The Spell of Switzerland

by Nathan Haskell Dole

The little book contained a good deal of information in small space, in spite of its erratic spelling. It stated, for instance, that Calvin was originally buried in Plain Palace, but when the Genevians heard that the Savoyards were coming “to dig up and insult over his bones they were removed and buried within the cloyster of Saint Peter’s Church.”

We had plenty of time to go there. We could see its towers and spire high in the driving clouds, and its roof, which reminded me of a Western political-convention hall. Considering that it was built so early as the Tenth Century, it ought to have the deepest historical interest. Probably the Emperor Conrad, who founded it, would probably hardly recognize it, so much has it been altered since his stormy life closed. No wonder he wanted a cathedral in those Alps which he was for ever crossing. As soon as he got out of sight down in Italy his German subjects revolted; then when he had returned and punished them the Italians would try to throw off his yoke. Life was not smooth for him either as King of the Germans, or as Emperor of the Romans or as ruler of the Burgundians, but five years before he died he saw his cathedral consecrated. Something happened to it a couple of hundred of years later (about the middle of the eighteenth century): it was probably enlarged. Then its Romanesque style of architecture was made ridiculous by a Corinthian portico.

A Corinthian portico, being Greek, perhaps was not theoretically so out of place if Don Gregorio Seti was right in telling us that “Saint Peter’s Church was in ancient times dedicated to Apollo, as is to be seen in some very old inscriptions.”

SWISS MEDIAEVAL CARVINGS.

We went into the venerable edifice and my nephew suggested that I had better initiate myself first of all by sitting down in the sacred chair that once belonged to John Calvin. If there had been any risk of inoculating myself with his grim and forbidding theology by sitting in the seat of the Calvinists, be sure I should have refrained. Calvin was a wonderful man, but at heart a tyrant. He could not endure contradiction. Jerome Bolsec found that out when he got the better of him in his argument on predestination: “You make God the author of sin,” said he, “for you say in your Institution, ‘God foresaw Adam’s Fall and in this Fall the ruin of all mankind; but He willed it, He ordered it and predetermined it in His eternal plan. God willed that the Israelites should worship the golden calf and that men should be guilty of the sins that they commit every day.’ God being a simple and changeless Being, how can He be in accord with Himself, since in Him are two things contrary, Will and Not-will? How can He order and forbid the same thing? On the other hand, if the Will of God is the substance of God Himself, it is the cause of the sins committed by men; consequently God is the author of evil.”

Calvin tried to creep out of the dilemma by saying:—“I have said that God’s will as a supernatural cause is the necessity for all things; but I have declared at the same time that God does what He does with such justice that even the wicked are constrained to glorify Him.”

Bolsec, who could see no equity in such a justice as that, would not give in and Calvin used his power to exile him. He was forbidden to return under pain of being whipped through all the squares of the city.

It is wonderful what an influence and for so long a time was exercised by Calvin. Certainly during all the years while the fortifications stood and the gates were shut at night no one dared contravene the strict regulations which his theocracy enjoined.

There are other famous people buried in the Cathedral of Saint Peter. Near the main entrance is a tablet commemorating Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné, the Huguenot adviser to Henry IV who spent the last twenty years of his life in Geneva and died there in 1630. He was the grandfather of Madame de Maintenon, wife of a poet and wife of a king. We noted the black tombstone to Cardinal Jean de Brogny who built the lovely Gothic Chapelle des Macchabées, now excellently restored. “Anno 1628,” says our friend Signior Seti, “was interred Emilia of Nassau and sometime after the Princess her sister, both Sisters to the Prince of Orange, Emilia being Wife to Don Antonio, King of Portugal, who was banished by the Spaniards. In another Chappel lies the Body of the Duke of Rohan, buried in the year 1638 in a most magnificent monument built by the Dutchess, who was laid there also near her husband in the year 1660, as their son Tancred was in the year 1661.”