At noon on Monday, the 10th of October, the Swiss army, with the avoyer D'Erlach at its head, marched into Geneva. But where could they put fifteen thousand soldiers in that little city? The citizens received a great number; a part were quartered in the convents. 'Come, fathers, make room,' said the quartermasters to the Dominicans. The monks gave up their dormitories very unwillingly; but that did not matter: six companies, 'all Lutherans,' were lodged in the convent, and two hundred horses were turned loose in their burial-ground to feed upon the grass. The Augustine and Franciscan monasteries, as well as the houses of the canons and other churchmen, were also filled with troops. These men carried on the controversy in their own fashion—that is, in a military and not an evangelical manner. A great number of them had to bivouac in the open air. The Bernese artillerymen, who were posted round the Oratory, situated between the city and Plainpalais, felt cold during the night. They first began to examine the chapel, and then entered it, and took away the altar and the wooden images, with which they made a good fire. They were not, however, yet at their ease: these rough Helvetians, having no desire to lie down or to remain standing all night, broke up a large cross, and with the fragments made seats on which they sat round the fire. Some Friburgers, observing what they considered to be a sacrilege, went up to the Bernese and reprimanded them sharply, asking them why they did not go and look for wood somewhere else. 'The wood from the churches is usually very dry,' coolly answered the artillerymen. These catholic Friburgers were no doubt superstitious; but perhaps the Bernese were not very pious, and most of them, while destroying the idols without, left those standing that were within.
=THE NUNS OF ST. CLAIRE.=
The Genevans anxiously looked about for quarters for their guests, being unwilling to leave these confederates without shelter, who had quitted everything for them. As the city was not large enough, the country was laid under contribution. At the extremity of a fine promontory which stretches from the southern shore into the lake, at Belle Rive, about a league from the city, stood a convent of Cistercian nuns, staunch partisans of the duke, and who were suspected of intriguing in his favour, and of having been greatly delighted when the Savoyard army had beleaguered the city not long before. 'Come with us,' said certain young huguenots to a Swiss company bivouacking in the open air; 'we will provide you comfortable quarters, situated in a beautiful locality.' They marched off immediately. The nuns, whose hearts palpitated with fear, were on the watch, and, looking from their windows, they saw a body of soldiers advancing by the lake. Hastily throwing off their conventual dress, they disguised themselves and took refuge in the neighbouring cottages. At last the troop arrived. Were the Genevans and Bernese irritated by this flight, or did they intend to follow the custom of burning the houses of those who plotted against the State? We cannot tell; but, be that as it may, they set fire to the convent, not, however, to the church, and the house itself suffered but little, for the nuns returned to it soon after. When the flames were seen from Geneva, they occasioned much excitement; but nothing could equal that of the sisters of St. Claire.[847] The poor nuns, huddling together in their garden, looked at the fire with terror, and exclaimed: 'It is a sword of sorrow to us, like that which pierced the Virgin.' They ran backwards and forwards, they entered the church, they returned to the garden, and fell down at the foot of the altar, and then, looking again at the flames, devoutly crossed themselves. 'We must depart,' they said, and immediately the best scholars among them drew up, as well as their emotion permitted, a humble petition addressed to the syndics. 'Fathers and dear protectors,' said they, 'on our bended knees and with uplifted hands, we, being greatly alarmed, entreat you by the honour of our Redeemer, of his virgin mother, of Monsieur St. Pierre, and Madame St. Claire, and all the saints of paradise, to be pleased to allow us to go out from your city in safety.' Three of the most devout members of the council went to the convent to comfort them. 'Fear nothing,' they said, 'for the city has not the least intention of becoming Lutheran.'[848]
A certain consideration was shown towards the sisters, by requiring them to find quarters for only twenty-five soldiers, all Friburgers, 'good catholics,' says one of the nuns, 'and hearing mass willingly.' But alas! the mass did not make them more merciful. 'They were as thievish as the others,' says the same nun. Shortly after their arrival they threatened to break down the doors and the walls, if the nuns did not supply them with as much to eat and drink as they wanted. It is true that the sisters put the soldiers upon spare diet, giving them only a few peas.[849] This little garrison, however, was of advantage to the church of St. Claire: it was the only place in Geneva where the Roman worship was performed. The Friburgers, at the request of the sisters, took post at the door, and prevented the heretics from entering, but gave admission by order to all the priests and monks of Geneva who showed themselves. The latter came dressed as laymen, carrying their robes under their arms; they went into the vestry, put on their clerical costume, entered the chapel, drew up round the altar, and chanted mass in pontificalibus. When the service was over, the nuns congratulated each other: 'What glory Madame St. Claire has over Madame Magdalen, Monsieur St. Gervais, and even M. St. Pierre!' It was a great consolation and indescribable honour to them.
The mass, however, was not to have all its own way in Geneva. The Bernese desired to have the Word of God preached; consequently, on Tuesday, the 11th of October, they proceeded to the cathedral with their evangelical almoner, and ordered the doors to be opened. Some of them went into the tower and rang the episcopal bells, after which the almoner went up into the pulpit, read a portion of Scripture, and preached a sermon. A great number of Genevans had gone to the church and watched this new worship from a distance. They did not fully understand it; but they saw that the reading of God's Word, its explanation, and prayer were the essential parts, and they liked that better than the Roman form. From that time, the evangelical service was repeated daily, and 'no other bell, little or big, rang in Geneva.' The priests consoled themselves by thinking that 'the accursed minister preached in German.' The German, however, went further: he had brought with him some copies of the Holy Scriptures in French, and French translations of several of the writings of Zwingle, Luther, and other reformers; and when the Genevans who had heard him without understanding him went to pay him a visit, he gave them these books, after shaking hands with them, and in this way prepared their minds for the work of the Reformation.
=CASTLES TAKEN AND BURNT.=
While these books might be producing some internal good, the Genevans were anxious for another reform. They wished to purge the country of the outrages, robberies, and murders which the nobility in the neighbourhood of Geneva, still more than those in the Pays de Vaud, had made the peaceful burghers endure so long. This also was a reform, though different from that of Luther and Farel. 'Come along with us,' they said to the terrible bands of Friburg and Berne, 'and we will lead you to these brigands' nests.' The Swiss troops, guided by the Genevans, appeared successively before the castles of Gaillard, Vilette, Confignon, Sacconex, and others. They captured and set fire to many of these haunts, where the noble robbers had so often hidden their plunder and their prey. The terror of the partisans of the old order of things now became extreme. The sisters of St. Claire thought that everything was on fire round Geneva. 'Look!' said they, standing on the highest part of their garden, 'look! although the weather is fair, the sky is darkened by the smoke.' They fancied it was the last day. 'Of a surety,' they added, 'the elements are about to be dissolved.' The desolation was still greater in the country. The captain-general had issued an order forbidding all marauding, but the soldiers rarely attended to it. The peasantry were seen running away like sheep before the wolf; the gentlemen hid themselves in the woods or the mountains; and several noble dames, who had taken refuge in miserable huts, 'were brought to bed there very wretchedly.'[850]
Although certain accusations have been brought against them, the nuns of St. Claire were sincere in their devotion, and moral in their conduct; and while the dissolute friars kept silence, these superstitious but virtuous women appeared to stand alone by the side of popery in its agony. Desiring to appease the wrath of heaven, they made daily processions in their garden, barefooted in the white frost, chanting low the litanies of the Virgin and the saints 'to obtain mercy.' They passed all the night in vigils, 'praying to God in behalf of his holy faith and the poor world.' After matins they lighted the tapers, and scourged themselves; then bending to the earth, they exclaimed: Ave, benigne Jesu! 'hail, gentle Jesus!' Sister Jeanne affirms that by these means they worked miracles. Indeed, one of the mahometists (huguenots), having flung a consecrated wafer into a cemetery, it could not be found again: 'the angels had carried it away and put it in some unknown place.'[851] It was not very miraculous that so small an object could not be found among the grass and between the graves of a cemetery. A miracle more real was worked.
The Duke of Nemours, brother of the Duke of Savoy, who, as we have seen, had come from France with his men-at-arms to attack Geneva, laid aside his warlike humour when he found the Swiss in the city, and, wishing to conciliate the Genevans, repeated to all who came near him that he had never intended to do them any harm, and would punish severely everybody who was guilty of violence towards them. A truce was concluded at St. Julien. The definitive treaty of peace was referred to a Swiss diet to be held at Payerne. The bishop released the merchants, the cows, and the goats he had seized, and the Genevans set Mandolla at liberty; 'but,' adds Bonivard, 'I was not taken out of Chillon.'[852]
[830] Journal de Balard, pp. 274-280. Registres du Conseil des 23 juin; 5, 8, 19 juillet; 9 août. Bonivard, Chroniq. ii. p. 576. Galiffe fils, Besançon Hugues, pp. 398, 399. Gautier MS.