All was ready. Desbois entered the prison with a confessor and the headsman. ‘I summon you a second time to answer,’ said he to Berthelier. The noble citizen refused. ‘I summon you a third time,’ repeated the ex-dentist, ‘under pain of losing your head.’ Berthelier answered not a word: he would reply only to his lawful judges, the syndics. He knew, besides, that these appeals were empty forms, that he was not a defendant but a victim. Then, without other formality, the provost pronounced sentence: ‘Philibert Berthelier, seeing that thou hast always been rebellious against our most dread lord and thine, we condemn thee to have thy head cut off to the separation of the soul from the body; thy body to be hung to the gibbet at Champel, thy head to be nailed to the gallows near the river Arve, and thy goods confiscated to the prince.’ The provost then introduced the confessor, ‘with whom Berthelier did not hold long discourse.’ After that the third personage, the headsman, came forward and pinioned him.[270]
In every quarter of Geneva men’s eyes were fixed on the Château de l’Ile. Its old gates fell back, the guards marched out first, the provost came next, followed by the headsman holding Berthelier. The martyr’s countenance proclaimed the greatness of his soul. There was and still is, between the castle and the river, a narrow space so protected by the Rhone and the fortress, that fifty men could hold it against all the inhabitants of Geneva. The prince-bishop, so learned in the art of tyranny, was not ignorant that if the victim to be sacrificed is loved by the people, the death-blow must be given in prison, in a court-yard, on a narrow beach, or in a castle moat. Berthelier having advanced a few steps found himself between the château and the river. ‘Say thy prayers,’ said the provost. The hero knew he was about to be murdered: he made ‘a short prayer,’ and, rising from his knees, was preparing ‘to utter a few words before dying,’ to give a last testimony to the liberties of Geneva; but the provost would not permit him. Turning to the executioner, he said: ‘Make haste with your work.’—‘Kneel down,’ said the man to his victim. Then Berthelier, whether he desired to express his sorrow at the gloomy future of his fellow-citizens, or was moved at seeing himself sacrificed and none of his friends appearing to defend him, exclaimed as he fell on his knees: ‘Ah!... Messieurs of Geneva’ ... It was all he said; he had no sooner uttered the words ‘than the executioner cut off his head: it was the 23rd of August, 1519.’ The bishop had managed matters well. That cruel man was more like the wild beast that devours the flock than the shepherd who protects them; he had shown himself truly tremendæ velocitatis animal, ‘an animal of terrible swiftness,’ as Pliny says of the tiger; but unlike that animal, he was cowardly as well as cruel. The Genevans, whose father he should have been, turned from him with horror, and the avenging angel of the innocent prepared to visit him with a terrible retribution at his death. Vainly would the waters of the Rhone flow for ages over this narrow space—there are stains of blood that no waters can ever wash out.[271]
The bishop intended, however, that Berthelier should be conveyed to the place of execution for criminals; he only found it more prudent to have him taken thither dead than alive, being sure that in this way the ‘youths of Geneva’ could not restore him to liberty. The lifeless body of the martyr was placed on a waggon; the executioner got in and stood beside it, holding the victim’s head in his hand. A universal horror fell upon the people, and many, heartbroken at being unable to save their friend, shut themselves up in their houses to veil their hatred and their shame. The long procession, starting from the castle, moved forward, preceded and closed by foreign soldiers; in the middle was the waggon bearing the dead body, and close behind followed many mamelukes, ‘not the least of their party, in great insolence, mocking at their own calamity; but good men dared not breathe, seeing that when force reigns, the good cause must keep still.’[272] A few huguenots, however, mournful and indignant, appeared in the streets or at their doors. Meanwhile the executioner, parading in his triumphal car, swung derisively to and fro the martyr’s bleeding head, and cried: ‘This is the head of the traitor Berthelier: let all take warning by it.’ The procession continued its march as far as Champel, where the executioner suspended the body of the father of Genevese liberty to the gibbet. Thence, by a singular refinement of cruelty, they proceeded to the bridge of Arve, and the head of the dead man, who had so often terrified the bishop, was fastened up in the place where those of Blanchet and Navis had hung so long. The prelate seemed to take pleasure in reviving the recollection of his former butcheries.
Thus that kind-hearted man whom everybody loved, that heroic citizen around whom were concentrated all the hopes of the friends of liberty, had been sacrificed by his bishop. That death so hurried, so illegal, so tragical, filled the Genevans with horror. The fate of his widow and children moved them; but that of Geneva moved them more profoundly still. Berthelier had fallen a victim to his passion for his country; and that passion, which made many other hearts beat high, drew tears even from the most selfish. The body hanging from the gibbet, the head nailed up near the bridge of Arve, the memory of that sad procession, did not speak to the senses only; men’s hearts were rent as if by a violent blow, and many refused all consolation. There were also some proud firm spirits who, unable to weep, gave vent to maledictions. They might be met silent and frowning in the streets, and their air, the tone of their voice, their gait, their ironical and bitter words, expressed an indescribable contempt for the murderers. They retraced in their minds that strange struggle, between cruel princes and a generous, simple-minded, poor but free man. On one side were the splendours of the throne, the majesty of the priesthood, armies, executioners, tortures, scaffolds, and all the terrors of power; on the other, a humble man, opposing his enemies by the nobleness of his character and the unshrinking firmness of his courage.... The combat was unequal, and the head of the great citizen had fallen. A bishop looked with an ecstasy of joy on the blood of one of his flock, in which he bathed his feet while impudently violating all the laws of the country. But—and it was the consolation of these proud citizens—the blood that had been shed would awaken a terrible voice. Outraged justice and bleeding liberty would utter a long and mournful cry, which would reach the ears of the Swiss League. Then would mountain and valley, castle and cottage, city and hamlet, and every echo of the Alps repeat it one to another, and thousands of arms would one day unite to defend that little city so unworthily oppressed.[273]
Berthelier’s death was to have still more serious consequences. His enemies had hoped to stifle liberty by killing him. Perhaps ... but it was one of those deaths which are followed by a glorious resurrection. In the battle which had just been fought noble blood had been spilt, but it was blood that leads to victory at last. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Religious liberty had many victims three centuries ago in all the countries of the Reformation; but the noblest martyrs of political liberty, in modern times, have fallen at Geneva (if my judgment does not mislead me), and their death has not been useless to the universal cause of civilisation. Cruciate, torquete, damnate ... sanguis christianorum, semen. The blood of the martyrs is a seed—a seed which takes root and bears fruit, not only in the spot where it has been sown, but in many other parts of the world.
Berthelier’s friends were struck by his contempt of death and assurance of eternal life. They still seemed to hear the noble testimony he had borne to immortality. Hence one of them wrote this noble epitaph for him:—
Quid mihi mors nocuit? Virtus post fata virescit;
Nec cruce nec gladio sævi perit illa tyranni.[274]
As we see, the idea of a resurrection, of a life after death, over which man has no power, seems to have been uppermost in the mind of Berthelier as well as of his friends. This man was not a common martyr of liberty.
‘Verily,’ said some, ‘the maxim lately set forth is a true one: Heroes and the founders of republics and empires have, next to God, the greatest right to the adoration of men.’[275]
The bishop hastened to take advantage of his victory. ‘Berthelier’s death,’ said his friend Bonivard, ‘gives the tyrant great comfort, for the watch-dog being killed, he can easily manage the scattered sheep.’ The bishop began, therefore, to move onwards, and undertook to revolutionise Geneva. At first he resolved to change the magistrature. Four days after the execution he assembled the general council, and, assuming the airs of a conqueror, appeared at it with a numerous train. ‘We John of Savoy,’ said he in the document which has been preserved, ‘bishop and prince of Geneva, being informed of the dissensions of this city, have not feared to come hither at great expense to administer by force of arms the most effectual remedy; and we have behaved like a good shepherd. My lord the Duke of Savoy, who singularly loves this city, having desired to enter it, the syndics and the seditious have with incredible annoyance rebelled against a prince so gentle;[276] and if this illustrious prince had not been touched with compassion, if he had not surpassed by his clemency the charity of the Redeemer[277] ... we should all have been destroyed.’ After these strange words from a bishop, who placed the duke above Jesus Christ, at the very time when this prince had made himself the accomplice in a murder, Master Chappuis, the official, called out: ‘Say is it not so?’ None but mamelukes were present at the assembly, and among them several persons who had no right to be there. Many voices shouted, ‘Yes, yes!’ for it was then the reign of terror. The syndics, ‘more ready to yield the bishop their maces than their heads,’ says Bonivard, laid down before him the insignia of their office. The next day another general council elected four mameluke syndics: P. Versonay, P. Montyon, P. de Fernex, and G. Danel, ‘who everywhere and in everything did what the bishop and the duke desired.’ The same day, all huguenots were excluded from the two councils; and the bishop forbade the citizens to carry arms or to assemble by night, under penalty of a fine of twenty-five livres and ten stripes of the cord.