The next day, Monday the 9th of August, early in the morning, the drum beat in the streets. Some people asked 'Whether there was any alarm of the enemy.'—'Make yourselves easy,' they answered; 'it is only a fight against Rome and her idols.' Everything was conducted with order: the citizens were drawn up in their companies. Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, Pierre Vandel, and Ami Perrin, who were the three captains of the city, put themselves at their head, and then they all marched with drums beating to the church of St. Gervais. It was not a tumultuous band, but the majority of the people advancing under the orders of their regular captains. None of those citizens had the least doubt as to the lawfulness of his proceedings. The new crusade, like that of Peter the Hermit, was accomplished to the cry of—It is the will of God!
=SCANDALS AT ST. GERVAIS'.=
There were at St. Gervais' scandals still greater than at St. Pierre's. The priests, to procure money, pretended that St. Nazaire, St. Celsus, and St. Pantaleon were buried under the high altar. When a poor woman approached, she heard a confused noise.[573] 'It is the voices of the holy bodies,' said the priests, 'praying to be taken up and canonized; but that requires a large sum of money.' Others related how at the dead of night small luminous creatures were often seen moving about the cemetery. 'They are souls from purgatory,' explained the ecclesiastics; 'they wander about here and there asking for masses for their deliverance.' Certain persons, wishing to learn the truth, crept one night into the cemetery, caught some of those poor souls, and found that they were—crabs, with small wax tapers lighted and fastened on their backs.[574] Frivolous men laughed, but serious men, seeing to what guilty manœuvres the priests had been driven by the love of gain, were seized with horror. 'Avarice so excites them,' said Calvin one day, 'that there is nothing they will not try, how bad soever it may be—treacheries, frauds innumerable, hatreds, poisonings—as soon as the gleam of silver or gold has dazzled their eyes.'
The three captains and their companies, having reached the church, began by exploring the vault where the three saints groaned, and discovered the trick. They found under the altar two earthen vessels connected by a tube, and pierced with holes like those in an organ-pipe, so that the least noise over the vessels produced the effect of organ-bellows, and caused a sound like the indistinct murmur of persons talking.[575] 'The poor papists could not believe it.'—'No!' they said; 'it is St. Nazaire, St. Celsus, and St. Pantaleon.'—'Come and see then,' answered the reformers. They came and saw, and 'some of them from that hour refused to believe any more in such abuses.'[576]
=MIRACLES AT ST. DOMINIC'S.=
The judgment having been accomplished at St. Gervais, the three captains turned their steps towards the church of St. Dominic, one of the chief sanctuaries of popery between the Jura and the Alps. Great miracles were worked there: the huguenots called them 'great swindles.' A beautiful image adorned in a costly manner, and representing Our Lady, stood in the church, and had the power (it was said) of calling back to life the children who had died without baptism. Poor people came to Geneva from all the country round, with their lifeless little children, and laid them on the altar before the image. Then a feather placed on the infant's mouth flew into the air, or else the cheeks flushed with red: sometimes the child perspired. The spectators cried out: 'A miracle!' 'The child is resuscitated' (revicoullé), said the monks. Immediately the bells rang, the child was christened, and then buried. 'The child had never been restored alive to its father or mother,' said the huguenots, 'and yet they had to pay dearly for it.' The citizens lifted up the altar and found two machines under it: on one side were certain instruments in which they blew to make the child breathe, and on the other some stones which were heated to make the child turn color or perspire. An ointment with which they had smeared it became soft, and gave a certain hue to its flesh. 'Really,' exclaimed the Genevans, 'those who believe such clumsy absurdities ought to have been converted—into blocks!' Henceforth Our Lady ceased to work miracles.[577]
The band of reformers, having passed to the refectory, found there a carving representing a big fat woman at a table cutting up a large pie, with monks seated round her. Beneath were these words from psalm cxxxiii., Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! At this moment Farel came up: 'Is it thus, my fathers,' he said, 'that you interpret Holy Scripture? Have you not jeered enough at men, but you must jeer also at the Word of God? By what right do you adapt it to your gluttony?' 'Alas!' exclaimed the monks, 'excuse us; you have come too late to make us renounce our good customs.'[578]
Meanwhile some huguenots had stopped before another piece of sculpture, at which they were quite amazed. At the top they saw a devil with seven heads: from the devil issued the pope with his triple crown; from the pope issued the cardinals; from the cardinals the bishops, monks, and priests ... and below them was a burning furnace representing hell. The reformed Genevans were astonished to find in a convent of St. Dominic a satire upon the papacy, more cutting than all that they had ever imagined.[579]
The three captains and their companies arrived at last near the Arve, where stood the church of Notre Dame; but the syndic, informed of what was going on, arrived at the same time, and wishing to save a famous picture of the Virgin, had it carried before them to the hôtel-de-ville. There was no lack of raillery; people asked if they were going to work miracles with the picture? and they were compelled to burn it in the great hall to escape the jokes that were showered upon them.
The campaign was over; the citizens returned to their homes; the Christian conscience approved of their work. The suppression of so many shameful frauds—was it not ordered in heaven? From that day mass was sung no longer in any of the churches.[580] The action of the citizens was more than a popular movement: the Reform was strengthened by it. No one would have condemned the vile tricks of the priests more than the honest and brave Luther. Yet Luther, putting specially in the foreground the great doctrine of man's justification by faith, thundered against indulgences and other pretended good works, but tolerated images; while Zwingle, Farel, and Calvin, regarding especially God, His glory, and His grace, protested against every apotheosis of the creature, against all paganism, and particularly against all images in the Lord's temple. Here then was a characteristic difference between Lutheranism and the Reform.