There was among the canons of Geneva one Aimé de Gingins, abbot of Bonmont and dean of the chapter, a man of noble house, and well connected in the Swiss cantons. His father Jacques, seignior of Gingins, Divonne, and other places, had been councillor, chamberlain, and high steward to the Duke of Savoy, and even ambassador from him to Pope Paul II. Aimé, who had been appointed canon of St. Pierre’s in Geneva when very young, was forty-eight years old at this time. He was ‘the best boon-companion in the world, keeping open house and feasting joyously the friends of pleasure,’ fond of hearing his companions laugh and sing, and of rather free manners, after the custom of the Church; but he excused himself with a smile, saying, without blush or shame: ‘It is a slippery sin.’ M. de Bonmont was the most respected of the priests in Geneva, for while his colleagues were devoted heart and soul to the house of Savoy, the dean stood by Geneva, and was no stranger to the aspirations which led so many generous minds to turn towards the ancient liberties. The people named him bishop by acclamation, and the chapter confirmed their choice; and forthwith the citizens made every effort to uphold the election. They prayed the Swiss cantons to support it before the pope, and sent to Rome ‘by post both letters and agents.’[48]
If this election by the chapter had been sustained, it is probable that M. de Gingins would have lived on good terms with the council and citizens, and that harmony would have been preserved. But the appointment of bishops, which had in olden times belonged to the clergy and the people, had passed almost everywhere to the prince and the pope. The election of a superior by the subordinates had given way to the nomination of an inferior by a superior. This was a misfortune: nothing secures a good election like the first of these two systems, for the interest and honour of the governed is always to have good governors. On the other hand, princes or popes generally choose strangers or favourites, who win neither the affection nor esteem of their flocks or of the inferior clergy. The last episcopal elections at Geneva, by separating the episcopacy from the people and the clergy, deprived the Church of the strength it so much needed, and facilitated the Reformation.
Duke Charles understood the importance of the crisis. This prince who filled for half a century the throne of Savoy and Piedmont, was all his life the implacable enemy of Geneva. Weak but irritable, impatient of all opposition yet undecided, proud, awkward, wilful, fond of pomp but without grandeur, stiff but wanting firmness, not daring to face the strong, but always ready to be avenged on the weak, he had but one passion—one mania rather: to possess Geneva. For that he needed a docile instrument to lend a hand to his ambitious designs—a bishop with whom he could do what he pleased. Accordingly he looked around him for some one to oppose to the people’s candidate, and he soon hit upon the man. In every party of pleasure at court there was sure to be found a little man, weak, slender, ill-made, awkward, vile in body but still more so in mind, without regard for his honour, inclined rather to do evil than good, and suffering under a disease the consequence of his debauchery. This wretch was John, son of a wench of Angers (communis generis, says Bonivard) whose house was open to everybody, priests and laymen alike; sparely liberal with her money (for she had not the means) ‘she was over-free with her venal affections.’ Francis of Savoy, the third of the pope-duke’s grandsons, who had occupied in turn the episcopal throne of Geneva, and who was also archbishop of Aux and bishop of Angers, used to ‘junket with her like the rest.’ This woman was about to become a mother, ‘but she knew not,’ says the chronicler, ‘whom to select as the father; the bishop being the richest of all her lovers, she fathered the child upon him, and it was reared at the expense of the putative parent.’ The Bishop of Angers not caring to have this child in his diocese, sent it to his old episcopal city, where there were people devoted to him.[49] The poor little sickly child was accordingly brought to Geneva, and there he lived meanly until being called to the court of Turin, he had a certain retinue assigned him, three horses, a servant, a chaplain, and the title of bastard of Savoy. He then began to hold up his head, and became the greediest, the most intriguing, the most irregular priest of his day. ‘That’s the man to be bishop of Geneva,’ thought the duke: ‘he is so much in my debt, he can refuse me nothing.’ There was no bargain the bastard would not snap at, if he could gain either money or position: to give up Geneva to the duke was an easy matter to him. Charles sent for him. ‘Cousin,’ said he, ‘I will raise you to a bishopric, if in return you will make over the temporality to me.’ The bastard promised everything: it was an unexpected means of paying his debt to the duke, which the latter talked about pretty loudly. ‘He has sold us not in the ear but in the blade,’ said Bonivard, ‘for he has made a present of us before we belonged to him.’[50]
The duke without loss of time despatched his cousin to Rome, under the pretext of bearing his congratulations to Leo X. who had just succeeded Julius II.[51] John the Bastard and his companions travelled so fast that they arrived before the Swiss. At the same time the court of Turin omitted nothing to secure the possession of a city so long coveted. First, they began to canvass all the cardinals they could get at. On the 24th February the Cardinal of St. Vital, and on the 1st March the Cardinal of Flisco promised their services to procure the bishopric of Geneva for John of Savoy.[52] On the 20th of April the Queen of Naples wrote to the duke, that she had recommended John to her nephew, the Cardinal of Aragon.[53] This was not enough. An unforeseen circumstance favoured the designs of Savoy.
The illustrious Leo X. who had just been raised to the papal throne, had formed the design of allying his family to one of the oldest houses in Europe. With this intent he cast his eyes on the Princess Philiberta of Savoy; a pure simple-hearted young girl, of an elevated mind, a friend to the poor, younger sister to the duke and Louisa of Savoy, aunt of Francis I. and Margaret of Valois. Leo X. determined to ask her hand for his brother Julian the Magnificent, lieutenant-general of the armies of the Church. Up to this time Julian had not lived a very edifying life; he was deeply enamoured of a widow of Urbino, who had borne him a son.
To tempt the duke to this marriage, which was very flattering to the parvenus of Florence, the pope made ‘many promises,’ say the Italian documents.[54] He even sent an envoy to the court of Turin to tell Charles that he might ‘expect from him all that the best of sons may expect from the tenderest of fathers.’[55]
The affair could only be decided at Rome, and Leo X. took much trouble about it. He received the bastard of Savoy with the greatest honour, and this disagreeable person had the chief place at banquet, theatre, and concert. Leo took pleasure in talking with him, and made him describe Philiberta’s charms. As for making him bishop of Geneva, that did not cause the least difficulty. The pope cared nothing for Dean de Bonmont, the chapter, or the Genevans. ‘Let the duke give us his sister, and we will give you Geneva,’ said he to the graceless candidate. ‘You will then make over the temporal power to the duke.... The court of Rome will not oppose it; on the contrary, it will support you.’ Everything was settled between the pope, the duke, and the bastard. ‘John of Savoy,’ says a manuscript, ‘swore to hand over the temporal jurisdiction of the city to the duke, and the pope swore he would force the city to consent under pain of incurring the thunders of the Vatican.’[56]
This business was hardly finished when the Swiss envoys arrived, empowered to procure the confirmation of Dean de Bonmont in his office of bishop. Simple and upright but far less skilful than the Romans and the Piedmontese, they appeared before the pope. Alas! these Alpine shepherds had no princess to offer to the Medici. ‘Nescio vos,’ said Leo X. ‘Begone, I know you not.’ He had his reasons for this rebuff; he had already nominated the bastard of Savoy bishop of Geneva.
It was impossible to do a greater injury to any church. For an authority, and especially an elective authority, to be legitimate, it ought to be in the hands of the best and most intelligent, and he who exercises it, while administering with zeal, should not infringe the liberties of those he governs. But these are ideas that never occurred to the worthless man, appointed by the pope chief pastor of Geneva. He immediately however found flatterers. They wrote to him (and the letters are in the Archives of Geneva) that his election had been made by the flock ... ‘not by mortal favour, but by God’s aid alone.’ It was however by the favour of the Queen of Naples, of Charles III., and by several other very mortal favours, that he had been nominated. He was exhorted to govern his church with integrity, justice, and diligence, as became his singular gravity and virtue.[57] The bastard did not make much account of these exhortations; his reign was a miserable farce, a long scandal. Leo X. was not a lucky man. By the traffic in indulgences he provoked the Reformation of Wittemberg, and by the election of the bastard he paved the way for the Reformation of Geneva. These are two false steps for which Rome has paid dearly.
The news of this election filled the hearts of the Genevan patriots with sorrow and indignation. They assembled in the public places, murmuring and ‘complaining to one another,’ and the voices of Berthelier and Hugues were heard above all the rest. They declared they did not want the bastard, that they already had a bishop, honoured by Geneva and all the league, and who had every right to the see because he was dean of the chapter. They insinuated that if Leo X. presumed to substitute this intrusive Savoyard for their legitimate bishop, it was because the house of Savoy wished to lay hands upon Geneva. They were especially exasperated at the well-known character of the Romish candidate. ‘A fine election indeed his Holiness has honoured us with!’ said they. ‘For our bishop he gives us a disreputable clerk; for our guide in the paths of virtue, a dissipated bastard; for the preserver of our ancient and venerable liberties, a scoundrel ready to sell them.’ ... Nor did they stop at murmurs; Berthelier and his friends remarked that as the storm came from the South, they ought to seek a shelter in the North; and though Savoy raised her foot against Geneva to crush it, Switzerland stretched out her hand to save it. ‘Let us be masters at home,’ they said, ‘and shut the gates against the pope’s candidate.’