probably been delayed. Everything was seized, and from the dispatches
the Bernese general learnt that the count of Challans had dispatched to
the Italian commander a considerable reinforcement of cavalry and
infantry.

Nägueli, thinking to come up with this reinforcement near Geneva,
hurried forward to meet them. On the morning of the 30th of January he
started for Rolle; no obstacle retarded his march; nobles and soldiers
'had been reduced to dust by terror.'[715] The fields were deserted; the
small towns and villages were empty; fear of the Bernese had swept the
country. The general, in concert with his chiefs, had agreed that it
would be an unwise policy to neglect establishing peace in that district
with a firm hand, as well for the present as for the future. Another
principle also animated the Bernese: they wanted to extend the territory
of the Helvetic League and their own as far as the shores of Lake Leman.
Now so long as the power of the nobles of Vaud, who were strongly
attached to Savoy, remained unbroken, there would be perpetual
insurrections, and Berne would hardly be in a position to hold her own.
Nägueli was persuaded that the strength of the cruel chevaliers of those
valleys lay in their strongholds. 'If we want to drive out the wolves,'
he said, 'we must destroy their dens.' The castles of Rolle and Rosay
were reduced to ashes; and the Genevans, seeing in the darkness of the
night those distant flames, shouted with joy, '_They are coming!_'

Nägueli resumed his march, sparing the inhabitants, but everywhere
destroying the images. Passing near Nyon without attacking it, he moved
upon Divonne and Gex, important positions from which he desired to expel
the enemy before entering Geneva.

[Sidenote: FRANCOIS DE GINGINS.]

François de Gingins, lord of Divonne and Chatelard, who had at first
taken part in the blockade of Geneva, but had withdrawn his troops
during the frosts of December, had shut himself up in his castle of
Divonne on the hills which overlook that village. Nägueli desired to
treat with respect a nobleman whose ancestors had been counted from the
tenth century among the great vassals of the kings of Transjurassic
Burgundy, and who possessed an amiable character and pacific
disposition. Brought up by his maternal uncle, the count of Gruyères,
and afterwards appointed by the king of France page of honor in his
household, he had returned to his home and married his cousin Margaret,
daughter of Antoine de Gingins, president of the sovereign council of
Savoy. He had small liking for the priests, whose gross and often
immoral conduct offended him; but he was alarmed at the idea of being
unfaithful to the Church and feudalism, and after some hesitation
attached himself to Roman-catholicism and the duke.[716] Margaret had,
it is said, some share in the change which afterwards occurred in the
family. The ladies of the castles were generally superior to their
husbands; they were more accessible to religious impressions. While the
lord was away at tournaments or on warlike expeditions, the wife
remained mistress of the household, governed her children and servants,
and virtues were often developed in her which would have been vainly
sought for elsewhere. A son speaking of his mother, describes her
beauty, her features always tranquil, her brow armed with severe
chastity, her virtuous looks, her regulated conversation, her modesty,
her fear of God, and her charity.[717] It is thus we love to picture to
ourselves Margaret of Gingins.

The young lord of Divonne liked the neighborhood of Geneva and the
intelligence of its inhabitants, and, without being aware of it, the
cause of the Reformation had made some progress in his heart. In 1548 he
made over his four castles of Gingins, Divonne, Chatelard, and Sarraz to
his sons, and retired to Geneva, where he remained to the end of his
days.[718] Thus, in his person, peace was concluded between the
redoubtable gentlemen of the country and the city which they had so
harassed. Nägueli, aware of the good inclinations of the baron, did not
burn his castle, and was content with exacting from him a ransom of
three hundred crowns.

On Tuesday (February 1st) ten syndics of Geneva came to present the
Bernese general with the thanks of the city. While they were in
conference with him, a noise was heard in the castle. They all pricked
up their ears. The old abbot De Gingins, episcopal vicar of Geneva, who
had retired (as we have seen) into the Jura, to his isolated convent of
Bonmont, alarmed at the approach of the army, disturbed by the
recollection of his licentious life, and remembering that the Swiss had
no liking for wicked priests, a great number of whom had fallen at
Gingins, had taken refuge at Divonne in his nephew's castle, where he
believed himself safe from all harm. He kept quiet in a secret
hiding-place, greatly tormented by fear that the Bernese might discover
him. Some soldiers, who were ordered to search the castle, found him and
brought him more dead than alive before their general. As the latter
sharply reproached the lord of Divonne with violating their convention,
the alarm of the old sinner increased; but he began to breathe again,
when the general declared that he would be willing to release him for a
ransom of four hundred crowns. The poor abbot, though the fear of death
was passed, never recovered from his fright.

The Savoyard troops, whose arrival had been announced to Medici by the
count of Challans, had not appeared, and we may understand the reason.
Consequently, next morning (February 2d) Nägueli, finding that there was
no enemy to prevent his entering Geneva, divided his soldiers into three
corps: one was to reduce the country between the Rhone and the Jura as
far as the Fort de l'Ecluse, which it was to take; the other was to
march to Gex, and burn the castle; while the rest of the army started
for Geneva.[719]

[Sidenote: BERNESE WAR-SONG.]

The Genevans awaited with great impatience the arrival of their
liberators. The sun cheered with its beams the brightest of the days in
Genevese history. The snows which covered the mountains glittered in the
distance; but in the plain at their feet, flashes of light were observed
which delighted the citizens still more. 'Two leagues off,' says
Froment, 'we could see the arms glittering, which was a great joy to
us.' The young people ran forward to meet their deliverers, and in a
short time the Bernese army approached and passed through an
enthusiastic crowd stationed on both sides of the road. The leaders
Nägueli, Weingarten, Cyro, Diesbach, and Graffenried, came first on
horseback; then followed the bannerets, councillors, provosts, and other
members of the Councils of Berne; and last of all the liberating army,
seventeen pieces of artillery, and the companies of Neuchâtel, Lausanne,
and other places in Vaud. As the Bernese passed the gates and entered
the city, they sang aloud once more these strains to the glory of God:

  When the people's heart is silent,
    And their eyes are closed in death,
  Then God, the great Deliverer,
    Awakes them with a breath.
  Proud as Egyptian Pharaoh
    Was the Duke on Leman's shore,
  For twice five tedious years his yoke
    Geneva, groaning, bore.
  A martyr to the faith, she flies
    Panting and still oppressed.
  The hour is come: 'Up, Judah, up!
    Pass through the sea, and be at rest.'

  Her voice among our mountains
    Resounded, and her cry
  Of anguish tired the echoes,
    But no man made reply.
  Deaf to Geneva's woes and sleeping
    Among her meads Helvetia lay;
  But our rocks at last are shaken;
  With a shout the Bernese waken,
  And to succor the oppressed
  They march with dauntless breast:
    The Bear alone to pity giveth way.

  To the war the fierce old bear,
    With his eager cubs, has gone:
  Day of safety to God's children,
    Day of gladness to each one.
  Day of death to thee, rash prince,
    Day of sorrow and of shame,
  Day of fire which shall consume thee
    With inextinguishable flame.
  Expect not mercy, for thy crime
    Has dried up mercy's spring;
  My voice, once soft, now thunders loud,
    And fierce remorse thy heart shall wring.

  Berne, if thy heart could counterfeit,
    If thy proud neck could bend;
  If thy tongue, in honeyed accents,
    Could kings, as gods, commend;
  Then their haughty palace gates
    Would before thee open wide,—
  But Christ is thy salvation,
    And His cup thy boast and pride.
  They have left thee all alone,
  Thy friends,—where are they flown?
    In the battle no man fighteth at thy side.

  Fear nothing! every coming age
    Shall bless thy memory;
  For twice ten days thy cry has been:
    'We conquer or we die!'[720]
  What feats have been accomplished
    By thy arm! how many a town
  And many a haughty ruler
    Before thee hath gone down!
  Burnt are their castles, and their gods
    Low in the dust are laid;
  While all men sing thy glory,
    That knows nor spot nor shade.

  Happy the people among whom
    The great God loves to abide;
  Who daily search the Lord's own book,
  Who scorn the pope, who upward look
    To Christ their heavenly guide.
  They sheathe their swords, and turning
    Their hearts to God above,
  From morn to eve unshrinkingly
    They trust upon His love.[721]

[Sidenote: TO GOD BE THE GLORY.]

'Geneva received her deliverers with great delight,' says an
eye-witness, 'and replied to their songs with cries of joy.'[722] The
barbarous captain, sent against the huguenots to destroy them, had
disappeared; the wild beast, after a roar, had returned hastily to his
den. Their goods, their liberty, their faith, their lives were saved.
Excited by this great deliverance, the Genevans were not satisfied
merely with expressing their gratitude to the Bernese, but looked
higher. They knew that a Supreme Power, an Infinite Love, holds the
affairs of this world in His hands. It was that faith which was to make
the little city grow, and they wished to give expression to it. The
council being assembled, they resolved to enrol in the annals of the
republic a testimony of their gratitude, and ordered these words to be
written:

'_The power of God has confounded the presumption and rash audacity of
our enemies._'[723]

Froment, too, an eye-witness of these things, wrote in his _Gestes
Merveilleux_ the following simple and touching words:

'_In the year 1536, and in the month of February, Geneva was delivered
from her enemies by the providence of God._'[724]

[696] Hieronymo Soranzo, _Relazione di Roma_.—Ripenmonte, _Historiæ
urbis Mediolani_.—Ranke, _Römische Päpste_.

[697] 'Die Soldaten, darunter 4,000 Italiäner.'—Stettler, _Chronik_,
p. 82.

[698] Beauregard, _Mémoire sur la maison de Savoie_, tom. i.
p. 324.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 207.—C. Zwick to B. Haller,
le 12 Janvier 1536.

[699] Veluti numine quodam instinctus.'—Sulzer to Bullinger, le 11
Février 1536.

[700] Stettler, _Chronik_, p. 78.—Lettre de Porral.—Mémoire de
Pierre-Fleur, p. 140.

[701] 'Die armen, verlassen, Christlichen Mitbrüder zu Genf.'—
Kirchofer's _Haller_, p. 231.

[702] Werner Steiner, _Sammlung_.—_Le Chroniqueur_, p. 202.—Pierre-Fleur,
p. 143.—Stettler, _Chronik_, p. 81.

[703] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 208.

[704] 2 Kings ch. vii.

[705] Letter from the bishop of Lausanne to the bailiff of
Vevey.—Stettler, _Chronik_.—Mémoires de Pierre-Fleur, p. 145.

[706] Mémoires de Du Bellay, liv. v. p. 239.

[707] _Ibid._ p. 240.

[708] Mémoires de Du Bellay, liv. v. p. 240.

[709] Echelle.

[710] Mémoires de Du Bellay, liv. v. p. 240.

[711] 'Ihre Feinde unerschrocken anzugreifen.'—Stettler, _Chronik_,
p. 82.

[712] Chron. MSC. de Roset, liv. iii. ch. 59.—Savion, iii.
p. 175.—Stettler, _Chronik_, p. 82.

[713] 'En bataillant de l'épée à deux pieds.'—Froment, _Gestes de
Genève_, p. 209.—Registres du Conseil du 30 Janvier 1536.—Chron. MSC. de
Roset, liv. iii. ch. 59 and 60.

[714] 2 Kings ch. xix.

[715] 'Verstaubt mit solchem Schrecken.'—Stettler, _Chronik_, p. 512.

[716] Manuscript archives of the family of Gingins.

[717] Life of Guibert de Nogent.—Collection des Mémoires de M. Guizot,
tom. ix. p. 346.

[718] Manuscript archives of the Gingins family.

[719] Registres du Conseil du 2 Février 1536.—Stettler, _Chronik_,
p. 82.

[720] The army left Berne on the 22d of January and entered Geneva on
the 2d of February.

[721]

  Die, dann, das Schwerdt verborgen,
    Das Herz in Gott versenkt,
  Die Gottheit lassen sorgen,
  Am Abend wie am Morgen
    Die alle Herzen lenkt.

Werner Steiner, MSC. Sammlung.—Froment, _Gestes de Geneve_,
P. 209.—Registres du Conseil du 2 Février 1536.

[722] MSC. de Roset, liv. iii. ch. 59.

[723] 'La puissance de Dieu a confondu la présomption et la téméraire
audace de nos ennemis.'—Registres du Conseil du 30 Janvier 1536.

[724] 'L'an 1536 et au mois de Février, Genève fut délivrée de ses
ennemis par la providence de Dieu.'—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 207.

 CHAPTER XIII.
 DESTRUCTION OF THE CASTLES—JOY IN GENEVA—LIBERATION OF BONIVARD.
 (FROM FEBRUARY TO THE END OF MARCH 1536.)

There was now to be an interview between the liberators and the
liberated. Berne and Geneva, united by a common faith, were to embrace
each other. The members of those two republics loved one another not
only as allies but as brothers. On Thursday (February 3d) the Council of
Two Hundred assembled; many other citizens were present, and the hall
was full. Nägueli appeared, accompanied by his principal officers and
the representatives of the Council of Berne. The assembly gave utterance
to its joy, and all eyes were fixed on the valiant general. 'Most
honored lords,' he said, 'this long while past we have heard your
complaints. For these twenty months we have been making great efforts at
Lucerne, Baden, and even Aosta; and having thus exhausted all the means
of peace, we have drawn the sword, and the enemy has fled on every side.
Now we will do whatever you command us, for we are here to fulfil the
oaths that unite Geneva and Berne.' Such noble language moved the
assembly. 'May God do the same for you,' replied the premier syndic.
Then desiring the work to be perfect, he added: 'Now, gentlemen, march
onwards; pursue the enemy until the end; we are ready to give you all
necessary assistance.' It was decided that the army should make itself
master of Chablais on the left shore of the lake, and push forward on
the other side as far as Chambery. In all those districts they would
circulate the Word of God.[725]

[Sidenote: BURNING OF THE CASTLES.]

There was first another task to be completed. For centuries the castles
had obstructed the progress of civilization, and in later years that of
the gospel. It was from those eyries, perched on their lofty rocks, that
the vultures swooped down upon the plain. Bishops even had been known to
entreat the princes to destroy, 'for the love of God and the honor of
the blessed Mary, those buildings constructed by the inspiration of
Satan.'[726] This the evangelical Nägueli was about to do, and
henceforth the husbandman would drive his plow in peace through fields
from which he would no longer fear to see the fruit of his labors swept
away.

The inhabitants of the castles had disappeared: fear of the Bernese had
depopulated the country. Men, women, and children had taken refuge in
the miserable chalets of the Salève, Voirons, Mole, and Jura. Priests
and monks, hurriedly abandoning their parishes and their convents, threw
off their frocks and assumed the garb of the peasantry. 'Not one man in
all the country dared represent himself as a priest or a monk.' Every
now and then one of them dressed in a coarse gray coat would leave his
hiding-place, and mysteriously entering some half-deserted hut, would
ask the affrighted peasant 'what the bear of Berne was doing.' 'But take
care,' he added, 'you tell nobody that I am a priest.' The clerical and
lay despots of the Middle Ages learnt in their turn what it was to
tremble.

At length a great spectacle of desolation, which was to be the last,
began. A judgment—may we not call it a judgment of God?—was
accomplished. Here and there at first a few flames were seen flashing
forth, and these soon became an immense conflagration. Detachments,
consisting of Bernese and Genevans, issued from the city: some turned to
the right, others to the left; the ancient walls of some old towers were
their aim. 'It was from thence,' said the Genevans, 'that rapine and
death have so often rushed out upon us.' The building was surrounded,
the most impetuous made their way into the interior and set fire to it,
and when the flames had caught they rushed off for another execution.
These detachments were followed by a numerous troop of men, women, and
boys, who had their share also in the business. The judgment of God
swept over the country, as of old over the land of Canaan. The
fortresses of Gex, Gaillard, and Jussy, those terrible scourges of
Geneva; the castles of Coppet, Prangins, Bellerive, Vilette,
Ville-la-Grand, and many others, fell a prey to the flames. They were in
all, according to Froment, from a hundred to a hundred and forty. Geneva
was sometimes surrounded by a circle of fire. The longer and crueller
the offence, the more terrible was the punishment. No one was put to
death, but those feudal lairs, which crumbled away in the midst of the
flames, were a sacrifice offered by the Swiss to the shades of the
citizens immolated by their former possessors.

[Sidenote: DESTRUCTION OF PENEY.]

There was one castle in particular whose destruction the Genevans
desired: it was Peney. On the 8th of February some Bernese, accompanied
by a few horsemen and gunners of Geneva, started for this purpose. The
blood shed by the Peneysans and their numberless outrages made them cry
out unanimously, 'No mercy for Peney!' The almost abandoned fortress was
easily occupied. A fire was kindled in that courtyard where the victims
had been so cruelly tortured. The castle was soon in flames, and there
remained nothing but dismantled towers and blackened walls; but that was
not enough. Those walls still seemed guilty, and the Genevans so
completely destroyed the ill-omened ruin that not a trace of it can now
be found. All the country was at length swept clean of a long-continued
brigandage; but (we repeat) it does not appear that one of those
gentlemen or of their dependents suffered death or even imprisonment for
their crimes. The device of Geneva and of Berne during this remarkable
expedition was: 'Spare the tyrants, but destroy their dens.'[727]

At the same time peace reigned within. A spirit of pardon seemed to have
descended upon the Genevans. Happiness enlarged all their hearts. On
Sunday (February 6th) sermons were preached in the different churches by
the reformers; after which the great bell, Clémence, reserved for solemn
occasions, summoned all the people to St. Pierre's. It was, as it were,
the first day of the new republic. 'Citizens,' said one of the syndics,
'in order that the city may prosper we must believe what the Gospel
teaches and live according to its commandments. Accordingly—and this is
our new decree—let all the animosities which sprang up during the war be
renounced; all offences pardoned, all quarrels forgotten, all lawsuits
given up. Let us drop all hateful names. Let no man henceforth say to
another, "You are a papist," or the latter reply, "You are a Lutheran."
But let us all live according to the Holy Gospel of God,' Such were the
first fruits of the Reformation. 'We will! we will!' shouted the people.
They then proceeded to the election of the four syndics who were to be
at the head of the new republic. The assembly chose the energetic Claude
Savoye, the amiable and persevering Ami Porral, and the zealous Etienne
de Chapeaurouge, men on the side of the Reformation but especially of
political experience. The people, wishing to have among their
magistrates one man purely evangelical, named Ami Levet, the husband of
the pious Claudine, although he was not on the list proposed by the
senate. Shortly afterwards the Two Hundred elected the twenty-five
members of the Council, and Balard, as well as Richardet,
Roman-catholics but good citizens, preserved their seats. In the hour of
their greatest enthusiasm the Genevans behaved justly and without
party-spirit—a thing rarely witnessed in the annals of nations.[728]

On the evening before, Nägueli, at the head of the army, augmented by a
Genevese contingent, had marched out in order to follow up his victory
as far as Chambery and _farther_. Ambitious thoughts may then perhaps
have stirred the hearts of some of the Bernese. For the triumph of the
Reformation (they might possibly have said for the grandeur of Berne)
they thought that Savoy, and even the north of Italy, ought to be
conquered. Let there be formed in the centre of Europe, on both sides of
the colossal citadels of the Alps, a great confederation of independent
and evangelical people, which shall circulate liberty and truth through
Germany, France, and the Italian peninsula. Therefore forward to
Chambery, and _farther_!

The dream was to melt away as soon as formed. The general was riding in
front, calm and pensive, followed by some of his officers. He turned his
head—there was no army to be seen. Nägueli galloped back towards Geneva,
and found his soldiers drawn up in a square in a large field and
deliberating democratically. What was the cause of such a breach of
military discipline? The soldiers, satisfied with having delivered
Geneva, did not care to follow their captain in his daring schemes. They
deliberated therefore, as they were wont to do in their valleys. Should
they march forward or turn back? 'To Berne,' cried many; 'to our fields,
our flocks, our mountains!' Nägueli succeeded, however, in getting the
army to march. Was he not their _good Franz_?[729]

[Sidenote: THE FRENCH INVADE SAVOY.]

On Saturday, 12th of February, the Swiss advanced guard had reached
Rumilly, near the lake of Bourget, eight leagues from Chambery, when M.
de Villebon, grand provost of Paris, arrived in great haste at the camp.
'The king my master,' he said, 'has a quarrel with the duke of Savoy,
his uncle, about his mother's rights. Yesterday (February 11th) he
signed at Lyons the commission given to the Sire de Brion-Chabot,
admiral of France, to attack Savoy. Eight hundred French lances, a
thousand light horse, twelve thousand infantry, six thousand
lansquenets, two thousand French adventurers, three thousand Italians,
and a powerful artillery are about to enter the states of the duchy; and
when Savoy is conquered, the French army will invade Piedmont. I require
you, therefore, in the name of the king, to proceed no farther.'
Nägueli, already shaken by the demands of his soldiers, answered that as
the King of France had rights over those countries, the Swiss would
discontinue their advance.[730]

[Sidenote: LAST YEARS OF THE DUKE.]

Other hands than those of Switzerland were to deal the last blows
destined to secure the Reformation and independence of Geneva. Villebon
had hardly got back to Lyons, when the army of Francis I. moved forward,
overran Bresse and Savoy, then invaded Piedmont, and afterwards the
Milanese. The duke, always irresolute, had taken no steps to check the
French. It was in vain that at the last moment he called Medici to his
aid; that captain, who had been unable to destroy Geneva, could not save
Piedmont. Charles III., abandoned by the emperor, his brother-in-law,
found himself, after spending thirty years of his life in hunting down
Geneva, robbed in four months of his states, which he never entered
again, and driven to bay on the shores of the Mediterranean. All kinds
of disasters fell upon him at once. His country was devastated by the
plague; his friends turned against him; the emperor showed him no pity;
his son, the heir to his crown, was taken away by death; his beautiful
and haughty wife, Beatrice of Portugal, pierced to the heart by so many
misfortunes, died of a wasting sickness. Of all his states there was
nothing left but the valley of Aosta, Nice, and two or three other
cities. Alone and affrighted, this unhappy prince dragged out a
wearisome life. He regretted his son, regretted his wife, regretted his
states. His heated imagination surrounded him with phantoms; Geneva,
which, unopposed, was developing her glorious and new existence, was to
him an avenging ghost. He fell ill: he broke out in sweats; he shivered
with cold; his eyes grew dim and his face pale; he wasted away of a slow
fever. After a punishment of twenty-three years, death, the consequence
of his reverses and his sorrows, put an end to the painful existence of
the great enemy of Genevese independence and of the Reformation.[731]
His son, Emanuel Philibert, a man of great capacity, recovered his
states; but having many evils to repair, he adopted a pacific policy
with regard to Geneva. Forty-four years of peace permitted the
Reformation and the new republic to strengthen and organize themselves.
God gives to the people and the churches, whom he designs to make use
of, the time necessary for their development.

While these things were going on, dangers less apparent, but as great as
they were unexpected, threatened Geneva. As the Bernese desired to reap
advantage from the help accorded to the little republic, their
ambassadors put forward certain pretensions, which they set up a little
later with respect to Lausanne and Vaud, and which were then too easily
conceded. The lords of Berne, regardless of the reproach that might be
urged against them of having consulted merely their own interests in the
expedition, hinted to the council of Geneva that they ought to have
their reward, and asked that the rights and prerogatives of the duke and
the bishop should be transferred to them. Such a demand revolted the
proud independence of the Genevese, and they rejected the sovereignty of
Berne with as much decision as they had rejected that of Savoy. 'If we
had desired to have a master,' they answered with firmness, 'we should
have spared ourselves all the trouble, expense, and bloodshed of which
we have been so prodigal to secure our independence.' Berne was forced
to give way before a resolution that appeared immovable. When Nägueli
re-entered Geneva, after having taken the Fort de l'Ecluse on returning
from his short campaign, he was surprised to meet with a cold and
embarrassed reception, very different from the former enthusiastic
welcome. The noble general, who did not like such discussions, gave
immediate orders for the departure of his army.

There was still a great work to be accomplished. In conformity with the
instructions of the Bernese government, Nägueli was to break the twofold
yoke of the pope and the duke which pressed heavily upon the territory
of Vaud. His troops marched into that country without resistance, and
took Yverdun, in which the intrepid Mangerot had fortified himself. In a
short time cities, villages, and castles submitted; a few towns, tired
of the Savoyard rule, desired to be annexed to Berne. Others, especially
Lausanne and some rural districts, wished to retain all their rights;
but they gave way, when the Bernese promised to respect their
franchises. Under any circumstances it was a good work to take away from
the pope and unite to Switzerland the beautiful country that extends
from the lake of Geneva to that of Neuchâtel. Nägueli re-entered Berne
in peace, and his soldiers, proud of a four weeks' campaign that was to
have such important consequences, gave vent to their exultation, and
concluded their songs with this line:

  Respecte l'ours, ou bien crains les oursons.[732]

The work appeared to be accomplished. The city of the Reformation
thrilled with joy, and exulted in the air of liberty and of the Gospel.
Here and there, however, sorrows and regrets remained. Many hearts were
wrung, and many an eye was turned with mortification in the direction of
Chillon, where Bonivard had been languishing for six years. He had done
so much to give liberty to Geneva, and he alone was not free. He was
pining away, imprisoned within those rocks, which, excavated below the
level of the lake, form a gigantic sepulchre. A loophole permitted a
feeble ray of light to enter the dungeon, and the prisoner, while
walking slowly round the column to which he was chained, delighted to
turn his eyes towards that side, and sometimes contemplated (according
to tradition) a little bird, which used to perch on the iron bars of the
narrow opening. At the slightest noise, the bird flew off to the wood
behind the castle, or skimmed away over the surface of the lake. The
bird was free; but Bonivard was in chains. 'I had such leisure for
walking,' he said, 'that I wore away a path in the rock, as if it had
been done with a hammer.'[733] When he was seized by the perfidious
hands of his enemies he had said: 'I am going alone, with God, to suffer
my passion!' And suffer it he did. But while his body and heart
suffered, his mind was at work. Some of the thoughts which then occupied
him have been recorded by his own hand: _Live in remembrance of
death_,—_Courage increases by wounds_, and such like. For five or six
months the Genevan envoys, so traitorously seized at Coppet, had also
been imprisoned at Chillon, but not in the underground dungeons.

[Sidenote: CHILLON ATTACKED.]

Such iniquities could not be tolerated. Berne again took up her
_fire-sticks_, and Geneva prepared her boats. On the 20th of March one
hundred armed men were embarked on four war cutters and other vessels.
The Genevese councils had given the command to Francis Favre and Francis
Chamois. All the citizens would have liked to march in person to Chillon
to set Bonivard and the plenipotentiaries at liberty. On the day of
sailing, everybody left their houses, and from an agitated crowd
assembled near the Rhone, there rose a universal cry, 'Rescue the
captives!'

On Sunday morning—it was the 26th of March—Bonivard being as usual in
his dungeon, pricked up his ears. He fancied he heard an unaccustomed
noise; he was not mistaken. Loud but still distant cannon shots
re-echoed through the vaults of his prison. What was going on? It was
the artillery of Berne which, on its arrival at Lutry, between Lausanne
and Chillon, announced its presence. But that signal of deliverance was
to be the signal of death to Bonivard and the three envoys. 'If the
Bernese appear before the place,' wrote the duke of Savoy to the
governor, 'you will give the prisoners of Geneva the estrapade twice,
and then put them to death without hesitation.'[734] The duke intended
that the deliverers should find nothing but corpses.

The next morning (27th of March) Chillon was surrounded. Berne had drawn
up her troops and planted her guns below the village of Veytaux, between
the castle and Montreux. The Valaisans, although catholics, had also
taken up arms to expel the duke from their neighborhood, and had placed
their artillery on the Villeneuve side; the Genevans blockaded the
castle from the lake. The batteries opened fire, and the governor
perceiving that all resistance was useless, demanded a parley at
nightfall. Nägueli, Favre, and some other captains assembled at the foot
of a steep rock between the castle and the Bernese batteries, to receive
his deputies; but as they could not come at once to terms, the
conference was prolonged. The garrison, by no means anxious to fall into
the hands of the Swiss, determined to take advantage of this momentary
respite and of the veil of night, to make their escape. Silently they
crept on board the great galley; not a voice, not a sound of arms was
heard, and having thus mysteriously got away, they made rapidly towards
Savoy. When Favre was informed of it, he went immediately on board his
boat, which was moored to the shore, and hastened in pursuit of the
enemy; but before he could get up with them, they had thrown their
cannons into the lake, set fire to the galley, and from Lugrin, where
they landed, hurried into the Savoyard Alps below the Dents d'Oche. Had
they taken Bonivard and the three plenipotentiaries with them? It was a
question that could not be answered, and Favre, ill at ease, veered
round and returned to Chillon.[735]

[Sidenote: BONIVARD LIBERATED.]

The governor had surrendered just as he arrived. Nägueli, on leaving
Berne, had written to him that he should answer with his head for the
lives of the prisoners: he had, therefore, some hope of recovering them.
Favre, Chamois, and the other Genevans hastily sprang from their boats,
entered the castle, and in a minute they embraced the three envoys. But
where was Bonivard? They seized the keys of the vaults, unlocked a sunk
door, and entered. It was the hall of execution: beneath its rude arches
were wheels, axes, pulleys, cords, and all the horrible instruments with
which men were crippled or killed. The Genevans, without stopping, ran
to the door of an inner vault, undid the bars, pulled back the bolts.
The friends of the prior of Saint Victor sprang over the threshold,
rushed into the gloomy dungeon, reached the column. 'Here he is! he is
alive!' Bonivard fell into their arms. His friends found it difficult to
recognize him. The features changed by suffering, the long unkempt
beard, the hair falling over his shoulders—had changed his
appearance.[736] 'Bonivard,' they said to him, 'Bonivard, you are free!'
The prisoner, who seemed to be waking from a long sleep, did not think
of himself: his first words were for the city he had loved so much. 'And
Geneva?' he asked. 'Geneva is free too,' they replied. His chains were
taken off, and, conducted by his friends, he crossed the door of that
vast prison. The bright light which burst upon him affected his eyes
which had been deprived of it for so many years, and he turned them
mechanically towards the gloom of his dungeon. At last he recovered
himself and bade farewell to his sepulchre. The crowd looked at him for
some moments with emotion, and then rushed into that dismal cell, where
the wretched man had suffered so long. Every one desired to see it, and
for ages yet to come the traveller will visit it. The illustrious
prisoner was delivered; the last fortress of tyranny was captured; the
victory of the Reformation was complete. No traveller wandering along
the picturesque shore of Montreux can fail to look at those walls,
rising out of the water, without a feeling of horror for despotism and
of gratitude for the Gospel. Those rocks, so long the witnesses of
oppression, are now hailed with emotion and joy by the friends of the
Word of God and liberty.

  Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,
  And thy sad floor an altar.[737]

The flotilla was soon sailing back to Geneva with Bonivard and the three
parlementaires on board. They were returning joyously through the help
from on high, and in a short time they landed from their boats amid the
joyful shouts of their fellow-citizens, and placed their feet on a free
soil.[738]

[725] Registres du Conseil du 3 Février 1536.—Froment, _Gestes de
Genève_, pp. 210, 211, 213.

[726] Letter from Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, to King Robert.—Guizot,
_Civilisation en Europe_, p. 313.

[727] 'Epargnons les tyrans; abattons leurs repaires.'—Registres du
Conseil des 14 Mars et 4 Avril 1536.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp.
211, 212.—MSC. de Roset, liv. iii. ch. 61.—Stettler, _Chronik_, p. 82.

[728] Registres du Conseil du 6 Février.—MSC. de Roset, liv. iii.
ch. 62.—From this day the Council minutes are drawn up in French and not
in Latin. The old times are succeeded by the new.

[729] Mémoires de Pierre-Fleur, p. 146.

[730] Guichenon, ii. p. 212.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_,
p. 214.—Stettler, _Chronik_, p. 85.—MSC. de Roset, liv. iii. ch. 61.

[731] Costa de Beauregard, _Mémoires de la Maison de Savoie_, pp.
323-327.—Du Bellay, Guichenon, Calvin, _passim_.

[732] 'Respect the bear, or fear his cubs.'—Chant de la Guerre de
Genève.—Mémoires de Pierre-Fleur, pp. 148-152.—Stettler, _Chronik_,
p. 87.

[733] 'J'avois tel loysir de me pourmener, que j'empreignis un chemin en
la roche, comme si on l'eût fait avec un martel.'—This pathway is well
known to all who have visited Chillon.

[734] Bonivard MS.—Mémoires d'Archéologie, iv. p. 207.—Mémoires de
Pierre-Fleur, p. 153.

[735] Bonivard MS.—Mémoires d'Archéologie. iv. p. 207.—Mémoires de
Pierre-Fleur, p. 153.—Registres du Conseil du 29 Mars 1536.

[736] 'Era divenuto difforme, con un volto tutto coperto da un gran pelo
et da lunghi capelli.'—Leti, _Hist. Giverrina_, tom. iii.—Mémoires
d'Archéologie, p. 269.

[737] Lord Byron, _The Prisoner of Chillon_.

[738] Registres du Conseil _ad diem_.

 CHAPTER XIV.
 THE PEOPLE OF GENEVA DESIRE TO LIVE ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL.
 (MARCH TO JUNE 1536.)

An entire people is not converted to God in a body. The pagan religions
were identical with the nation; but the Christian Church is distinct
from it. Even the Apostolic Church soon extended beyond the narrow
limits of the tribe of Judah; it was founded at Jerusalem irrespective
of temple, sanhedrim, and Jews, and subsequently was established among
all nations unconnected with the state. A prince cannot decree a
religion by a cabinet minute; a people cannot elect it by a majority of
votes. There is, however, something grand in seeing an assembled nation
declare without constraint that they will take the Gospel as the rule of
their faith and the source of their life. This is what Geneva was about
to do.

[Sidenote: EVANGELIZATION BY ORDER.]

The communities which extended from the foot of the Jura to the Alps of
the Voirons and the Mole, had recognized the councils of Geneva as their
legitimate lords, reserving their own customs and franchises. But, in
the opinion of the Reformers, this territory would only be an
embarrassment, unless a new life were communicated to its inhabitants
and spread over the whole nation. Commerce, manufactures, liberty, and
letters do much for the prosperity of a people, but cannot be their
life. If the Word of God, _if the light of the_ _world_, does not
enlighten them, they fall sooner or later. These opinions were
sufficiently common in Geneva for an unknown poet to say to the united
parishes in this unpolished strain:

  Vaut-il pas mieux dire à Dieu nos secrets,
  Qu'à un grand tas d'idiots indiscrets?
  Vaut-il pas mieux au pauvre et au débile
  Donner habit, pain, vin, chandelle et huile,
  Qu'aux marmots d'or, d'argent, pierre, et bois,
  Rendre l'honneur défendu tant de fois?[739]

'Messieurs,' said Farel to the council on the 13th of March, 'the Word
of God ought to be preached in the parishes subject to this city.' Ten
days later he made a fresh application to that assembly on the same
matter, when he was supported by politicians as well as by men of piety.
To leave the seeds of popery in Geneva and in her rural dependencies was
(they thought) exposing the state to great danger. In order to thread
the shoals and brave the storms which threatened the frail bark, there
must be a cordial understanding between all the crew. Several persons
exclaimed with rather an excess of energy: 'If some go to sermon and
others to mass, the republic will go to the devil.'

The work was begun at once. The reformers preached in Geneva; other
ministers preached in the country; heralds of the council went from
village to village making proclamations by sound of trumpet: 'Let there
be no more disobedience!' they said; 'no more gambling! No more
blasphemy!' Still the council did not wish to exercise any constraint
with regard to religion. The inhabitants of Viuz and other villages in
the _mandement_ of Thiez in Faucigny having prayed that they might be
allowed their own way as to church matters, their request was granted.
But the bishop, who was less tolerant, excommunicated the poor people,
because, although catholics, they recognized heretical magistrates. The
syndics undismayed and very positive as to their episcopal capacity,
wrote to the vicars that they would relieve their parishes from the
excommunication and completely absolve them—which greatly comforted the
worthy peasants. When Easter drew near, however, they began to feel
great distress. 'Alas!' they said to the syndics, 'as we have been
excommunicated, we cannot take the sacrament at Easter.' 'We hold you to
be entirely absolved,' answered the reformed magistrates demurely. Upon
which the simple people received the sacrament with great tranquillity
of mind.[740]

[Sidenote: THE STATE AND THE CHURCH.]

These are strange actions. It has been maintained that the church, in
proportion as political society becomes Christian, ought gradually to be
lost in the state. It has been asserted that, at the epoch of the
Reformation, Christianity had completed its ecclesiastical period, and
had entered into the political period. Lastly, some men have added that
to organize the church was a useless labor, a sheer loss of time, an
absolute impossibility, and that presbyteries and synods were but silly
child's play.[741] Was the fact that we have recorded—episcopal
absolution emanating from the council—the first step in this absorption
of the church by the state; and is it true that the Reformation leads to
it? Quite the contrary. By reviving in the Christian conscience the idea
of the kingdom of God; by awakening to life and action the members of
the evangelical congregation, protestantism awoke the church throughout
Christendom. Geneva, owing to the impulse given it by Calvin, became the
place where it was constituted in the most independent and most
scriptural manner. The church must not be lost in the state, and the
state must not be lost in the church, whatever socialists or priests may
say. How can the state survive the church? The state is temporary, the
church immortal.

But the magistrates heroically discharged their episcopal functions to
little purpose; there was great difficulty in maintaining order. The
villages of Vandœuvre and Celigny wished to hear mass and a protestant
sermon every Sunday, while the priests universally demanded the
preservation of the Romish ceremonies. The council felt the necessity of
explaining the posture of affairs, and called together all the
ecclesiastics and proctors of the parishes.[742] On the 3d of April,
1536, the Romanist party was drawn up on one side of the council-room,
and on the other were Farel, with some other ministers, and several
zealous protestants.[743] Claude Savoye, the premier syndic, spoke
against the union of sermons and the mass, which some parishes desired,
and declared that such a medley was by no means agreeable to the
magistracy. He then said to the priests: 'Instead of preventing the
people from living according to the Gospel, why do you not embrace it
yourselves, and give up your mass?' Dom Claude de Puthex, canon of
Satigny, stepped forward and said: 'If our neighbors of Gex change their
mode of life, we will do the same.' This religion of _neighborhood_ was
a surprise to the reformers; and those simple folks reminded them of
sheep who pass where others have gone before, and leap over the hedge as
soon as the foremost of them have shown the way. 'Turn about,
gentlemen,' said Farel, 'instead of continuing your course;' and he
added several 'beautiful remonstrances.' 'Give us a month to study the
Gospel,' answered the canons. After the priests had withdrawn, the
council asked the opinion of Farel and Bonivard. The latter declared
that 'consciences must be enlightened and not forced.' Farel also was of
opinion that the papists ought not to be troubled in their devotions, in
order that they might not be exasperated against the Word; but that they
ought to be brought to the Gospel 'with extreme gentleness.' He
therefore proposed that 'the priests during the required month should
give themselves up exclusively to the inquiry after truth.' When the
ecclesiastics were called in, the syndic informed them that their
request had been granted unanimously; and at the end of the month, they
all declared that they could not prove by the Gospel either the mass,
auricular confession, or other papal ordinances. The brother of Guy
Furbity, who was in the assembly, declared that Farel's exhortation to
the priests was 'sound according to Holy Scripture and to God.'[744] It
is true that this person had a reason for wishing to please the
Genevans.

[Sidenote: GUY FURBITY.]

There remained, however, one thing to be done. They had liberated the
protestant Bonivard, they determined also to set free the Roman-catholic
Furbity, whose release was demanded by his brother William. Guy left his
prison on the 6th of April. He had been condemned (it will be
remembered) to prove his doctrines, or to retract his insulting
language; whereupon he had asked for books, and the council sent him a
Bible. 'A Bible!' he exclaimed, 'they must be laughing at me. How can I
prove my doctrines with the help of a Bible? I should not succeed in a
twelve-month.' He wanted the _Sentences_ of Peter Lombard, the _Summa_
of Thomas Aquinas, and so forth, and they gave him a Bible! 'Magnificent
lords,' he said on the 6th of April, 'I beg your pardon; I said things
that displeased you; I was wrong. I did not know how matters were.
Henceforward I will endeavor to lead a better life, and to preach the
truth better than I have hitherto done.' The council ordered him to be
set at liberty forthwith.[745]

[Sidenote: SEVERITY OF FAREL.]

Farel was more active than ever. He was busy in the city and in the
villages with Roman-catholics and reformed: he was intent on everything
that could elevate the moral and religious condition of the community.
The anarchy and corruption that prevailed in Geneva upon Calvin's
arrival have been exaggerated. The energetic language of the sixteenth
century, interpreted by the delicate critics of our times, has perhaps
contributed to this mistake. Before the Reformation there was beyond all
doubt great corruption among the clergy, and particularly among the
monks. That dissoluteness had also infected individuals and even
families among the citizens; but one feature had distinguished this
people, and especially the councils, during the struggles for political
emancipation, namely, the close union of liberty with legality, that is
to say, with order. The Genevese were always found ready for the
greatest sacrifices—for the sacrifice of their goods, their ease, their
homes, and their lives sooner than lose their independence: now these
are not the manners of an epicurean people. Admiration of the
Reformation period ought not to make us unjust towards the period of
political emancipation. It is true that the reformers, and Calvin
especially, had a hard task with this energetic and restless people, and
that the struggles often proceeded from a want of faith and morality,
which these austere men had remarked in certain citizens. But the
struggles were aggravated by the intervention of the state, to which the
ministers were not averse, and by the temporal punishments inflicted on
those who infringed religious discipline. Perhaps no one in the
sixteenth century perceived more clearly than Calvin the distinction
between the spiritual and the temporal; and yet neither he nor Farel
understood it, and above all did not realize it, to its full extent. 'If
there should be men so insolent and given up to all perversity,' said
Farel to the syndics, 'as only to laugh at being excommunicated, it will
be your business to see whether you will allow such contempt to remain
unpunished.'[746] The haughty republicans who had sacrificed everything
to break down the despotism of the bishop and the duke, were irritated
when they saw another yoke imposed upon them in religious matters. They
had the true sentiment that their consciences ought to be free, and if
attempts had been made to convince them and not to constrain them, the
end proposed would have been more easily attained. For many an age Rome
had forgotten that the weapons of the evangelical warfare _are not
carnal_. Unhappily magistrates and reformers sometimes forgot it also.
It was an error, and the error led to the commission of many faults.

Nevertheless discipline was not the essential characteristic of Farel,
Calvin, and their friends: they were in a special degree men of faith
and of a living faith. In their eyes faith was the one thing needful—the
good thing above all others. They desired that man should be holy and do
good works; but for that, he must believe in the love which God had
shown him in Christ. Faith, according to the reformers, is the presiding
principle of morality. If a man has faith, he is a child of God; if he
has not, he is under the dominion of sin. Moreover Farel did not want a
purely negative reform, which should consist in merely rejecting the
pope; he wanted it to be positive, and to that end it was necessary that
the people should believe in Jesus Christ. Lastly, Farel saw disunion
and disputes in Geneva. In order that the community, the new Church,
should be strong, it ought not to be composed (he thought) of scattered
members, opposed perhaps to one another; it must form a single body, and
glorify God with one voice and one heart. He desired, therefore, that a
public profession of faith in the Gospel should be made at Geneva.

As sovereignty in matters of state belongs to the assembly of all the
citizens, it was supposed with still further reason, that to the same
body, convened according to the ancient customs, belonged the right of
proclaiming the evangelical doctrine. On Friday, the 19th of May, Farel,
accompanied by Antoine Saunier, his old travelling companion in the
valleys, and by the pastor Henri de la Mare, appeared before the
council. 'Most honored lords,' he said, 'it is of great importance for
all the people to live in strict union. To get rid of the quarrels,
jeers, reproaches, and dissensions, which the fretful disposition of our
nation may occasion every day, we must employ mildness; and, further
still, we must manifest our concord. Seeing that there is one only truth
of God, all the people should declare their intention to adhere to it
with one and the same heart.' The council approved of the proposition,
and resolved to call together the council-general for a confession of
faith, on Sunday, the 21st of May. At Augsburg it was the priests and
doctors who had confessed the doctrine; at Geneva, it was to be the
whole nation.[747] The difference between the two reforms is natural.
Democracy ruled in Geneva, and it had become all the dearer to the
citizens from their conviction that if the liberties of nations had been
taken away, the crime lay at the door of the papacy. Calvin has repeated
this more than once. It has been said that the communes, the liberties
of the Middle Ages, issued from the furrow and the shop.[748] From the
_shop_ came specially the liberty of Geneva. The Burgundians who settled
there were traders, and willingly exchanged their arms for merchandise.
Some of the heroes of Geneva, whose devotedness reminds us of ancient
times, sprang from the counter or the factory.

[Sidenote: ROMAN-CATHOLICS IN GENEVA.]

Still an appeal to the people was a bold measure, for there yet existed
among the citizens, and even in the council, many decided adversaries of
reform, and some of them were among the most eminent men. Might not such
an appeal stir up an opposition which would overthrow all that had been
done? The position of the Roman-catholics was most serious. They were
required to conform to the Gospel. Could they do so? Their consciences
forbade them. Were they to refuse, they would disturb the unanimity and
harmony so necessary to the people at that juncture. Pierre Lullin,
almost a septuagenarian, uncle of the haughty huguenot Jean Lullin, was
one of the most fervent catholics in Geneva. Unable to do without the
mass, he had asked, in September 1535, to be allowed to have it
performed by a priest in a chapel of St. Gervais, which was his private
property. Another eminent man, Syndic Balard, had ceased indeed to be a
partisan of the bishop, but he had taken refuge in a catholicism more
spiritual than Lullin's, and yet quite as marked. According to his
views, the Holy Ghost governed the Roman-catholic church, which church,
communicating that spirit to its members, imposed on them the obligation
of finding its doctrines in Scripture. Lullin, Balard, and some others,
had frequent conferences together. The sincere catholics were not the
only persons to be feared; they were supported by Genevans of scant
faith, who cried out against the Reformation, principally because of its
rigid morality. The reformers themselves were not without fear with
regard to many of those who at that time walked with them. There were
men who heard the preachers, but went no farther; they burnt the idols,
but did not reform their lives. 'For faith to be secure, it must be
governed by conscience,' said the theologians, 'otherwise there is
danger that it will be swamped, and that the ship will founder in a
stormy sea.' Were they about to witness a renewal of those tumults which
had so often disturbed the General Councils?[749]

At length the 21st of May arrived—that day at once so longed for and so
feared. The bells rang out cheerfully; Clémence wafted through the air
the words carved on her surface: 'I summon the people. Jesus, Saviour of
men, Son of Mary, salvation of the world! be merciful and propitious to
us!' The good citizens congratulated each other, as they obeyed the
summons, that this day would put an end to innumerable struggles, and
that the city, so long wasted by briers and thorns, would now be covered
by the hand of God with flowers and laurels. The emotion was universal.

[Sidenote: THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER.]

Besides the mass of the people, the ambassadors of Berne were present in
the church, and among them the chief of the liberating army, Nägueli.
One of the most heroic Genevans and most sincere Christians, the
intrepid Claude Savoye, was president. When he arose to speak, he
reminded them of the flight of the bishop, the arrival of the Gospel in
Geneva, the glorious deliverance granted to the city; and then he added,
in a voice that was heard all down the nave, 'Citizens, do you desire to
live according to the Gospel and the Word of God, as it is preached to
us every day? Do you declare that you will have no more masses, images,
idols, and other papal abuses whatsoever? If any one knows and wishes to
say anything against the doctrine that is preached to us, let him do
so.'

There was a deep silence: all were in expectation. Will not some voice,
friendly to Rome or to the world, protest against reform? The aged and
devout Pierre Lullin, the spiritual catholic Jean Balard, the frivolous
Jean Philippe, the episcopal Malbuisson, Richardet, Ramel, De la Rive,
and others, known for their attachment to Rome, are going, doubtless, to
take up the premier syndic's challenge. The hour is striking; Geneva is
about to decide its future. If it is true that the pope is Christ's
vicar, and as God upon earth, let them say so! Now or never. They wait:
they wait still; not a word disturbs the solemn silence of the people.
No one made opposition. The fact was duly recorded. Then other accents
than those which had been anticipated resounded through the aisles of
the cathedral. Was it the voice of pious syndic Levet, or of one of the
Two Hundred, or of some one in the body of the meeting? The council
registers do not inform us. That voice, speaking in the name of the
united nation, proclaimed: 'We all, with one accord, desire, with God's
help, to live under that holy evangelical law, and according to God's
Word as it is preached to us. We desire to renounce all masses, images,
idols, and other papal ceremonies and abuses, and to live in union with
one another, in obedience to justice.' When the voice ceased, all the
people held up their hands and repeating a unanimous oath, exclaimed:
'We swear it.... We will do so with God's help.... We will!'[750]

The assembly broke up, and the citizens departed, congratulating each
other that the innumerable tyrannies of '_Pharaoh_' and the darkness of
the '_sorcerers_' were to be succeeded by the mild light of Jesus Christ
and the life-giving breath of liberty. Even such huguenots as had
struggled especially for political enfranchisement, raised no discordant
voice. They knew well that if this petty people remained catholic, it
would lose its independence, and infallibly become Savoyard. But others
held higher views: Geneva appeared to them as a fortress which God had
built to save the Gospel. 'God,' said Froment, the oldest of the
Genevese reformers, 'God has selected this strong territory, so
difficult of access, to form a rampart as it were against the pope and
his followers. It is in these rude countries, guarded on the south by
the Savoy mountains and their eternal snows; on the north by the
difficult gorges of the Jura; and on the east by the narrow passes of
the St. Bernard and the Simplon, where our friends, the Valaisans, with
half a score of men can stop an army; it is in this blessed corner of
the earth that God planted His Gospel, surrounding his word with those
gigantic fortresses, in order that the enemy may neither reach it nor
stifle it.' While the citizens thronged the open square, the ministers
went into the pulpit. 'A mighty captain hath led us,' they said; 'let us
put our trust in him alone. He has more power than all the kings of the
earth, and alone he has preserved us from our enemies. The captain is
Jesus Christ, our Saviour, our Redeemer, and our strong tower.'[751]

[Sidenote: MEMORIAL INSCRIPTION.]

Farel and several Genevans asked that some monument should be erected to
recall to future ages the memory of their great deliverance. Did not
Joshua set up twelve stones after he had crossed the Jordan? Farel
composed a Latin inscription, which was carved in letters of gold on
stone and steel. The council and people fixed it over one of the
principal gates of the city and afterwards over the entrance to the
Hôtel-de-Ville, so that every one might read this testimony of a
grateful city.

 QUUM ANNO 1535
 PROFLIGATA ROMANI ANTICHRISTI TYRANNIDE
 ABROGATISQUE EJUS SUPERSTITIONIBUS
 SACRO-SANCTA CHRISTI RELIGIO
 HIC IN SUAM PURITATEM
 ECCLESIA IN MELIOREM ORDINEM
 SINGULARI DEI BENEFICIO REPOSITA
 ET SIMUL PULSATIS FUGATISQUE HOSTIBUS
 URBS IPSA IN SUAM LIBERTATEM
 NON SINE INSIGNI MIRACULO RESTITUTA FUERIT
 SENATUS POPULUSQUE GENEVENSIS
 MONUMENTUM HOC PERPETUÆ CAUSA FIERI
 ATQUE HOC LOCO ERIGI CURAVIT
 QUO SUAM ERGA DEUM GRATITUDINEM
 AD POSTEROS TESTATAM FACERET.[752]

The citizens who had left their homes to embrace the faction of the
bishop and the duke, and to fight against the Reformation, were struck
with the surprising deliverance accorded to Geneva. They became friends
again, and many of them asked permission to return to their country.
Evangelical Geneva was pleased to see those prodigal sons once more
knocking at the door of their father's house, and welcomed them on their
pledging themselves to obey the laws and contribute to the taxes in a
manner proportionate to their means. Some of them, however, were
forbidden to carry either sword or knife, 'except for the purpose of
cutting bread.'—'Let us put an end to all enmities and disorders,' said
the citizens, 'and live together like good friends.'[753] The priests
and monks who had embraced the Reform, were compensated for the stipends
of which they had been deprived. The state desiring to show its
gratitude to Bonivard, paid his debts, made him free of the city, and
gave him the house of the vicar-episcopal, the dignity of a member of
the Two Hundred, and a pension of two hundred and fifty crowns. The
ex-prior of St. Victor married, thus substituting a Christian union for
the ignoble life of a monk.

Evangelical Geneva furnished an example of the feelings engendered by
help from heaven; patience and meekness were displayed towards
everybody. The Genevans had read in Scripture, that 'Charity beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things;'
and in this spirit they acted. 'Most honored lords, I cannot go to hear
the sermon,' said the timid Malbuisson, 'because I suffer from the
gout.' This excuse could only be met by a smile, for the gout did not
prevent him from attending the Council; but no one desired to constrain
him. If even the most zealous sought to lead recalcitrants to the
Gospel, they did not insist. They wanted Balard to go to sermon, but he
did not; they wanted him to leave the city, but he remained; they wanted
him to close his warehouse (he was a large ironmonger), and it was no
sooner shut than he reopened it.[754] He continued to be a member of the
Council and discharged all its functions. Girardet de la Rive took his
child a league from the city to have it christened by a priest; and yet
he was re-elected syndic in 1539 and 1543, and in Calvin's time, in
1547, was appointed one of the six commissioners for drawing up the
ordinances of justice. Those terrible huguenots were kindly people at
heart. They desired to give their fellow-citizens time to compare the
old life with the new, the doctrine of the Bible with that of the pope.
The Roman-catholics kept holiday the feast days of the Romish church,
and saw their priests in secret; but gradually their convictions were
modified. As constraint was not applied outwardly, truth acted all the
more inwardly. Those upright men read the Holy Scriptures, and Scripture
shedding a light into their hearts, drew them day by day nearer to the
truth. At last they went to hear sermons like the rest. In the sixteenth
century Geneva was more liberal than people of our day suppose.[755]

[Sidenote: TRANSFORMATION.]

What a transformation had come over the city! The Genevese, those
veteran athletes, laid down their arms at the feet of the Prince of
Peace. The tumultuous city, continually exposed to the brigandage of the
knights, to the nocturnal attacks of the Savoyards, and to internal
dissension, was transformed into a centre of civilization. 'Let us
profit by our liberty,' said Bonivard. 'Let us make good laws and set up
a good government, for, according to the sentiment of the emperor Marcus
Aurelius, empires and great lordships are acquired by brave and valiant
captains, but are kept up by just judges. Messieurs of Geneva, you are
indebted to God for two blessings: one, that your republic has given
birth to liberty; the other, that, on leaving its mother's womb, it
found nurses ready to supply it with such nourishment that if you take
advantage of it your republic will be, if not immortal, which is
impossible, yet it will be of long and vigorous duration.' In fact,
Geneva became at once a free city, a learned city, and an evangelical
city.[756]

Easter Sunday 1536 was one of the high festivals of the renovation of
this little people. Farel, stationed at a humble table, which had
replaced the pompous altar, broke the bread and blessed the cup, while a
calm and solemn crowd drew near the symbols of the body and blood of the
Saviour. 'What a sacrament we had,' he said, 'and what great things the
Lord hath done for us.'[757]

[Sidenote: MINISTERS WANTED.]

But he longed for still greater things. 'I pray that He who hath
increased this little flock beyond all our expectations, may increase it
still more by augmenting our faith.'[758] The reformer was then almost
alone in Geneva. Froment had been summoned to Aigle, and Viret had gone
to Neuchâtel. Farel was sinking under his labors and called loudly for
help. In his opinion the Genevans wanted a new man, some one in his
place. His incessant energy, his somewhat coarse manner, and even the
victories he had gained, had inspired such as were wanting in religion
with prejudices that might injure the cause of the Gospel. Farel was
rather one of those who found societies than of those who organize them;
he was sensible of this, and desired to place in other hands the
definitive establishment of the church in Geneva, in order that he might
go to new scenes where he might gain new victories. He was like one of
those noble war-horses that neigh for the battle.

Where could the man of God be found to complete the work? He was sought
among the ministers, but to no effect. The Reform was liable to perish,
not from want of work, but from want of workmen. 'Alas!' cried Farel,
'where shall we find the preachers we require? I cannot tell.'[759] It
is true that ex-priests and monks frequently offered themselves, but
what workmen they were! One day it was a simpleton without any capacity;
at another, a coward who did not care to undertake a task so full of
peril; one man was immoral; another self-sufficient; a third was
worldly; a fourth altogether monkish. Farel was dismayed. 'You speak to
me of Dennis,' he said, 'but Dennis is a monk from head to foot.'[760]
The reformer had as much trouble in putting these sham fellow-helpers
aside, as in contending with desperate enemies. 'Beware of the tonsure,'
he said to his friends, 'of the tonsure and the tonsured.'[761] 'We want
none of those skimmers[762] of Scripture,' he said, 'who turn to every
wind like weathercocks on the steeples; none of those flatterers of
princes and magistrates, who wish to please them for their bellies'
sake, or through fear of being banished: none of those dissolute monks,
who seek only to please master or mistress. No, no; none of these
mercenaries; for it is to be feared that if we take them to lead the
flocks, we shall enter into a more inextricable labyrinth than that
through which we have passed.'

Not only Geneva but Western Europe required 'a God-fearing pastor,' as
Farel said; a doctor who could explain with learning the teachings of
Holy Scripture; an evangelist who, with eloquence full of life, should
convert souls to Christ; a champion who should fight valiantly against
the doctors of Rome and lead them captive to the truth; and a man of
administrative capacity who could establish order in the churches of
God. The earth had shaken, old buildings had been thrown down. It was
requisite to erect in their place an edifice more conformable with the
original design—one with more air, more light, more warmth. Where could
the man be found who, gifted with wisdom from God like Solomon, should
raise a temple to Him which should manifest his glory? He was sought for
everywhere, perseveringly yet ineffectually. And yet the man whom God
had elected was soon to appear.

[739] The author is unknown, but the poem was in Bonivard's
possession.—See the Mémoires d'Archéologie, iv. p. 271.

[740] Chron. MS. de Roset, liv. iii. ch. 63 to 67.—Registres du Conseil.

[741] 'Vergebene Arbeit, unnütze Zeitverschwendung, elendes
Kinderspiel.'—Rothe, professor at Heidelberg, _Theologische Ethik_, iii.
p. 1017.—Rothe, who has not long been dead, is considered an eminent
theologian in Germany.

[742] Registres du Conseil des 10, 13, 24 et 31 Mars 1536.—MS. de Roset,
liv. iii. ch. 63.

[743] Registres du Conseil du 3 Avril 1536.

[744] Registres du Conseil du 3 Avril 1536.—MS. de Roset, liv. iii.
ch. 63.

[745] Registres du Conseil du 6 Avril 1536.

[746] Mémoire du 16 Janvier 1537.

[747] Registres du Conseil du 19 Mai.

[748] Guizot.

[749] Registres du Conseil des 24 Juillet, 15 Août, 17 Septembre
1536.—Dernier Discours et Œuvres de Calvin.

[750] Registres du Conseil du 21 Mai 1536.—MS. de Roset, liv. iii.
ch. 68.

[751] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp. 166-168, 224.

[752]

 The tyranny of the Roman Antichrist
 Having been overthrown,
 And its superstitions abolished
 In the year 1535,
 The most holy religion of Christ
 Having been restored,
 In its truth and purity,
 And the Church set in good order,
 By a signal favor of God;
 The enemy having been repelled
 And put to flight,
 And the city by a striking miracle
 Restored to liberty;
 The senate and people of Geneva have erected
 And set up this monument,
 In this place,
 As a perpetual memorial,
 To attest to future ages
 Their gratitude to God.

 MS. de Roset, liv. iii. ch. 62.

[753] Registres du Conseil des 11 Avril; 2, 20, 21 Juin 1536; 29 Janvier
1537.—MS. de Roset, liv. iii. ch. 68.

[754] Mémoires de la Société d'Archéologie de Genève, vol. x. p. lxvii.

[755] Mémoires de la Société d'Archéologie de Genève, vol. x.
p. lxvii.—Registres du 4 Septembre 1536.—_La Réforme à Genève_, by the
Abbé Magnin, p. 233.

[756] Froment, _Gestes merveilleux de Genève_, p. 239.—Bonivard,
_Mémoires d'Archéologie_, iv. pp. 285-289.

[757] Farel's _Letters_.

[758] _Ibid._

[759] 'Jubeor evocare undique ministros. Sed unde? Plane ignoro.'—
Farel's _Letters_.

[760] 'Dyonisius totus monachus.'—_Ibid._

[761] 'Rasis sedulo curabis.'—_Ibid._

[762] 'Fleureteurs' (ceux qui effleurent).—Froment, _Gestes merveilleux
de Genève_, p. 237.

 CHAPTER XV.
 CALVIN AT FERRARA.
 (WINTER AND SPRING.)

There was in Italy, as we have said in another place,[763] a city in
which the love of letters flourished, and where the Gospel found a firm
support: that city was Ferrara. It was embellished by a university,
bishop's palace, and cathedral; by the castle of the ancient dukes, the
palace of Este; but its fairest ornament was Renée of France. That
princess, daughter of King Louis XII., wife of the duke of Este, was not
more distinguished by the graces of her mind and her learning, than by
the love of holiness which shone in her, like a divine flame, according
to the testimony of one of the most learned Christians of Italy.[764]
For some time she had turned her attention towards heavenly science and
theological studies, and had attracted successively to Ferrara the most
eminent Christians of Italy—Curione, Occhino, Flaminio, and Peter
Martyr. Two young Frenchmen arrived in their turn some time before the
events we have just described. One was called Charles d'Espeville and
the other Louis de Haulmont. They soon made their arrival known to the
duchess, who was expecting them; and Renée, whose heart had remained
French, was happy to possess in her palace two such distinguished
fellow-countrymen. She knew that they had left their homes on account of
that Gospel of Christ which she herself had learnt to love in the
society of her dear cousin, Margaret of Angoulême, the king's sister.
She lodged them in the Palace del Magistrato, situated in the Piazza del
Duomo, and adjoining the castle.[765]

[Sidenote: RENEE AND CALVIN.]

Louis de Haulmont was an amiable young man, pious but timid, still
undecided as to the road he should take, and the victim of fierce
struggles. His companion, Charles d'Espeville, was a man of humble
appearance: his eyes were lively and piercing, his manner serious and
firm, and everything in him indicated a soul of a different stamp from
that of his friend. Haulmont's true name was Louis du Tillet; he was a
canon and archdeacon of Angoulême; Charles d'Espeville was none other
than John Calvin. As these two Frenchmen were about to sojourn in the
states of a prince, a vassal of the pope, they were compelled (says
Muratori) to appear under a false name and in a costume different from
what they usually wore.[766]

Renée, whose compassionate heart had been so often touched by the
recital of the terrible punishments and victorious faith which animated
the evangelicals, could not look upon one of them who had escaped a
dungeon and the scaffold, without experiencing towards him the feelings
of a mother and a sister. 'She was struck with Calvin's fine genius,'
says a catholic historian,[767] and the perfection with which he spoke
and wrote the French language. She presented her two countrymen to the
duke, as men of letters who had come to visit the brilliant Italy: this
was a better claim to the favor of the grandson of Pope Alexander VI.
than their condition as reformers.

Ferrara presented many subjects of interest to Calvin. The duke of Este
liked to play the Medici: Bernard Tasso, a poet not without imagination,
was secretary to the duchess; and his son, the illustrious author of the
'Jerusalem Delivered,' was soon to fill the court of Ferrara with his
genius, his sorrows, his despair and folly, caused (it is supposed) by
his unhappy passion for the beautiful Leonora, daughter of Renée, and
even to expiate by a seven years' captivity in a madhouse the crime of
having loved a granddaughter of Louis XII. and Lucrezia Borgia. Celio
Calcagnini, canon, poet, orator, mathematician, and antiquary, who
guided in the _land of the Muses_ the footsteps of the youthful Anne of
Este, who afterwards became duchess of Guise, and her friend Olympia
Morata, was then also at the court of Este. A year sooner, the author of
'The Institutes of the Christian Religion' might have met the author of
the 'Orlando Furioso;' but the somewhat discordant individualities of
Calvin and Ariosto were not destined to be found side by side.

It was not the men of learning, however, whom the young theologian had
come to see: it was the duchess herself. That princess, who had already
received in France a few rays of evangelical light, did not yet possess
a sufficient knowledge of Christian truth: she felt this, and was
determined to seek above all things peace with God. She therefore had
frequent interviews with Calvin. Holy Scripture was the subject of their
conversation; the reformer explained to Renée one passage by another,
and the light of heaven beaming from all these passages of Holy Writ,
carried brightness and warmth into the princess's heart. The young
doctor spoke with simplicity and modesty, but at the same time with
affection and decision. 'If I address you, madam,' he said, 'it is not
from rashness or presumption, but pure and true affection to make you
prevail in the Lord. When I consider the pre-eminence in which He has
placed you, I think that, as a person of princely rank, you can advance
the kingdom of Jesus Christ.' But even this consideration was not
necessary to arouse the zeal of the evangelist of Noyon. The princess's
noble character and her love for the Gospel touched him deeply. 'I
observe in you,' he added, 'such fear of God, and such a real desire to
obey Him, that I should consider myself a castaway if I neglected the
opportunity of being useful to you.'[768] Calvin was the most profound
and most earnest commentator of Holy Scripture; and Renée embraced with
her whole heart the truths that he proclaimed, so that the reformer was
able to say to her some time later: 'It has pleased God, madam, to
enlighten you with the truth of His holy Gospel. Let us now confess that
if God has withdrawn us from the depths of darkness, it is in order that
we should follow the light straightforwardly, turning neither to this
side nor to that.'[769] The duchess profited by this advice. 'Calvin,'
says Muratori, 'so infected Renée with his errors that it was never
possible to extract from her heart the poison she had drunk.'[770]

[Sidenote: A CHRISTIAN WALK.]

An open Christian walk was difficult at a court where popery and
worldliness ruled together. Hence Renée felt keenly the need of
directions in harmony with the Word of God; and in her difficulties and
agonies, at the times when she was about to faint, 'as if she was sunk
in water almost over her head,' she had recourse to the evangelical
theologian. Calvin then invited her always to walk 'forwards, in order
that the gifts of God might increase in her.' 'The main point,' as he
wrote to her some time after, 'is that the holy doctrine of our Master
should so transform us in mind and heart, that His glory may shine forth
in us by innocence, integrity, and holiness.'[771]

Some of the most illustrious divines of Roman-catholicism have been, in
France and other countries, the directors of princes; but there was a
great difference between them and the reformer. That practical
evangelist, whom Romish controversialists and others have reproached
with speaking of nothing but doctrines, urged the daughter of Louis XII.
to 'seek after _innocence_, _integrity_, and _holiness_.'

The relations of Calvin with the duchess lasted all his life, and they
were always marked with frankness and respect. Touched with a zeal so
Christian and so pure, she loved and honored him, 'as long as he lived,'
says Theodore Beza, 'as an excellent instrument of the Lord.'[772] Even
when he could no longer hold a pen on account of his extreme weakness,
Calvin, borrowing the hand of his brother, wrote to her; and to her were
addressed the last three French epistles of the reformer.[773]

[Sidenote: THE COUNTESS OF MARENNES.]

The duchess of Ferrara was not the only person whom Calvin called at
that time to a Christian life. 'Many others, especially among those
about her person, were _seduced_,' says Muratori; that is to say,
brought over to evangelical truth.[774] These conversions, probably,
must not be ascribed solely to Calvin: some, like Renée, had already
enjoyed a certain knowledge of the Gospel; others were afterwards
strengthened in their faith; but all received something from the young
reformer. Soon after his arrival at the court of Ferrara, Calvin had
remarked a lady of great intelligence and learning, who was one of its
principal ornaments. This was Anne de Parthenay, first lady of honor to
the duchess, and wife of Antoine de Pons, count of Marennes, first
gentleman to the duke. The countess of Marennes was a great musician,
and often sang in the duchess's apartments, where she was admired for
the beauty of her voice.[775] But Anne busied herself with more serious
labors. Not satisfied with studying the Latin authors, she had a taste
for Greek, and 'intrepidly' translated the poets and prose writers.[776]
That eminent woman did more: she read books of divinity, and even took a
particular pleasure in 'discussing almost every day with the theologians
the matters of which they treated.'[777] She therefore talked with
Calvin on these subjects, and before long the pure and living faith of
the reformer gave a new direction to her soul. Hitherto she had been
somewhat of a 'blue-stocking,' but now she 'ceased to have any
confidence in herself,' and sought in the holy books and in her Saviour
the means of quenching the thirst for knowledge and the divine life
which tormented her. From that hour she became a new creature and a
'good huguenot.' She even won over her husband to the convictions that
were dear to herself, and, so long as the countess lived, the latter
showed himself a great lover of virtue and of truth.[778]

Adjoining the hall of Aurora, where Renée and her court usually
assembled, was a chapel adorned by the pencil of Titian. Until now
Calvin had only spoken in the duchess's apartments, and respect
naturally prevented the servants (according to the historians of the
Roman church) 'from inquiring too curiously into what occurred
there.'[779] But ere long Renée began to think that she ought not to
keep for herself only and a few court favorites the words of life and
light which fell from the lips of the French divine. While listening to
them, she had felt the bitterness of sin and the fear of God's
judgments; but she had at the same time tasted the sweets of pardon and
eternal life. Ought not others to enjoy them also? Should she prevent
those from entering who desired to enter?

Calvin was ready. Renée invited him to preach in Titian's chapel. Had he
not preached in the catholic churches of Noyon, Angoumois, and Poitou?
The duchess threw open the doors of that service to all who desired to
take part in it. The count of Marennes and his wife, the youthful Jean
de Parthenay, seigneur of Soubise and brother to the countess, with
other members of that family, the count of Mirambeau, Anne of
Beauregard, Clement Marot, and Leon Jamet, the ex-clerk of finance, who
had fled from Paris after the affair of the Placards—were all present at
these meetings.

The charms which French people found in a French service might excuse
these assemblies in the eyes of the duke of Este. But they were soon
joined by learned Italians, friends of the Gospel, and among others by
Giovanni Sinapi and his brother, as well as by the pious, sprightly, and
beautiful Francesca Baciro, whom Giovanni Sinapi married two years
later.[780] At this epoch so glorious for Italy, when Curione taught at
Pavia, protected by the admiration of his hearers; when Aonio Paleario
at Sienna glorified Jesus Christ, 'the king of every people;' when
Mollio at Bologna commented on the Epistles of Saint Paul to the great
scandal of the pope; when Juan Valdes, Peter Martyr, and Occhino filled
Naples with the Gospel; when Christ's truth seemed to be gliding even
into Rome itself, a Frenchman, under the patronage of a French princess,
was announcing in Ferrara the same Gospel, but with a voice even more
distinct. What a future for Italy, if Rome had not extinguished these
lights! There was gathered around the preacher a serious and friendly
audience in the chapel of the castle of Ferrara.

Calvin, full of the truths he had just set forth in his _Institutes_,
'put forward that Word of the Lord whose majesty by a holy violence
constrains souls to obey it,' and showed that this 'Gospel, whose
smallness many folks despised, as if it crouched at their feet, so far
surpassed the range of the human mind that the greatest geniuses lift
their eyes in vain, for they can never see the top.'[781]

[Sidenote: ANNE OF BEAUREGARD.]

Among the persons whose heart sought after God was the beautiful Anne of
Beauregard, who, though still very young, had accompanied Renée to
Ferrara. Being betrothed, and all radiant with the joy of her youth, she
was soon to be called to other altars than those of marriage. Falling
ill, she profited by the Word she had heard, and, content with Christ
alone, despised the world. Death cut down that beautiful flower. Renée
regretted her bitterly; all the court wept with her; and Marot, who was
then at Ferrara, wrote these melancholy lines upon her tomb:

  De Beauregard, Anne suis, qui d'enfance,
  Laissai parents, pays, amis et France,
  Pour suivre ici la duchesse Renée;
  Laquelle j'ai depuis abandonnée,
  Futur époux, beauté, fleurissant âge;
  _Pour aller voir au ciel mon héritage_.
  Laissant le monde avec moins de souci
  Que laissai France, alors que vins ici?[782]

The count of Marennes, a man of no decision of character, often attended
Calvin's preaching. He was rather afraid that the duke, his master,
would be displeased; still the duchess herself had arranged these
meetings. The countess, his wife, whose humble servant he was, asked him
to join them; his brother-in-law, Soubise, also invited him; Marennes,
therefore, followed the others to chapel, being urged from without and
not from within.

[Sidenote: ZEAL OF SOUBISE.]

Soubise, on the contrary, an independent man, of noble, decided, and
energetic character, went with his whole heart, and, after Renée, was
the best conquest of the Gospel at Ferrara. In that fanatical age it was
choosing a hard and miserable life; but the Gospel Word had conquered
him, and he was determined to walk among the thorns. 'John of Soubise, a
hero of the sixteenth century,' says Moreri, 'suffered himself to be
perverted at the court of the duke of Ferrara, when Renée of France
received there certain doctors of the pretended reformed religion.'[783]
He had been trained for the profession of arms; he now found at Calvin's
side the sword of the Word of God, and returning into France
courageously 'occupied himself in defending the truths he had
believed.'[784] A gentleman of the king's chamber, a knight of the
Order, having had command of the French army in Italy, a man of great
resources and great service, 'having effected a hundred masterstrokes,'
he was, above all, very zealous for God; and, without neglecting the
important affairs of the kingdom, he sought the salvation of the
humblest tenant on his estates. A good old pastor, Mulot des Ruisseaux,
'impelled by the singular virtue of the lord of that place' (Soubise),
used to leave his house at the approach of night—the only time when
evangelical Christians dared meet together—and visit the adjoining
districts, everywhere teaching the Scriptures. More than once, on
hearing the signal of alarm, he had to hide in the woods and pass the
night there. In a short time a great part of the people had forsaken
mass.[785] Soubise even desired to convert Catherine de Medicis, and
with that view held long conversations with the queen,[786] and the
crafty Italian woman led him to hope for a moment that she was on the
point of turning Protestant. The trouble that he had taken was not
entirely lost. The duchess of Bourbon Montpensier, 'a woman of virile
character and of wisdom beyond her sex,' as De Thou describes her,[787]
being present at Soubise's conversations with Catherine de Medicis,
received the truths which he was explaining to another; and somewhat
later two of that lady's daughters, the duchess of Bouillon and the
princess of Orange, bravely professed the doctrines of the Reformation.

By his only daughter, Catherine of Parthenay, Soubise was grandfather of
the celebrated duke of Rohan.

It was not only among his compatriots at Ferrara that Calvin was a
fisher of men. The traditions of certain families of the peninsula place
several eminent Italians[788] among the number of those who heard and
received light from him. One of them was a Neapolitan nobleman, the duke
of Bevilacqua, then at Ferrara. His ancestors, who descended from the
Boileaux, barons of Castelnau, a family which in France has produced
many distinguished men, were of Languedocian origin, and had been
compelled by the persecutions directed against the Vaudois and
Albigenses in the thirteenth century to take refuge in the kingdom of
Naples.[789] Bevilacqua discovered at Ferrara, in Calvin's teaching, the
truth for which his forefathers had been compelled to leave France.

Another Italian, more eminent still, who used to attend these
evangelical assemblies, was Titian, then about the age of fifty-eight.
That great painter, who had decorated the castle of duke Alphonso of
Este, was again at Ferrara. Possessing a calm, solid, judicious, and
truth-loving mind, devoted to nature, and seeking to represent her in
all her truth, Titian was naturally struck with the pure and living
religion which Calvin preached. The great artist was no stranger to the
deep affections of the soul, and the sublimest heroism in his eyes was
the devotedness of the Christians, who sacrificed their lives for their
faith. There are no scenes more terrible and pathetic than those
represented in his pictures of martyrs. Nurtured with the writings of
Dante, Petrarch, and other great men of Italy, who had shown themselves
opposed to the abuses of the popes and their adherents, Titian could
applaud the opposition led by the young Frenchman against the papacy.
But if at that time he greeted evangelical truths with admiration, there
is no evidence that they sank very deeply into his heart. It would
appear that Bevilacqua asked him to paint Calvin's portrait; but however
that may be, the portrait still exists in the palace of the duke of
Bevilacqua at Naples.[790] There is no indication that Titian preserved
the impressions he received at Ferrara. 'Among those who seem touched by
the beauty of the Gospel,' says Calvin, 'there is scarcely one out of
ten in whose heart the Word of God is not stifled.' Titian was, no
doubt, an instance of the truth of the fact indicated by the Reformer.

[Sidenote: THE WORD STIFLED BY THE WORLD.]

Calvin had been a faithful and active workman in his Master's vineyard,
yet he did not always meet with friendly and docile hearers, even in
Ferrara. Among the persons forming the duchess's court, he had noticed a
cringing person with insinuating manners, whose look and expression
displeased him greatly. That man, by name Master François, chaplain to
Renée was one of those double-hearted people who wish to satisfy God and
their own cupidity. Calvin had heard that the life of that priest was
far from saintly. 'I do not interfere,' he answered, when called upon to
declare his opinion as to the chaplain's superstitious doctrines—'I do
not interfere, for if I laid myself out to speak evil of him, I should
have to speak of far different matters, on which I remain silent.'
Master François, seeing the favor which the young stranger enjoyed at
court, assumed an air of being convinced by his words, appeared to
become his friend, and began to preach as evangelically as he could. He
raised no objections to Calvin's meetings, but prevailed on the duchess
to be present at mass also, which he continued to say, notwithstanding
his evangelical appearances. Such a man could not please the upright and
inflexible reformer. 'When I see any one extinguishing the light of
truth,' he wrote one day to Renée, 'I cannot forgive him, were he a
hundred times my father.'[791]

Calvin tried, therefore, to convince François that the celebration of
what he called 'the sacrifice at the altar' was contrary to Holy
Scripture. Whenever the chaplain went astray the reformer admonished
him. 'I have often tried to bring him into the true path,' he said. The
priest would then appear sorrowful, and ashamed of his weakness, and
Calvin, pressing him still more closely, would succeed in 'making him
confess his iniquity.' But human respect still prevailed in François,
and if any one about the court happened to be present at his
conversations with the reformer, he would make excuses for himself
before them.

[Sidenote: THE CHAPLAIN AND THE INSTITUTES.]

One day, finding his discourses useless, Calvin determined to present
him with 'a treatise of his;'[792] that is all he says. He does not
mention the title of this work; but as it cannot have been either his
commentary on Seneca's _De Clementiâ_ or the _Psychopannichia_, it was
evidently the _Institutes of the Christian Religion_, which he had just
printed at Basle—these three works being at that time all the reformer
had written. Even on the supposition that Calvin had left Basle before
the actual publication of his book, it would have been very natural for
him to take a copy with him when starting for Italy. Master François
opened that volume, which, by God's grace, has imprinted indelible
convictions in so many minds. This is the first notice we have of the
reading of the _Institutes_: it is mentioned by Calvin himself, and took
place during his Italian journey, in the castle of Lucrezia Borgia's
son. These circumstances impart to it a peculiar interest. François
probably did not read the whole treatise. The mass was the subject of
difference between him and Calvin, and consequently it was that part of
his work to which the latter referred him. There was much in it
calculated to disturb the chaplain. 'Christ,' said the treatise, 'being
immortal, has been appointed by God everlasting priest; he has no need
then for others to succeed him. Now do not those priests who offer
sacrifice every day put themselves in Christ's place, and rob him of the
prerogative of his eternal sacrifice?'[793] Further on he adds: 'The
mass being established in such a manner that a hundred thousand
sacrifices are offered up daily, swamps and buries the sacrifice of
Christ which was offered as _sole_ sacrifice. To set up an altar now is
to pull down the cross of Jesus Christ. The mass blots out of the
remembrance of men the Saviour's true and only death.' And still further
on the chaplain read: 'The mass robs us of the fruits which resulted to
us from the death of Christ; for who will believe himself redeemed by
that death, when a new redemption is presented to him in the mass?'
Other considerations put forward by Calvin in his book, were equally
calculated to convince the priest.

Calvin who was not deficient in classical recollections and who
anticipated a second Iliad in which the princes of the earth would
meet—some to retain the mass, others to remove it—compares it, in
conclusion, to that woman of antiquity, so notorious by the impure
passions and the cruel war she stirred up. 'Assuredly,' he exclaimed,
'Satan never constructed a stronger machine to attack the kingdom of
Jesus Christ. Behold that Helen under whose eyes the enemies of the
truth are fighting with so much rage, with whom they commit adultery,
and plunge into a spiritual impurity which is the most detestable of
all.' He then draws up and displays the long catalogue of 'great and
serious abuses' which the mass has engendered, namely, disgraceful
markets, illicit and dishonest gains, great extortions—all kinds of
impurity, idolatry, sacrilege, and other 'consequences' that we omit.

[Sidenote: CALVIN AND FRANCOIS.]

The priest was greatly agitated. The beauty of the language, the
clearness of style, the energy of expression, the powerful logic, the
strength of affection, the rapidity and seriousness of the reproaches,
the accusations and recriminations which fell upon his soul, like
hailstones in a storm, and above all the idea that the mass robbed
Christ of his cross and his crown, and insulted his divinity, alarmed
François who had imagined nothing of the sort. He was 'convinced in his
conscience;' he thought himself really guilty and exposed to great
danger, while his anguish increased more and more. He hastened to the
reformer, and there (says Calvin), 'he protested with strong oaths he
would never assist at the mass, it being so great an abomination.'[794]
The chaplain's emotion was sincere, only it was not permanent. He soon
relapsed into his habitual condition, and recommenced preaching the word
of God 'solely because he thought he might thus catch benefices and
other prey.' At a later period Calvin wrote of him: 'Madam, I know my
man so well that I do not value his oath more than the chattering of a
magpie. If persons who can raise him to dignities, or are rich enough to
fill his wallet, ask him to give glory to God, he will take pains to
gratify them; but if any persecution should come, he will be quite ready
to renounce the Gospel. He plays different parts at different times. It
is not the duty of a Christian to speak ill of his neighbor, but there
is no one with whom I wage such fierce war as with those who, under the
cloak of the Gospel, play the hypocrite with princes, and by their
cunning and tricks keep them always enveloped in clouds, without leading
them to the true goal.[795] This man,' he said, 'is convinced in his
conscience, and yet he continues doing what he acknowledges to be
wrong.' He added: 'All the hatred which I have shown him hitherto is,
that I have endeavored with all my power to edify him in what is
right.'[796] Such were the struggles which the valiant champion of the
Gospel had to maintain in the palace of the dukes of Este.

One of the duchess's ladies—her name is not known—who had found peace
with God in the Saviour's death, refused to be present at mass. François
attempted to convince her, but the young lady remained firm as a rock.
'She would not offend her conscience.' The angry priest complained to
the duchess and did all in his power to deprive the young maid of honor
of the kindly feeling which Renée was accustomed to show towards her.
Before long the duchess herself was 'warned,' that those who 'conducted
themselves like that young lady' would not be tolerated, seeing that
they would give occasion for scandal. The princess, knowing full well
that the duke would not permit any one at court to reject the mass, was
in great distress, and Calvin was informed of it by the countess of
Marennes.[797] The enemies of the Reformation added falsehood to
violence. The confessor tried to make the duchess believe that the
churches of Germany had not discussed the matter, but that they admitted
the mass. Calvin complained loudly of the great injury done to the
churches of God. 'All the churches that have received the Gospel,' he
wrote a little later, 'and even all individuals hold this article—that
the mass ought not to be endured. Even Capito, one of those who
endeavors earnestly to _moderate_ matters, teaches in a work dedicated
to the king of England, that it is the duty of Christian princes to
drive from their realms such a detestable idolatry. There is now not a
single man of reputation who is not of that opinion.'[798]

[Sidenote: CALVIN WRITES TO DUCHEMIN.]

During his residence at Ferrara, Calvin was not satisfied with combating
the errors of those who surrounded him: he did not forget France, to
which his heart was always attached; and he watched, although from afar,
the friends he had left there. The superstitions of Italy and the
profane spirit displayed by the priests in the midst of their relics and
empty ceremonies, produced the same effect upon him as upon Luther, and
made him all the more desirous to see his fellow-countrymen withdraw
from the authority of the pope. He was therefore deeply moved by the
news which reached him at this time. Nicholas Duchemin, with whom he had
lived at Orleans, whose character he esteemed, and of whom he had said,
'that he was dearer to him than his life,' had been appointed official
or ecclesiastical judge, which brought him into close relations with the
Roman clergy and worship. Calvin was alarmed and sent him a letter
which, revised and enlarged, was published under this title: _How we
must avoid the papal ceremonies and superstitions, and observe the
Christian religion with purity_.[799] 'I do not mean,' said Calvin to
his friend, 'that you should make a conscience of things which it is not
in your power to escape, and with regard to which you should be free. I
do not forbid your entering the temples which surround you, although
numberless examples of impiety are witnessed in them daily. Although the
images are consecrated to detestable sacrileges, I do not forbid you to
look at them. It would not even be in your power, for the streets are
full of a multitude of idols. But have a care lest a too great license
should make you overstep the bounds of liberty.'[800]

Duchemin was very sensible of the danger, and wishing to be at the same
time faithful to the Gospel, and to preserve an advantageous
appointment, had put this question to Calvin: 'How can I keep myself
pure among the pollutions of Babylon?' Calvin showed him, as he had
shown François, that the mass was the most dangerous enemy.

'Do not believe,' he said, 'in that conjuror who approaches the altar
and begins to play his tricks, now turning this side, now that; at one
time resting motionless, at another muttering his magic murmurs, by
means of which he pretends to draw Christ down from heaven to make
reconciliation between God and man, and thus substitute himself for the
Saviour dead and raised again.'[801]

The more Calvin reflected on Duchemin's position the more it alarmed
him. He thought himself on the point of losing one of the earliest
objects of his tender affection. A few moments longer on the verge of
the abyss and his friend would fall into it. He called to him with all
his strength and with a cry of anguish. 'I feel very great regret for
your condition,' he said. 'I am sorry that you are not permitted to
extricate yourself from that Egypt where so many monsters are always
before you. A man thinks to himself that it is of no great importance to
trifle a little in order to preserve the favor of the people, and to
take part with others in wicked ceremonies. Then one foot is placed a
little further on, and thus declining gradually, he falls from the
straight path, and is precipitated to ruin and perdition. Let us be
careful never to recede, even a nail's breadth, from the obedience due
to our heavenly Father. Awake, then, awake, most virtuous man! Display
in your actions such piety, goodness, charity, chastity, and innocence,
that the superstitious, even while vexed that you are not like them, may
be constrained to confess, whether they will or not, that you are the
servant of God.'[802]

[Sidenote: CALVIN'S APPEAL TO ROUSSEL.]

It was not long before the Reformer received still more distressing
news. It was not merely a disciple, it was a teacher who grieved him.
One of the men whom he esteemed the most was not only exposed to peril,
but had succumbed. Calvin learnt that, on the death of Pierre d'Albret,
bishop of Oleron, Queen Margaret of Navarre, who was falling away from
evangelical simplicity, had sent to Rome to beg the vacant see for
Roussel; and that, after some difficulty, the court of the Vatican had
granted the favor. Roussel a bishop, and by favor of the pope! Calvin
was amazed. People wrote to him that the appointment had been celebrated
by the poets of Bearne, and that Roussel was overwhelmed with
congratulations; and Calvin wondered whether his friend, amid the
seducing songs of the sirens, would lend an ear to his warnings. He
determined, however, to give utterance to the solemn voice of
faithfulness. The stern language he addressed to the new bishop shows
us, more clearly than the cleverest portrait, the great decision of his
soul.

'It will seem to you that I dream,' he wrote to Roussel, 'if alone among
the multitude of those who flatter you, I come to disturb the
rejoicings. And yet, if you suffer yourself in the least degree to be
cozened by such prettinesses, they will lead you into a heavy and
dangerous forgetfulness. Those who have once drunk, be it but a little
drop, of that cup of the Roman table, are intoxicated and
bewitched.'[803]

Calvin pictured to himself the magnificent state of his friend, the
great splendor, the grand appearance, the mitre, crosier, mantle and
ring, and all the rest of the paraphernalia with which he was bedizened;
the riches, the pomp displayed in his household, the long train of
servants, the dainty table, and a thousand other forms of luxury and
superfluity, and exclaimed: 'Now that you have become the favorite of
fortune, remember that He who appointed bishops (that is, God) wills
that, while the people sleep, they should be in a watch-tower on a hill,
casting their eyes on all around them, and that their voice should be
like the sound of a trumpet. With what faithfulness do you labor to
raise up that which has fallen? True religion is defamed, mocked at,
trodden under foot, and even entirely ruined; the poor people are
deceived, abused, plundered by a thousand frauds, and led to slaughter ...
and all that is done before your eyes! You not only let these things
pass, but there is hardly any impiety in your diocese which you do not
sanction by your seal!

'What ought to be done with one who, like you, deserts his captain,
passes over to the enemy, and damages the camp in whose defence he had
sworn to employ his life?

'Blow the trumpet, watchman! Arm thyself, shepherd! Why waitest thou? Of
what art thou thinking? Is this a time for sleep? What! a murderer,
guilty of shedding blood, every drop of which the Lord will require of
thee again! And thou art not afraid?[804]

'O Rome, Rome! how many good people thou corruptest who otherwise were
not ill-born? How many among those already corrupted whom thou makest
worse daily? How many of those whom thou hast debauched, whom thou
plungest into eternal perdition?[805]

'O my dear Roussel, come out of that slough as soon as possible, for
fear lest while lingering in it you should sink deeper and deeper into
the mire.[806]

'You will say, I know: "What then will become of us poor wretches? Must
we, who live at our ease, go into foreign lands, like needy vagabonds?
Must we, who always have our pantry and cellar full, without any toil,
live upon coarse fare procured by the sweat of our brows and the labor
of our hands?"[807]

'If you find such a life strange, you are not a true Christian. It is
very hard, I confess, to leave one's birthplace to be a wanderer and a
stranger. And yet the Lord, who is a marvellous worker, contrives that
this poverty, so bitter in the opinion of men, is made pleasing to them,
and that, tempered with a heavenly sweetness, it procures them especial
pleasure.'

Thus the young man of twenty-seven was already a teacher abounding in
energy and good sense. These two letters, which (according to the most
trustworthy evidence) were written at Ferrara, would of themselves be
sufficient to mark his residence in that city with a special character.
It was then he began to appear, to speak, and to lead with the authority
of a reformer. In him God gave His church a teacher gifted with that
indomitable firmness which, notwithstanding all obstacles and all
seductions, is able to break with error and to uphold the truth. At the
same time He gave a man whose activity was not to be limited to the
place where he lived, but whose wide spirit would embrace all
Christendom, and who would be able to send into France, the Low
Countries, England, Poland, and wherever it became necessary, the words
of wisdom and of faith.

Calvin taught not only by his words but by his example. He might have
been able, by softening down some expressions in the Gospel, to remain
in the palace of the dukes of Este, and to enjoy the favor of princes.
But if he required fidelity and renunciation in Roussel, he first
possessed them himself. He made the sacrifices to which he invited
others, and was ready to exchange the pleasures and brilliancy of a
court for the horrors of a prison, or of a flight environed with danger.
Calvin remained firm, as 'seeing Him who is invisible,' and preferred to
be afflicted with the people of God rather than have a part in the joys
of the great ones of the earth. This spirit of self-denial characterized
him to the last. The friend of princes, the councillor of kings, he
lived humbly, having scarcely the means of supplying the ordinary wants
of life.

[Sidenote: CALVIN'S INFLUENCE IN ITALY.]

It is said that Calvin visited Padua, Venice, and even Rome; but it does
not appear that history can accept this tradition. It is probable that
all the time he spent beyond the Alps was passed near the Duchess Renée.
His influence, however, extended beyond the palaces and the principality
of the dukes of Este. One of the men who may be considered the best
judges, one of the literary historians of the peninsula, the jesuit
Tiraboschi, declares that Calvin's sojourn at the court of Ferrara was
more injurious to Italy than all the soldiers, active disciples of
Luther, who propagated his doctrines there.[808] And yet Calvin scarcely
quitted Ferrara. Just when the star of Ariosto, which had shone over
that city, had set, and when that of Tasso was about to appear, the star
of Calvin shone there with a purer light than that of the bard of
Orlando or of Godfrey. But the faithful Christian could not long remain
in the bosom of worldliness and popery without suffering from their
violent attacks. Calvin's sojourn was about to end in a tragic and
unexpected manner.

[763] See Vol. IV. bk. vii. ch. 18.

[764] 'Sic versari in _studiis nostris, ut excellat_. . . . Sed ob
magnitudinem ingenii et studium sanctitatis quæ in ista semper veluti
divinum aliquid eluxit, retulit se ad _cœlestes artes_ et ad
_disciplinas theologicas_.'—Paleario, _Epp._ iv. 4.

[765] A. Frizzi, _Guida per la città di Ferrara_, p. 43.—Bonnet, _Calvin
à la cité d'Aoste_.

[766] 'Sotto abito finto.'—Muratori, _Annali d'Italia_, xiv. p. 305.

[767] Varillas.

[768] A madame la duchesse de Ferrare.—_Lettres françaises de Calvin_,
i. p. 44. There is no date to this letter, and it may possibly belong to
the following year, 1537. At page 154, Calvin refers to a book that
Capito had written '_naguères_,' not long ago, and that work, _De
Missa_, dedicated to Henry VIII., bears the date of 15 March 1537.

[769] 'Sans décliner ni de çà ni de là.'

[770] 'Talmente infetto Renea degli errori sui, che non si potè mal
trarle di cuore il bevuto veleno.'—Muratori, _Annali d'Italia_, xiv.
p. 305.

[771] Letter of 1537 addressed to Renée, duchess of Ferrara.

[772] Beza, _Vita Calvini_, p. 21.

[773] See the Letters dated the 8th and 24th January and the 4th April
1564, in Mons. J. Bonnet's _Recueil_. Calvin died on the following 4th
May.

[774] 'Poichè non solo confermò nell' errore la duchessa Renata, ma più
altri ancora sedusse.'—Muratori, _Antichità Estensi_, ii. ch. xiii.

[775] 'Quali venustate canas.'—Gyraldus, _Epistola dedicatoria, Hist.
Poetarum_.

[776] 'Ut Græcos autores intrepide evolvas.'—_Ibid._

[777] Bayle, _Dictionary_, sub voce _Anne de Parthenay_, iii. p. 600.

[778] Beza, _Hist. ecclés._ i. p. 127.

[779] Maimbourg, _Hist. du Calvinisme_, p. 62.

[780] Jules Bonnet, _Olympia Morata_, p. 43.

[781] Calvin, _passim_.

[782] Œuvres de Marot.

[783] Moreri, _Grand Dictionnaire historique_, vi. p. 317.

[784] Bayle, _Dictionnaire hist. et crit._ iv. p. 142.

[785] Beza, _Hist. des Eglises réformées_, i. p. 127.

[786] Bayle, _Dictionnaire_, iv. p. 142.

[787] Thuanus, lib. xxviii.

[788] See the _Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme
français_, Paris, 1860, p. 168.—Documents historiques inédits et
originaux, communiqués par M. de Triqueti.

[789] _Histoire de l'Inquisition en France_, par De la Mothe, vol. ii.
pp. 538, 603, &c.—_Bevilacqua_ is _Boileau_ translated into Italian.
Some of the _Drinkwaters_ and _Boileaus_ of England claim to belong to
the same family.

[790] In the _Bulletin du Protestantisme français_ for 1860, p. 170, we
read:—'About the year 1840 the duke of Bevilacqua showed to Sir John
Boileau the portrait of Calvin, painted by Titian on this occasion, and
offered him a copy of it. I have had many opportunities of seeing it at
London in Sir John's house.' M. de Triqueti, whose words we have just
quoted, speaks of another portrait of Calvin painted by Titian,
purchased in 1860, at a public sale in Paris. We ourselves have seen in
one of the Italian picture galleries a portrait of Calvin also assigned
to Titian. There is one in the public library of Geneva, and several are
to be found in various Italian museums (Stählin: _Johannes Calvin_, ii.
p. 7); but these are rather pictures painted by Titian's pupils and
touched up by the master, as was the custom of the teacher and his
students in those days.

[791] Letter to the duchess of Ferrara, in the _Lettres françaises de
Calvin_, i. p. 47.

[792] 'Un sien traité.'—_Ibid._ i. p. 48.

[793] Calvin in the _editio princeps_ (March 1536) of his _Institutes_
treats of the Lord's Supper at pages 236-284.

[794] A la duchesse de Ferrare.—_Lettres françaises de Calvin_, i. p.
48.

[795] A la duchesse de Ferrare.—_Lettres françaises de Calvin_,
pp. 47, 48.

[796] _Ibid._—The letter to the duchess of Ferrara was written later;
but what we have quoted above refers to Calvin's sojourn at Ferrara,
when he had these conversations with Master François.

[797] A la duchesse de Ferrare.—_Lettres françaises de Calvin_,
i. p. 45.

[798] A la duchesse de Ferrare.—_Lettres françaises de Calvin_, p. 54.

[799] 'Comment il faut éviter,' &c. Des Gallars, Calvin's friend, says
in his edition of the reformer's _Opuscules_ (1552), 'Epistolas duas
edidit, quas de hâc re ad quosdam amicos _ex Italia_ scripserat.' The
latest editors of Calvin's works say in the prolegomena to vol. v.
(Brunswick, 1866): 'Eas _in itinere Italico_, anno 1536, suscepto,
Calvinum scripsisse dicit Colladonius.' Colladon was one of the
reformer's intimate friends. The first of these writings contains (in
the French edition) 38 pages folio, and the second 35.

[800] Calvin, _Opuscules français_ (1566), p. 82.

[801] _Ibid._ pp. 58, 62, 64, 73, 74, 84, &c.

[802] Calvin, _Opuscules français_ (1566), pp. 58, 59, 84, 92.

[803] _Quel est l'office de l'homme chrétien en administrant ou rejetant
les bénédictions de l'Eglise papale?_ Jean Calvin à un ancien ami à
présent prélat.—_Opuscules français_, pp. 36, 37.

[804] _Opuscules français_, p. 108.

[805] _Ibid._ p. 124.

[806] _Ibid._ p. 128.

[807] _Ibid._ p. 129.

[808] 'Più dannoso all' Italia fu il soggiorno che, per qualche tempo,
fece occultamente Calvino, sotto il nome di Carlo d'Heppeville, alla
corte di Ferrara, circa il 1535.'—Tiraboschi, _Hist. de la Litt. ital._
vii. p. 358.

 CHAPTER XVI.
 CALVIN'S FLIGHT.
 (SPRING, 1536.)

Duke Hercules of Este had remarked that certain changes had taken place
since the arrival of the Frenchman. Calvin's discussion with François
the chaplain could not be kept secret. Borgia's grandson knew that the
pope, under the pretence of heresy, might deprive him of his states;
already his father, Duke Alphonso, through being on bad terms with Rome,
had passed many years in exile. The Inquisition had a tribunal at
Ferrara, and what was going on at court was more than enough to alarm
it. A report had been made to the pope; Charles V. had been informed;
and Paul III. proposed a treaty to the duke, in which there was a secret
article stipulating the removal of all the French then at Ferrara; but
there was one among them for whom a severer fate was reserved. The duke,
retracting the indulgence he had conceded to his wife, declared that he
was resolved to put an end to the schismatic intrigues of which the
court was the theatre; that the count and countess of Marennes, Soubise,
the other gentleman, and even Marot, must quit his states; 'and as for
M. d'Espeville,' he added, 'know, madam, that if he is discovered, he
will forthwith be dragged to punishment on account of religion.'[809]

[Sidenote: TRIALS OF RENEE.]

This order was like a thunderstroke to Renée. Called to leave the land
of her ancestors, she had created a little France at Ferrara; and now,
all who gave her any comfort in her exile were about to be torn from
her. Rome would deprive her of that pious and learned teacher who had
given her such good counsel; perhaps he would expiate on an Italian
scaffold the crime of having proclaimed the Gospel. All the lords and
ladies of the court, and even the satirical Marot, were to leave
Ferrara. Leon Jamet seems to have been the only Frenchman permitted to
stay; the duchess, who required a secretary, had obtained her husband's
permission for this ex-clerk of the treasury to remain with her in that
character. Thus the daughter of Louis XII., after the bright days she
had enjoyed, was condemned to remain almost alone in her palace, as in a
gloomy chamber; her slightest movements were watched; she was tormented
by priests whom she despised, and exposed by the grandson of Borgia to
unjust harshness. Marot, touched by so many misfortunes, and knowing the
part which the queen of Navarre, Renée's cousin, would take in this
great trial, addressed her in these touching lines:

  Ah! Marguerite, écoute la souffrance
  Du noble cœur de Renée de France;
  Puis comme cœur, plus fort en espérance,
        Console-la.

  Tu sais comment hors son pays alla,
  Et que parents et amis laissa là;
  Mais tu sais quel traitement elle a
        En terre étrange![810]

Renée was to suffer a pain still greater than that caused by the
dismissal 'beyond the mountains' of her friends from France. That
iniquitous institution, decorated with the name of the _Holy Office_,
which was destined a little later to make thousands of martyrs in Spain,
the Netherlands, and other countries, desired for the moment to strike
the teacher who had excited the greatest terror and hatred at Rome. The
Inquisition had discovered Calvin's residence. His name and his _crime_
were inscribed in the black-book of that cruel institution.[811] Heresy
was flourishing at the court of Este; the chief culprit was pointed out,
and if the others were allowed to depart, he at least must be punished.

[Sidenote: CALVIN'S ARREST.]

Calvin, forewarned of what was going on, was at the palace Del
Magistrato, where he and Du Tillet lived, and was hurriedly getting
ready for his departure, when the agents of the inquisitors, who were on
the watch, arrived, seized the 'pestiferous disturber,' and dragged him
away a prisoner.[812] It was not their intention to leave him in a place
where the evangelical doctor possessed many influential friends. They
determined to have him tried at Bologna, a city in the States of the
Pope, not far distant from Ferrara, where they would be entirely the
masters. The young Frenchman was therefore placed in the charge of some
familiars of the Holy Office, and guarded by them was to proceed to that
ancient city which boasted of possessing within its walls the ashes of
St. Dominick, the founder of the Inquisition.

Calvin began the journey, surrounded by the men appointed to conduct
him. He might then have said of himself, as he afterwards said of
another: 'Although he hopes still, he is assailed by a hundred deaths,
so that there is not an opening, be it ever so small, for escape.'[813]
The tribunal of the Inquisition, which was never tender, would certainly
not be so towards a heretic of this kind. The squadron which had him in
charge, turning towards the south, crossed a fertile country and
proceeded without obstacle towards the city of Bologna.[814] They had
already gone more than halfway, when some armed men suddenly made their
appearance.[815] They stopped the escort, and ordered them to release
their prisoner. We do not know whether there was any resistance; but
this much is certain, that the inquisitors, little accustomed to yield,
saw the doctor taken from them whom they were conducting to certain
death. Calvin was set at liberty[816] and strained every nerve to get
out of Italy.

His sojourn in that country, as we read of it in authentic documents, is
far from being a blank page, as some have supposed. The last event that
we have mentioned, according to Muratori, has even a particular
interest. It reminds us of a well-known circumstance in the history of
the German reformation, when Luther, returning from Worms, was carried
off by horsemen masked and armed from head to foot. But Calvin's case
was more serious than that of the Saxon reformer, who was taken to a
castle belonging to friends, beyond the reach of danger; while Calvin
was left alone, almost in the middle of Italy, and forced to make his
way through a hostile country, where he ran the risk of being arrested
again.

It has been asked who snatched this choice prey from the tribunals of
Rome, and even in the states of the pope; whence did the blow
proceed?[817] It was bold and rash; it exposed its contrivers and agents
to great danger, for the papacy and the Inquisition were all-powerful in
Italy. A strong affection, a great respect for the reformer, and
boundless devotion to the cause of truth, can alone account for such an
audacious adventure. One person only in the Italian peninsula was
capable of contriving it and of carrying it out, and that was—is it
necessary to say?—the daughter of Louis XII. Everybody ascribed the
reformer's liberation to her. It might be expected that the Inquisition,
always so suspicious and severe, would be implacable in its vengeance.
Renée escaped, at least for the moment. It is possible that Hercules of
Este exerted his influence at the pontifical court to hush up the
affair, and promised to keep the duchess closer in future. He kept his
word but too well.

Calvin did not hesitate to take advantage of this rescue; but from that
moment we have no sufficient data about him or his route. To find any
traces of him, we must examine local traditions, which ought not to be
despised, but which do not supply us with historical certainty. It was
natural—the map indicates it—that the fugitive should turn his steps in
the direction of Modena. In the environs of that city there lived a
celebrated man of letters, Ludovico Castelvetro, who was suspected of
heresy. He was an esteemed critic and skilful translator; he had
rendered into Italian one of Melanchthon's writings, and when he quitted
Italy many years after this, he passed through Geneva, where he visited
some friends. When the ancient villa of Castelvetro was pulled down in
the first half of this century, the workmen discovered a sealed chest,
which contained the earliest editions of Calvin's works in marvellous
preservation.[818] The reformer had no doubt heard this scholar
mentioned at the court of Ferrara; but there is nothing to prove that he
sought a temporary asylum under the roof of Melanchthon's translator,
who does not appear to have made at that time a frank profession of the
Gospel.[819]

[Sidenote: CALVIN'S ROUTE.]

Tradition relates that Calvin, instead of going northwards towards
Switzerland, skirted the Apennines, turned to the west, and reached the
Val di Grana, between Saluzzo and Coni, where he preached. It is
affirmed that the priests of the village of Carigliano so excited the
women of the parish, that with savage cries they stoned the Frenchman
out of the place. It is added that Calvin went thence to Saluzzo, and
preached there, but with as little success.[820] In our opinion, these
traditions are not sufficiently corroborated to deserve a place in
history. It seems more likely that Calvin took the shortest road to
Switzerland and made for the St. Bernard pass. If he had possessed
leisure for evangelical excursions, he might no doubt have gone to the
Waldensian valleys, which his cousin Olivetan had visited, and where the
latter had conceived the project of translating the Bible, at which he
himself also labored and was still to labor. But there is no indication
of his having ever visited those mountains. He arrived at the city of
Aosta.

[Sidenote: THE CITY OF AOSTA.]

The first gleams of the Word of God were beginning, as we have said, to
enlighten that cisalpine region which lies at the foot of the St.
Bernard, Mont Blanc, and Mont Rosa. Aosta, founded by Augustus, after
whom it was named, had received an evangelical impulse from Switzerland.
The Bernese had thought that if the Divine Word crossing the St. Gothard
had made conquests near the banks of the Ticino, it might make others in
the valley of Aosta by crossing the St. Bernard. Italian, Bernese, and
Genevan documents all bear witness alike to the religious fermentation
then prevailing in that city. 'The Gospel is spreading beyond the
mountains,' wrote Porral, the envoy of Geneva at Berne, 'and it must go
forward in despite of princes, for it is from God.' Ere long the Roman
hierarchy made use of their customary weapons against those who embraced
the Reform, and Porral announced that the Aostans had 'serious questions
with their bishop, on account of the _excommunications_, which they
could not bear.'[821] We have told how the Bernese plenipotentiaries
went to Aosta in November 1535, to confer with the duke of Savoy. They
pleaded there in favor of Geneva, and demanded the liberation of
Saunier, then a prisoner at Pignerol.[822] They talked with everybody
they met about the great questions then under discussion, and invited
them to receive the teaching of Holy Scripture. Some dwellers in the
valley, both among the nobility and burghers, welcomed the principles of
the Reformation.[823] Among those won to the Gospel were the Seigneurs
De la Crète and De la Visière, the pious and zealous Leonard de Vaudan,
Besenval, Tillier, Challans, Bovet, Borgnion, Philippon, Gay, and
others.[824]

But if there were hearts in the valley of Aosta ready to receive the
Gospel, there were others determined to resist it. At the head of its
opponents were two eminent men. Among the laity was Count René de
Challans, marshal of Aosta, full of enthusiasm for popery and feudalism,
and bursting with contempt for the heretics and republicans of
Switzerland. Distressed at witnessing the reverses suffered by his
master, the duke of Savoy, he had sworn that in Aosta at least he would
exterminate the Lutherans. His fellow-soldier in this crusade was Pietro
Gazzini, bishop of Aosta, one of the most famous prelates of Italy.
Priests and devotees extolled his virtues and his learning, but what
distinguished him most was the haughty temper and domineering humor
which so often characterizes the priests of Rome. Gazzini was a canon of
the Lateran, the first patriarchal church of the west, and served as the
channel between the duke and the pope. He was at Rome when evangelical
doctrine began to spread in his diocese, and he then tried to manage
that the council, which was to put an end to heresy, should be held in
the states of the duke his master.[825] He even carried his ambition for
his sovereign very far. 'It was becoming,' he told the pontiff, 'that
the direction of the council should be given to the duke of Savoy by the
emperor and the king of France.'[826] The direction of a council given
to a secular prince by the pope and two other secular princes is an idea
apparently not in strict harmony with the theocratic omnipotence of the
pontiff, which many men boast of so loudly.

In the bishop's absence there was a person at Aosta quite worthy of
supplying his place: this was the guardian of the Franciscan monastery,
Antonio Savion (Antonius de Sapientibus), a well-informed, zealous man,
who afterwards became general of the order, and was one of the fathers
of the Council of Trent. Savion uttered a cry of alarm.

One day, when Gazzini was performing his duties in the basilica of St.
John, he received letters describing the state of affairs at Aosta. The
alarmed prelate did not hesitate. 'When Calvin's heresy was penetrating
into his diocese,' said Besson, the Savoyard priest, 'he hastened to
block up the road.'[827]

As soon as the bishop arrived, he visited every parish with
indefatigable diligence; he went into the pulpits and 'kept the people
in sound doctrine by his sermons.'[828] He told them that 'Satan was
prowling about, like a roaring lion, to devour them; that they must
therefore keep a strict watch and drive back the ferocious beast.' To
these exhortations he added censures, monitions, and excommunications.
All readers of Holy Scripture were to be driven from the fold of the
church.

A general assembly of the Estates of the valley to regulate the affairs
of the district was held on the 21st of February, 1536. Among the
deputies were several friends of the Reformation: De la Crète, Vaudan,
Borgnion, and others indicated in the _cahier_ of the Estates.[829] Two
subjects in particular filled the majority of the assembly with anxiety.
The political and the religious situation of the city appeared equally
threatened. Men's eyes were turned to Switzerland, and it was asserted
that designs of political conquest were combined in the minds of the
Bernese with the too manifest desire of religious conquest. At a time
when the house of Savoy was exposed to the attack of France, many wanted
to see the valley of Aosta take advantage of this to join the Helvetic
League and rally under the standard of the Gospel. The members of the
assembly were convinced that the Swiss desired 'to canton' all the
country, and by that means extend their confederation on both sides of
the Alps. But the other danger was still more alarming to the chiefs of
the Roman party, and they earnestly represented to the Estates that the
attachment of the city and valley to the holy see of Rome was
threatened; and that the Bernese Lutherans, who were not content with
laying hands upon the territory of Vaud, but had introduced and
propagated their 'venomous sect,' wanted to do the same in Aosta.[830]
The assembly resolved to maintain the Roman-catholic faith and continue
loyal to his ducal highness, and it was enacted that every transgressor
should be put to death.[831]

[Sidenote: CALVIN AT AOSTA.]

It is a matter of notoriety that Calvin passed through the city of
Aosta; but did he arrive at this epoch, and was he there during part at
least of the session of the Estates? This is affirmed by documents of
the 17th and 18th centuries, and his presence there is not impossible;
but there is, in our opinion, one circumstance adverse to its