At this moment a confused noise was heard. Claude Bernard, whose eyes and ears were on the watch, perceived a band of armed men entering the square. The lieutenant of the city, the procurator-fiscal, the soldiers and the armed priests, exasperated and impatient, were occupying the Molard. Bernard saw that resistance would be dangerous and useless; besides the Reformation must not be established in Geneva by violence, it must make its way by conviction. There was not a moment to be lost; every one knew what would be the fate of the evangelist if he were taken.... He must be saved. Bernard therefore sprang from his place and rushed 'in great excitement' towards Froment, shouting to him at the top of his voice:[613] 'Here are all the priests in arms ... the procurator-fiscal and the lieutenant of the city are with them.... For the honour of God descend, get off the stall, and let us save your life!... Make your escape!' Froment would not come down: they entreated him in vain; his heart burnt within him, for he perceived that his discourse was stirring their souls.... How could he forsake his work at such a decisive moment? But the priests and arquebusiers were coming nearer; Some of the huguenots were already grasping their swords and preparing to resist the sacerdotal gang. There would have been bloodshed and death. 'Pray, for God's honour, let us avoid the spilling of blood,' exclaimed Bernard. Froment could not resist these words. Some of his friends caught hold of him, lifted him off the stall and dragged him away. They took him through a narrow private passage, and by this means reached Jean Chautemps' house. The door opened and the evangelist was put into a secret hiding-place. The priests and soldiers vainly endeavoured to reach him; the mass of hearers was between them and him. The lieutenant ordered the people 'under heavy penalties' to retire; and when the preacher was in safety, the assembly dispersed. The magistrates and priests returned angry and disappointed to report this second failure to the syndics. The Word had not been sown in vain; many of the hearers found that they had received a glorious new year's gift. Such was the first day of the year 1533 at Geneva.
=FROMENT IN HIDING.=
All the priests and their followers had not returned to the hotel de ville. Froment had disappeared, but he could not be far off. Some of them prowled about the adjacent streets, trying to discover the reformer's hiding place. At last one of them found it out. Chautemps was known to be a decided evangelist, and they called to mind that Olivetan had lived in his house. Several catholics stationed themselves under his windows, and when the night came, they began to make an uproar. This alarmed Froment's friends; and going to his hiding place they told him that 'he must move to the house of another citizen.' They went out by a back-door, and, owing to the darkness, he was conducted without being recognised to the house of the energetic Perrin, who was more dreaded than the honest Chautemps. Ere long, however, the priests and their adherents followed him there: 'Ami Perrin,' they shouted, 'we will pull down your house and burn you in it if you do not send the Lutheran away.' Perrin made use of stratagem: going out to the riotous catholics, he said: 'We have liberty to keep an honest servant in our houses without impediment from anybody.' He then said to Froment: 'You are my servant, I engage you as such, and you shall work for me.' At the same time a few of Perrin's friends, stanch huguenots, came up the street, presenting such a threatening front to the priests, that they were forced to retire. The syndics determined to convoke the great council on the morrow.[614]
The circumstances were serious: the new doctrine had been preached publicly, and Froment's bold address had made an impression, especially on the huguenots. They had discovered that the surest means of guaranteeing their political emancipation was to establish a religious reformation. At the Molard, liberty and the Gospel had shaken hands. The catholics asked whether the pope's sovereignty was about to fall to the ground. The various parties grew warm, abused each other, and lively discussions took place between them. The politicians maintained that if the city was divided on such all-important matters, their irreconcileable enemy Savoy would plant his white cross on the walls he had coveted so long. Certain laymen, full of confidence in their own ability, doubted whether strangers and madmen (follateurs) should be permitted to vent their nonsense everywhere?... The priests spoke the loudest: they asked the Genevans if they would forsake the faith of their ancestors; if the catholic and apostolic religion, attacked, overthrown, and annihilated, was to give place to a new doctrine that would bring down the ruin of Geneva. The huguenots replied that if the religion announced by the reformers was not that of the pope, the schoolmen, the councils, and perhaps even of the Fathers, it was at least that of the apostles and Jesus Christ, and consequently was older than that of Rome. They represented that as the papal government was nothing else than despotism in the church, it could produce nothing but despotism in the state. The two parties became more distinct every day. The syndics and councillors, wishing to restore concord, went from one to another, trying to calm down the more violent; but it was a very hard task.
=THE COUNCIL MEETS.=
On the 2nd of January, when the council of Two Hundred met, the premier syndic proposed, 'that it should be forbidden to preach in private houses or in public places without the permission of the syndics or the vicar-episcopal,—and that all who knew of preachers guilty of infringing this law should be bound to inform against them, under penalty of three stripes with the rope.' At these words the huguenots exclaimed, 'We demand the Holy Scriptures;' to which the friends of the priests replied, 'We desire that sect to be utterly extirpated.' The council thought to restore harmony between everybody by carrying a resolution that Bocquet the gray friar should preach until next Lent.[615]
The premier syndic, who was distressed at the strife and hatred by which the citizens were divided, proposed that 'all men, citizens, and inhabitants, should forgive one another.' The Genevans, who were prompt to anger, were equally prompt to reconciliation. 'Yes, yes,' they exclaimed, as they lifted up their hands, 'We desire to love those who are of a contrary opinion.' And soon bands of men might be seen parading the streets, in which persons of the most opposite opinions held one another affectionately by the arm.[616]
Meantime Froment remained in Perrin's house and wove ribbons, 'otherwise he could not have stayed there,' as he informs us. Whilst seated in silence at the loom, passing the shuttle to and fro, he deliberated whether he should remain in hiding or again openly proclaim the Gospel? Having made up his mind to go from house to house to strengthen those who had believed, he went out and knocked at certain doors; a few of his friends, armed with stout sticks, followed him at a distance, without his knowledge, to prevent his being insulted. One day, however, a vulgar woman abusing him roundly, Jean Favre, a violent huguenot, and his body-guard, went up and gave her 'a sound slap on the face.' Froment turned round, distressed at his friend's hastiness: 'It is not by violence,' said he, 'that we shall gain friends, but by gentleness and friendship.'
=ATTACK ON FROMENT.=
Another time Froment was crossing the Rhone bridge to go to Aimé Levet's.[617] It was a holiday, and the priests at the head of a procession were advancing on one end of the bridge as Froment arrived at the other. They were carrying crosses and relics, mumbling prayers and invoking the saints: Sancte Petre, chanted some; Sancte Paule, chanted others. Froment, being taken by surprise and embarrassed, determined to be moderate, and not to throw the saints into the river as Farel had done at Montbeliard. He therefore stood still, but did not bow to the images. When they saw this, the priests left off chanting and began to shout: 'Fall on him!... fall on the dog!... to the Rhone with him!' The devout women who followed them, breaking their ranks, rushed upon the reformer; one caught him by the arm, another by the dress, while a third pushed him from behind: 'To the Rhone' with him they cried, and endeavoured to throw him into the river. But his body-guard, consisting of John Humbert and some other huguenots, who were a little way off, ran up and rescued Froment from the hands of these furies. Upon this the women, priests, and sacristans, seeing that the Lutherans had saved their idol, shouted still louder than before. A tumultuous crowd filled the bridge. The huguenots, wishing to put Froment in a place of safety, hurriedly thrust him into Levet's house, which was situated at the corner of the bridge.[618] The populace, excited by the clergy, instantly besieged the house: they flung stones at the windows, threw mud into the shop, and at last rushed in and scattered the drugs and bottles upon the floor. Levet was an apothecary—a profession much esteemed. The huguenots, having put Froment in safety in a secret chamber, went out and assisted by a few friends drove the priests, women, and rioters from the bridge.