When informed of these bold orders, the bishop-prince roused himself.... One might have fancied that the spirit of Hildebrand and Boniface had suddenly animated the weak La Baume. 'What! under the pretence of maintaining your liberties,' he wrote to the Genevans, 'you wish to usurp our sovereignty!... Beware what you do, for if you persevere, we will with God's help inflict such a punishment that it shall serve for an example to others.... The morsel you desire to swallow is harder to digest than you appear to believe.... We command you to resign the administration of justice; to receive the vidame whom the duke shall be pleased to send you; to permit him to exercise his power, as was done in the time of the most illustrious princes his grace's predecessors; and finally to remit to his highness and us the whole case of the fugitives. If within a fortnight you do not desist from all opposition to our authority, we will declare you our enemies, and will employ all our resources and those of our relations and friends to punish you for the outrage you are committing against us, and we will strive to ruin you totally, whatever may be the place to which you flee.'
Great was the commotion in the city at hearing such words addressed by the pastor of Geneva to his flock; for if the bishop made use of such threats, it was with the intention of establishing the authority of a foreign prince among them. The true huguenots, who wanted neither duke nor bishop, were silent under these circumstances, and allowed the episcopal party, of which Hugues was the chief, to act. Two ambassadors from the bishop having been introduced before the general council on the 14th of June, 1528, the premier syndic said to them: 'If the bishop desires to appoint a vidame to administer justice among us, we will accept him; but the dukes of Savoy have never had other than an unlawful authority in Geneva. We have no prince but the bishop. Has he forgotten the great misfortunes that have befallen the city in consequence of these Savoyard vidames?... Citizens perpetually threatened, many of them imprisoned and tortured, their heads cut off, their bodies quartered.... But God has helped us, and we will no longer live in such misery.... No!' continued the speaker with some emotion, 'we will not renounce the independence which our charters secure to us.... Rather than lose it, we will sacrifice our lives and goods, our wives, and our children.... We will give up everything, to our last breath, to the last drop of our blood.'... Such words, uttered with warmth, always excite the masses; and, accordingly, as soon as the people heard them, they cried as with one voice: 'Yes! yes! that is the answer we will make.'
This declaration was immediately sent into Switzerland; and, strange to say, such patriotic enthusiasm was received with ridicule by some persons in that noble country. Geneva was so small and so weak, that her determination to resist a prince so powerful as the duke seemed mere folly: the Swiss had forgotten that their ancestors, although few in number, had vanquished Austria and Burgundy. 'These Genevans are all mad,' said they. When they heard of this insult, the council of Geneva was content to enter in its registers the following simple and spirited declaration: 'Considering our ambassadors' report of what the Swiss say of us, it is ordered that they be written to and told that we are all in our right minds.'[782]
On hearing of these proceedings, La Baume, who was at the Tour de May in Burgundy, flew into a violent passion. He paced up and down his room, abused his attendants, and uttered a thousand threats against Geneva. He included all the Genevans in the same proscription, and had no more regard for conservatives like Besançon Hugues than for reformers like Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve. He was angry with the citizens who disturbed him with their bold speeches in the midst of his peaceful retreat. 'In his opinion the chief virtue of a prelate was to keep a plentiful and dainty table, with good wines; and,' says a person who often dined with him, 'he had sometimes more than he could carry.[783] He was, moreover, liberal to women of doubtful character, very stately, and fond of great parade.'
=THE BISHOP AND THE MESSENGER.=
One day, as he was leaving the table where he had taken too much wine, he was told that a messenger from Geneva, bearing a letter from the council, desired to speak with him. 'Messieurs de Genève, remembering,' says Balard, 'that dulce verbum frangit iram,[784] wrote to him in friendly terms.' The messenger, Martin de Combes, having been admitted to the bishop, bowed low, and, courteously approaching, handed him the letters of which he was the bearer. But the mere sight of a Genevan made the bishop's blood boil, and, losing all self-control, he said 'in great fury:' 'Where do you come from?'—'From Geneva.'—'It is a lie,' said the bishop; and then, forgetting that he was contradicting himself, he added: 'You have changed the colour of your clothes at Geneva;' wishing apparently to accuse the Genevans of making a revolution or a reformation. 'Come hither,' he continued; 'tell the folks in Geneva that they are all traitors—all of them, men, women, and children, little and big; that I will have justice done shortly, and that it will be something to talk about. Tell them never to write to me again.... Whenever I meet any persons from that city, I will have them put to death.... And as for you, get out of my sight instantly!' The poor messenger, who trembled like a leaf, did not wait to be told twice.
La Baume, who had forgotten Plutarch's treatise, De cohibenda ira, could not recover from his emotion, and kept walking up and down the room with agitated step. Suddenly, remembering certain cutting expressions, uttered in Switzerland by Ami Girard, a distinguished, well-read, and determined huguenot, who was generally envoy from Geneva to Berne and Friburg, he said to his servants: 'Bring that man back.' Poor De Combes was brought back like a criminal whose rope has once broken, and who is about to be hanged again. 'Mind you tell those folks at Geneva all that I have ordered you,' exclaimed the bishop. 'There is one of them (I know him well—it is Ami Girard) who said that I wish to bridle Geneva in order that Monsieur of Savoy may ride her.... I will be revenged on him ... or I will die for it.... Out of my sight instantly. Be off to your huguenots.'
=CALM OF THE GENEVESE.=
De Combes retired without saying a word, and reported in Geneva the prelate's violent message. He had committed nothing to writing; but the whole scene remained graven in his memory. 'What!' exclaimed the huguenots, 'he said all that?' and then they made him tell his story over again. The murmurs now grew louder: the Genevans said that 'while in the first centuries the ministers of the Church had conciliated general esteem by their doctrine and character, modern priests looked for strength in alliances with the princes of this world; formerly the vocation of a bishop was martyrdom, but now it is eating and drinking, pomp, white horses, and ... bursts of anger.' All this was a deadly blow to the consideration due to the clergy. The council was, however, wiser than the prelate; they ordered that no answer should be returned him. This decision was indeed conformable to custom, as the report had been made to the syndics viva voce, and not by official letter. La Baume, at the time he gave audience to the envoy from Geneva, was too confused to hold a pen or to dictate anything rational to his secretary; but the magistrates of Geneva, on the other hand, were always men of rule and law.[785]
While the bishop was putting himself into a passion like a soldier, the Duke of Savoy was convoking a synod like a bishop. It was not enough for the evangelical doctrine to infect Geneva—it was invading his states. It already numbered partisans in Savoy, and even the Alps had not proved a sufficient barrier against the new invasion. Some seeds of the Gospel, coming from Switzerland, had crossed the St. Bernard, in despite of the opposition of the most zealous prelate in Piedmont—we may even say in all Italy. This was Pierre Gazzini, Bishop of Aosta, who was afterwards to contend, in his own episcopal city, with the disciples of Calvin, and with Calvin himself. Gifted with a lofty intelligence, great energy of character, and ardent catholicism, Gazzini was determined to wage war to the death against the heretics, and it was in accordance with his advice that a synod had been convoked. When the assembly met on the 12th of July, 1528, Gazzini drew a deplorable picture of the position. 'My lords,' he said, 'the news is distressing from every quarter. Switzers and Genevans are circulating the accursed book. Twelve gentlemen of Savoy adhere scrupulously to the doctrines of Luther. All our parishes between Geneva and Chambéry are infected by forbidden books. The people will no longer pay for masses or keep the fasts; men go about everywhere saying that the property of the abbots and prelates ought to be sold to feed the poor and miserable!' Gazzini did not confine himself to pointing out the disease; he sought for the cause. 'Geneva,' he said, 'is the focus,' and he called for the most violent measures in order to destroy it.[786] The duke determined to employ every means to extinguish the fire, 'which (they said) was continually tossing its burning flakes from Geneva into Savoy.'