It was all over; they resolved still to fight a last battle, even with the certainty of being defeated. The general council met; the bishop went thither in person, attended by his episcopal followers, in the hope that his presence might intimidate the huguenots. ‘I am head, pastor, and prince of the community,’ he said. ‘It concerns my affairs, and I wish to know what will be laid before you.’—‘It is not the custom for my lord to be present,’ said Hugues; ‘the citizens transact none but political matters here[406] which concern them wholly. His presence, however, is always pleasing to us, provided nothing be deduced from it prejudicial to our liberties.’ Thereupon Hugues proposed the alliance. Then Stephen de la Mare got up. In 1519 he had shone in the foremost rank of the patriots; but, an ardent Roman Catholic, he had since then placed liberty in the second rank and the Church in the first. It was he who had undertaken to oppose the proposition. ‘It is sufficient for us to live under the protection of God, St. Peter, and the bishop.... I oppose the alliance.’ De la Mare could not proceed, so great was the confusion that broke out in the assembly; the indignation was general, yet order and quiet were restored at last, and the treaty was read. ‘Will you ratify this alliance?’ said first syndic G. Bergeron. ‘Yes, yes!’ they shouted on every side. The syndic continued: ‘Let those who approve of it hold up their hands!’ There was a forest of hands, every man holding up both at once. ‘We desire it, we approve of it,’ they shouted again. ‘Those of the contrary opinion?’ added the syndic. Six hands only were raised in opposition. Pierre de la Baume from his episcopal throne looked down upon this spectacle with anxiety. Even to the last he had reckoned upon success. By selecting De la Mare, the old leader of the patriots, and placing him at the head of the movement against the alliance with the Swiss, he fancied he had hit upon an admirable combination; but his hopes were disappointed. Alarmed and irritated, seeing what this vote would lead to, and determined to keep his principality at any cost, the bishop-prince exclaimed: ‘I do not consent to this alliance; I appeal to our holy father the pope and to his majesty the emperor.’ But to no purpose did the Bishop of Geneva, on the eve of losing his states, appeal to powers the most dreaded—no one paid any attention to his protest. Joy beamed on every face, and the words ‘pope, emperor,’ were drowned by enthusiastic shouts of ‘The Swiss ... the Swiss and liberty!’ Besançon Hugues, who, although on the side of independence, was attached to the bishop, exerted all his influence with him. ‘Very well, then,’ said the versatile prelate, ‘if your franchises permit you to contract an alliance without your prince, do so.’—‘I take note of this declaration,’ said Hugues; and then he added: ‘More than once the citizens have concluded such alliances without their prince—with Venice, Cologne, and other cities.’ The Register mentions that after this the prince went away satisfied. We rather doubt it; but however that may be, the bishop by his presence had helped to sanction the measure which he had so much at heart to prevent.[407]
What comforted Pierre de la Baume was the sight of Besançon Hugues at the head of the movement. That great citizen assured the bishop that the alliance with Switzerland was not opposed to his authority; and he did so with perfect honesty.[408] Hugues was simply a conservative. He desired an alliance with Switzerland in order to preserve Geneva in her present position. He desired to maintain the prelate not only as bishop, but also as prince: all his opposition was aimed at the usurpations of Savoy. But there were minds in Geneva already wishing for more. Certain citizens, in whom the new aspirations of modern times were beginning to show themselves, said that the municipal liberties of the city were continually fettered, and often crushed, by the princely authority of the bishop. Had he not been seen to favour the cruel murders which the Savoyard power had committed in Geneva? ‘The liberties of the people and the temporal lordship of the bishop cannot exist together; one or other of the two powers must succumb,’ they said. The history of succeeding ages has shown but too plainly the reasonableness of these fears. Wherever the bishop has remained king, he has trampled the liberties of the people under foot. There we find no representative government, no liberty of the press, no religious liberty. In the eyes of the bishop-prince these great blessings of modern society are monsters to be promptly stifled. Some Genevans comprehended the danger that threatened them, and, wishing to preserve the liberties they had received from their ancestors, saw no other means than by withdrawing from the ministers of religion a worldly power which Jesus Christ had refused them beforehand. Some—but their number was very small then—went further, and began to ask whether the authority of a bishop in religious matters was not still more contrary to the precepts of the Gospel, which acknowledged no other authority than that of the word of God; and whether liberty could ever exist in the State so long as there was a despot in the Church. Such were the great questions beginning to be discussed in Geneva more than three hundred years ago: the present time seems destined to solve them.
In spite of the loyal assurances of Besançon Hugues, the bishop was disturbed. Sitting with liberty at his side, he felt ill at ease; and the terror spreading through the ranks of the clergy could not fail to reach him. If the Bishop of Geneva should be deprived of his principality, who can tell if men will not one day deprive the pope of his kingship? The alarm of the canons, priests, and friends of the papacy continued to increase. Did they not know that the Reformation was daily gaining ground in many of the confederated states? Friburg, indeed, was still catholic; but Zurich was no longer so, and everything announced that Berne would soon secede. The great light was to come from another country, from a country that spoke the language of Geneva; but Geneva was then receiving from Switzerland the first gleams that precede the day. Some Genevans were already beginning to profess, rather undisguisedly, their new religious tendencies; Robert Vandel, the bishop’s friend, openly defended the Reformation. ‘Sire Robert is not very good for Friburg,’ said some; ‘but he is good for Berne, very good!’ which meant that he preferred Holy Scripture to the pope. The priests said that if Geneva was united to Switzerland, there was an end of the privileges of the clergy; that simple christians would begin to occupy themselves with religion; and that in Geneva, as in Basle, Schaffhausen, and Berne, laymen would talk about the faith of the Church. Now there was nothing of which the clergy were more afraid. The ministers of the Romish religion, instead of examining the Scriptures, of finding in them doctrines capable of satisfying the wants of man, and of propagating them by mild persuasion, were occupied with very different matters, and would not suffer any one but themselves to think even of the Bible and its contents. Never was a calling made a more thorough fiction. It was said of them: They have taken away the key of knowledge; they enter not in themselves, and them that were entering in they hindered.
These ideas became stronger every day, and the attachment of the priests to their old customs was more stubborn than ever. It was difficult to avoid an outbreak; but it should be observed that it was provoked by the canons. These rich and powerful clerics, who were determined to oppose the alliance with all their power, and, if necessary, to defend their clerical privileges with swords and arquebuses, got together a quantity of arms in the house of De Lutry, the most fanatical of their number, in order to make use of them ‘against the city.’ On the night of the 26th of February, these reverend seigniors, as well as the principal mamelukes, crept one after another into this house, and held a consultation. A rumour spread through the city, and the citizens told one another ‘that M. de Lutry and M. de Vausier had brought together a number of people secretly to get up a riot.’ The patriots, prompt and resolute in character, were determined not to give the mamelukes the least chance of recovering their power. ‘The people rose in arms,’ the house was surrounded; it would appear that some of the chiefs of the ducal party came out, and that swords were crossed. ‘A few were wounded,’ says the chronicler. However, ‘proclamation was made to the sound of the trumpet through the city,’ and order was restored.[409]
The conspiracy of the canons having thus failed, the members of the feudal and papal party thought everything lost. They fancied they saw an irrevocable fatality dragging them violently to their destruction. The principal supporters of the old order of things, engrossed by the care of their compromised security, thought only of escaping, like birds of night, before the first beams of day. They disguised themselves and slipped out unobserved, some by one gate, some by another. It was almost a universal panic. The impetuous Lutry escaped first, with one of his colleagues; the bishop-prince’s turn came next. Bitterly upbraided by the Count of Genevois for not having prevented the alliance, Pierre de la Baume took alarm both at the huguenots and the duke, and escaped to St. Claude. The agents of his Highness of Savoy trembled in their castles; the vidame hastened to depart on the one side, and the gaoler of the Château de l’Ile, who was nick-named the sultan, did the same on the other.
The most terrified were the clerics and the mamelukes who had been present at the meeting at Canon de Lutry’s. They had taken good care not to stop after the alarm that had been given them, and when the order was made by sound of trumpet for every man to retire to his own house, they had hastened to escape in disguise, trembling and hopeless. The next morning the city watch, followed by the sergeants, forcibly entered De Lutry’s house, and seized the arms, which had been carefully hidden; but they found the nest empty, for all the birds had flown. ‘If they had not escaped,’ said Syndic Balard, ‘they would have been in danger of death.’ The canons who had not taken flight sent two of their number to the hôtel-de-ville to say to the syndics: ‘Will you keep us safe and sure in the city? if not, will you give us a safe-conduct, that we may leave it?’ They thought only of following their colleagues.
The flight of the 26th of February was the counterpart of that of the 15th of September. In September the new times had disappeared in Geneva for a few weeks only; in February the old times were departing for ever. The Genevese rejoiced as they saw these leeches disappear, who had bled them so long, even to the very marrow. ‘The priests and the Savoyards,’ they said, ‘are like wolves driven from the woods by hunger: there is nothing left for them to take, and they are compelled to go elsewhere for their prey.’ Nothing could be more favourable to the Swiss alliance and to liberty than this general flight. The partisans of the duke and of the bishop having evacuated the city, the senate and the people remained masters. The grateful citizens ascribed all the glory to God, and exclaimed: ‘The sovereignty is now in the hands of the council, without the interference of either magistrates or people. Everything was done by the grace of God.’[410]
At the very time when the men of feudalism were quitting Geneva, those of liberty were arriving, and the great transition was effected. On the 11th of March eight Swiss ambassadors entered the city in the midst of a numerous crowd and under a salute of artillery: they were the envoys from the cantons who had come to receive the oaths of Geneva and give theirs in return. The next day these freemen, sons of the conquerors of Charles the Bold, all glowing with desire to protect Geneva from the attacks of Charles the Good, appeared before the general council. At their head was Sebastian de Diesbach, an energetic man, devout catholic, great captain, and skilful diplomatist. ‘Magnificent lords and very dear fellow-freemen,’ he said, ‘Friburg and Berne acquaint you that they are willing to live and die with you.... Will you swear to observe the alliance that has been drawn up?’—‘Yes,’ exclaimed all the Genevans, without one dissentient voice. Then the Swiss ambassadors stood up and raised their hands towards heaven to make the oath. Every one looked with emotion on those eight Helvetians of lofty stature and martial bearing, the representatives of the energetic populations whose military glory at this time surpassed that of all other nations. The noble Sebastian having pronounced the oath of alliance, his companions raised their hands also, and repeated his words aloud. The citizens exclaimed with transport: ‘We desire it, we desire it!’ Then with deep emotion said some: ‘Those men were born in a happy hour, who have brought about so good a business.’ Eight deputies of Geneva, among whom were Francis Favre and G. Hugues, brother of Besançon, proceeded to Berne and Friburg to make the same oath on the part of their fellow-citizens.[411]
The men of the old times were not discouraged: if they had been beaten at Geneva, might they not conquer at Friburg and Berne? Indefatigable in their exertions, they resolved to set every engine to work in order to succeed. Stephen de la Mare, three other deputies of the duke, Michael Nergaz, and forty-two mamelukes went into Switzerland to break off the alliance. But Friburg and Berne replied: ‘For nothing in the world will we depart from what we have sworn.’ The hand of God was manifest, and accordingly when Hugues heard of this answer, he exclaimed: ‘God himself is conducting our affairs.’
Then was Geneva intoxicated with joy. On the morrow after the taking of the oath in the general council, the delight of the people broke out all over the city. Bonfires were lighted in the public places; there was much dancing, masquerading, and shouting; patriotic and satirical songs reechoed through the streets; there was an outburst of happiness and liberty. ‘When a people have been kept so long in the leash,’ said Bonivard, ‘as soon as they are let loose, they are apt to indulge in dangerous gambols.’[412]