Dr. Chapponnière, a Protestant, says that “Bonivard, exalted by some as a hero and a martyr for liberty, and by others charged with every vice, merited neither the excess of honor he received on the one hand, nor of condemnation on the other.” With regard, however, to this verdict, which would represent Bonivard as a man of simple mediocrity, we put the following questions: Was not François de Bonivard a traitor to his religion, which he abandoned? to his ecclesiastical character, which he violated? to his country, which he injured to the utmost of his power? to history, which he falsified? and lastly, to his wives, whom he deceived, and one of whom he abandoned to torture?
The “Prisoner of Chillon” had earned his detention in that fortress by fifteen years of open revolt against his lawful sovereign; and if, by reason of his six years of imprisonment he is to be accounted a great man, it is but just to allow his fourth wife, Catherine de Courtaronel, to share his greatness. Like him, she apostatized; like him, she quitted her convent and broke all her vows; like him, she was driven out of Geneva because of her evil life; like him, she was allowed to return thither on promising amendment; with him she lived, for some time unmarried, until the two were compelled by the Genevese authorities to submit to a marriage ceremony; like him, she was accused of adultery, and, more unfortunate than
he, was made, by the application of frightful tortures, to avow herself guilty of the crime (which, however, has not been proved), her husband making no attempt whatever to save her from the torture. In consequence of the confessions thus extorted, she was condemned to be drowned; the sentence being duly executed.
We have here a terrible pendant to the six years of prison, and one which, this time, can neither be imputed (to quote M. Fazg) to “an infamous duke of Savoy,” nor yet (to quote Bonivard himself) to “a rascally pope.”
This brief sketch, notwithstanding its incompleteness as to details, which would, however, only darkly shade the outline here given, is sufficient to portray the real Bonivard, the avaricious and time-serving apostate, stripped of the interesting fiction which envelopes the Prisoner of Chillon, and to prove his worthiness of a niche by the side of Cranmer, Luther, Calvin, Beza, John of Leyden, and the rest of the reforming race.
[211] See, especially, Spon, Histoire de Genève, tom. 1. pp. 203, 204.
[212] See notice in the Revue Catholique for June, 1876, by M. Leyret, to whom the present paper is largely indebted. Those who wish for full information on the subject will find it in the Notice sur François de Bonivard, Prieur de St. Victor et sur ses Ecrits, par M. le Dr. Chapponniere (Mémoires de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève, tome iv.), also in the Matériaux Historiques and the Notices Généalogiques of Galiffe (tome iii.), but above all in the remarkable work by Canon Magnin, now Bishop of Annecy, on Bonivard and the Chronicles of Geneva (Mémoires de l’Académie de Savoie, 2ème Séries, tome iii.) who by even his moderation, as well as the pitiless logic of facts, crushes the pseudo-confessor.
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