Gradually Farel had become the leader of an organised band of missioners, who devoted themselves to the evangelisation of western or French-speaking Switzerland.[59] They had been carefully selected—young men for the most part well educated, of unbounded courage, willing to face all the risks of their dangerous work, daunted by no threat or peril, taking their lives in their hand. They were the forerunners of the young preachers, teachers, and colporteurs whom Calvin trained later in Geneva and sent forth by the hundred to evangelise France and the Low Countries. They were all picked men. No one was admitted to the little band without being well warned of the hazardous work before him, and some who were ready to take all the risks were rejected because the leader was not sure that they had the necessary powers of endurance.[60] These preachers were under the protection of the canton of Bern, whose authorities were resolute to maintain the freedom to preach the Word of God; but they continually went where the Bernese had no power to assist them; nor could the protection of that powerful canton aid them in sudden emergencies when bitter Romanist partisans, infuriated by the invectives with which the preachers lashed the abuses of the Roman religion, or wrathful at their very presence, stirred up the mob against them. When their correspondence and that of their opponents—a correspondence collected and carefully edited by M. Herminjard—is read, it can be seen that they could always count on a certain amount of sympathy from the people of the towns and villages where they preached, but that the authorities were for the most part hostile. If Bern insisted on their protection, Freiburg was as active in opposing them, and lost no opportunity of urging the local authorities to harass them in every way, to silence their preaching, and if possible to expel them from their territories.
Such men had the defects of their qualities. Their zeal often outran their discretion. When Farel and Froment, the most daring and devoted of his band, were preaching at a village in the vale of Villingen, a priest began to chant the Mass beside them. As the priest elevated the Host, Froment seized it and, turning towards the people, said, “This is not the God to adore; He is in the Heaven in the glory of the Father, not in the hands of the priests as you believe, and as they teach.” There was a riot, of course, but the preachers escaped. Next day, however, as they were passing a solitary place, they were assailed by a crowd of men and women, stoned and beaten with clubs, then hurried away to a neighbouring castle whose chatelaine had instigated the attack. There they were thrust violently into the chapel, and the crowd tried to make Farel prostrate himself before an image of the Blessed Virgin. He resisted, admonishing them to adore the one God in spirit and in truth, not dumb images without sense or power. The crowd beat him to the effusion of blood, and the two preachers were dragged to a vault, where they were imprisoned until rescued by the authorities of Neuchâtel.[61]
These preachers were all Frenchmen or French-Swiss. They had the hot Celtic blood in their veins, and their hearers were their kith and kin—prompt to act, impetuous when their passions were stirred. Scenes occurred at their preaching which we seldom hear of among slower Germans, who generally waited until their authorities led. In western Switzerland the audiences were eager to get rid of the idolatries denounced. At Grandson, the people rushed to the church of the Cordeliers, and tore down the altars and images, while the crosses, altars, and images of the parish church were also destroyed.[62] Similar tumults took place at Orbe; and the authorities at Bern, who desired to see liberty for both Protestants and Romanists, had occasion to rebuke the zealous preachers.
But the dangers which the missioners ran were not always of their own provoking. Sometimes a crowd of women invaded the churches in which they preached, interrupted the services with shoutings, hustled and beat the preachers; sometimes when they addressed the people in the market-place the preachers and their audience were assailed with showers of stones; sometimes Farel and his companions were laid wait for and maltreated.[63] M. de Watteville, sent down by the authorities of Bern to report on disturbances, wrote to the Council of Bern that the faces of the preachers were so torn that it looked as if they had been fighting with cats, and that on one occasion the alarm-bell had been sounded against them, as was the custom for a wolf-hunt.[64]
No dangers daunted the missioners, and soon the whole of the outlying districts of Bern, Neuchâtel, Soleure, and other French-speaking portions of Switzerland declared for the Reformation. The cantonal authorities frequently sent down commissioners to ascertain the wishes of the people; and when the majority of the inhabitants voted for the Evangelical religion, the church, parsonage, and stipend were given to a Protestant pastor. Many of Farel’s missioners were temporarily settled in these village churches; but they were for the most part better fitted for pioneer work than for a settled pastorate. In January (9-14th) 1532, a synod of these Protestant pastors was held at Bern to deliberate on some uniform ways of exercising their ministry to prevent disorders arising from individual caprice. Two hundred and thirty ministers were present, and Bucer was brought from Strassburg to give them guidance. His advice was greatly appreciated and followed by the delegates of the churches and the Council of Bern. The Synod in the end issued an elaborate ordinance, which included a lengthy exposition of doctrine.[65]
§ 3. Farel in Geneva.
It was after this consolidation of the Reformation in Bern and its outlying provinces that Farel found himself free to turn his attention to Geneva. He had evidently been thinking for months about the possibility of evangelising the town. He had little fear of the people themselves, and he wrote to Zwingli (Oct. 1st, 1531) that were it not for the dread of Freiburg, he believed that the Genevese would welcome the Gospel.[66] The affair of the “placards” seems to have decided him to begin his mission in the city. When he was driven out he was far from abandoning the enterprise. He turned to Froment, his most trusted assistant, and sent him into Geneva.
Antoine Froment, who has the honour along with Farel of being the Reformer of Geneva, was born at Tries, near Grenoble, about 1510. He was therefore, like Farel, a native of Dauphiné. Like him, also, he had gone to Paris for his education, and had become acquainted with Lefèvre, who seems to have introduced him to Marguerite d’Angoulême, the Queen of Navarre,[67] as he received from her a prebend in a canonry on one of her estates. How he came to Switzerland is unknown. Once there and introduced to Farel, he became his most daring and enthusiastic disciple, and Farel prized him above all the others. They were Paul and Timothy. It was natural that Farel should entrust him with the difficult and dangerous task of preaching the Gospel in Geneva.
Farel’s seizure and expulsion made it necessary to proceed with caution. Froment entered Geneva (Nov. 3rd, 1532), and began his work by intimating by public advertisement (placard) that he was ready to teach any one who wished to learn to read and write the French language, and that he would charge no fees if his pupils were not able to profit by his instructions. Scholars came.[68] He managed to mingle Evangelical instruction with his lessons,—“every day one or two sermons from the Holy Scripture,” he says,—and soon made many converts, especially among the wives of influential citizens. Towards the end of 1532, the monks of one of the convents in Geneva had brought to the city a Dominican, Christopher Bocquet, to be their Advent preacher. His sermons seem to have been largely Evangelical, and had the effect of inducing many of the citizens to attend Froment’s discourses in the hall where he kept his school.[69] This provoked threats on the part of the Romanists, and strongly worded sermons from the priests and Romanist orators. One citizen, convicted of having spoken disrespectfully of the Mass, was banished, and forbidden to return on pain of death. On this the Evangelicals of the town appealed to Bern. Their letter was promptly answered by a demand on the part of the Council of that canton that the Evangelicals must be left in peace, and if attacked publicly must be allowed to answer in as public a fashion.[70] When their letter was read in the Council of Geneva, it provoked some protests from the more ardently Romanist members, and the priests stirred up part of the population to riotous proceedings, in which the lives of the Evangelicals were threatened. The Syndics and Council had difficulty in preventing conflicts in the streets. They published a decree (March 30th, 1533), in which they practically proclaimed liberty of conscience, but forbade all insulting expressions, all attacks on the Sacraments or on the ecclesiastical fasts and ceremonies, and again ordered preachers to say nothing which could not be proved from Holy Scripture.[71]
The numbers of the Evangelicals increased daily; they became bolder, and on the 10th of April they met in a garden, under the presidency of Guérin Muète, a hosier, for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This became known to the Romanists, and there was a renewal of the threats against the Evangelicals, which came to a head in the riot of the 5th of May—a riot which had important consequences.[72] It seems that while several citizens, known to belong to the Evangelical party, were walking in the square before the Cathedral of St. Peter, they were attacked by a band of armed priests, and three of them were severely wounded. The leader of the band, a turbulent priest named Pierre Werly, who belonged to an old family of Freiburg, and was a canon in the cathedral, followed by five or six others, rushed down to the broad street Molard, with loud shouts. Werly was armed with one of the huge Swiss swords. He and his companions attacked the Evangelicals; there was a sharp, short fight; several persons were wounded severely, and Werly, “the captain of the priests,” was slain.[73] The affair made a great noise. The Romanists at once proclaimed Werly a martyr, and honoured him with a pompous funeral. Freiburg insisted that all the Evangelicals who happened to be in the Molard should be arrested; and it was said that preparations were being made for a massacre of all the followers of the Reformation. In their extremity they again appealed to Bern, whose authorities again interfered for their protection.