Mandolla had hardly been three days in prison, when 'a severe and threatening letter' from the bishop arrived at Geneva. The prelate was indignant that the citizens should dare lay hands upon a clerk, who was one of his officers, and especially on that fiscal who, as Bonivard says, brought the water to his mill. 'Not content with the unseasonable innovations you have made in our jurisdiction,' he wrote to the syndics on the 27th of June, 'you have caused our procurator to be arrested in the discharge of his functions.... And you do not like to be called traitors!... We condemn the outrage as much as if you had done it to our own person. Set our fiscal at liberty, without any damage to his person; make amends for the outrage you have committed; otherwise we shall employ all the means God has placed in our hands to obtain vengeance.' The council were greatly astonished on reading this letter: 'The bishop forgets,' they said, 'that this is a case simply of robbery and treason. How long has it been the custom to threaten with the vengeance of God and man the magistrates who prosecute a thief?'—'My lord,' answered the magistrates, 'Mandolla you well know to be a traitor and a robber.' And, giving no heed to the episcopal summons, they drew up an indictment against the fiscal. When this was told to La Baume, he could not contain himself. His twofold title of prince and bishop filled him with pride, and he could not bear the thought that these citizens of Geneva disregarded his orders.

This affair only served to hasten the execution of his plans. His mind was full of bitterness on account of the heresy he had discovered in the city, and he thought but of punishing those whom he looked upon as traitors. It did not occur to the bishop that Geneva, after undergoing a great transformation, was one day to become the most active focus of the Reform. But, without foreseeing such a future, he thought that if the Reformation were established there, as at Zurich and Berne, the provinces of Savoy, and others besides, would erelong fall a prey to the contagion. He made up his mind to oppose it in every way, and it must be confessed that he had a right to do so; but two things are to be regretted: the unholy mixing up of the catholic cause with that of a traitor and thief, and the means that the prelate employed.

=THE BISHOP APPEALS TO THE KNIGHTS.=

These means he sought in violence. In order to punish the huguenots he must have allies. Where could he look for them except among the knights of the Spoon? As prince and bishop of Geneva, he would give a shape to this fraternity, and organise it against his own episcopal city. He forthwith entered into communication with its principal leaders: John de Viry, sire of Alamogne; John Mestral, sire of Aruffens; John de Beaufort, baron of Rolle; Francis, sire of St. Saphorin; the sire of Genthod, a village situated between Geneva and Versoix; and especially Michael, baron of La Sarraz, whom the bishop called 'his dearly beloved cousin.' Without waiting for these powerful lords to attack the city, he began to carry on a little war himself. He put into prison two Genevan cattle-dealers, who chanced to be in the territory of St. Claude; ordered the Genevan goats and cows to be seized, which were grazing on the hills of Gex; and posted armed men on all the roads leading from Geneva to Lyons, with instructions to stop his subjects and their friends, and to seize their goods.[830]

After this little war, the bishop turned his thoughts to the great one. At first he wished to set in motion his own vassals, friends, and allies on the western slopes of the Jura. 'Brother,' said he to the Baron of St. Sorlin, 'call out our Burgundians.' His negotiations with La Sarraz, Viry, and others having succeeded, he issued a general appeal to the knights of the Spoon. 'Gentlemen and neighbours of my episcopal city,' he said, 'I have been informed of your friendly disposition to aid me in punishing my rebellious subjects of Geneva. And now, knowing that it will be a meritorious work before God and the world to do justice upon such evil-doers, I pray and require you to be pleased to help me in this matter.' Many of these gentlemen crossed the Jura to come to an arrangement with him, and filled Arbois with their indignation.

The 20th of August was an important day at the residence of the prince-bishop; he had determined to make war upon his flock, and this moment had been chosen for the declaration. Pierre de la Baume was not so cruel as his predecessor, the bastard of Savoy; but his irritation was now at its height. If he chanced to meet any Genevans who addressed him in respectful language, he would smile graciously upon them, but 'it was all grimace,' says the pseudo-Bonivard.[831] When they had quitted him, La Baume once more indulged in angry and threatening words. The convents, the commandery of Malta, and the college of the canons of Arbois were still more violent in their complaints. On the 20th of August a meeting took place at the priory. The knights of the Spoon, who had found the wine of Arbois excellent, arrived with their swords, their coats of mail, and their cloaks. The bishop, proud of having such defenders, invited them near the chair where he was seated, and graciously handed them their commissions to make war upon his subjects. 'We, Pierre de la Baume,' they ran, 'bishop and prince of Geneva, having regard to the insolence, rebellion, treason, and conspiracies that some of our subjects of Geneva are daily committing against us and our authority ... imprisoning our subjects and our officers without orders, assuming our rights of principality, and threatening to do worse; ... being resolved to maintain our Church in her authority and to uphold our holy faith, have commissioned and required our friends and relatives to aid us in punishing the rebels, and, if need be, to proceed by force of arms.' (Here follow the names of these friends, the Baron of La Sarraz, and the other lords mentioned above.) The prelate ended the document by a declaration that these gentlemen 'had full authority from him, and that, in confirmation, he had written these letters with his own hand at Arbois, on this 20th of August in the year 1530.' He had signed the papers: Bishop of Geneva. The gentlemen thanked the prelate, promised to do all in their power, and, quitting Franche-Comté, returned to their castles to make ready for the campaign, repeating to one another, as they rode along, that it was very necessary to maintain the authority of the Roman Church in Geneva, and to uphold the holy faith, and seeming very proud that such was the object of the crusade they were about to undertake.[832]

=LUTHERANS IMPRISONED.=

The bishop's alarm was not without foundation. The huguenots, even those most inclined to protestantism, did not possess much evangelical light; they were struck rather with the superstitions of Rome than with their own sins and the grace of God. There were nevertheless some Genevans and a few foreigners living in Geneva, who displayed great zeal, and replied to the bishop's violence by going about from place to place seeking to enlighten souls. The gentlemen of Savoy, who had just made an alliance with the bishop, had seen this with their own eyes. 'They enter the cottages, and even venture into our castles,' said the knights, 'everywhere preaching what they call the Word of God.' The peasants listened rather favourably to the addresses of these evangelists; but, says Balard, 'the gentlemen could not be prevented from taking vengeance on such excesses.' When any of these daring pioneers of the Reformation arrived at a castle, or even at the village or town which depended on it, the lord, exasperated that the heretics should dare come and preach their doctrines to his servants and vassals, seized them and threw them into his dungeons.

Some envoys from Friburg who were going to Chambéry, having halted on the road at the castle of one of their friends, heard of these doings; it happened, too, that some of these huguenot prisoners (they may have come from Berne) were confined in the place at which they were stopping. As the Friburgers, although good catholics, were not in favour of employing brute force in matters of religion, they found means to touch the hearts of their persecutors, and succeeded in having these fervent evangelists set at liberty. They then continued their journey to Chambéry. But the duke had hardly given them audience before he said to them with bitterness: 'I have to complain, gentlemen, that you go about in search of prisoners in my country, and that the people of Geneva are trying to make my people as bad as themselves.... I will not put up with such disorders.... I cannot prevent my nobles from taking vengeance.'[833] But the Genevans were equally unwilling to submit to the ill-treatment to which some of their number had been exposed, and accordingly Robert Vandel and John Lullin were despatched in all haste to Berne and Friburg to urge on the arrival of these noble auxiliaries. It is probable, however, that certain serious rumours which were beginning to circulate in Geneva were the principal cause of their mission.[834]

It was the autumn of 1530, and as the chiefs of German catholicism had assembled at Augsburg to deliberate upon the means of destroying protestantism in the empire, the duke and the bishop, the two great enemies of Geneva, appointed a meeting at Gex, at the foot of the Jura, to deliberate on the means of expelling both liberty and the Gospel from the city of the Leman. 'Lutheranism is making considerable progress in Geneva,' said the bishop to the duke; 'attack the city; for my part I will employ in this work the revenues of my see and of my abbeys, and even all my patrimony.'[835] The duke might have had reasons for delaying the war. His brother-in-law the emperor, and the other catholic princes assembled at Augsburg, thought they could not be ready before the spring, and desired that protestantism should then be attacked on all points at once. But passion prevailed with Charles III. Aspiring to the sovereignty of Geneva, it was important for him to play the principal part in the attack against that city; and when once Geneva was taken, he would prove to all the world that, in accordance with the system of the cardinals, it would be necessary to establish there some ruler more powerful than a bishop, in order to prevent future revolts.[836]