‘We ought to pray God to send us well-instructed and Godfearing men to administer justice. But if we will treat them with contempt, we shall by-and-by find no one to serve us. Well may the heart of a citizen ache when, after laying aside his private affairs to serve the community, he gets for his reward the censure of those who dread correction and will not obey the lawful authorities.
‘Come then, gentlemen, one after the other, peaceably to give your opinion, yes or no, in order that all things may be done well and orderly, to the glory of God and our own great benefit.’[546]
One might have expected that, after this declaration, the leaders of the opposition, De Chapeaurouge and his adherents, would state in due form their alleged grievances. They remained silent. This was an acknowledgment that their accusation was unfounded. They would have found it difficult to assert that the election of the magistrates had been due to the intrigues of a few individuals, in the presence of the people who had themselves made that election freely and honorably. Moreover, ten weeks only had to elapse before the regular renewal of the council; and the opposition did not think that they ought to unmask their batteries so long beforehand. It would be better to employ the time in preparing the change which they wished to bring about. Thus, therefore, after the address of the syndics there was a long silence. After some time De Chapeaurouge rose; but instead of speaking as a tribune who seeks to draw the people after him, he made a remark on acoustics; ‘We cannot hear well,’ said he, ‘the place gives a dull sound.’ There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. In fact, the chief of the opposition pretended that the challenge and invitation of the council had not reached his ears, and that this excused his making a reply. ‘Is a second reading desired?’ said the first syndic; no one demanded it. As the leaders were silent, the youngest and most blustering of their followers began to speak. The opportunity was too tempting not to cry out, and instead of the great piece which was looked for, a little one was produced. Men destitute of culture and acquirements attacked the chief magistrates. One man, who had just come out of prison, flung in the face of the reformers the most absurd accusations. There was an ebullition in the assembly; a tempest in a teacup. The young people caused this first outbreak of excitement, which they show in their pursuit of pleasure and which they easily transfer to public affairs. Claude Sérais, a tailor, one of those who in February had played at Picca-Porral, came forward and laid a complaint against Ami Perrin, who enjoyed great respect. It was he who had accompanied Farel the first time that he preached (in 1534) in the convent of Rive. He had not heartily embraced the Reformation, but he was still associated with the reformers. ‘Perrin,’ said Sérais, ‘said that there are traitors at Geneva, people who speak ill of the preachers. He said that Porral was a good man.’ As Porral was a great friend of the Reformation, he was at least as hateful to these people as Farel and Calvin. ‘I replied to him,’ said Sérais, ‘that if he were so, he had no occasion to bring Farel to the prison, to preach to us as if we were thieves who were to be prepared for death.’ ‘Yes,’ cried one of those who had been in prison with Sérais, Jacques Pattu, ‘yes, they brought Farel to prison and he told us that he would sooner drink a glass of blood than drink with us.’ Scarcely had he let fall these strange words, when Pierre Butini mounted on a bench and cried out, ‘The franchise has been taken from us by the Porrets (Porral’s friends), for we were seized, many good men, without informations and without plaintiffs.’—‘I complain,’ resumed Pattu, ‘that they gave me the halter without cause,’—‘I complain,’ said Sérais, further, ‘that Claude Bernard told me that I would not go to hear Farel preach.’—‘Let the others speak now!’ cried Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, annoyed at Sérais beginning over again. But the friends of Sérais cried, ‘And we, we will have Baudichon hold his tongue.’ Then Etienne Dadaz, resuming the series of grievances, said, ‘I complain that I have been sent to prison and accused of meaning to sell the town.’—‘Thou oughtest to be silent,’ said the syndic Goutaz, ‘for thou hast brought from France articles designed to make us subjects of the king.’ On which Dadaz replied, ‘It is not I who made them, it is M. de Langey who gave them me.’ This was certainly not justifying himself, for Langey was a minister to the king.[547]
CONFUSED COMPLAINTS.
The most reasonable of the leaders saw that they must put a stop to these turbulent complainings, which were ruining their interests. The former syndic, Jean Philippe, a friend of freedom and courageous, but also rash and leading a loose life, began to speak, and, addressing the secretary of the council, Rozet, accused him of having caused the confession to be sworn which he declared he had not sworn. This was not escaping from the question, but plunging into it. This was the master grievance of the opposition, and the matter to be investigated. ‘We did ill to swear it,’ said Jean Lullin. ‘The ambassadors of Berne have told us that we were perjured.’ De Chapeaurouge himself, who at first had kept silence, getting enraged with the secretary of the council, Rozet, who had caused the confession to be sworn, accused him of being ‘a witness of Susanna’ (that is to say, a false witness). ‘Gentlemen,’ said the respectable Rozet, with much feeling, ‘I have served you long, and I have neither done wickedly nor borne false witness; and here is De Chapeaurouge making me out to be a witness of Susanna!’ Chapeaurouge replied, ‘You told me, before the syndic Curtet, that you had no conscience at all.’ Curtet answered, ‘I never heard that;’ and everyone began to laugh. Jean Philippe, a clever man, then made a proposition which he thought likely to satisfy the opponents. He wished to place the syndics under guardianship. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it would be a long task to listen in this place to all these plaintiffs and to provide for them. It seems to me better that we should choose, in general council, twenty-five men.’ These were twenty-five superintendents whom he wished to set over the syndics and the council, as representatives of the people. ‘That done,’ continued Philippe, ‘these gentlemen will hold their Little and Great Councils, and the plaintiffs shall be heard before all.’ Naturally, Philippe wished these twenty-five to be of his party. The syndics understood and were indignant. ‘Do you mean, then,’ said they, ‘to have men set over us?’ The crafty Philippe did not lose the thread. ‘Not men over you,’ he said, ‘but the general council is over all.’ Then, like a very tribune, he turned boldly to the people. ‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘do you not intend that the general council should be supreme over all?’ Instantly the cry was heard from all sides, ‘Yes, yes!’ The opposition succeeding thus in getting the people on their side, the days of the party in power were numbered. The syndics hastened to cut short. ‘Now then,’ said the syndic Curtet, let us talk of business.’[548]
It then occurred to them that the general council had to appoint deputies to go to Berne. The three leaders of the opposition, Jean Philippe, Ami de Chapeaurouge and Jean Lullin, were proposed by the council itself, which would much rather see them at Berne, where they might support the cause of the republic, than at Geneva, where they were making war on the government. But the three opponents saw through the trick. ‘For my part,’ said Lullin, ‘I have an excuse which prevents my going.’ ‘I hold to what was decreed,’ said Philippe, ‘that those who have begun the business should go thither to complete it.’—‘I say the same,’ added De Chapeaurouge. The three conspirators (if we may give them such a name) will therefore spend the winter at Geneva, and they will not be idle there.
VINDICATION OF THE REFORMERS.
The angry recriminations, the rash charges, and the turbulent movements of this council came to the ears of the reformers, and the report gave them much pain. The next day therefore, November 26, when the Council of the Two Hundred assembled, Farel and Calvin appeared before them. The former said, ‘Sérais accuses me of having said that rather than drink with him, I would drink a glass of his blood. Now what really passed was this. One of them having said to me, You wish us no good, I answered, I wish you so much harm that I would willingly shed my blood for you.’ Then coming to the essential point; ‘I have heard,’ continued Farel, ‘that they call those perjurers who have sworn the confession. If you examine carefully its contents, you will find that it is made in conformity with God’s Word, and is adapted to unite the people. You have not sworn to anything else than to hold fast faith in God, and to believe in his commandments.’ One of the members said, ‘It is not we, it is the deputies from Berne who spoke of perjury.’—‘We should very much like to know when they did so,’ replied Farel, astonished. ‘They spoke of it at table, in the presence of people,’ said the syndics Curtet and Lullin. ‘We offer to maintain this confession at the cost of our lives,’ replied the reformers. The syndics, beginning to fear lest the murmurs of the people should be excited, entreated the preachers to be careful that this business might end well.
The discovery that the lords of Berne blamed them in the affair of the confession was a very heavy blow to the reformers. If that powerful city should unite with the party of the opposition, the Reformation would be in great danger. They were not long in finding that their fears were not unfounded. The Bernese, who intended to act as if they had the superintendence of the Church of Geneva, wrote to Farel and Calvin—‘It has come to our knowledge that you, Calvin, have written to certain Frenchmen at Basel that your confession has been approved by our congregation, and that our preachers have ratified it, which will not be proven (ne constera pas). On the contrary, it is you and Farel who have been consenting parties to sign our confession made at Basel, and to hold to it. We are amazed that you should attempt to contravene it. We pray you to desist from the attempt, otherwise we shall be compelled to have resource to other remedies.’[549]
It was supposed at Berne that the two confessions differed, while in fact they were fundamentally the same; and the lords of that city believed that if Geneva had a confession of her own, their ascendancy would be risked. That young Frenchman, who had arrived only the year before, had a soul, as they thought, too independent. He was ready to break the ties which bound Geneva to the Swiss Churches. Calvin saw how matters stood. He felt that it was necessary to enlighten the Bernese about the confession of Geneva, and therefore set out immediately with Farel for Berne. The two reformers represented to the council that the confession which they had prepared, so far from making them perjurers, confirmed the confession of Basel. At the same time they presented it to the Bernese senate. That body had it examined, and it was pronounced to be very good. ‘We are going to send ambassadors,’ said the Bernese lords, ‘and they will declare to your general council that the words spoken by our deputies were not uttered in our name.’ The satisfaction made was brilliant. The reformers had gained their cause.[550] They returned to Geneva without delay; and having been received, December 10, in the ordinary council, they communicated to it the happy issue of their journey.[551] But there were at Berne certain persons who desired to see the Church of Geneva placed in subordination to that of Berne. The projected embassy might baffle their schemes, and they resolved to prevent it. For that purpose they did not shrink even from blackening the reformers. They asserted that the Genevese preachers had said in their sermons that all the mischief came from Germany! (that is to say, from German Switzerland, from Berne). The Bernese changed their mind, and wrote to Geneva, ‘that they would not send ambassadors.’[552]