The murder of which Pennet was guilty was, in the Dominican’s eyes, the work of a saint. Most of the episcopals thought the same; and it was feared that their party, which had the populace with them, would oppose the execution of the sentence. De la Maisonneuve, determining to support the law by force, collected a certain number of armed men in his house.[[474]] But their intervention was not necessary. Nothing disturbed the course of justice, and the executioner cut off the murderer’s head, and hung his body on a gibbet. Before long, the populace was in commotion. ‘Have you heard the news?’ people said. ‘Miracles are worked at the place where Pennet’s body hangs. His face is as ruddy and his lips as fresh as if he was alive, and a white dove is continually hovering over his head.’ The devout made pilgrimages to the place of execution.
The other Pennet, the jailer who had wounded Porral, and who, says Sister Jeanne, ‘was not less ardent than his brother in upholding the holy catholic religion,’ was all this time lying hid in the house of a poor beggar-woman, where the nuns of St. Claire, who alone were in the secret, stealthily carried him food. The execution of his brother alarmed him; so one night, when it froze hard, he left his hiding-place barefoot, and arrived stealthily at the convent of St. Claire, where the nuns provided him with a disguise, in which he escaped to Savoy.
The third delinquent,—the State criminal, Portier,—remained. The matter appeared so serious to the procurator-general that he desired it should be communicated to the people. The Council General having met on the 8th February, Lambert ordered the letters found at the palace, as well as the duke’s blank warrants, to be read to the assembly. ‘What! a governor of Geneva invested with the temporalities of the sovereign power, with authority to punish citizens who maintain their political and religious rights; the constitution of the State trampled under foot by the prince-bishop; and the Duke of Savoy, that eternal enemy of Genevan independence, forcibly aiding this usurpation and violence!’ All this constituted a guilty plot, even in the eyes of right-minded catholics. The voice of the people and the voice of justice were in harmony. The procurator-general demanded that Portier should be brought before his judges. The trial was much slower than that of the two Pennets had been, for the Roman-catholics made every effort to save him, and even offered large sums of money. But the procurator-general and the huguenots represented continually that ‘there was a conspiracy against the liberties of the city;’ it was not possible to save the episcopal secretary.
Yet Portier and his agents had merely begun to carry out the orders they had received; the bishop was the real criminal. His quality of prince covered his person, so that, even had he been in Geneva, not a hair of his head would have fallen. But Pierre de la Baume was to receive the punishment, which, by the will of God, falls upon unjust princes. He had desired to employ his power for the purpose of oppression, and God shattered that power. When the sealed letters of the bishop which gave Geneva a dictator were read in the assembly of the people, the citizens were shocked; a sullen silence betrayed their indignation; they seemed to hear the funeral knell of an ancient dynasty that had departed. The Genevese determined to break with the episcopal traditions, and to raise to the government none but men known by their attachment to the union of Geneva with Switzerland and to the cause of the Reformation. While, among the syndics retiring from office, there was only one who belonged to this category, four friends of independence were called by the people to the first position in the State. They were Michael Sept, one of the huguenots who, in 1526, had fled to Berne, and had brought back the Swiss alliance; Ami de Chapeaurouge, Aimé Curtet, and J. Duvillard. The executive council thus became a huguenot majority. It was the episcopal conspiracy that struck the decisive blow, that threw wide open the hitherto half-open door, and permitted the victorious Reformation to enter the city.[[475]]
CHAPTER VI.
A FINAL EFFORT OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
(February 10 to March 1, 1534.)
Furbity Summoned Before The Council.
Unequivocal tokens soon made known the change that had taken place. Every one knew that the critical moment had arrived; but that it should be salutary, it was necessary to enlighten the people and set distinctly before them the end which it was proposed to attain. In all that concerns religious questions, the first point is to understand them thoroughly; vagueness always does injury to true religion. The magistrates determined to make clear the points on which the discussion turned, and accordingly the new syndics ordered Furbity to appear before the Council. This body, which had called to their aid the deputies of Berne and the three reformers, invited the monk to prove by the Holy Scriptures, as he had promised, the doctrines he advanced. ‘In the first place,’ they said, ‘you have accused those who eat meat, which God hath created to be received,[[476]] of being worse than Turks.’—‘Sirs,’ answered the monk, ‘I confess that our Lord did not make the prohibition of which I spoke; I will, therefore, prove my statement by the decrees of St. Thomas.’—‘Ho! ho!’ said Farel, ‘you pretended to prove everything by the Word of God; you even consented, in the opposite case, to be burnt at the stake, and now ... you give up the Scriptures!’
They did not confine themselves to this question; the lords of Berne proved by fourteen witnesses the other errors preached by Furbity; for instance: that God will punish those who read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and that Christ had given the papacy to St. Peter. They proved, also, the reality of the abuse uttered by the Dominican against the reformed Christians, except, however, that a German (a Swiss German) was among the executioners of our Lord: it appeared that some wag had invented the story to ridicule the monk. The Bernese declared that, as the monk was, according to his own confession, only ‘a preacher of the decrees of St. Thomas’ and a story-teller, justice ought to have its course.
The Dominican began to be afraid, and offered to apologize in the cathedral for the outrage to God and the lords of Berne. ‘We accept,’ said the premier syndic, ‘and you will afterwards quit Geneva and never return under pain of death.’ The Dominican desired nothing better than to get away as soon as possible.[[477]]
In consequence of this decision, the Dominican attended by his guard, was led quietly to St. Pierre’s on Sunday, the 15th of February. He was much agitated, walked hurriedly, and his mind was distracted with contending emotions. On reaching the foot of the pulpit, he went into it hastily, and, casting his eyes on the crowd which filled the church, his confusion and embarrassment increased. He saw himself between two powers—the horrible Bernese and the terrible Dominicans—and felt himself unable to satisfy one without offending the other. He tried, however, to recover himself, made the sign of the cross, said the Ave Maria, and invoked the Virgin.... The Bernese looked surprised; but it was much worse, when, instead of reading the retractation which the syndics had given him, he began to skim it over, to wander from it, and finally to say something quite different. One of the Bernese called to him: ‘Sir Doctor, you have nothing to do here but to retract,’ and numerous voices immediately seconded the remark. But the monk rambled wider than ever from the question, hesitated, and became confused;[[478]] many of the huguenots left their places, a great agitation pervaded the church, and the patience of the congregation was becoming exhausted. ‘You are making fools of us,’ they cried out to the monk. ‘Do not stuff our ears with your usual nonsense. Come, a good peccavi!’[[479]] But there was no retractation. A great uproar then arose; some violent men went up into the pulpit, seized the disciple of St. Dominic, and dragged him down roughly.[[480]] ‘They made the chair fall after him,’ says Sister Jeanne, ‘and he was nearly left dead on the spot’ (the good sister often colors too highly). The catholics quitted the church in alarm, and the doctor of the Sorbonne, having broken his promise, was led back to prison.[[481]]