The bishop was angry with Geneva, as this letter shows—sometimes more, sometimes less, but always restless and agitated. One day he was told of something Hugues had said which delighted him; not long after he would hear of something the Genevans had done that increased his anger. About the 13th May when he was informed that Hugues had displayed a very good feeling towards him, the prelate was quite delighted, and wrote to him: 'I have been informed of your intention to declare everywhere the wrong that my subjects are doing me. You will show me, I hope, by good actions, when I shall require it of you, that you are not a man of two words.' But ere long other tidings reached the bishop. He was filled with trouble, fear, and pain; and gave way to all the emotions of a restless and suspicious policy. He had fits of anger; he became rash, violent; then he would suddenly collapse; he had neither strength, feeling, nor courage. In general, however, it was indignation that prevailed in him. Not one of his officers or of the canons (for there was a collegiate church at Arbois) understood him, or consoled him, or encouraged him. He was alone ... and vented his agitation in his apartments or in his gardens. 'I think the answers made by my subjects very strange,' he said, 'I should be sorry to be angry with them.'[488] A few days later he wrote: 'I am quite amazed.... It seems that my subjects do not understand their business.... If they do not mend, I shall be forced to proceed in another way ... which will displease me.... It seems to me that they would do well to obey their lord, and not act the prince.... It cannot last.'[489]
=LETTER TO HUGUES.=
But it did last. Geneva, where they were listening to Olivetan, where they were placarding everywhere, by the side of the pardon of Rome, 'the great general pardon' of Jesus Christ, where the council unanimously ordered the Gospel to be preached 'according to the truth, without any mixture of fable;'[490]—Geneva, whatever Pierre de la Baume might say or do, was separating from the bishop and the pope. On the 3d September (1532), the bishop, more exasperated than ever, wrote again to Besançon Hugues, but with an increase of ill-humour. 'I am displeased with the way my subjects treat me from day to day, declaring that they will rise against my authority.... That will last as long as it can.... I have always been long-suffering; but now it would be better for me to be angry.... If I attempt to do anything from which the Genevans will reap neither pleasure nor profit ... they must not be surprised.... Certainly I have little to thank my servants or my friends for serving me so badly.... I think, Besançon, that you desire what is right, but I should like to see the fruits. The people always find excuses in you.... They say that I have allowed their proceedings.... I do not understand that dance, and I affirm that I said nothing with that intention, from which may God keep them.
'The Bishop of Geneva.'[491]
It was reported at Geneva that the bishop was willing to make some concessions, that he had said so privately, and the huguenots took advantage of it to assert their independence. On the 28th November Pierre de la Baume wrote to Besançon Hugues from the Tour de Mai: 'Besançon, I have seen what you wrote touching the mode of proceeding against my authority and to the detriment of my church. I know whence that comes ... except that I have always been given to understand that, according to the common opinion, my subjects would have been much better guided and would have obeyed me better than they have done, if you had been willing to set your hand to it, as you had promised me, endeavouring to procure the peace of the city, which suffers the greatest loss on my part. As to what you write about being under my displeasure, the only regret I feel as regards you is that you have not been willing to do what you promised. The recompense I made you was to the end that you might keep my possessions in peace, but they are more than ever in war. It is entirely your fault if my jurisdiction is not still kept up. I write to you in order that you may perform your duty.... You will do me a pleasure: I would not have so many words to be without result.... As for me I am accustomed to do something vigorously.... I shall consider what it must be.'
Such are the threatening words which close the correspondence of Pierre de la Baume with Besançon Hugues. Until now all traces of this great citizen had been lost after the 26th September 1532. If the letter we have just given belongs to this year, that limit would be shortened by two months. He must have died between the 28th November 1532 and the 18th February 1533.[492]
Thus the bishop, continually engrossed with Geneva, thought of nothing but recovering his former power. But the independence of that city had enemies more formidable still. Charles V. had ordered the Genevans to drive the Reformation from their walls. 'Full of anxiety for your soul's health,' he wrote to them, 'and learning that certain new opinions and sects are beginning to swarm among you,[493] we exhort you seriously not to admit them, to extirpate them, and to set about it with the utmost diligence, not to permit anything to be taught among you in the leastwise opposed to the decrees and traditions of your ancestors; on the contrary, to preserve with unshaken constancy the faith, rites, and ceremonies that you have received from your fathers. You will thus receive a worthy reward from Almighty God, and will merit from us every sort of gratitude.' Geneva had not obeyed the orders of the puissant emperor. The affairs of Germany had at first prevented him from constraining the little city to follow his sovereign orders, which even the barbarous tribes of the new world obeyed. But now the treaty of Nuremberg was signed; Charles having come to terms with the protestants of Germany might easily keep the promise he had made to his brother-in-law through Bellegarde, and assist him against the huguenots of Geneva.
=FREEDOM IN SIGHT.=
The perfidious murderer of Levrier was beginning to hope that it would be possible to found a stronghold in Geneva, with its ditches and lofty walls, flanked with towers and bastions, and a strong garrison of halberdiers, arquebusiers, and artillerymen, who would keep the city and country in complete subjection under the yoke of their master. When Gessler was sent in the name of Austria to destroy the liberties of the Swiss, did he not build a fortress above Altorf—Zwing-Uri, the yoke of Uri? and had not the free children of those mountains to atone for the smallest sparks of independence by long and costly imprisonment in gloomy dungeons? Had not Pharaoh set the example in Egypt?... Why should not they do the same to subdue the huguenots? Fortresses, cannons, arquebusses, chains ... this was what Geneva had to expect. Before any great length of time the Genevans were really to see a formidable force marching against them, commissioned to carry out the plans of the emperor and the duke. But God's providence had always kept the city, and at this very moment a new force, the pledge of liberty, was about to be given it. The Gospel of the Son of God was about to enter its walls. But he whom the Son maketh free, shall be free indeed.
[480] We have found among the archives at Turin (No. 49, bundle 12) the Mémoire de M. de Bellegarde au sujet de l'audience qu'il a eue de S.M. Impériale touchant les différends que S. A. avait avec ceux de Genève. This manuscript of about 25 pages has supplied us with the particulars in the text.