'We have been deputed,' answered Moine, 'to demand that you should produce before us those who went to Berne. We will not leave this room until we have seen them. If you do not summon them, we will go and fetch them.'
On hearing these words the council grew alarmed. What a disturbance and what violence there would be in the council-chamber if the two huguenots should appear before these excited catholics!... The syndics replied that they would return an answer. This procrastination put the mamelukes beside themselves. It was not Moine alone who protested: the two hundred who surrounded him raised their hands and shouted in menacing tones: 'Justice, justice! Let us keep our promise to Messieurs of Friburg—that Geneva would preserve the faith of its fathers.' The alarmed syndics endeavoured by exceeding gentleness of manner (says a manuscript) to appease the tumult; and the two hundred discontented catholics returned to their homes with haughty look and resolute air. 'If the council haggles any more,' they said, 'we will do ourselves justice!' In the city, men said: 'We thought the catholics decrepid, downcast, asleep, or dead ... but they are opening their heavy eyes; their strength is returning, and the swift-flying vultures are about to pounce upon their prey.'[644]
In fact, two of the syndics, and several councillors, with other laymen of the catholic party and some priests, went into the city, and endeavoured to persuade all they met to enter into the plot formed against the Gospel. They told them that there was nothing to be expected from the council. 'If the faith of our fathers is to stand, by our own hands it must be supported,' they said. 'Hold yourselves in readiness to march against the Lutherans.'
=AGITATION AGAINST THE LUTHERANS.=
The Lutherans, they said. It was indeed the Reformation that was then stirring up all the wrath of the clerical party. Some of its members, no doubt, hated liberty as much as the Gospel; but most of the catholics would have tolerated the ancient franchises of the people. The point on which they were all agreed was an unquenchable opposition to that new doctrine which they called Lutheranism, Luther being in their opinion its great apostle. This Lutheranism was fundamentally what was afterwards named Calvinism, for Luther and Calvin were one in the great evangelical principles. All the reformers preached in the sixteenth century, in Europe, and particularly at Geneva, that the pure grace of God was the only power of eternal salvation, and that the Church was composed of all those who possessed true faith, and not of those who slavishly adhered to a dominating hierarchy. The doctrines of Lutheranism and of the Reform[645] might differ, in regard to certain abstract questions, as touching the finite and the infinite, for instance: Lutheranism might put in bolder relief the immanence of God, while the Reform inclined towards his transcendance, to use the language of philosophers and theologians; but they were and they are agreed in all that is essential; and it was these living doctrines that a powerful party was endeavouring to expel from Geneva.
=SECRET PLOTS.=
On Thursday night the canons, priests, and chief 'partisans of the papal religion,' as Wernli, De Pesmes, Moine, and their friends, met in the vicar-episcopal's great hall. They arrived one after another, most of them armed to the teeth, and breathing vengeance: the room was soon filled, and many stood in the courtyard. Their intention was carefully to arrange the plot that was to free them from the Reform. Some huguenots, informed of the conspiracy, drew near to watch their adversaries. The circumstances, the tumultuous crisis that was approaching, the interests to be discussed, the violent passions with which the two parties were animated, the late hour at which this conference was held—all combined to render it a solemn one. Men's minds became clouded, and certain huguenots of ardent imagination, who gazed at a distance upon the walls behind which these plotters were assembled, indulging in fantastic visions, fancied they saw the furies, torch in hand, stirring up discord;[646] but they were merely monks clad in their long robes, and holding the torches with which the hall was lighted. At length the proceedings began.[647] Some of the speakers represented that the number of rebels increased daily; that the sacerdotal authority decreased proportionately; and that if things were allowed to go on so, ere long nobody would take any account of the Church. 'Let us not lower ourselves to dispute with heretics. Let us not wait for help from the magistrates. The Council of Sixty is about to meet, but they will hesitate just like the ordinary council. Those bodies are too weak; we must act without the government; we are the strongest. If it comes to fighting, the defenders of catholicism will be ten, perhaps twenty, to one. When the evangelists are conquered, we will invite the bishop back, who will return with all the banished mamelukes, and inflict on the rebels the punishment they deserve. Geneva, preserved from the Reformation, will no longer be able to spread it through the surrounding countries, and will be in future ages the support of the papacy. Let us execute justice for ourselves; let us fly to arms, ring the tocsin, draw the sword, and call upon the faithful to march against those dogs, and make a striking example of the two traitors who went to Berne. Let us kill all who are called Lutherans, without sparing one;[648] which will be doing God a good service. We are assured of the bishop's pardon: his lordship has already sent us the pardons in blank. At the sound of the great bell, let everyone go armed to the Molard, and let the city gates be shut, so that nobody may escape.' This is what was said in the vicar-episcopal's house. The leaders agreed upon the place of meeting, the number of the armed bands, the names of those who should command them, and the manner in which the reformed should be attacked; everything was arranged. The assembly applauded; the conspirators, raising their hands, bound themselves by a solemn oath to execute the plan and to secresy;[649] after which they retired to take a brief repose. The festival of Easter was approaching: more than two centuries before, the Sicilian Vespers had filled Palermo and all Sicily with massacre; the enemies of the Reformation in Geneva desired also to celebrate the same festival with rivers of blood.
The Council of Sixty met the next day (Friday, 28th March 1533). Never perhaps was there a body more divided. When the catholics demanded that the promise made to Friburg should be kept, the huguenots represented that if the council decided in favour of the Romanist party, not only would the bishop resume his former power, but that having seen the Reform on the brink of triumphing, he would throw himself into the arms of Savoy, as the only power capable of saving the Roman faith. The council, placed between these two fierce currents, remained in its usual indecision, and declared in favour of neither. This was just what the leaders of the Romanist party expected. Everything was prepared for carrying out the conspiracy (to use Froment's word) which had been planned the night before.[650]
=THE PARTIES ASSEMBLE.=
The cathedral had been selected as the place of meeting. The first who entered it was the valiant canon, Peter Wernli. He was armed from head to foot, and advanced into the sanctuary as a general goes to battle. Wernli handled the sword as well as his brother, who was a captain in the service of the king of France. Gifted with the strength of a Hercules or a Samson, he designed, like the first, to drive Cerberus out of the city; and like the second, to pull down the pillars of the temple. He said to those who had gathered round him in St. Pierre's: 'We will cut off the heads of those who went to Berne and of all their friends.' Three hundred armed canons and priests came after him, and then a great number of their lay followers. 'The Lutherans threaten us,' said some of these angry citizens; 'they want to rob the churches and convents.' Such a tale could not fail to excite their minds still more.