[762] Registres du Conseil des 15 et 17 janvier 1528. Journal de Balard, p. 146. Gautier MS.
[763] 'Hominum anathemata a Bertholdo papa facile solvenda.'—Spanheim, Geneva Restituta, p. 35.
[764] Registres du Conseil du 7 février 1528. Journal de Balard, p. 147.
[765] Registres du Conseil du 7 février et du 3 mars 1528. Journal de Balard, pp. 147-149.
CHAPTER VI.
THE KNIGHTS OF THE SPOON LEAGUE AGAINST GENEVA AT THE CASTLE OF BURSINEL.
(March 1528.)
=BONIVARD COMPLAINS OF GENEVA.=
THE partisans of absolutism and the papacy rose up on every side against Geneva, as if the Reformation were already established there. It was not so, however. Although Geneva had come out of Romanism, it had not yet entered Reform: it was still in those uncertain and barren places, that land of negations and disputes which lies between the two. A few persons only were beginning to see that, in order to separate really from the pope, it was necessary, as Haller and Zwingle said, to obey Jesus Christ. Bonivard, a keen critic, was indulging in his reflections, in his large arm-chair, at the priory of St. Victor, and carefully studying the singular aspect Geneva at that time presented. 'A strange spectacle,' he said; 'everybody wishes to command, and no one will obey. From tyranny we have fallen into the opposite and worse vice of anarchy.... There are as many tyrants as heads ... which engenders confusion. Everybody wishes to make his own profit or private pleasure out of the common weal; profit tends to avarice; and pleasure consists in taking vengeance on him whom you hate. Men are killed, but they are not the real enemies of Geneva.... If you wound a bear, he will not spring upon the man who wounded him, but will tear the first poles or the first tree in his way.... And this, alas! is what they are doing among us. Having groaned under a tyrannical government, we have the love of licence instead of the love of liberty. We must be apprentices before we can be masters, and break many strings before we can play upon the lute. The huguenots have driven out the tyrant, but have not driven out tyranny. It is not liberty to do whatever we desire, if we do not desire what is right. O pride! thou wilt be the ruin of Geneva! Pride has always envy for its follower; and when pride would mount too high, the old crone catches her by the tail and pulls her back, so that she falls and breaks her neck.... The huguenot leagues are not sufficient; the Gospel must advance, in order that popery may recede.' It is Bonivard himself who has transmitted these wise reflections.[766]
He was not the only person who entertained such thoughts. The affairs of the alliance often attracted Bernese to Geneva; and being convinced that the Reformation alone could save that city, they continued Ab Hofen's work. Being admitted into private families, they spoke against human traditions and extolled the Scriptures. 'God speaks to us of the Redeemer,' they said, 'and not of Lent.' But the Friburgers, thrusting themselves into these evangelical conferences, exclaimed: 'Obey the Church! If you separate from the Church, we will break off the alliance!'[767]