=LAST YEARS OF THE DUKE.=
Other hands than those of Switzerland were to deal the last blows destined to secure the Reformation and independence of Geneva. Villebon had hardly got back to Lyons, when the army of Francis I. moved forward, overran Bresse and Savoy, then invaded Piedmont, and afterwards the Milanese. The duke, always irresolute, had taken no steps to check the French. It was in vain that at the last moment he called Medici to his aid; that captain, who had been unable to destroy Geneva, could not save Piedmont. Charles III., abandoned by the emperor, his brother-in-law, found himself, after spending thirty years of his life in hunting down Geneva, robbed in four months of his states, which he never entered again, and driven to bay on the shores of the Mediterranean. All kinds of disasters fell upon him at once. His country was devastated by the plague; his friends turned against him; the emperor showed him no pity; his son, the heir to his crown, was taken away by death; his beautiful and haughty wife, Beatrice of Portugal, pierced to the heart by so many misfortunes, died of a wasting sickness. Of all his states there was nothing left but the valley of Aosta, Nice, and two or three other cities. Alone and affrighted, this unhappy prince dragged out a wearisome life. He regretted his son, regretted his wife, regretted his states. His heated imagination surrounded him with phantoms; Geneva, which, unopposed, was developing her glorious and new existence, was to him an avenging ghost. He fell ill: he broke out in sweats; he shivered with cold; his eyes grew dim and his face pale; he wasted away of a slow fever. After a punishment of twenty-three years, death, the consequence of his reverses and his sorrows, put an end to the painful existence of the great enemy of Genevese independence and of the Reformation.[731] His son, Emanuel Philibert, a man of great capacity, recovered his states; but having many evils to repair, he adopted a pacific policy with regard to Geneva. Forty-four years of peace permitted the Reformation and the new republic to strengthen and organize themselves. God gives to the people and the churches, whom he designs to make use of, the time necessary for their development.
While these things were going on, dangers less apparent, but as great as they were unexpected, threatened Geneva. As the Bernese desired to reap advantage from the help accorded to the little republic, their ambassadors put forward certain pretensions, which they set up a little later with respect to Lausanne and Vaud, and which were then too easily conceded. The lords of Berne, regardless of the reproach that might be urged against them of having consulted merely their own interests in the expedition, hinted to the council of Geneva that they ought to have their reward, and asked that the rights and prerogatives of the duke and the bishop should be transferred to them. Such a demand revolted the proud independence of the Genevese, and they rejected the sovereignty of Berne with as much decision as they had rejected that of Savoy. 'If we had desired to have a master,' they answered with firmness, 'we should have spared ourselves all the trouble, expense, and bloodshed of which we have been so prodigal to secure our independence.' Berne was forced to give way before a resolution that appeared immovable. When Nägueli re-entered Geneva, after having taken the Fort de l'Ecluse on returning from his short campaign, he was surprised to meet with a cold and embarrassed reception, very different from the former enthusiastic welcome. The noble general, who did not like such discussions, gave immediate orders for the departure of his army.
There was still a great work to be accomplished. In conformity with the instructions of the Bernese government, Nägueli was to break the twofold yoke of the pope and the duke which pressed heavily upon the territory of Vaud. His troops marched into that country without resistance, and took Yverdun, in which the intrepid Mangerot had fortified himself. In a short time cities, villages, and castles submitted; a few towns, tired of the Savoyard rule, desired to be annexed to Berne. Others, especially Lausanne and some rural districts, wished to retain all their rights; but they gave way, when the Bernese promised to respect their franchises. Under any circumstances it was a good work to take away from the pope and unite to Switzerland the beautiful country that extends from the lake of Geneva to that of Neuchâtel. Nägueli re-entered Berne in peace, and his soldiers, proud of a four weeks' campaign that was to have such important consequences, gave vent to their exultation, and concluded their songs with this line:
Respecte l'ours, ou bien crains les oursons.[732]
The work appeared to be accomplished. The city of the Reformation thrilled with joy, and exulted in the air of liberty and of the Gospel. Here and there, however, sorrows and regrets remained. Many hearts were wrung, and many an eye was turned with mortification in the direction of Chillon, where Bonivard had been languishing for six years. He had done so much to give liberty to Geneva, and he alone was not free. He was pining away, imprisoned within those rocks, which, excavated below the level of the lake, form a gigantic sepulchre. A loophole permitted a feeble ray of light to enter the dungeon, and the prisoner, while walking slowly round the column to which he was chained, delighted to turn his eyes towards that side, and sometimes contemplated (according to tradition) a little bird, which used to perch on the iron bars of the narrow opening. At the slightest noise, the bird flew off to the wood behind the castle, or skimmed away over the surface of the lake. The bird was free; but Bonivard was in chains. 'I had such leisure for walking,' he said, 'that I wore away a path in the rock, as if it had been done with a hammer.'[733] When he was seized by the perfidious hands of his enemies he had said: 'I am going alone, with God, to suffer my passion!' And suffer it he did. But while his body and heart suffered, his mind was at work. Some of the thoughts which then occupied him have been recorded by his own hand: Live in remembrance of death,—Courage increases by wounds, and such like. For five or six months the Genevan envoys, so traitorously seized at Coppet, had also been imprisoned at Chillon, but not in the underground dungeons.
=CHILLON ATTACKED.=
Such iniquities could not be tolerated. Berne again took up her fire-sticks, and Geneva prepared her boats. On the 20th of March one hundred armed men were embarked on four war cutters and other vessels. The Genevese councils had given the command to Francis Favre and Francis Chamois. All the citizens would have liked to march in person to Chillon to set Bonivard and the plenipotentiaries at liberty. On the day of sailing, everybody left their houses, and from an agitated crowd assembled near the Rhone, there rose a universal cry, 'Rescue the captives!'
On Sunday morning—it was the 26th of March—Bonivard being as usual in his dungeon, pricked up his ears. He fancied he heard an unaccustomed noise; he was not mistaken. Loud but still distant cannon shots re-echoed through the vaults of his prison. What was going on? It was the artillery of Berne which, on its arrival at Lutry, between Lausanne and Chillon, announced its presence. But that signal of deliverance was to be the signal of death to Bonivard and the three envoys. 'If the Bernese appear before the place,' wrote the duke of Savoy to the governor, 'you will give the prisoners of Geneva the estrapade twice, and then put them to death without hesitation.'[734] The duke intended that the deliverers should find nothing but corpses.
The next morning (27th of March) Chillon was surrounded. Berne had drawn up her troops and planted her guns below the village of Veytaux, between the castle and Montreux. The Valaisans, although catholics, had also taken up arms to expel the duke from their neighborhood, and had placed their artillery on the Villeneuve side; the Genevans blockaded the castle from the lake. The batteries opened fire, and the governor perceiving that all resistance was useless, demanded a parley at nightfall. Nägueli, Favre, and some other captains assembled at the foot of a steep rock between the castle and the Bernese batteries, to receive his deputies; but as they could not come at once to terms, the conference was prolonged. The garrison, by no means anxious to fall into the hands of the Swiss, determined to take advantage of this momentary respite and of the veil of night, to make their escape. Silently they crept on board the great galley; not a voice, not a sound of arms was heard, and having thus mysteriously got away, they made rapidly towards Savoy. When Favre was informed of it, he went immediately on board his boat, which was moored to the shore, and hastened in pursuit of the enemy; but before he could get up with them, they had thrown their cannons into the lake, set fire to the galley, and from Lugrin, where they landed, hurried into the Savoyard Alps below the Dents d'Oche. Had they taken Bonivard and the three plenipotentiaries with them? It was a question that could not be answered, and Favre, ill at ease, veered round and returned to Chillon.[735]