOBER 1513.)
On the 13th of April, 1513, there was great excitement in Geneva. Men were dragging cannon through the streets, and placing them on the walls. The gates were shut and sentries posted everywhere.[42] Charles de Seyssel, bishop and prince of Geneva, had just died on his return from a pilgrimage. He was a man of a mild and frank disposition, ‘a right good person,’ says the chronicler, ‘and for a wonder a great champion of both ecclesiastical and secular liberty.’ Duke Charles of Savoy, who was less attached to liberty than this good prelate, had recently had several sharp altercations with him. ‘It was I who made you bishop,’ haughtily said the angry duke, ‘but I will unmake you, and you shall be the poorest priest in the diocese.’[43] The bishop’s crime was having wished to protect the liberties of the city against Charles’s usurpations. The prince kept his word, and, if we may believe the old annals, got rid of him by poison.[44]
When the news of this tragical and unexpected death reached Geneva, the citizens were alarmed: they argued that no doubt the secret intention of the duke was to place a member of his family on the episcopal throne, in order thus to obtain the seigniory of the city. The excited citizens gathered in groups in the streets, and impassioned orators, among whom was Philibert Berthelier, addressed the people. The house from which this great citizen sprang appears to have been of high position, as early as the twelfth century; but he was one of those noble natures who court glory by placing themselves at the service of the weak. No man seemed better fitted to save Geneva. Just, generous, proud, decided, he was above all firm, true, and attached to what was right. His glorious ambition was not revolutionary: he wished to uphold the right and not to combat it. The end he set before himself was not, properly speaking, the emancipation of his country, but the restoration of its franchises and liberties. He affected no great airs, used no big words, was fond of pleasure and the noisy talk of his companions; but there were always observable in him a seriousness of thought, great energy, a strong will, and above all a supreme contempt of life. Enamoured of the ancient liberties of his city, he was always prepared to sacrifice himself for them.
‘The duke,’ said Berthelier and his friends in their animated meetings, ‘received immediate news of the death of the bishop, as did the pope also. The messengers are galloping with the news, each wants to have his share of the skin of the dead beast.’ The patriots argued that if the pope had long since laid hands on the Church, the Duke of Savoy now desired to lay his upon the State. Geneva would not be the first place that had witnessed such usurpations. Other cities of Burgundy, Grenoble, Gap, Valence, Die, and Lyons, had fallen one after the other beneath a foreign power. ‘We ourselves,’ said the citizens in the energetic and somewhat homely language of the day, ‘have had our wings cut so short already, that we can hardly spit from our walls without bespattering the duke. Having begun his conquest, he now wishes to complete it. He has put his snout into the city and is trying to get in all his body. Let us resist him. Is there a people whose franchises are older than ours? We have always been free, and there is no memory of man to the contrary.’[45] The citizens were resolved accordingly to close their gates against the influence of Savoy, and to elect a bishop themselves. They called to mind that when Ardutius, descending from his eyrie in the rocks of the Mole, was named bishop of Geneva, it was by the accord of clergy and people.[46] ‘Come, you canons,’ said they, ‘choose us a bishop that will not let the duke put his nose into his soup.’[47] This rather vulgar expression meant simply this: ‘Elect a bishop who will defend our liberties.’ They had not far to seek.