It is possible that this event, which we are called upon to describe (the end of an ecclesiastical state), may give rise to comparisons with the present times; but we have not gone out of our way for them. The great question, which occupies Europe at this moment, also occupied Geneva at the beginning of the sixteenth century. But that portion of our history was written before these late exciting years, during which the important and complex question of the maintenance or the fall of the temporal power of the popes has come before, and is continually coming before, sovereigns and their people. The historian, while relating the facts of the sixteenth century, had no other prepossessions than those which the story itself called up.
These prepossessions were quite natural. Descended from the huguenots of France, whom persecution drove from their country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the author had become attached to that hospitable city which received his forefathers, and in which they found a new home. The huguenots of Geneva captivated his attention. The decision, the sacrifices, the perseverance, and the heroism, with which the Genevans defended their threatened liberty, moved him profoundly. The independence of a city, acquired by so much courage and by so many privations, perils, and sufferings, is, without doubt, a sacred thing in the eyes of all; and no one should attempt to rob her of it. It may be that this history contains lessons for the people, of which he did not always think as he was writing it. May he be permitted to point out one?
The political emancipation of Geneva differs from many modern revolutions in the fact that we find admirably combined therein the two elements which make the movements of nations salutary; that is to say, order and liberty. Nations have been seen in our days rising in the name of liberty, and entirely forgetting right. It was not so in Geneva. For some time the Genevans persevered in defending the established order of things; and it was only when they had seen, during a long course of years, their prince-bishops leaguing themselves with the enemies of the state, conniving at usurpations, and indulging in acts contrary to the charters of their ancestors, that they accepted the divorce, and substituted a new state of things for the old one, or rather returned to an antecedent state. We find them always quoting the ancient libertates, franchesiæ, immunitates, usus, consuetudines civitatis Gebennensis, first digested into a code in 1387, while their origin is stated in the document itself to be of much greater antiquity. The author (as will be seen) is a friend of liberty; but justice, morality, and order are, in his opinion, quite as necessary to the prosperity of nations. On that point he agrees with that distinguished writer on modern civilisation, M. Guizot, though he may differ from him on others.
In writing this history we have had recourse to the original documents, and in particular to some important manuscripts; the manuscript registers of the Council of Geneva, the manuscript histories of Syndic Roset and Syndic Gautier, the manuscript of the Mamelus (Mamelukes), and many letters and remarkable papers preserved in the Archives of Geneva. We have also studied in the library of Berne some manuscripts of which historians have hitherto made little or no use; a few of these have been indicated in the notes, others will be mentioned hereafter. Besides these original sources, we have profited by writings and documents of great interest belonging to the sixteenth century, and recently published by learned Genevese archæologists, particularly by MM. Galiffe, Grenus, Revillod, E. Mallet, Chaponière, and Fick. We have also made great use of the memoirs of the Society of History and Archæology of Geneva.
With regard to France, the author has consulted various documents of the sixteenth century, little or altogether unknown, especially in what concerns the relations of the French government with the German protestants. He has profited also by several manuscripts, and by their means has been able to learn a few facts connected with the early part of Calvin’s life, which have not hitherto been published. These facts are partly derived from the Latin letters of the reformer, which have not yet been printed either in French or Latin, and which are contained in the excellent collection which Dr. Jules Bonnet intends giving to the world, if such a work should receive from the christian public the encouragement which the labour, disinterestedness, and zeal of its learned editor deserve.
The author having habitual recourse to the French documents of the sixteenth century, has often introduced their most characteristic passages into his text. The work of the historian is neither a work of the imagination, like that of the poet, nor a mere conversation about times gone by, as some writers of our day appear to imagine. History is a faithful description of past events; and when the historian can relate them by making use of the language of those who took part in them, he is more certain of describing them just as they were.
But the reproduction of contemporary documents is not the only business of the historian. He must do more than exhume from the sepulchre in which they are sleeping the relics of men and things of times past, that he may exhibit them in the light of day. We value highly such a work and those who perform it, for it is a necessary one; and yet we do not think it sufficient. Dry bones do not faithfully represent the men of other days. They did not live as skeletons, but as beings full of life and activity. The historian is not simply a resurrectionist: he needs—strange but necessary ambition—a power that can restore the dead to life.
Certain modern historians have successfully accomplished this task. The author, unable to follow them, and compelled to present his readers with a simple and unassuming chronicle, feels bound to express his admiration for those who have thus been able to revive the buried past. He firmly believes that, if a history should have truth, it should also have life. The events of past times did not resemble, in the days when they occurred, those grand museums of Rome, Naples, Paris, and London, in whose galleries we behold long rows of marble statues, mummies, and tombs. There were then living beings who thought, felt, spoke, acted, and struggled. The picture, whatever history may be able to do, will always have less of life than the reality.
When an historian comes across a speech of one of the actors in the great drama of human affairs, he ought to lay hold of it, as if it were a pearl, and weave it into his tapestry, in order to relieve the duller colours and give more solidity and brilliancy. Whether the speech be met with in the letters or writings of the actor himself, or in those of the chroniclers, is a matter of no importance: he should take it wherever he finds it. The history which exhibits men thinking, feeling, and acting as they did in their lifetime, is of far higher value than those purely intellectual compositions in which the actors are deprived of speech and even of life.
The author, having given his opinion in favour of this better and higher historical method, is compelled to express a regret: Le précepte est aisé, mais l’art est difficile.
And as he looks at his work, he has to repeat with sorrow the confession of the poet of antiquity: Deteriora sequor!