The Genevans, seeing the danger with which they were threatened by the knights, energetically prepared for resistance, and solicited aid from Berne and Friburg. Two enseignes, that is, eight hundred men, principally from Gessenay, arrived in Geneva and were quartered among the inhabitants, but especially on the churchmen and in the convents. The duke, who attached great importance to the Swiss alliance, and feared to come into collision with their men-at-arms, now permitted provisions to be carried to the market of Geneva, and, the semblance of peace having been restored, the allied troops quitted the city on the 30th of October, 1528.
=THE MEETING AT NYON.=
Pontverre's humour was not so pacific. One of the last representatives of feudal society, he saw that its elements were on the verge of dissolution, and its institutions about to disappear. Power, which had long ago passed from the towns to the country, was now returning from the country to the towns; Geneva, in particular, seemed as if it would nullify all the seigneurs in its neighbourhood. And, further still, the Church which puts forward creeds in an absolute manner, so that no person has the right to examine them, was attacked by the religious revolution beginning in Geneva. Pontverre desired to preserve the ancient order of things, and, with that object, to take and (if necessary) destroy that troublesome city. He therefore, as prior of the order, convened a general assembly of the knights of the Spoon at Nyon, in order to arrange, in concert with the duke, the requisite measures for capturing the city. The bailiwick of Ternier, the lordship of Pontverre, was situated about a league from Geneva, between the verdant flanks of the Salève and the smiling shores of the Rhone. It would have been easy, therefore, for that chief to cross the river between Berney and Peney, and thus get on the right bank of the lake; but he thought it more daring and heroic to traverse Geneva. They represented to him, but to no purpose, the danger to which he would expose himself, for if he was always quick to provoke the Genevans, they were equally quick to reply. Pontverre would listen to nothing. There was a treaty by which Savoyard gentlemen had the right of free passage through the city; and, armed with a sword, he feared nobody. It was in the month of December, when, presenting himself at daybreak at the Corraterie gate, Pontverre passed in; he rode quietly through the city, looking to the right and to the left at the shops which were still closed, and did not meet a single huguenot. On arriving at the Swiss gate, by which he had to leave the city, he found it shut. He summoned the gate-keeper, who, as it appears, was not yet up. The horse pawed the ground, the rider shouted, and the porter loitered: he ran out at last and lowered the chain. The impatient Pontverre paid him by a slap in the face, and said: 'Rascal, is this the way you make gentlemen wait?' He then added with violent oaths: 'You will not be wanted much longer. It will not be long before we pull down your gates and trample them under foot, as we have done before.' He then set spurs to his horse and galloped away. The porter, exasperated by the blow he had received, made his report, and the Genevans, who were irritable folk, became very angry about it. 'It is not enough,' they said, 'for these Savoyards to do us all sorts of injury outside the walls, but they must come and brave us within. Wait a little! We will pay them off, and chastise this insolent fellow.' The council, while striving to restrain the people, ordered sentinels to be stationed everywhere.[792]
=CONFERENCE AT NYON.=
The gentry of the district who had taken part in the meeting at Bursinel, had immediately begun to canvass their neighbours, and a great number of persons, incensed against Geneva, had taken the Spoon, as in the time of the crusades men took the Cross. The second meeting, therefore, promised to be more numerously attended than the first. From all quarters, from Gex and Vaud and Savoy, the knights arrived at Nyon, a central situation for these districts, where they usually held their councils of war. Climbing the hill, they entered the castle, from whose windows the lake, its shores, and the snowy Alps of Savoy were visible in all their magnificence. Having taken their places in the great hall, they began their deliberations. These unpolished gentlemen, descended from the chevaliers of the middle ages, who thought it enough to build a tower upon a rock and to pass their lives in crushing the weak and plundering the innocent, still preserved something of the nature of their ancestors. Pontverre, who was their president, had no difficulty in carrying them with him. Feudalism and even catholicism exercised great influence over him, and gave to his words an energy and deep conviction which it was hard to resist. He pointed out to these lords that the authority of the prince and of the pope, religious and monarchical order, the throne and the altar, were equally threatened by an insolent bourgeoisie. He showed them how monstrous it was that lawyers, that men of low birth and no merit, and that even shopkeepers should presume to take the place of the bishop and the duke. 'We must make haste,' he said, 'to disperse and crush the seeds of rebellion, or you will see them spreading far and wide.' The knights of the castle of Nyon were unanimous. The right of resistance had been the characteristic of the feudal system; and never had the exercise of that right been more necessary. One lord exercised it in the middle ages against another lord, his neighbour. But what were these isolated adversaries compared with that universal and invisible enemy which threatened the old society in all its parts, and which, to be surer of triumph, was inaugurating a new religion? In the valley of the Leman, Geneva was the stronghold of this new and terrible adversary. 'Down with Geneva! Rome and Savoy for ever!' was the cry that rose from every heart. It was agreed that all the gentlemen and their followers should meet at a certain time and place, armed with sword and lance, in order to seize upon the city and put an end to its liberties.
Pontverre, delighted at seeing the success of his appeal, sat silent, and appeared for a time lost in deep meditation. He had a subtle mind, he did not fear to resort to stratagem, and hoped that an assault would not be necessary. With the greatest secresy he had gained friends who occupied a house in the Corraterie, the back door of which opened to the outside of the city. It would seem that this house belonged to the hospital of the Pont du Rhone, situated between that bridge and the Mint, and placed under the patronage of the canons of the cathedral.[793] The council rose. Pontverre was particularly intimate with the Sire de Beaufort, governor of Chillon, one of the most valiant knights of the assembly. Taking him aside, and enjoining secresy, he said: 'We have a gate in Geneva at our orders. No one knows of it; but do not fear. I will undertake that you shall all enter.'—'Pontverre did indeed enter,' said Bonivard, some time after, when he heard of this remark; 'he went in, but he did not come out.'[794]
=PONTVERRE'S INSOLENCE.=
The knights mounted their horses, and each one rode off to his castle to prepare for the great enterprise. Pontverre did the same; but, always daring, and taking a delight in braving the people of Geneva, he resolved to pass through the city again. His friends reminded him that the citizens were now on their guard; that he had offended them some days before; that if he attempted such an imprudent act, he was a dead man; and that his life was necessary to their enterprise. It was all to no purpose. 'His hour was come,' says the chronicler of St. Victor, 'and it pleased God so.'—'Fear not,' answered the daring soldier to his brothers in arms; 'I will pass through by night, and wrap my face up in my cloak, so that no one can recognise me. Besides, if they attack me, I have my sword.' One of his friends, the Sire de Simon, resolved to accompany him, and some armed attendants followed them. The knights who remained behind, watched him as he galloped off towards Geneva, and wondered anxiously what would happen.
Pontverre, checking the speed of his horse, reflected on the work he was about to undertake. He thought it worthy of the name he bore, and of the memory of his ancestors. By lending his sword to the Duke of Savoy and to the pope, he would make absolutism in the Church and in the State triumphant in Geneva; at one blow he would crush in that restless city both independence and the Reformation. He reached Geneva between four and five o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, the 2nd of January, 1529, and night had set in. Pontverre hid his face in his cloak, presented himself with his escort at the Pâquis gate, and passed through. He entered the streets. The commander of an army which purposed capturing and destroying Geneva, was traversing, like an ordinary traveller, the city he was about to surround with his forces, besiege, and perhaps burn.... Such impudent assurance has perhaps never been witnessed in modern times. He was hardly inside the city, when, no longer able to contain himself (for pride and anger prevailed over discretion), he put aside all precaution, threw off his cloak, and, drawing his sword, 'uttered threats and insults out of his haughtiness and insolence.'[795] He went even further than this: the streets of Geneva, and the presence of the detested huguenots whom he saw moving about, made his wrath boil over; and striking one of the citizens on the head with his sword, he exclaimed with a round oath: 'We must kill these traitors!' The assaulted citizen turned round, and others ran up: this took place in the Rue de Coutance, which has witnessed many other fights since then, even in very recent times.[796] The huguenots surrounded the horseman, and, recognising him, called out: 'It is Pontverre! it is Pontverre!' The crowd increased and blocked up the bridge over the Rhone, which the chief of the knights of the Spoon would have to cross.