That Calvin’s heavy hand was borne with by the Genevese for two years, in the first instance, with no small amount of discontent, indeed, but with no outbreak of rebellion, must be set down, we imagine, to the credit of human nature, which endures for a season the irksome and even the ill, in hope of the good to follow; but when the pressure is crushing, and there is no prospect of alleviation, resistance, inevitably, follows in the end.
Calvin and the special Court he had inaugurated under the title of the Consistory, had been anxious to impose some new and still more stringent ordinance on the city, but the Council, whose sanction was required before any of the consistorial edicts could have way, refused assent, and the citizens, emboldened by this, forthwith appeared in open rebellion against what they rightly construed as the tyranny and self-assertion of the clergy. So unpopular in fact did the whole clerical party become at this time, that its leader and his colleague Farel were formally banished from the city, and the subordinate ministers had to shrink into something like obscurity if they would escape the necessity of accompanying them.
In sore displeasure with the ungrateful conduct of the people, as he regarded it, Calvin sought shelter first in Basle and then in Strasburg, where he was welcomed by his brother Reformers, and by and by provided with honourable means of subsistence, by an appointment as Professor of Theology in the University.
But he was not destined long to enjoy the leisure of the Professor’s chair. Before two years had elapsed, the more moderate, orderly, and pious party had come again into power in Geneva, and he was waited on by a deputation, headed by Amied Perrin, a man of the highest influence among his fellow citizens, and entreated to return and save them from themselves; orderly existence, not otherwise attainable as it seemed, being seen after all to be not too dearly bought even by heavy payments in the shape of subserviency to theocratic rule.
Calvin returned to Geneva, then, and under circumstances that gave him a great advantage over the difficulties he had formerly encountered in carrying into effect the system of discipline he was bent on introducing. Perrin’s appearance at the head of the deputation to Strasburg, he had seen as an omen of the best augury; for Perrin’s influence in the Civic Council was very great, and his approval of any measure proposed, was taken as a sufficient guarantee by the citizens at large, of its value. But Perrin was ambitious, and certainly reckoned without his host when he hoped by patronising John Calvin to make him in any way the instrument of his own selfish or party designs;
Two stars keep not their orbit in one sphere;
and if Perrin was bent on power, so was Calvin.
Perrin, it may be, had never heartily sympathised with the Reformation in its religious aspects; he certainly sympathised still less with the Reformer. A man of pleasure at heart, he was perhaps somewhat indifferent to religion. Ready enough to abet Calvin in his austerities towards the many, he was minded to keep his own neck and the necks of his friends out of the yoke. Calvin, however, had no idea of anything of the kind: his law was of general application, or it had no significance; his rule was one and it was for all. No wonder, therefore, that Perrin’s league with the Reformer came to an end ere long; and that when it was not open dissidence between them, it was always smouldering enmity.
Calvin’s grand instrument in enforcing his discipline was the Consistory, an assembly made up of the entire acting clergy of Geneva, with a limited number—no more than twelve—of the laity added. This body was entrusted with very extensive powers, which it may be imagined were not suffered to lie idle, when we find it pretending to regulate the head, and even the foot, gear of the women; intruding itself into the dwellings of the people, too, and looking into their saucepans and pint pots to see that there was no indulgence in the way of eating and drinking!
Supported by a certain number of the native Genevese, Calvin’s hands were immensely strengthened by the crowd of refugees for conscience sake who poured into Geneva from France and Italy, to escape the persecution that had already begun to rage in these countries. Henry II. of France, having presented his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, with the proceeds of all confiscations for heresy, her agents were indefatigable in hunting out converts to the doctrines of Luther and bringing them to justice, as it was called: the greater the number of heretics burned, the higher rose the fame for piety of the profligate king, and in like measure the revenue of the heartless courtesan.