The procession passed successively under six triumphal arches, dedicated to illustrious princesses, before each of which Beatrice had to stop and hear a new compliment. But it was labour lost: the haughty Portuguese woman, far from thanking the ladies, did not even look at them; and when the men came forward in their turn in those magnificent dresses which had cost them so much money and contention, the duchess received the shopkeepers with still greater contempt. A deep feeling of discontent immediately replaced the general enthusiasm: ‘She takes us for her slaves, in Portugal fashion,’ exclaimed one of the proudest of the huguenots. ‘Let us show her that we are free men. Come, ladies, I advise you to return to your spinning; and as for us, my friends, we will pull down the galleries and destroy the theatres.’ And then he whispered to one of his neighbours: ‘Better employ our money in fortifying the city, and compelling these Savoyards to keep outside. You entice them in ... take care they do not burn you in your own straw.’ The duke’s counsellors began to feel alarmed. The mine which they fancied had been so skilfully dug, threatened to blow them all into the air. Yet a few more mistakes of this kind and all was lost.... Some of the courtiers endeavoured to excuse the haughty manners of Beatrice by telling the citizens: Che eran los costumbres de Portugal. ‘They were the fashions of Portugal.’ The duke conjured his wife to make an effort to win back their hearts.[313]
Doubts were beginning at that time to be circulated concerning the attachment of Geneva to the papacy. Charles and his courtiers had heard something of this; and the desire to keep the city in the fold of Rome for ever had a great share, as we have remarked, in their chivalrous enterprise. The mamelukes and the canons, ashamed of these rumours, had prepared a mystery-play calculated to make the duke and duchess believe that the Genevans thought much more of seeking crosses and other relics than of finding that New Testament so long unknown and about which they were talking so much in Germany. Accordingly, when the procession arrived at the Place du Bourg de Four, they saw a large scaffold, a kind of house, open on the side next the spectators, and divided into several stories. The triumphal car halted, and the people of Geneva who were afterwards to show the world another spectacle, began to perform the ‘Invention of the Cross.’
The first scene represents Jerusalem, where the Emperor Constantine and Helena, his mother, have arrived to make search for the precious relic. Constantine to the Jews.
Come tell me, Jews, what did you do
With the cross whereon by you
Christ was hanged so cruelly?
The Jews, trembling.
Dear emperor, assuredly
We do not know.
Constantine.
You lie.
You shall suffer for this by-and-by.
(To his guards.)
Shut them in prison instantly.
The Jews are put into prison; and this is a lesson to show what ought to be done to those who pay no respect to the wood that Helena had come to worship.
A Jew from the window.
Judas the president am I,
And if you will let me go
I by signs most clear will show
Where my father saw it hid.
Constantine.
Out then; we the cross will seek,
And they shall linger here the while.
The next scene represents Golgotha. The emperor, Helena, and their train follow the Jew.
Judas.
Mighty emperor, here’s the spot
Where the cross by stealth was put
With other two.