The rumour of this decision, which they tried however to keep secret, reached Turin. Nothing in the world could cause more anger and alarm to the bishop and the duke. They answered immediately, on the 13th of October, by sending an order to bring Berthelier to trial in the following month before the episcopal commissioners; this was delivering him to death. Councillor Marti of Friburg, a blunt man, but also intelligent, warm, devoted and ready, being informed of what was going on, hastened to Geneva. The most sacred friendship had been formed between him and Berthelier when, seated at the same hearth, they had conversed together about Geneva and liberty. The thought that a violent death might suddenly carry off a man so dear, disturbed Marti seriously. He proceeded to the hôtel-de-ville, where the Council of Fifty had met, and showed at once how full he was of tenderness for Berthelier, and of anger for his enemies. ‘Sirs,’ he said bluntly, ‘this is the fifth time I have come here about the same business: I beg that it may be the last. Protect Berthelier as the liberties of your city require, or beware! Friburg has always desired your good; do not oblige us to change our opinion.... Do not halt between two sides: decide for one or the other. The duke and the bishop say one thing, and they always do another: they think only of destroying your liberties, and Friburg of defending them.’ The council, who found it more convenient to give the right hand to one and the left to another, to keep on good terms with Friburg and the bishop, thought this speech a little rude. They thanked Marti all the same, but added that, before giving a decisive answer, they must wait the return of the deputies sent to the bishop and the duke. ‘Nevertheless,’ added the syndics, ‘as regards Berthelier we will maintain the liberties of the city.’[186]
The deputies whom they expected from Turin—Nergaz, Déléamont, and the vidame—soon arrived. When they returned to the free city, they were still dazzled by the pomp of the Piedmontese court, and filled with the ideas which the partisans of absolute power had instilled into them. ‘Everything is in the prince,’ they had said, ‘and the people ought to have no other will but his.’ Thinking only of claiming absolute authority for the bishop, they appeared on the 29th of November before the Council of State, and said in an imperative tone: ‘We have orders from my lord bishop not to discharge our mission until you have added to your number twenty of the most eminent citizens.’ In this way the princes of Savoy wished to make sure of a majority. The council assented to this demand. ‘We require them,’ added Syndic Nergaz, ‘to make oath in our presence that they will reveal nothing they may hear.’—‘What means all this mystery?’ the councillors asked each other; but the oath was taken. The ambassadors then advanced another step: ‘Here is the letter in which my lord makes known his sovereign will; but before it is opened, you must all swear to execute the orders it contains.’ This strange demand was received in sullen silence; such open despotism astonished not only the friends of liberty but even the mamelukes. ‘Hand us the letter addressed to us, that we may read it,’ said Besançon Hugues and other independent members of the council. ‘No,’ replied Nergaz, ‘the oath first, and then the letter.’ Some partisans of Savoy had the impudence to second this demand; but ‘the friends of independence’ resisted firmly, and the meeting broke up. ‘There must be some secret in that letter dangerous to the people,’ they said. It was resolved to convene the general council in order that the ambassadors might deliver their message in person. This appeal to the people was very disagreeable to the three deputies; yet they encouraged one another to carry out their mission to the end.[187]
On Sunday, December 5, the sound of a trumpet was heard, the great bell of the cathedral tolled, the citizens put on their swords, and the large hall of Rive was ‘quite filled with people.’ The deputies were desired to ‘deliver their message.’—‘Our message is found in the letter,’ said Nergaz, ‘and our only instructions are that before the council of Geneva open it, they shall swear to carry out its orders.’ These words caused an immense agitation among the people. ‘We have so good a leader,’ said they with irony, ‘that we ought to follow him with our eyes shut and not fear to fall into the ditch with him! How can we doubt that the secret contained in this mysterious paper is a secret of justice and love?... If there are any sceptics among us, let them go to the walnut-tree at the bridge of Arve, where the limbs of our friends are still hanging.’—‘Gentlemen,’ said the more serious men, ‘we return you the letter unopened, and beg you will send it back to those who gave it you.’ Then Nergaz, feeling annoyed, exclaimed bitterly: ‘I warn you that my lord of Savoy has many troops in the field, and that if you do not execute the orders contained in this letter, no citizen of Geneva will be safe in his states. I heard him say so.’ The people on hearing this were much exasperated. ‘Indeed!’ they exclaimed, ‘if we do not swear beforehand to do a thing without knowing it, all who possess lands in Savoy or who travel there, will be treated like Navis and Blanchet.’ ... Thereupon several citizens turned to the three deputies and said: ‘Have you remained five or six weeks over the mountains, feasting, amusing yourselves, exulting, and living merrily, in order to bring us such despatches? To the Rhone with the traitors! to the Rhone! The three mamelukes trembled before the anger of the people. Were they really to be flung into the river to be cleansed from the impurities they had contracted in the fêtes at Turin?... Lévrier, Besançon Hugues, and other men of condition quieted the citizens, and the servile deputies got off with their fright. Calm being restored, the councillors returned the prince’s letter to Nergaz and his colleagues, saying: ‘We will not open it.’ They feared the influence of the creatures of Savoy, of whom there were many in the Great Council. We give this name to the body established in 1457, which consisted at first of only fifty persons, and which being frequently increased became somewhat later the Council of Two Hundred. The people withdrew from this assembly a privilege they had given it in 1502, and decreed that the general council alone should henceforward decide on all that concerned the liberties of Geneva.[188]
CHAPTER XIV.
THE HUGUENOTS DEMAND AN ALLIANCE WITH FRIBURG: THE MAMELUKES OPPOSE IT. BERTHELIER IS ACQUITTED.
(December 1518 to January 1519.)
The cruel butchery of Navis and Blanchet, and the insolent sealed letter, were acts ruinous to those who had committed them. If the bishop had possessed only the spiritual power, he would not have been dragged into such measures; but by wishing to unite earthly dominion with religious direction, he lost both: a just punishment of those who forget the words of Christ: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ The bishop had torn the contract that bound him to the free citizens of the ancient city. The struggle was growing fiercer every day, and would infallibly end in the fall of the Roman episcopate in Geneva. It was not the Reformation that was to overthrow the representative of the pope: it was the breath of liberty and legality that was to uproot that barren tree, and the reformers were to come afterwards to cultivate the soil and scatter abroad the seeds of life. Two parties, both strangers to the Gospel, stood then face to face. On the one side were the bishop, the vicar and procurator-fiscal, the canons, priests, monks, and all the agents of the popedom; on the other were the friends of light, the friends of liberty, the partisans of law, the representatives of the people. The battle was between clerical and secular society. These struggles were not new; but while in the middle ages clerical society had always gained the victory, at Geneva, on the contrary, in the sixteenth century the series of its defeats was to begin. It is easy to explain this phenomenon. Ecclesiastical society had long been the most advanced as well as the strongest; but in the sixteenth century secular society appeared in all the vigour of youth, and was soon to gain the victories of a maturer age. It was all over with the clerical power: the weapons it employed at Geneva (the letter and the walnut-tree) indicated a thorough decline of human dignity. Out of date, fallen into childishness, and decrepid, it could no longer contend against the lay body. If the duel took place on open ground, without secret understandings, without trickery, the dishonoured clerical authority must necessarily fall. The Epicurean hog (if we may be permitted to use an ancient phrase), at once filthy and cruel, who from his episcopal throne trampled brutally under foot the holiest rights, was unconsciously preparing in Geneva the glorious advent of the Reformation.
The meeting of the 5th of December was no sooner dissolved than the citizens dispersed through the town. The insolent request of the princes and the refusal of the people were the subject of every conversation: nothing else was talked of ‘in public or in private, at feast or funeral.’ The letter which demanded on behalf of Geneva an alliance with Friburg was not sealed like the bishop’s; it was openly displayed in the streets, and carried from house to house; a large number of citizens hastened to subscribe their names: there were three hundred signatures. It was necessary to carry this petition to Friburg; Berthelier, who was still under trial, could not leave the city; besides, it would be better to have a new man, more calm perhaps, and more diplomatic. They cast their eyes on the syndic Besançon Hugues, who in character held a certain mean between Berthelier the man of action, and Lévrier the man of law. ‘No one can be more welcome among the confederates than you,’ they said; ‘Conrad Hugues, your father, fought at Morat in the ranks of Zurich.’—‘I will go,’ he replied, ‘but as a mere citizen.’ They wished to give him a colleague of a more genial nature, and chose De la Mare. He had resided for some time on a property his wife possessed in Savoy; but the gentry of the neighbourhood ‘playing him many tricks,’ because he was a Genevan, he had returned to the city burning with hatred against the Savoyard dominion.
The two deputies met with a warm reception and great honour at Friburg. The pensioners of Savoy opposed their demand in vain; the three hundred Genevans who had signed the petition received the freedom of the city, with an offer to make the alliance general if the community desired it. On Tuesday, December 21, the two deputies returned to Geneva, and on the following Thursday the proposal of alliance was brought before the people in general council. It was to be a great day; and accordingly the two parties went to the council determined, each of them, to make a last effort. The partisans of absolutism and those of the civic liberties, the citizens attached to Rome and those who were inclined to throw off their chains, the old times and the new, met face to face. At first there were several eloquent speeches on both sides: ‘We will not permit law and liberty to be driven out of Geneva,’ said the citizens, ‘in order that arbitrary rule may be set up in their place. God himself is the guarantee of our franchises.’ They soon came to warmer language, and at last grew so excited that deliberation was impossible. The deputy from Friburg, who had returned with Hugues and De la Mare, strove in vain to calm their minds; the council was compelled to separate without coming to any decision. Switzerland had offered her alliance, and Geneva had not accepted it.[189]
The friends of independence were uneasy; most of them were deficient in information and in arguments; they supplied the want by the instinct of liberty, boldness, and enthusiasm; but these are qualities that sometimes fail and fade away. Many of them accordingly feared that the liberties of Geneva would be finally sacrificed to the bishop’s good pleasure. The more enlightened thought, on the contrary, that the rights of the citizens would remain secure; that neither privilege, stratagem, nor violence would overthrow them; but that the struggle might perhaps be long, and if, according to the proverb, Rome was not built in a day, so it could not be thrown down in a day. These notable men, whose motto was ‘Time brings everything,’ called upon the people to be patient. This was not what the ardent Berthelier wanted. He desired to act immediately, and seeing that the best-informed men hesitated, he said: ‘When the wise will not, we make use of fools.’ He had again recourse to the young Genevans, with whom he had long associated, with a view of winning them over to his patriotic plans. He was not alone. Another citizen now comes upon the scene, a member of one of the most influential families in the city, by name Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, a man of noble and exalted character, bold, welcome everywhere, braving without measure all the traditions of old times, often turbulent, and the person who, more perhaps than any other, served to clear in Geneva the way by which the Reformation was to enter. These two patriots and some of their friends endeavoured to revive in the people the remembrance of their ancient rights. At the banquets where the young men of Geneva assembled, epigrams were launched against the ducal party, civic and Helvetic songs were sung, and among others one composed by Berthelier, the unpoetical but very patriotic burden of which was: Vivent sur tous, Messieurs les alliés!
Every day this chorus was heard with fresh enthusiasm. The wind blew in the direction of independence, and the popular waves continued rising. ‘Most of the city are joining our brotherhood,’ said Bonivard; ‘decidedly the townsfolk are the strongest.’ The Christmas holidays favoured the exultation of the citizens. The most hot-headed of the Genevan youths paraded the streets; at night they kindled bonfires in the squares (which they called ardre des failles), and the boys, making torches of twisted straw, ran up and down the city, shouting: ‘Hurrah for the League! the huguenots for ever!’ Armed men kept watch throughout the city, and as they passed the houses of the mamelukes, they launched their gibes at them. ‘They were very merry,’ said Bonivard, ‘and made more noise than was necessary.’ The two parties became more distinct every day, the huguenots wearing a cross on their doublets and a feather in their caps, like the Swiss; the mamelukes carrying a sprig of holly on their head. ‘Whoever touches me will be pricked,’ said they, insolently pointing to it. Quarrels were frequent. When a band of the friends of Savoy happened to meet a number of the friends of the League, the former would cry out: ‘Huguenots!’ and the latter would reply: ‘We hold that title in honour, for it was taken by the first Swiss when they bound themselves by an oath against the tyranny of their oppressors!... But you mamelukes have always been slaves!’—‘Beware,’ said the vidame, ‘your proceedings are seditious.’—‘The necessity of escaping from slavery makes them lawful,’ replied Berthelier, Maison-Neuve, and their followers. The mountain torrent was rushing impetuously down, and men asked whether the dykes raised against it would be able to restrain its fury.[190]
The party of Savoy resolved to strike a decisive blow. No one was more threatened than Berthelier. The two princes might perhaps have spared the lives of the other citizens whose names were contained in the letter; but as for Berthelier, they must have his head, and that speedily. This was generally known: people feared to compromise themselves by saluting him, and timid men turned aside when they saw him coming, which made Bonivard, who remained faithful to him, exclaim with uneasiness: ‘Alas! he is abandoned by almost everybody of condition!’ But Berthelier did not abandon himself. He saw the sword hanging over his head; he knew that the blow was coming, and yet he was the most serene and animated of the citizens of Geneva; it was he who ‘by word and by example always comforted the young men.’ He asked simply that right should be done. ‘I am accused of being a marplot because I ask for justice;—a good-for-nothing, because I defend liberty against the enterprises of usurpers;—a conspirator against the bishop’s life, because they conspire against mine.’ His case was adjourned week after week. His friends, touched by the serenity of his generous soul, loudly demanded a general council. The people assembled on the 19th of January: ‘All that I ask,’ said Berthelier, ‘is to be brought to trial; let them punish me if I am guilty; and if I am innocent, let them declare it.’ The general council ordered the syndics to do justice.[191]
They hesitated no longer: they carefully examined the indictment; they summoned the vidame and the procurator-fiscal three times to make out their charges. The vidame, knowing this to be impossible, got out of the way: he could not be found. Navis appeared alone, but only to declare that he would give no evidence. All the formalities having been observed, the Grand Council, consisting at that time of 117 members, met on the 24th of January, 1519, and delivered a judgment of acquittal. The syndics, bearing their rods of office and followed by all the members of the council, took their station (according to the ancient custom) on the platform in front of the hôtel-de-ville. An immense crowd of citizens gathered round; many were clinging to the walls; all fixed their eyes with enthusiasm on the accused who stood calm and firm before his judges. Then Montyon, the premier syndic, a mameluke yet a faithful observer of the law, said to him: ‘Philibert Berthelier, the accusations brought against you proceeding, not from probable evidence but from violent and extorted confessions, condemned by all law human and divine. We, the syndics and judges in the criminal courts of this city of Geneva, having God and the Holy Scriptures before our eyes,—making the sign of the cross and speaking in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,—declare you, Philibert, by our definitive sentence, to be in no degree attaint or guilty of the crime of conspiring against our prince and yours, and declare the accusations brought against you unreasonable and unjust. Wherefore you ought to be absolved and acquitted of these, and you are hereby absolved and acquitted.’ This judgment, delivered by a magistrate devoted to the duke and the bishop, was a noble homage paid to the justice of the cause defended by Berthelier. A solemn feeling, such as accompanies a great and just deliverance, pervaded the assembly, and the joyful patriots asked if Berthelier’s acquittal was not the pledge of the liberation of Geneva.[192]