These conversions increased the dangers of Geneva, by exciting the wrath of the catholics. Four days after the touching confession of the Dominican the projected plot was to be carried out. The Savoyard troops, assembling at a little distance from the city, were to approach it under cover of the darkness. One detachment would arrive by the lake and the tower guard, bribed by ten crowns, would let the boats pass without firing on them. Within the city, more than three hundred foreigners had entered separately and stealthily, and were hidden in catholic houses. In the middle of the night F. du Crest was to go to the Molard with fire-arms and hoist a red flag. The firing of a heavy culverine would be the signal for the priests to come to the support of their friends. Certain episcopals would mount to the roofs of their houses with lighted torches to summon the foreign troops to approach. The catholics of Geneva and their allies would then leave their houses; three of the city gates were to be forced by a locksmith of their party, the troops would enter, and Genevans and strangers would advance shouting: ‘Long live our prince, monseigneur of Geneva!’ The friends of independence and reform, thus caught between two fires, would be unable to make any resistance. Then would begin the executing of the judgment of God: if it had been waited for long, it would only be the more terrible now. The pious soldiers of the Church would fall upon the Lutherans and put them to death. The city would be purged of all those seeds of the gospel and liberty which were choking, within its walls, the ancient and glorious plants of feudalism and popery. Finally to complete their work, the conquerors would share the property of the vanquished, which the bishop had in anticipation confiscated for their benefit, and Geneva, forever bound to Rome, would thus become its slave and never its rival.[[600]]
On the 29th and 30th July all began to move round the city. On the north, the Marshal of Burgundy, the bishop’s brother, was to descend into the valley of the Leman, with six thousand men, raised in imperial Burgundy. On the south, the Duke of Savoy had obtained permission of the king of France to enlist in Dauphiny, ‘persons experienced in war.’ Numerous soldiers—some coming by land, others by water—were expected from Chablais, Faucigny, Gex, and Vaud. A galley and other boats had been fitted out near Thonon, to which place the artillery of Chillon had been removed. Several corps were marching on Geneva. The bishop, who was anything but brave, did not wish to leave Chambéry; but the duke, to encourage him, gave him a body-guard of two hundred well-armed men, and Pierre de la Baume quitted, not without alarm, the capital of Savoy early in the morning of the 30th July, and halted at Lé-luiset, a village situated about two leagues from Geneva, where he intended to wait in safety the issue of the affair.
The corps nearest to Geneva appeared. Savoyard troops under the command of Mauloz, castellan of Gaillard, reached their station in front of the St. Antoine Gate. Armed men from Chablais advanced along the Thonon road as far as Jargonnant, in front of the Rive gate. Other bands prepared to enter by the gate on the side of Arve and Plainpalais. Barks and boats filled with soldiers arrived in the waters that bathed the city. The army that was to cross the Jura, and other corps, did not appear; but the assembled forces were sufficient for the coup-de-main.[[601]]
Levrat, The Traitor.
While these manœuvres were going on without, everything seemed going on well within. The man entrusted with the care of the artillery, and who was called Le Bossu (the Hunchback), had been bribed. In the evening Jean Levrat, ‘one of the most active of the traitors,’ had prowled about his dwelling, and the keeper, not wishing to be compromised, had handed him through a loophole the keys of the tower of Rive, where the cannons had been stored. Levrat and his accomplices spiked several, and Le Bossu had filled others with hay. The blacksmith had counterfeited the keys of the city, and made iron implements to break down the gates.[[602]] The most lively emotion prevailed in the houses of all the catholics. Party walls had been broken through, so that they could go from one to another and concert matters secretly. Michael Guillet, Thomas Moine, Jacques Malbuisson, De Prato, Jean Levrat, and the Sire de Pesmes, went to and fro watching that no man shrank back.
Throughout the whole of the 30th of July the Councils and the reformed remained in complete ignorance of the blow that was impending. They knew of the threats, but did not believe there was any danger, so that in the evening of the 30th they had gone to rest as quietly as usual. In the early part of the night a stranger desired to speak with the premier-syndic on urgent business. Michael Sept received him. ‘I am from Dauphiny,’ said the man: ‘I am a hearer of the Word of God, and should grieve to see Geneva and the Gospel brought to destruction. The duke’s army is marching upon your city; a number of soldiers are already assembled all round you, and very early this morning the bishop left Chambéry to make his entrance among you.’ It was a fellow-countryman of Farel and Froment that undertook to save Geneva. But was there still time? The premier-syndic immediately communicated the intelligence to his colleagues, and it was resolved to arrest some of those who were always ready to make common cause with the enemy outside. The syndics questioned them, confronted them with one another, and gradually saw the horrible plot unravelled, of which they had until that moment been ignorant.[[603]] All the citizens upon whom they could rely were called to arms. It was not yet midnight.
The episcopals, who had not gone to bed, waited in excitement for the appointed hour. A great number of canons and priests had assembled in the house of the canon of Brentena, Seigneur of Menthon, belonging to an illustrious family of Savoy. They congratulated one another that the plot had been so well arranged, and nothing in that assembly of ecclesiastics was talked of but torches, banners, and artillery. In a short time, however, one of their party came in, and told them that the huguenots were arming everywhere. The reverend members of the chapter ran to the window, and saw with affright a numerous patrol marching by. The alarm spread; not an episcopal dared venture out: they hid the red flag, the signal for the murder of the huguenots. One hope only remained; the troops round Geneva were amply sufficient to secure the triumph of the bishop.[[604]]
Waiting For The Signal.
And indeed the number of soldiers round the city was very great. Playing on the word Geneva, gens nova, the leaders had chosen for their watchword this cruel phrase: Nous ferons ici gent nouvelle,[[605]] that is to say, they would extirpate the evangelicals from Geneva and replace them by catholic Savoyards. They waited for the appointed signal and turned their eyes to the roofs of the houses from which the torches were to be waved. They fancied that some had been seen, but had soon disappeared. While the anxious officers were asking what was to be done, some of the soldiers noticed a simple-looking boy walking about on the hill, peering innocently about him, but constantly getting nearer to the city gates. He was taken before Mauloz the castellan and M. de Simon, another of the leaders, who asked him what he was doing there at such an hour of the night. The boy, who seemed greatly embarrassed, answered, ‘I am looking for the mare I lost.’ It was not the case.
Three of the best citizens of Geneva, Jean d’Arlod, auditor, the zealous Étienne d’Adda, and Pontet, happening to be at La Roche, three or four leagues from Geneva, in the evening, had heard the enterprise talked of, and had immediately mounted their horses in order to reach the gates before the enemy.[[606]] Pushing rapidly along the by-roads, they stopped at a farm-house a short distance from the city, where they learnt that the Savoyard troops were already under the walls. D’Arlod directed one of the farm-servants to go and see if they could enter. M. de Simon and Mauloz the castellan, impatient to know the cause of the delay, determined to make use of this poor boy, of whose innocence they felt no doubts. ‘Hark ye!’ they said to him; ‘go and see whether the Rive and St. Antoine gates are open.’ The lad, who was very unwilling to serve as a scout to the Savoyards, replied: ‘Oh! I should be afraid they would kill me.’ At that instant Mauloz, whose attention was divided between the youth and the houses on which the torches were to be displayed, exclaimed, ‘There is one!’ A brilliant light appeared over the city: the whole force hailed it with joy, and the two captains could not turn away their eyes. The light appeared and disappeared, returned, and was again eclipsed, and every time it came in sight, strange to say, it looked more elevated. Higher and higher it rose; already it overtopped the tallest chimneys. There was something extraordinary about it, and the Savoyards began to grow uneasy. ‘Why, can it be so?’ said those who knew Geneva; ‘the light is ascending the spire of St. Pierre!... Yes, it is so ... that is where the main watch of the city is stationed in time of danger.’ At last the light ceased to move; it halted at the top of the spire, which was built on the crest of the hill. It thus brooded over the city, and seemed turned upon the Savoyard army, like the glaring eye of the lion shining through the midnight darkness of the desert. Then a panic terror seized the soldiers of Charles III.; their features were disturbed, their hearts quaked. Mauloz, who had kept his eyes fixed on the threatening apparition, turned in despair towards M. de Simon, who was already moving off, and exclaimed: ‘We are discovered: we are betrayed! We shall not enter Geneva to-night.’ The young messenger, finding that nobody took heed of him, ran off to the farm to tell D’Arlod and his friends what had taken place.[[607]]