The canons and their friends, finding their oracle was dumb, ventured upon a controversy which was much more in their line. They drew their swords (priests often wore swords in those times), and approaching Froment, exclaimed: ‘Kill him—kill the Lutheran!... Ah! the wretch! he has dared take our good father to task.’ Nothing but death could expiate the crime of a layman who had ventured to contradict a priest. There was only one point on which these churchmen were not agreed: it was whether they should burn or drown the evangelist. Some shouted: ‘Burn him—burn him!’ and others: ‘To the Rhone with him!’—‘There was no small commotion,’ writes Froment. Just as the priests were about to carry him off, Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, Ami Perrin, Janin le Collonier, and others rallied round him like a body-guard, wishing to get him out of the church. This did not calm the tumult; the people ran after him, and the magistrates would have arrested him. ‘They crowded upon one another,’ says Froment, ‘either to see him, or to strike him, or to carry him off.’ The tumultuous crowd made a last effort to lay hold of the evangelist, just as they reached the great doors of the cathedral. Baudichon de la Maisonneuve observing this, halted, drew his sword, and, facing the rioters, cried in a loud voice: ‘I will kill the first man that touches him. Let the law prevail; and if any one has done wrong, let him be punished.’ The catholics, intimidated by Maisonneuve’s look, shrank back; and Froment’s friends, taking advantage of this favorable moment, dragged him away from his enemies. Then, ‘the women, as if they were mad, rushed after him with great fury, throwing many stones at him.’[[426]] The huguenot Perrin, more politic than evangelical, alarmed at the tumult, said to Froment: ‘We have spoilt the business; it was going on very well, and now all is lost.’ The other (by which words Froment indicates himself), sure of his cause, answered simply: ‘All is won!’ The future showed that he was right. When Froment arrived at Baudichon’s house,—the usual asylum of the friends of the Gospel,—Le Collonier took him up to the hayloft and carefully hid him under the hay. De la Maisonneuve and Janin had afterwards to pay dearly for their kind offices. The latter had scarcely quitted the loft when Claude Baud arrived with his officers and his halberds. ‘They searched the house all over, and even thrust their spears into the hay, but finding nobody they withdrew.’[[427]]

Alexander, who had not spoken in the church, had accompanied his friend as far as the great doors. Seeing Froment led away by Janin, and believing him safe, he halted ‘at the top of the steps in the midst of the people,’ and, not permitting himself to be intimidated by the popular fury, he exclaimed: ‘He very properly took him to task. Doctor Furbity has preached against the holy books; he is a false prophet.’ The syndics, pleased to catch one at least, carried Alexander off to the town-hall, and some demanded that he should be sentenced to death. The sage Balthasar resisted this: ‘It was not this man who caused the uproar,’ he said. ‘Besides, he is a Frenchman; and the King of France may perhaps take some opportunity against our city if we put his subjects to death.’ The two ‘Mahometists’ were banished for life from the city, under pain of death; and, at the same time, it was agreed that the Advent preachers should be told ‘to preach the Gospel only, in order to avoid disturbance.’

Alexander was conducted by the watch out of the city to a place called La Monnaye, where, seeing the crowd following him, he turned towards them and said: ‘I shall not take my rest like a soldier whose time of service is over.’ He then addressed the crowd for two hours, and many were won to the Gospel. De la Maisonneuve having returned home, went in search of Froment in the hayloft; and as soon as it was night, the two friends quitted Geneva secretly, took up Alexander at La Monnaye, and then all three set off for Berne.

CHAPTER III.
FAREL, MAISONNEUVE, AND FURBITY IN GENEVA.
(December 1533 to January 1534.)

Furbity Visited By The Catholics.

De la Maisonneuve was determined to uphold the liberty of Gospel-preaching. ‘We are called Lutherans,’ said Froment; ‘now, Luther in German means clear, and there is nothing clearer than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lutheran cause is the cause of light.’ And therefore De la Maisonneuve desired to propagate it.

The zealous huguenot did not lose a moment after his arrival at Berne. He told all his friends (of whom he had many) what was going on at Geneva. Froment and Alexander, who stood by his side, supported his complaints and repeated the insults of the Dominican. The Bernese were exasperated by the abuse the monk had heaped upon the protestants, but they were animated by a nobler motive. They had thought that Geneva, so famous for the energetic character of its citizens, would be a great gain for the Reformation; and now people were beginning to say in Savoy, in the Pays de Vaud, at Freiburg, and in France, that the reforming movement was crushed in the huguenot city. ‘A great rumor,’ says Farel, ‘spread everywhere touching Geneva, how that Master Furbity had triumphed in his disputations with the Lutherans.’[[428]] The Bernese resolved to assist the threatened Reform by despatching to Geneva ... not large battalions, but a humble preacher of the Gospel. They sent William Farel as Maisonneuve’s companion.

On Sunday, December 21, the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury, Furbity, proud at having to eulogize so heroic a saint, was more energetic than ever. ‘All who follow that cursed sect,’ he cried, ‘are lewd and gluttonous livers, wanton, ambitious, murderers, and thieves, who live like beasts, loving their own sensuality, acknowledging neither a God nor a superior.’ These words raised the enthusiasm of the catholics, the chief of whom resolved to go in a body to the bishop’s palace to thank the reverend father. The noble Perceval de Pesmes, capitaine des bons, ‘the captain of the good,’ as the nuns called him, was at their head. ‘Most reverend father,’ said the descendant of the Crusaders, ‘we thank you for preaching such good doctrine, and beg you will fear nothing.’—‘Hold fast to the sword, captain; on my side I will use the spirit and the tongue.’ The compact being made, the deputation withdrew.

They had scarcely quitted the episcopal palace, when a strange report circulated through the town. ‘De la Maisonneuve has returned from Berne and brought the notorious William Farel with him!’ Farel having re-entered Geneva, was not to leave it again until the work of the Reformation was completed there. ‘What!’ exclaimed the catholics, ‘that wretch, that devil whom we drove out is come back!’ They were so exasperated that De Pesmes, Malbuisson, and others, meeting Farel and Maisonneuve in the street that very day, drew their swords and fell upon them; they were rescued by some huguenots. The episcopalians consulted together, and decided to take up arms to expel the reformer.

Farel And Baudichon.