Calvin and Farel, when they reached Berne, did not find Kunz there. They had to wait for him eight days.[684] He was at Nidau, at a meeting of pastors before whom, forgetting the solemn promise which he had made at Zurich,[685] he had said, ‘I have been requested to go to Geneva to restore those exiles; but I would much rather renounce my ministry and quit my country than assist those men who, I know, have treated me frightfully.’ This delay, considering the present position of the two reformers, put their patience to the proof. They waited, however, convinced that the blame would be thrown on them if the business failed in consequence of their departure. When at length they heard of the arrival of Kunz, they went to his house, and found him in company with Sebastian Meyer and Erasmus Ritter. There, in his own house, he let himself out at his ease. He began with long complaints and finished with violent insults.[686] Calvin and Farel, who had not anticipated this outburst, received it, however, quietly; for they knew that if they answered him with any sharpness, the only effect would be to throw the hotheaded Kunz into a great fit of rage.[687] Ritter and Meyer joined with them in the endeavor to pacify him. When he was a little calm, he said to them, ‘I wish to know whether you ask me to interfere in your business; for I foresee that if it should end otherwise than as you desire, you will blame me for it.’ They assured him three times over that they had no intention of changing anything in the mission with which the synod had charged him and which he had accepted. But they talked to no purpose. Kunz, who was very desirous to be freed from that duty, went on incessantly harping on the same string. At last, exhausted with his passion and wearied with the noise that he had made, ‘I will do,’ said he, ‘what I ought to do.’ They then parted, agreeing to discuss the subject on the following day.

HIS WRATH.

The next day, then, at the hour appointed, Calvin and Farel went to the Hôtel de Ville. They had to wait two hours. Then word was brought to them that the ministers had too much business in the Consistory to be able to attend to them. After dinner the two Genevese reformers again presented themselves; and, the assembly having taken up the matter, they were very much surprised to hear that the first thing to do was to examine carefully the fourteen articles already approved by the synod of Zurich. They suppressed the feelings which this indignity excited in them and consented. There was hardly a syllable in the articles to which objection was not taken;[688] and when they came to the question of unleavened bread, Kunz lifted up his voice, and apostrophizing the two reformers, said, ‘You have disturbed all the Churches of Germany, which were till then at peace, by your unseasonable and passionate innovations.’ Calvin replied that it was not they who had introduced the use of leavened bread; that the practice existed in the early Church, and that traces of it were found even in the papacy. But Kunz would listen to nothing, and grew more and more violent.[689] His colleagues, wishing to put an end to this dispute, begged that they would pass on to the third article, which related to festivals. Thereupon matters became much worse. Kunz did not confine himself to loud talking; he rose violently from the table, and his whole body shook with rage, so that his colleagues attempted in vain to restrain him.[690] ‘It is false,’ said he, ‘that the articles have been approved at Zurich.’ ‘On that point we appeal,’ replied Calvin, with firmness, ‘to the testimony of all who were present at the Synod.’ When Kunz had come a little to himself, he accused the two doctors of intolerable craft; the articles, he said, being full of exceptions. ‘We thought, on the contrary,’ Calvin very justly replied, ‘that we gave evidence of sincerity in thus plainly and openly making exceptions where they ought to be made.’ The two reformers withdrew with deep feeling from the strange scene which they had just witnessed. Two years afterwards, Farel still wrote to his friend, ‘Every time that the recollection of Kunz returns to my mind, I am filled with horror at that Fury who had no consideration for the Church, but whom the devil made beside himself with hatred against me.’[691] Kunz pretended that the two reformers wished to withdraw, and not to keep the promise made at Zurich. Calvin, on the contrary, said, ‘We are ready to do anything sooner than not try all means of providing for the wants of religion, and of acquitting ourselves of our duty towards the Church.’[692] As Kunz and his friends declined their mission, there was no one else to take the matter in hand but the senate of Berne.

A few days later, Farel and Calvin were received by that body. The representations which the Bernese were to make at Geneva, in conformity with the decisions of the synod of Zurich, could not but be very disagreeable to those who wished to introduce the Bernese rites into that town. Must Berne plead against Berne? Did ever any one hear of such a thing? No state whatever voluntarily undertakes to discharge such a duty; and least of all a state which, like Berne, had the reputation of being positive and inflexible in its views. The council therefore attempted to induce Calvin and Farel to renounce their fourteen articles, but this they refused to do. They were then asked to retire. When they were recalled the same attempt was again made, three times over, within an hour.[693] ‘It belongs to the Church,’ they replied, ‘to establish uniformity in a lawful manner.’ It has already been established, said the council. ‘Yes,’ they answered, ‘but by a handful of seditious men, who at the same time cried that we should be thrown into the Rhone.[694] We are resolved to endure everything rather than seem to approve the measures adopted for securing uniformity.’ Farel and Calvin could not answer otherwise: one cannot yield to evil. The Bernese council gave way; thus displaying on this occasion an independence and a sense of justice that were most honorable.

AGITATION IN GENEVA.

Having once more called in the reformers, the council announced to them that two envoys from the senate should accompany them, and that when they came within four miles of Geneva, Calvin and Farel should stop, while the Bernese lords go on their way. The place named by the Bernese was below the village of Genthod; this was perhaps at that time on the frontier. The deputies of Berne were to require of the council of Geneva the return of Farel and Calvin; and in case they obtained it they were to conduct them into the town, and to see to it that they were reinstated in their ministry. Farel and Calvin represented that if this course were taken they would seem to be restored only because they acknowledged themselves to be in the wrong, which they could not do. They complained also that no minister formed part of the embassy. The council, consequently, adopted a new resolution, according to which the two reformers should immediately enter the town, and the Bernese envoys should present to the people the fourteen articles of Zurich, in the presence of Farel and Calvin, in order that, if any objection should be raised, the latter might reply to it without delay. The reformers should then set forth their cause, and, if their justification were accepted, they should be restored to their offices. Two ministers, Erasmus Ritter and Viret, were to accompany them. ‘We are now setting out on our journey,’ wrote Calvin to Bullinger; ‘may it please the Lord to prosper it. To him we look to guide us in our goings, and it is from his wise disposal that we expect success.’[695] The delegation set out, and was joined by Viret at Lausanne.

Meanwhile it had become known at Geneva that Calvin and Farel were returning, under the conduct and the patronage of delegates from the state of Berne. This news created much astonishment. What! these two ministers were banished for having refused to adopt the ritual of Berne, and now Berne takes them into her favor and brings them back! Berne appreciated the grandeur of the Reformation and the worth of the reformers. But there were some of the Genevese who could not see beyond their own walls, and who seemed to have no apprehension whatever of the great change which was renewing all Christendom, and of which Calvin and Farel were two of the most illustrious agents. The confirmation of the tidings caused a great stir in men’s minds. The council determined to refuse the reformers permission to enter the town, and the most violent of their adversaries resolved to oppose their return by force. An ambush was laid at some distance from the ramparts, and twenty gladiators, as Calvin calls them, were posted in arms at the very gate of the city, as if the repulse of a hostile force were intended.[696] The deputation was not more than a mile from Geneva when a messenger of the council met them.[697] He handed to the Bernese ambassadors a dispatch from the council, in which it was written, ‘To prevent a scandal, do not bring back Farel and Calvin, for it would be in violation of the decree passed by the community, and of the will of the same.’[698] But their conscience bore them witness that their cause was good, and they desired to get this acknowledged on the part of those whom God had committed to their care. They were therefore willing to pursue their journey, not suspecting what awaited them. But the Bernese delegates, who had doubtless been informed by the messenger of the excited state of the people, strongly urged them to give it up. ‘We should have gone on our way calmly,’ said Calvin to his friends, when he had heard of the violent measures taken to stop them, ‘if the delegates had not forcibly resisted our intention; and this saved our lives.’ The fact that their lives were in danger, attested by Calvin in a letter addressed to Bullinger a few days after the event, cannot be called in question. True, it is easy to invent, more than three centuries later, contrary hypotheses; but the state of agitation prevailing in Geneva, far from invalidating the testimony of the reformers, confirms it.

THE BERNESE EMBASSY.

The two Bernese ambassadors, accompanied by Viret and Ritter, entered Geneva alone, and were immediately received (May 23) by the council. They stated that the deputies of the cantons who met recently at Zurich had been unanimously of opinion that it was just to allow Farel, Calvin, and Courault to re-enter the town in order to explain and defend themselves from the accusations made against them; and that if their justification were accepted, their restoration to their offices could not be refused. ‘Do you not owe this mark of gratitude to them,’ they said, ‘and especially to Farel, who has undergone so much labor and suffering for the good of this people? In short is it not essential to deprive the enemies of the Reformation of an occasion for rejoicing, as they would rejoice at the banishment without hope of returning of the men who established it in Geneva?’ The council replied that it could not accede to this demand, because the ministers had been sent away by the decision of the Council of the Two Hundred and of the general council; the Little Council having only required that they should be committed to prison. In consequence of this the Council of the Two Hundred was convoked for the next day, May 24. The attendance was not at all numerous, only fourteen members being present, doubtless because the meeting appeared to be a mere formality, and because the battle had to be fought and decided in the general council. The members present, among whom were the most thoroughgoing enemies of the reformers, decreed that the resolutions previously taken must be maintained; and for the rest, they referred the deputies of Berne to the assembly of the people.[699]

On Sunday, May 26, the general council of the citizens met. Louis Amman and his colleague, Viret and Erasmus Ritter, appeared as advocates for the two banished ministers. Amman spoke first. He showed the great injustice involved in the banishment of these excellent men. They had to do with Farel, who was justly designated the apostle of French Switzerland, and with Calvin, the greatest theologian of the age. He earnestly requested that they should be recalled, and that, according to the rules of equity, their justification should be heard, for it was not usual for any man to be condemned unheard. He reminded them of the distinguished services of Farel, of the labors and hardships which he had undergone for the good of that people. Was it not Farel who, in 1532, standing in the midst of the council of priests, had seen them rush at him and knock him down with their blows, crying, ‘Kill him! kill him!’ One of their attendants had discharged his arquebuse at him, and he had been driven from the town with threats of being thrown into the Rhone. Since that time to what tribulations had he not been exposed! Was it not incumbent on the people of Geneva to testify their gratitude to him in some other way than by exile? Then Amman spoke of the joy which the adversaries of the Reformation, the subjects of the pope, would feel, and did already feel, to see Geneva banishing her reformers, and he conjured the citizens not to give them such an occasion of triumph and exultation. Next Viret spoke, in his own name and in the name of his colleague Ritter; and we know how well adapted the mild eloquence of this pious pastor was to soothe exasperated spirits. The union of the pastors and the seriousness of the ambassador in pleading the cause of the reformers did not fail to make an impression. A large assembly is always susceptible of wholesome impressions: there is in it a contagion of good. Hearts were moved, and the disposition of many was changed. It was possible for the deputies to suppose that the battle was won. As they were not to attend the deliberations of the general council, they went out full of hope.[700]