On the following day (29th March) the council of sixty assembled 'to settle the strife of the day before.' The tempest was not yet entirely appeased; the catholic members of the council looked with threatening eyes on the most notable of their colleagues, Jean Philippe, François Faure, Claude Roset, and others. These were the men to be attacked, they thought, for the strength of the anticlerical movement lay with them. But for a time, reconciliation was all the fashion. They resolved to frame a compromise which would satisfy both parties; and some of the magistrates and principal citizens met to arrange a system for uniting Rome and the Gospel.'[697]
The Two Hundred, who were joined by many other citizens, being assembled on the 30th March, the premier-syndic first liberated the hostages and then proposed the famous project of reconciliation. The council having accepted it, he forwarded a copy to the captains of each company; and turning to the Abbot of Bonmont, who pretty regularly discharged the functions of bishop, considering the prelate's continual absence, the chief magistrate said to him: 'Mr. Vicar, I shall give you also a copy of this decree, in order that you may take care to make your priests live properly.' All the laymen agreed that there lay the main difficulty. The sitting broke up.
Each company was immediately drawn up on its Place d'Armes; the captain stood in the centre: huguenots and mamelukes listened to this strange decree which, regulating a religious matter, was ordered by the civil authority and proclaimed by the soldiers.
=ARTICLES OF PEACE.=
'In the name of God, the Creator and Redeemer, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,' read the captain, and all bared their heads. 'In the interest of peace, it is resolved,' continued the officer with sonorous voice, 'that all anger, grudges, injuries, and ill-will between any soever of our citizens and inhabitants, as well ecclesiastic as secular, and also all battery, insult, and reproach, committed by one side or the other, be wholly pardoned.'
The listeners appeared satisfied.
'Item. That every citizen, of what state or condition soever he may be, live henceforward in peace, without attempting any novelty until it be generally ordered to live otherwise.'—'Really, here is a reform,' said the huguenots, 'but it is in the future.'
'Item. That no one speak against the holy Sacraments, and that in this respect every one be left at liberty according to his conscience.'
Liberty and conscience! what strange words. If the people of Geneva gained that, everything was gained.
'That no one,' continued the captain, 'preach without the license of the superior, the syndics, and the council; and that the preacher say nothing that is not proved by Holy Scripture.'