=BONIVARD'S ANSWER TO THE HUGUENOTS.=
The bishopers were with Friburg, the commoners with Berne. The latter were divided into three classes: there were politicians, to whom religion was only a means of obtaining liberty; serious and peaceful men, who called for true piety (Bonivard mentions Boutelier as one of these); and, lastly, the enemies of the priests, who saw the Reformation from a negative point of view, and regarded it essentially as a war against Roman superstitions. One day these sincere but impatient men said they could wait no longer, and went out to St. Victor to invite the prior to put himself at their head. They rang at the gate of the monastery, and the janitor went and told Bonivard, who ordered them to be admitted: 'We wish to put an end to all this papal ceremony,' they told him; 'we desire to drive out all its ministers, priests, and monks ... all that papistical rabble; and then we mean to invite the ministers of the Gospel, who will introduce a true christian reformation among us.'
The prior smiled as he heard these words: 'Gentlemen,' he said, in a sarcastic tone, 'I think your sentiments very praiseworthy, and confess that all ecclesiastics (of whom I am one) have great need to be reformed. But ought not those who wish to reform others to begin by reforming themselves? If you love the Gospel, as you say you do, you will live according to the Gospel. But if you wish to reform us without reforming yourselves, it is evident that you are not moved by love for the Gospel, but by hatred against us. And why should you hate us? It is not because our manners are contrary to yours, but because they are like them. Aristotle says in his Ethics,' continued the learned prior, 'and experience confirms the statement, that animals which eat off the same food naturally hate each other. Two horses do not agree at the same manger, nor two dogs over the same bone. It is the same with us. We are unchaste, and so are you. We are drunkards, and so are you. We are gamblers and blasphemers, and so are you. Why then should you be so opposed to us?... We do not hinder you from indulging in your little pleasures; pray do the same by us. You desire to expel us, you say, and put Lutheran ministers in our place.... Gentlemen, think well of what you are about: you will not have had them two years before you will be sorry for it. These ministers will permit you to break the commandments of the pope, but they will forbid your breaking those of God. According to their doctrines, you must not gamble or indulge in debauchery, under severe penalty.... Ah! how that would vex you!... Therefore, gentlemen, you must do one of two things: either leave us in our present condition; or, if you wish to reform us according to the Gospel, reform yourselves first.'
These remarks were not quite so reasonable as they appeared to be. It is the sick that have need of a physician, and as these 'sons of Geneva' wished to invite the ministers of the Gospel, in order to introduce a true christian reform, Bonivard should have encouraged instead of opposing them. These worldly men might have had a real desire for the Gospel at the bottom of their hearts. Reprimanded by the prior, they withdrew. Bonivard watched them as they retired. 'They are going off with their tails between their legs.[768] Certainly, I desire a reformation; but I do not like that those who are more qualified to deform than to reform should presume to be its instruments.'
=DETERMINATION TO EAT MEAT IN LENT.=
When they got home, these huguenots deliberated whether they would allow themselves to be stopped by Bonivard's irony; they resolved to follow out his precept—to reform themselves first; but, not knowing that reformation consists primarily in reestablishing faith and morality in the heart, they undertook simply to prune away certain superstitions. As the episcopal letter permitted them to take milk in Lent, De la Maison-Neuve and his friends said: 'We are permitted to take milk, why not meat?' Then repeating the lesson which the Bernese had taught them—Do not the Scriptures say, Eat of all that is sold in the shambles?—they resolved to eat meat every day. The council saw this with uneasiness, and forbade the new practice under pain of three days' imprisonment on bread and water and a fine of five sols.[769] But wishing to hold the balance even, they had hardly struck one side before they struck the other, and condemned the forty-four fugitive mamelukes to confiscation and death.
This last sentence aroused the anger of all the adjacent country; the Sire de Pontverre, in particular, thought the time had come for drawing the sword, and immediately messengers were scouring the country between the Alps and the Jura. They climbed painfully up the rocky roads that led to the mountain castles; they crossed the lake, everywhere summoning the gentlemen, the friends of the mamelukes. The knights did not need to be pressed; they put on their armour, mounted their coursers, left their homes, and proceeded towards the appointed rendezvous, the castle of Bursinel, near Rolle, on the fertile slope which, running out from the Jura, borders the lake opposite Mont Blanc. These rough gentlemen arrived from La Vaux, Gex, Chablais, Genevois, and Faucigny: one after another they alighted from their horses, crossed the courtyard, and entered the hall, which echoed with the clash of their arms; then, shaking hands, they sat down at a long table, where they began to feast. The audacity of the Genevans was the principal subject of conversation, 'and heaven knows how they of Geneva were picked to pieces,' says a contemporary.[770]
Of all these nobles, the most hostile to Geneva was the Sire de Pontverre. Of athletic frame, herculean strength, and violent character, bold and energetic, he was, from his marked superiority, recognised as their chief by the gentlemen assembled at the castle of Bursinel. If these men despised the burgesses, the latter returned the compliment. 'They are holding a meeting of bandits and brigands at Bursinel,' said some of the Genevans. We must not, however, take these somewhat harsh words too literally. The depredations of these gentlemen doubtless undermined the social organisation, and it was time to put an end to these practices of the middle ages. Many of them were, however, good sons and husbands, good fathers, and even good landlords; but they had no mercy for Geneva. As they sat at table they said that the princes had succeeded in France and elsewhere in destroying the franchises of the municipal towns, and that this free city, the last that survived, deserved a similar fate much more than the others, since it was beginning to add a new vice to its former vices ... it was listening to Luther. 'A contest must decide,' they added, 'whether the future times shall belong to the knights or to the burgesses, to the Church or to heresy.' If Geneva were overthrown, they thought they would be masters of the future. Pontverre has been compared to the celebrated Roman who feared the Carthaginians, and, like him, never forgot to repeat at every meeting of the nobles: Delenda Carthago.[771]
=THE ORDER OF THE SPOON.=
The dinner was drawing to an end; the servants of the lord of Bursinel had brought the best wines from the castle cellars; the libations were numerous, and the guests drank copiously. 'It chanced,' says Bonivard, 'that some rice (papet) was brought in, with as many spoons as there were persons at table.'[772] Pontverre rose, took up a spoon with the same hand that wielded the sword so vigorously, plunged it into the dish of rice, and, lifting it to his mouth, ate and said: 'Thus will I swallow Geneva and the Genevese.' In an instant all the gentlemen, 'heated with wine and anger,' took up their spoons, and exclaimed as they ate, 'that they would make but one mouthful of all the huguenots.' Pontverre did not stop at this: he took a little chain, hung the spoon round his neck, and said: 'I am a knight of the Spoon, and this is my decoration.'—'We all belong to the same order,' said the others, similarly hanging the spoons on their breasts. They then grasped each other's hands, and swore to be faithful to the last. At length the party broke up; they mounted their horses, and returned to their mansions; and when their neighbours looked with surprise at what hung round their necks, and asked what the spoon meant, they answered: 'We intend to eat the Genevans with it; will you not join us?' And thus the fraternity was formed which had the conquest of Geneva for its object.