about it, was seized with terror. She felt herself already caught and
sentenced. 'I know very well that it is no _sport_,' she exclaimed. Her
imagination was heated; she went to the house where her children lived,
and, taking the youngest in her arms, leading a second by the hand, the
others following her, she ran with alarm to the shore of the lake,
wishing to escape, and her little ones with her. 'Take me away from the
city,' she said to the boatmen. They carried her as far as Coppet, about
three leagues off. Claude Bernard and one or two of his friends, who had
reasons for mistrusting the woman, jumped into a boat, and, having found
her, brought her back. They did not, however, charge her with anything;
but her conscience accused her: her agitation kept increasing during the
passage; and her haggard eyes were fixed upon her old master, his
friends, and the boatmen. 'You are betraying me,' she said: 'you are
playing me a trick.' At length they arrived. Antonia got out of the boat
first, and while Bernard and his friends were occupied in landing the
children, she slipped away lightly, plunged into a dark alley between
the Molard and the Fusterie, hurried through it, climbed the Rue de la
Pélisserie, and reached the house of Canon D'Orsière, who had said to
her: 'Act, act boldly, you need not be anxious.'—'Save me!' she
exclaimed. The canon hid her in his cellar. But some people had seen a
woman pass hurriedly along: the officers of justice searched the canon's
house, found Antonia crouching in a dark underground cellar, and took
her away to prison, where she confessed everything.

Meanwhile Viret was in peril of death, and, as there was no woman at
Bernard's to tend him, Dame Pernette, a pious Christian, and wife of the
councillor Michael Balthasard, begged that he might be removed to her
house, which was done. Froment, who went to see him often, said:
'Really, Dame Pernette is doing him a great service, and showing him
great kindness.' One doctor said he was poisoned, another denied it. The
whole city was filled with the affair: men and women assembled and
expressed their sorrow. 'Must the Church be robbed of such a pearl,'
they said, 'by such a miserable creature?... Poor Viret! Poor
reformers!... Sword-cuts in the back, poison in front.... Such are the
rewards of those who preach the Gospel!' Viret was saved, but he felt
the effects of the poison all his life.[498]

The investigation began on the 13th of April. Antonia was not of a
character to conceal her crime: the _vénéfique_, as they called the
poisoner, declared openly she was led into it by the 'round caps (the
clergy).'[499] The priests, and even the canon who had ruined her, were
arrested and taken to prison. A canon arrested by laymen! All the clergy
were in commotion: Aimé de Gingins, the bishop's vicar-general,
represented to the syndics that a canon ought not to be imprisoned by
anybody, not being a subject of the State, but only of the chapter. The
magistrates declared that the investigation of criminal matters belonged
to them, and the priests were forced to submit to be tried according to
the common law—a great innovation in the sixteenth century.

[Sidenote: EXECUTION OF ANTONIA.]

Antonia was condemned to have her head cut off, her body hung on the
gibbet of Champel, and her head fixed on a nail. At first she remained
firm. 'Take care, my lords,' she said, 'that your servants do not poison
you, for there are many who practise it.' But when she had returned to
prison, she became quite prostrated. Pale and speechless, she rolled her
haggard eyes around her. It was still worse when she was led to the
place of execution. Her mind wandered: she was like one of those
personages spoken of in antiquity, who were said to be pursued by the
Furies. Although surrounded by an immense crowd, she did not observe it:
her eyes seemed fixed on some mysterious beings. She fancied she saw the
priests of Geneva and the monks of Ambournay standing round her. 'Take
them away, take them away!' she exclaimed, waving her hand; and as the
guards showed by their looks of astonishment that they did not know what
she meant, 'Take them away,' she resumed, pointing with her finger at
what she believed she saw; 'in heaven's name take away those
_round-caps_ who are before me; ... it is they who are the cause of my
death!' Having mounted the scaffold, she cried out again in great
anguish: 'Take them away!' and her head fell.[500] She paid dearly for
her crime—a crime too frequent in those days, when fanatics thought it
their duty to serve by violence the cause which they said was the cause
of God. The adversaries of the Reformation, in the countries which it
reached, have too frequently employed the arms of iniquity against it.

The guilty project of getting rid of the three Reformers at once had the
opposite consequences to what its authors had hoped. The atrocity of the
attempt increased the love of the people for the Reform, and detracted
greatly from the reputation of the priests. The most sinister reports
were circulated about them. It was said that they had tried to poison
the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, in order to cut off all the
reformed at a blow. People shrank from them in the streets as they
passed, as if their simple approach could inflict death.[501]

All Geneva was in commotion: a transformation of that little state
became imminent. At this time ambitious popes and despotic princes
exercised absolute power. Two kinds of enfranchisement were necessary
for Christendom: that of the nation and that of the Church. The Genevese
sought after both: some rallied round the banner of faith, others round
that of liberty; but the more enlightened minds saw that these two holy
causes should never be separated; and that the political awakening of a
nation can only succeed so far as the awakening of the conscience tends
to prevent disorder.[502] In no country, perhaps, were these two
movements so simultaneous as in Geneva. Certain natural phenomena are
studied in microscopic animalcules: a moral phenomenon may be
illustrated in the history of this small city which may be enunciated in
these words: 'He who desires to be free must believe.'[503]

The Gospel, however, was not as yet triumphant. While the
Roman-catholics always had their parishes, their churches, and numerous
priests, the reformed had but one place of worship, and three ministers.
Such a state of things could not last long. An important event occurred
to hasten the victory of the Gospel and of liberty.

[Sidenote: JACQUES BERNARD CONVERTED.]

At the very moment when a pious reformer was descending near to the
gates of death, the head of the Franciscans in Geneva was taking the new
road 'that leadeth unto life.' The three brothers Bernard—Claude, the
elder, in whose house the reformers received a Christian hospitality;
Louis, priest of St. Pierre; and Jacques, guardian or superior of the
Franciscan convent—were among the most notable citizens of Geneva. The
two elder had for some time embraced the Reform; but the third, a monk,
had remained a zealot for popery. Ere long he himself was shaken. Seeing
the three ministers closely at his brother Claude's, he learnt by their
life to esteem their doctrine, and their virtues struck him so much the
more, as he had lived in popery a life by no means regular himself. He
examined himself seriously whether he would not do well to renounce
monasticism.[504] The light of the Gospel began to shine into his heart.
Nothing struck him so much as the thought that Christ, in his great
love, had procured for his followers by his death a _perfect_
reconciliation with God. The character which popery ascribed to the mass
appeared to him to do injury to the infinite price of the Saviour's
passion. 'I am convinced,' said he to Farel, at the end of one of their
conversations. 'I am one of you!'—'Good!' answered the reformer, 'but if
faith is kindled in your heart, it is necessary that the light should be
shown abroad. Confess your faith publicly before men.' Jacques was
determined not to spare himself, and not only to declare for the Gospel,
but, further, to endeavor to make it known to his fellow-citizens. He
posted up bills on February 19th, that during Lent he would preach every
afternoon in the convent church.

This was something new: a numerous crowd filled the place. 'Men and
women, catholics and Lutherans, crowded in,' says the nun of Ste.
Claire, 'and that during all the first week.' Some fancied that the
guardian was going to thunder against the Reform; but all doubts were
soon dispersed. He spoke, and the astonishment was universal. The
reformed were surprised at seeing one who formerly had rejected so
rudely the grace of Christ, now rushing like a common soldier into the
midst of the battle and defending it. The catholics were still more
amazed. 'This scandalized them so much,' adds the sister, 'that they
never went afterwards.'[505] It seemed impossible to come to an
understanding, and the confusion continued increasing.

How could they get out of a struggle which looked as if it would never
end? There appeared one very natural means which does honor to the epoch
in which men had recourse to it. The magistrates of the sixteenth
century, whether in Switzerland or elsewhere, studied their charters
when there was a question of establishing what was right, and
assimilated the principles which had dictated them. But their love of
the right was not a platonic love, as among enervated jurists. These
notable men wished to realize in the government of the people what was
in its constitution. Now if the book of the _Liberties, Franchises,
Immunities, Uses, and Customs_ of Geneva was the charter of the state,
the _Holy Scriptures_ were the charter of the Church: the Bible was the
grand muniment of their spiritual franchises. Nothing must be decided,
therefore, except by this sovereign rule.[506] While such thoughts
occupied the syndics, the same desire animated the Reformers. 'We will
forfeit our lives,' they said, 'if we do not prove by Holy Scripture
that what we preach is true.' A conference, at which, with the divine
charter before them, the faith, duties, and rights of Christians should
be established, seemed the wisest way of getting out of the difficulty.

[Sidenote: A PUBLIC DISCUSSION DEMANDED.]

One thing stopped the members of the council: they were reluctant that
foreigners—two Frenchmen and a Vaudois—should be at the head of the
disputation. Farel respected such a feeling, and desired that the name
of an old Genevan should be inscribed first in Geneva on the list of the
Reformation. He went to Jacques Bernard: 'Brother,' said he, 'it is
necessary that your change of life should turn to the edification of the
people.[507] Write down some propositions; announce that you are ready
to answer all men in a public disputation, and defend your theses by
clear and manifest reasons. They would refuse us this favor, for we are
foreigners; but you are a citizen of Geneva,[508] and superior of an
important order. They will grant your request.' The recent epoch of
Bernard's conversion, his want of Christian experience, the annoyances,
the dangers to which he would be exposed, might have induced him to
refuse this demand. But he knew that in the new life on which he had
entered, the rule was, that every one, forgetful of himself, should work
for the good of others; and that with regard to his insufficiency, God
would provide. The head of the Cordeliers asked the council's permission
to maintain publicly the evangelical doctrine in a conference to which
all the learned in the city and abroad should be invited. The syndics,
who desired that the Reformation should be accomplished by reason and
not by force, granted his prayer, and everything was got ready for this
important action. For a long time Geneva had seen the parties armed from
head to foot, crossing their swords and halberds: now minds were to be
ranged in battle-array, and the spiritual combat would, to all
appearance, decide the future of the Reformation.

[494] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 94.

[495] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 95.—Le Curé Besson, _Mémoires du
Diocèse de Genève et de Maurienne_, p. 303.—Sommaire des aveux d'Antoina
(Archives de Berne). Gaberel, i., Pièces, p. 80.

[496] Sommaire de ce que la poisonnière a confessé entre les mains de la
justice. (Archives de Berne.)—Gaberel, Pièces, p. 80.

[497] Sommaire de ce que la poisonnière a confessé entre les mains de la
justice. (Archives de Berne.)—Gaberel, Pièces, p. 80.

[498] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp. 104, 105.—Chron. MSC. de Roset,
liv. iii. ch. 21.

[499] Chron. MSC. de Roset.

[500] Registres du Conseil du 14 Juillet 1535.—Archives de
Berne.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 95.—Chron. MSC. de Roset,
liv. iii. ch. 21.

[501] Registres du Conseil des 20 Avril, 7 Mai, 30 Août 1535.

[502] 'Nullum libertati publicæ, nisi in civibus evangelicis,
præsidium.'—_Geneva Restituta_, p. 77.

[503] M. de Tocqueville.

[504] 'Bernardus cogitabat de exuenda cuculla.'—Farel to Calvin, _Epp.
Calv._ p. 77.

[505] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, p.
106.—Lettre de Farel à Calvin.

[506] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp. 131, 135.

[507] 'Parum est nisi cum ædificatione majori id faceret.'—Farellus
Calvino.

[508] 'Bernardus civis erat.'—_Ibid._

 CHAPTER III.
 PREPARATION FOR A PUBLIC DISPUTATION AT GENEVA.
 (FROM APRIL TO WHITSUNTIDE, 1535.)

[Sidenote: THE TEN PROPOSITIONS.]

Jacques Bernard and the Reformers had a meeting for the purpose of
drawing up their propositions. The justifying power of faith was to hold
the first place, for, according to the Gospel, man must, before
everything, condemn the selfish existence he has lived until the moment
of his awakening, and place all his confidence in the redemption
accomplished by Jesus Christ alone. The theses drawn up by the Reformers
were as follows:—

I. _Man must seek justification for his sins in Jesus Christ_
ALONE.[509]

II. _Religious worship must be paid to God_ ALONE.

III. _The constitution of the Church must be regulated by the Word of
God_ ALONE.

IV. _The atonement for sins must be ascribed to Christ's sacrifice,
offered up_ ONCE, _and which procures full and entire remission_.

V. _We must acknowledge_ ONE ONLY _Mediator between God and man—Jesus
Christ_.

The fault of Rome had been to add to the Gospel many strange dogmas and
ceremonies, and place them above the primitive edifice, stage after
stage, pile after pile, thus crushing it: this is indeed the proper
meaning conveyed by the word superstition. The Reformers aspired to pull
down this framework, and liberate Christian truth from all the fables by
which it was disfigured. Hence, as we see, the word _alone_ plays a
great part in this disputation. Its object was to exclude all human
additions and to exalt God alone, Christ alone, the Gospel alone. These
propositions, however, did not entirely satisfy Farel. In his opinion it
was necessary, after laying down truths, to point out errors. Five
negative theses were, therefore, added to the five positive theses:—

VI. _It is wrong to put our trust in good works and look for our
justification in them._

VII. _To worship saints and images is to be guilty of idolatry._

VIII. _Hence our traditions and ecclesiastical (or rather Roman)
constitutions are not only useless but pernicious._

IX. _The sacrifice of the mass, and prayers to the dead or for them, are
a sin against the Word of God, and men are wrong to look to them for
salvation._

X. _The intercession of saints was introduced into the Church by the
authority of men and not of God._

These propositions seem to us now mere theological formulæ: they were
more than that. There was the true spirit in them. 'There are different
ways of speaking,' said the friend[510] to whom Farel wrote an account
of this disputation; 'the roaring of a lion is different from the
braying of an ass.' There was indeed in these theses, destined to throw
down a whole world of errors, the formidable 'roaring of a lion.'

On the 23d of April Jacques Bernard went to the hôtel-de-ville and
presented his propositions to the council, who authorized him to defend
them, and desired him to inform the members of the chapter of St. Pierre
and other priests, monks, and doctors.[511] At Constance, freedom of
discussion had been suppressed; and that assembly, therefore, had
produced no other light than the flames of the scaffold. It was not thus
that the Reformation was to advance. 'Let the truth appear and triumph!'

The theses were immediately distributed in all the churches and
monasteries of the city. No worshipper crossed the threshold of the
sanctuary without receiving one of the printed handbills. The superior
of the Franciscans waited personally upon the canons and presented each
of them with a copy of the propositions. He gave them to every member of
the government, lay and clerical: there was no shop or refectory in
which the ten propositions were not read and commented upon. They were
posted on the church doors and in the public places, not only in Geneva,
but in the allied and neighboring cities. They were even sent to
gentlemen at their châteaux. In its very infancy, the Reformation
proclaimed and practised the widest publicity. The trumpet sounded in
every quarter of the city, and the herald announced that a discussion
would take place on the 30th of May in the great hall of the Cordeliers
of Rive, and that scholars of all classes, Genevese or foreigners,
clerks or laymen, were invited with full liberty of speaking, and the
offer of a safe-conduct. 'Ah!' said Froment, one of the champions, 'if
such a license were given by every prince, the business would be soon
settled, without burning so many poor Christians. But the pope and his
cardinals forbid all discussion of this or that, except it be with fire
and sword: a fashion they have learnt no doubt from the Grand
Seignor.'[512]

[Sidenote: ALARM OF THE PAPISTS.]

The remark was but too true. The news of the discussion had no sooner
reached the bishop than a feeling of horror came over him. 'What!' he
said, 'convoke a council in my own city! nobody has the right to do it
but myself.' And he immediately published throughout his diocese a
proclamation 'forbidding the faithful to be present at the assembly
under pain of excommunication.' The duke of Savoy also forbade his
subjects to attend it, and the Franciscans, at that time assembled in
general chapter at Grenoble, having received the invitation, declared
they would not come.[513] There were, no doubt, capable men among them;
but to discuss the truths taught by the Church was, in their eyes,
aiming a blow at its authority. The result was a universal silence on
the part of the priests. They were very clever in making the most of
miraculous appearances, of dead children restored to life; but of
discussion, not a word. One or two fervent Catholics would, however,
have willingly broken a lance with Farel, but the orders of their chiefs
held them back. The army of the pope, summoned by the voice of the
trumpet, was wanting on the day of combat.

Still Roman-catholicism did something. Monsignor de Bonmont went to the
council on the 25th of May, and begged the syndics to take part in a
torchlight procession and other ceremonies which were to take place on
the 27th of the month, the festival of Corpus Christi. That procession,
however brilliant it might be, was very displeasing to the zealous
Reformers: they did not like that the Word of God should be supplanted
by millinery, lace, and all the empty glitter which dazzles the eye in
sacerdotal costumes. The answer of the council was judicious: 'We have
appointed a discussion,' said the premier syndic to the vicar-episcopal;
'that will decide whether the procession is holy or not. Wait a little,
then; if the conference is in favor of the procession, it shall be
proclaimed with sound of trumpet.'[514]

At the same time the council resolved to send a deputation to all the
convents to invite the monks, who answered, 'We have no learned men
among us; it is impossible for us to take part in the discussion.'[515]

One convent, however, displayed resolution: it was that of the nuns of
Ste. Claire. The mother-vicar, Mademoiselle de Montluet de Château-Fort,
a woman of warm and fiery temperament, answered the invitation: 'Begone!
you are wicked people who want to vex the servants of God.' The deputies
replied, 'It is said, madam, that certain of your nuns remain only by
force under your instruction, and would like to hear the voice of the
Good Shepherd.'... At these words the mother-vicar burst out. 'Satan has
no part among us,' she cried; and turning towards the nuns, added, 'My
sisters, speak, speak!' Almost all exclaimed at the top of their voices,
'We will live and die in our holy calling.' The clamor was so great that
the deputies could not make themselves heard. 'Do not be afraid,
gentlemen,' said the mother, 'this is nothing. You will hear something
very different if you take us to your _synagogue_. When we are there, we
will make such an uproar, that we shall remain mistresses of the place.'
'Dame vicar,' said a deputy, 'you are very arrogant.' Thereupon the
gentlemen retired, acknowledging however that they had not witnessed
such courage in the convents of the monks.[516]

Farel, who was distressed at seeing the priests of Geneva refuse the
discussion, would have supplied their place by distinguished athletes
belonging to one party or the other. He wrote to Lefèvre of Etaples, the
celebrated doctor of the Sorbonne, and invited him to the combat in
which liberty and truth were about to engage in Geneva.[517] The aged
and venerable doctor shed tears, and returned thanks to God for what he
heard.[518] But he was too old to take part in a disputation; perhaps,
too, his faith was not bold enough; he declined the invitation. Farel
turned his eyes in another direction. A chapter of the order of St.
Francis was at that time sitting at Lyons, its president being Pierre de
Corne, or _de Cornibus_, the most intrepid adversary of the heretics,
the butt of Rabelais' jests and of some unbelieving worldlings, but
highly extolled by the devout, and especially by Loyola's friend,
Francis Xavier. Farel pressed De Cornibus to come to Geneva; the
reformer could not give a plainer proof of the seriousness of his
intentions and the impartiality of the discussion. 'I am quite ready to
break a lance in Geneva,' wrote De Cornibus. The council were highly
delighted with this answer, and prepared to receive the warlike doctor
with great honor. But all of a sudden De Cornibus informed them that he
could not come.

If the combatants were not to be very numerous, the spectators at least
were crowding in from all sides—men and women, great and small.
Everybody wanted to see and hear, but nobody was willing to speak. The
reformers were in despair, lest the dialogue should be turned into a
monologue, and instead of a grand combat, one army alone should appear
on the field of battle.[519]

[Sidenote: CAROLI AT GENEVA.]

An unexpected help now appeared. A doctor of the Sorbonne, named Caroli,
arrived in Geneva and declared himself ready to dispute. Possessing
insupportable vanity, tossing his head as he walked along the street,
assuming a haughty and impudent air with everybody, the Parisian doctor
made a great stir, talked incessantly, aped the gentleman, and boasted
loudly. Much taken up with himself, he sought marks of honor, and to
obtain them employed cunning, artifice, and intrigue. He represented
himself to be, or allowed others to call him, _bishop_. 'Have you
heard,' said the citizens, 'that a bishop has arrived from France?'[520]
Everybody thought that Farel had found his man at last. But the
reformer, who had known him long, shook his head. The foolish admiration
which Caroli felt for his own person had drawn upon him the contempt of
those who were not to be deceived by his braggadocio. The reformer knew
that he was fluent of tongue, but was without firm principle,
uprightness, or solid character, and that his sole desire was to make a
name—whether in the Roman or in the evangelical camp mattered little to
him. He was known to unite and to quarrel with everybody in turn. He was
neither catholic nor reformer, but simply Caroli. As skilful as the
famous Beda in the tricks of sophistry, he had disputed in Paris with
that illustrious champion; and the Sorbonne having interdicted him,
Margaret of Valois looked upon him as a victim of the Gospel, and gave
him the living of Alençon. He had come from that city to Geneva, where
nobody had expected or wanted him.[521] It was rumored abroad that there
would be a great stir in the city; and Caroli, who had 'a keen scent'
(to use the words of a contemporary), thought that Geneva would be a
theatre where he might display his profound learning and fine voice, and
gather fresh laurels to adorn his brow. There was only one point about
which he still hesitated: should he take the side of Rome or of the
Reformation?

[Sidenote: FAREL REBUKES CAROLI.]

Farel liked not those ambiguous characters who hoist one flag or another
according to the place they may be at. Catholic at Paris, Erasmian at
Alençon, Caroli would probably be a reformer at Geneva. Farel went to
his inn, where he found him at breakfast. Entering upon business
immediately, the reformer said to him frankly: 'You are driven from
France for the faith, you say; certainly you have not deserved it, for
you have done nothing that was unworthy of the pope or worthy of Jesus
Christ.'[522] The doctor of the Sorbonne, offended by such words, held
his tongue and continued his meal. 'The song I sang him while he was at
breakfast,' said Farel, 'did not seem to please him much.'[523] 'Are you
willing now,' resumed Farel, 'to confess the truth openly, as God
requires, and to repair the evil that you have done by your
dissimulation?' The Parisian doctor cleverly turned the conversation and
began to parade a great zeal for the poor. 'I am going to send my
servant back to France,' he said, 'to receive the money from my
benefices, and I shall distribute it among your poor refugees.' Farel
remembered how certain monks in Paris had made a great display about a
collection in favor of the poor, not a penny of which had the latter
ever seen. 'God,' he said, 'will never fail either the poor or us. Let
us now give the bread of the Word to men's souls,' and left him. Several
days elapsed. Caroli compensated himself for the humiliation Farel had
inflicted upon him by representing himself everywhere as one of the
greatest orators of France; and accordingly all the Genevans wanted to
hear him. 'Let us put him to the test,' said Farel, who asked him to
preach. But Caroli, no doubt fearing the proof, urged a thousand excuses
to get off. 'Your sermons charm me,' he said to Farel, 'and I cannot
persuade myself not to hear them.'[524]

This braggart priest, who pretended to support the refugees, was living
upon them, extorting their money, wine, and other things. 'Our master,'
said one of them to Farel, 'behaves very theologically: he uses wine
magisterially, and even Sorbonically.' The reputation of certain doctors
of the Sorbonne was established on that point. 'He has women to make his
bed,' they added, 'to pull off his stockings, and even for other
familiarities.'[525] The wretched man imagined that, coming into a
country which rejected the law of the pope, he could throw off the law
of God. Farel, assured of the truth of these reports, visited this vain
and impure priest, spoke to him of his dissolute life, reminded him of
the judgment of the Lord, and entreated him to change his conduct. Farel
spoke with so much authority, that all who were present were struck with
it. The Sorbonne doctor was confounded: he hid his face in his hands,
and did not open his mouth. From that time he behaved more prudently,
and did nothing (openly, at least) that could be charged against him. He
had his reasons for not quarrelling with the reformers.

Jacques Bernard, who had but recently thrown off the cowl, was not so
clear-sighted as Farel; Caroli tried, therefore, to throw dust into his
eyes. He hinted that, as a doctor of the Sorbonne of Paris, celebrated
by former struggles with the most illustrious doctors, he was well
qualified to be appointed arbiter in the disputation, and invited to
pronounce authoritatively the final judgment.[526] Thus, becoming umpire
between Geneva and Rome, he already fancied himself the most important
person of Christendom. The simple-minded Bernard, circumvented by the
artifices of the wily Frenchman, consented to make the strange
proposition to Farel.—'No,' at once answered the reformer; 'it is to God
and to Holy Scripture that we must pay supreme honor. We do not want men
as judges of our controversy: the Lord is the only judge, who will
decide authoritatively by the Scriptures. That presumptuous man would
only seek his own glorification in the dispute.' The magistrates
supported this opinion.

[Sidenote: THE DEBATE PROCLAIMED.]

In fact, the council, finding itself between two confessions—one coming,
and one departing—regarded itself as mediator, and wished to see which
was right or wrong; then, if there were cause, to do as certain good
kings of Israel and Judah had done—'extirpate the idolatry of their
people.'[527] Placed at the head of the republic, the magistracy did not
understand that religious matters, so important at that period, were not
within its jurisdiction; and even when the question was decided somewhat
later, when the firm Calvin was established at Geneva, the State
continued to hold under its jurisdiction all matters which are
considered in this day as belonging to the Church. The council,
therefore, nominated eight commissioners, empowered to regulate the
discussion, and chose them from among the most respected leaders of the
people: four belonged to the catholic party,[528] and four to the
reformed opinions;[529] all of them had been syndics. The council,
moreover, named four secretaries, belonging to the two parties, and
instructed them to draw up the minutes. The discussion was proclaimed by
sound of trumpet, and it was published everywhere, that the disputation
would be entirely free. Then, fearing lest the enemy should take
advantage of the opportunity to attack Geneva, the syndics bade the
captain-general 'keep careful watch and ward at the gates, towers, and
ramparts, and prevent any disturbance taking place in the city.'[530]

[509] 'Justificationem a peccatis in _solo_ Christo quærendam.'—Theses
Genev.

[510] Calvin.

[511] Registres du Conseil du 23 Avril 1535.—Chron. MSC. de Roset.

[512] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp. 137, 138.

[513] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 138. Jeanne de Jussie,
_Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, p. 112.

[514] Registres du Conseil des 25 et 26 Mai 1535.

[515] Registres du Conseil du 29 Mai 1535.

[516] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, p. 117,
&c.

[517] 'Cupiebam habere pium Stapulensem.'—Farel's Letter to Calvin,
_Epist. Calv._, p. 76.

[518] 'Non sine lacrymis audiebat.'—Farel's Letter to Calvin, _Epist.
Calv._, p. 76.

[519] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 140.—Registres du Conseil des 26
et 29 Mai 1535.

[520] 'Dicebant omnes episcopum Gallicum venisse.'—Farel's Letter to
Calvin, _Epist. Calv._, p. 76.

[521] 'Venit Genevam neque expectatus neque expetitus.'—_Ibid._

[522] 'Cum nihil egisset pontifice indignum nec Christo dignum.'—Farel
to Calvin, _Epist. Calv._

[523] 'Non fuit satis grata Carolo hæc cantio quæ in prandio
canebatur.'—_Ibid._

[524] 'Se rapi concionibus nostris.'—_Ibid._

[525] 'Habere quæ lectum ejus sternerent, tibialia exuerent, ac
familiarius dormituro adessent.'—Farel to Calvin.

[526] 'Satagebat per Bernardum Carolus ut præsideret in disputatione, et
omnia resolveret.'—_Ibid._

[527] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 134.

[528] Girardin de la Rive, J. Balard, Cl. Richardet, and Cl. de
Châteauneuf.

[529] Michel Sept, Cl. Savoye, Ami de Chapeaurouge, and Aimé Curtet.

[530] Registres du Conseil du 29 Mai 1535.

 CHAPTER IV.
 THE GREAT PUBLIC DEBATE ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE
 EVANGELICAL FAITH.
 (JUNE 1535.)

Sunday, the 30th of May and the feast of Pentecost, the day on which the
discussion was to begin, came at last. A year had passed away since the
Reformation had made its public entrance into Geneva; it was now about
to take another step—one that would secure its triumph. The day of
Pentecost, so important for the establishment of Christianity, was to be
important also for the Reformation. The same Spirit which had begun the
Church, is also that which will renew it when it has fallen. Friends and
enemies crowded that day to the convent of Rive, animated with the
liveliest and most opposite emotions. Nothing had been spared so that
the debate should take place with solemnity. 'A theatre,' that is to
say, a platform, had been erected in the great hall. The eight
commissioners took their seats, and an immense concourse of Genevans and
foreigners filled the vast auditory. A table had been placed in the
_arena_ for the combatants. Jacques Bernard appeared first: he was
followed by Farel, Viret, and Froment; but the places set apart for the
champions of the Roman Church remained unoccupied, and people began to
ask if Rome would fail to appear. At last two ecclesiastics came
forward: one was Chapuis, prior of the Dominican convent, the most
learned man at that time in Geneva; the other was Caroli, the Sorbonne
doctor.

[Sidenote: BERNARD AND CHAPUIS.]

Bernard spoke first. He undertook to prove that, in the Romish Church,
men did not look to Christ for justification from their sins, and for
that purpose put in the rules of his order, and showed how the monks
claimed to be saved by their vain practices, and gave themselves up to
pride, avarice, and even to great impurity. He spoke from personal
knowledge. A man of upright heart, quick, a little violent even, he
repelled with energy the disorders in which he had once taken part.
Standing in the great hall of his own convent, the guardian pulled down
what he had worshipped and worshipped what he had pulled down. This made
the father-confessor of Ste. Claire exclaim: 'How that accursed Jacques
Bernard despises the frock he once wore.' Chapuis, the Dominican, came
forward resolutely in defence of the monastic orders, and reproved the
guardian severely. Farel rose in support of Bernard, but Chapuis, who
feared such an adversary, maintained that nobody but Bernard ought to
answer him.[531] The next day Bernard and Chapuis, the heads of the two
great convents of Geneva, met again; but Chapuis received orders from
his Provincial to leave the city immediately.

This vexed the magistrates exceedingly: they remembered Furbity, and the
excessive zeal which had caused his imprisonment: they had no doubt that
he would joyfully seize the opportunity of defending the faith of Rome.
Having sent for the jailer's wife, they ordered her to place the
articles under dispute in the reverend father's hands. As she was a
zealous Roman-catholic, and on good terms with Furbity, they thought
that he would receive them more willingly from her than from her
husband, who was ardent for the reform. The woman, a timid soul, was
afraid of everybody: of her husband, whom she did not wish to displease
by neglecting the commission, and of the reverend father, whom she
feared to offend by giving him the heretical propositions; so she sent
them by one of the turnkeys. 'Alas!' exclaimed Furbity, 'even my poor
hostess is trying to seduce me.' He tossed the paper out of his cell.
The jaileress sent it back to him by her little girl; but the latter,
who was harshly received, brought it back to her mother, who, frightened
at the probability of displeasing their worships, slipped the theses
into the cell by the window. The reverend father, seeing the paper which
he had cursed falling at his feet, picked it up, tore it to pieces, and
trampled it under foot.[532] All hope of seeing him defend popery had to
be given up.

The disputation began again without him. Bernard and Farel, having
Caroli for respondent, showed by Scripture that Jesus Christ alone saves
men from sin. Caroli was very weak, but hinted to his partisans that he
reserved his hardest blows till the last, and would then pound his
adversaries to powder. He did not speak up for either side. The honest
Viret, indignant at such trickery, attacked him so skilfully, that he
was constrained to pronounce for or against the truth. The Sorbonnist
took the side of the reformers. 'All the efforts of man are in vain,' he
said. 'Without the grace of Christ, he can neither begin what is good,
nor pursue it, nor persevere.'[533] 'Very good,' exclaimed Farel; 'thank
you, doctor. The glory of God and the edification of the people, is all
we desire.' Caroli was quite proud of having spoken so well.

[Sidenote: FURBITY INVITED TO DEBATE.]

The reformers were again without antagonists, Caroli appearing to agree
with them. The magistrates returned to their notion about Furbity, and
as Caroli had been his theological tutor in Paris, the Council asked him
to invite his old pupil to come and defend his doctrine, or to disavow
his errors as he himself had done. 'Willingly,' said the vainglorious
doctor. After dinner, the four syndics, the great Parisian doctor, that
_Satan_ William Farel (as Sister Jeanne calls him), Pierre Viret, and
several of their friends, went to the prison. The Dominican appeared: he
was thin, weak, debilitated, and his feet tottered, so that when he saw
the Sorbonne doctor in the company of all those heretics, he fell
fainting to the ground.'[534] They lifted him up, and when he had
recovered his senses, Caroli, addressing him in a doctoral tone, said:
'How is this, brother Guy; will you die in your obstinacy—in your
errors, now that we have arrived at the truth? Acknowledge that you have
been deceived, and return to God.' Furbity, divided between respect for
his old teacher and fidelity to the pope, exclaimed: 'God forbid that I
should quarrel with my master.... I desire to die in the truth as I
learnt it of you.'—'Come, then, and defend it,' they said. But Furbity
imposed a singular condition: he required Farel's beard to be cut off.
We know that the bigots believed in the existence of a devil in each
hair of the reformer's beard. 'If I must dispute with that idiot,' he
exclaimed, 'let the dwelling of his master the devil be first cleared
away, and all his skin shaved.'[535] They urged the doctor to no
purpose: nothing could shake him. No beard or no discussion.

The debate began again, and that day Caroli was Roman-catholic from head
to foot. Bernard maintained that Christ was the only mediator; Caroli
affirmed that it was Mary. 'The Virgin having remained upon earth, after
the death of the Saviour,' he said, 'the mother naturally succeeded the
Son.'[536]—'Mary, the successor to her Son!' exclaimed Farel. 'Let us
have done with these foolish questions: let us get out of this labyrinth
of quibbling which men call _Roman theology_.' It was agreed that the
discussion next day should turn upon the Mass.

Caroli, determining to arm himself completely to defend this palladium
of popery, spent a portion of the night in hunting over huge
folios,[537] and in taking notes of the reasons that might be adduced in
favor of that sacrifice. The _Mysteria Missæ_ of Innocent III., the
_Summa Theologiæ_ of Thomas Aquinas, the _Sentences of Bonaventure_,
were in turn examined by him. The next day he began to pour out the
arguments he had hastily collected. 'Firstly,' he said; 'secondly'....
But he lost the thread and stopped short, continuing to repeat the same
words. The scholar forgot his lesson. To complete the comedy, it only
wanted Farel to prompt the arguments which he had forgotten. 'You mean
to say this or to say that,' suggested the reformer.—'Yes, yes,' said
the poor doctor, 'it is exactly what I meant to say.'[538]

Caroli, piqued at this triumph of Farel's, made an effort, and getting
once more into the saddle, began to prance about valiantly. 'Really,'
said Froment, who heard him, he now argues with subtlety and great
earnestness.' The catholics, without waiting for the reformer's answer,
ran off to the canons: 'The Parisian doctor is speaking admirably,' they
said. The canons ordered some of their best wine to be taken to him.
Caroli was at this moment the happiest man in the world; the papacy and
the Reformation both lavished their favors on him at once.

The next day the audience was more numerous than usual: the doctor's
eloquence had been much talked about, and the catholics came in crowds.
Sworn enemies of Reform[539] said to one another, 'Let us go and witness
the triumph of the divine mysteries of popery.' That day the points to
be defended were transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, the
adoration of the bread, the taking away of the cup, the invocation of
saints, the use of a foreign tongue, and other rites and customs.
Caroli, puffed up by the good position he had acquired, tossed his head
and challenged his adversaries in a loud tone: 'Give me a man who shows
himself a man,' he said, 'and we will fight together.' Then stood
forward to answer him a mere boy. When the veteran doctor saw this
novice, so puny in body,[540] he despised him as Goliath despised David.
'Surely,' he said, 'you do not mean to pass him off for one of your
pastors!' This young man was Pierre Viret, then twenty-four years old,
whose health was still weakened by the poison, and who had such a pale
face and weak look that he seemed ready to faint. 'Alas!' he said of
himself, 'I am but a mere bag of bones.' His language showed little
color or elegance: but he had a logical style, perfectly clear, the
skill of an orator, and all accompanied by an indescribable sweetness
and charm.

[Sidenote: TRIUMPH OF REFORM.]

The two champions joined in combat; and Viret refuted Caroli's
assertions so clearly and so completely, that all the spectators took
his side.[541] Caroli, not knowing what to say, began to vociferate a
long 'Bah! bah! bah!'[542] It was useless for Viret to adduce the most
solid reasons, the Sorbonne doctor could find no other argument than
that foolish interjection. 'What do I hear?' exclaimed Farel; 'we should
blush to answer in such a manner.' Caroli held his tongue, and some
catholics began to ask themselves whether the doctrines they had held
for sacred might not be merely the opinions of men.[543]

Quitting this part of the subject, the doctor proceeded to defend the
forms of popery. 'How much more august is the service,' he said, 'if it
is celebrated in Latin! What majesty there is in the Roman ceremonies!
The tonsure of the priests is a crown to them.'—'It is Christ's wish,'
said Farel, 'that leaving shadows, we should worship the Father in
spirit and in truth. If we load the Church with ceremonies, signs, and
ornaments, we rob it of the presence of Jesus Christ. If King Hezekiah
broke the brazen serpent, what must be done with all these
superstitions, which surpass the idolatry of the Jews in scandal?'

It was too much. The bishop, informed of the progress of the discussion,
issued from Arbois on the 13th of June, in the very midst of the
debates, an order, 'forbidding people of every condition to be from that
day forward so bold and daring as to speak or trade with the syndics,
preachers, and citizens of Geneva, under pain of excommunication and a
fine of twenty-five livres.'[544]

Thus the bishop set up a quarantine to separate Geneva from Christendom;
but it was precisely at this epoch that the obscure city of the
Allobroges came into communication with the world, and spread abroad the
light which it had received. While the papacy ceased to utter its
oracles there, and had in its service none but the dumb, the Word of God
made its loud and mighty voice heard through the mouths of the
Reformers. Such was the result of the discussion. 'In that controversy,'
says a modern historian who does not belong to the Reform, 'the
catholics were defeated by the reformers.'[545]

[531] 'Nollet alium respondere quam Bernardum.'—Farel to Calvin,
p. 77.—Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_,
p. 125.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp. 139, 140.

[532] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, p. 80.

[533] 'Frustra hominem conari sine gratia, nec ordiri, nec prosequi, nec
perseverare posse.'—Farel to Calvin, _Epist. Calv._, p. 77.

[534] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, p. 80.

[535] _Ibid._ pp. 80, 81.

[536] 'Succedere matrem Filio.'—Farel to Calvin.

[537] 'Partem noctis impendit in annotandis rationibus quibus posset
missa ferri.'—_Ibid._

[538] Hominem, memoria labantem, adjuvabamus, ut sua formaret
argumenta.'—Farel to Calvin, _Epist. Calv._

[539] 'Juratissimi hostes.'—Farel to Calvin, _Epist. Calv._

[540] 'Cum juvenem quem ut tironem Carolus reputat.'—_Ibid._

[541] 'Cum Viretus tam aperte dissolveret omnia.'—_Ibid._

[542] 'Cœpit, insani more, vociferari longum ba, ba, ba.'—Farel to
Calvin, _Epist. Calv._

[543] 'Humana et impia esse quæ divina sanctissimaque arbitrabantur.'—
_Ibid._

[544] Archives de Genève.—Pièces historiques, No. 1125.

[545] Mignet, _Réforme à Genève_, p. 66.

 CHAPTER V.
 TRIUMPH OF THE WORD OF GOD, BOTH WRITTEN AND SPOKEN.
 (JUNE TO AUGUST 1535.)

Rome had set up, beside the Bible and even above it, the word and the
traditions of men. The Reformation demanded that the Holy Scriptures
should be read by all and preached from the pulpits. The written Word
and oral teaching were to displace that pretended infallible chair,
which alone was authorized (they said) to set forth the will of God.

[Sidenote: THE FRENCH BIBLE PRINTED.]

One fact of great importance was being accomplished at this time. The
discussion maintained at Geneva by Farel, Bernard, Chapuis, and Caroli
was but a musketry skirmish; but at a little distance from that city—at
Neuchâtel—thanks to the labors of Calvin and Olivetan, a tradesman, a
Picard like themselves, was preparing that great artillery, whose
formidable volleys were to break down the walls of error, on the ruins
of which a divine hand was to establish the truth of Jesus Christ.

Pierre Robert of Noyon, called Olivetan, had finished the work the
Church had intrusted to him. On the 4th of June, 1535, appeared the
first French Bible of the Reformation.[546] 'Possessing a keen and
penetrating mind,' said one of its readers who was thoroughly capable of
appreciating the work, 'the translator is not deficient in learning; he
has spared neither labor, research, nor care, and has ably discharged
the duties of a translator of the Bible.'[547] 'I have done the best I
could,' said the translator himself, on presenting the book to his
brethren; 'I have labored and searched as deeply as I possibly could
into the living mine of pure truth; but I do not pretend to have
entirely exhausted it.'[548] Some people have asserted that Olivetan's
Bible was only a copy of that by Le Fevre of Etaples. The translation of
the Old Testament, probably begun before Olivetan's journey to the
Valleys, is the best part of his work, and it may be said to be
original.[549] Calvin's cousin no doubt had his predecessor's
translation before him; but the latter does not contain three
consecutive verses in which Olivetan has not changed something. His New
Testament is more like Le Fevre's; still numerous changes were
introduced into it. It has been calculated that the new translator had
corrected the biblical text of the Sorbonne doctor in twenty-three
thousand five hundred places, and in more than sixty thousand, if
account be taken of all the minutiæ of style.[550] Calvin's share has
reference particularly to the later editions of this Bible. With regard
to the mechanical part, the two cousins had found a distinguished
auxiliary.

Pierre de Wingle (called also Pérot Picard) was one of the good printers
of the sixteenth century. The episcopal court of Lyons, where he lived,
had prosecuted him for printing 'certain writings come from Germany;' he
then took refuge at Geneva, but the impression of the New Testament and
various pamphlets had compelled him, in 1532, to flee to Neuchâtel—a
reformed city since 1530—which behaved more hospitably, and shortly
after made him a citizen. About half an hour's walk from Neuchâtel, is
the little village of Serrière; here Wingle set up his presses, and this
modest but happy locality, which first had heard the Gospel preached by
Farel, was destined also to be the first to witness the birth of
Olivetan's Bible. The latter had dated his dedication,

 _Des Alpes, ce_ XIIᵉ _de feburier 1535_,

as if he wished to confound the Vaudois valleys of the Cottian Alps,
where the idea had been conceived, with the parts of Switzerland where
it had been carried out. The Vaudois had collected for this publication
five hundred golden crowns, a sum equivalent to about 2,400_l._
sterling.

[Sidenote: OLIVETAN TO THE CHURCH.]

The volume had scarcely left the press, when Wingle and his friends sent
it wherever the French language was spoken. 'Has not the King of kings
proclaimed,' they thought, 'that His _Word should go forth to the ends
of the world_?' 'The people who make thee this present,' said Olivetan
to the Church, 'are the true people of patience who, in silence and
hope, have overcome all assaults. For a long time they have seen thee
maltreated, seeming rather a poor slave than the daughter and heiress of
the universal Ruler. But now that thou beginnest to recognize thy
origin, these people, thy brothers, come forward and lovingly offer thee
their all. Cheer up then, poor little Church! go and cleanse thy
spattered rags; go and wash thy befouled hands. Desirest thou to be
always subject to masters? Is it not time to think of the Bridegroom?
Here is a precious jewel He sends thee as a wedding-gift and pledge of a
loyal marriage.[551] Art thou afraid that He will some day leave thee a
widow, He who lives for evermore? Courage! bid farewell to that
traitorous hag whom thou hast so long called mother. It is true that
thou canst bring to thy husband nothing of any value; but come, come
boldly with all the nobles and titled ones of thy court, with thy
insulted, excommunicated, imprisoned, banished, and plundered ones! Come
with thy tortured, branded, crop-eared, dismembered ones![552] Such are
those whom Christ calls to triumph with him in his heavenly court.'[553]

If the fruits of the Bible published at Neuchâtel were more numerous,
those of the discussion at Geneva were more prompt. The most candid
catholics were struck at seeing the men who were on the side of the
Reform giving an account of their faith, while those on the other side
stood dumb. There was eloquence in this contrast. Accordingly priests,
laymen, and women, stripped of their prejudices, declared that the truth
of God, brought forward during the discussion, had opened their eyes. No
doubt many simply quitted the forms of popery for the forms of
protestantism. To put aside superstitions, to break images, and to
reject the authority of the pope was in their eyes the Reform: their
chief was Ami Perrin. But with a great number of Genevans, the movement
within, the conversion of the heart, corresponded with the movement
without. There were rivers of running water in that city which no man
could stop, and at which many quenched their thirst.

[Sidenote: DELAYS IN THE COUNCIL.]

The magistrates, however, far from reforming the Roman worship, remained
motionless and silent. The friends of the Gospel took the initiative.
Claude Bernard, the brother of Jacques, one of the captains of the city,
a man full of zeal for the truth, went before the council on June 28th,
accompanied by the ministers and several notables, and represented that
the mass, images, and other inventions and idolatries,[554] being
contrary to Holy Scripture, as the disputation had showed, it was time
they were suppressed. The law of conscience ought to become the law of
the State also. Bernard said: 'Ought a father to permit the children
whose guardianship God has intrusted to him, to become attached to
errors opposed to the truth of God? Magistrates, act like fathers. It
will be to the glory of God and the salvation of the people.'[555]

The syndics and councils could not come to a decision. The step they
were asked to take was that of a giant. They feared to excite the
catholics to take up arms, and the duke of Savoy to surround Geneva with
his artillery. To cross definitively the line which separated the old
times from the new was too much for them. St. Paul and the Apostles had
done it in their day, and the reformers were doing it now; but the
syndics of Geneva were neither Pauls nor Farels. They feared civil war
and escalades; they preferred waiting for the Reform to be accomplished
without them, for everything to be changed without any one's observing
it. The council, therefore, procrastinated and did nothing.[556] 'The
minutes of the discussion take a long time arranging,' answered the
premier syndic to Claude Bernard; 'as soon as they are drawn out, we
will see what is to be done.' The great evolution of the Reformation was
metamorphosed by these worthy ediles into a question of drawing up
minutes. To show their love for the _status quo_, they condemned to
three days' imprisonment, on bread and water and the strappado, a
huguenot who had destroyed the images placed in front of the chapel of
Notre Dame.

Farel's friends determined to wait; but no measure of reform appeared,
although they waited ten times the space required to examine the
minutes. The huguenots thought that the council was taking refuge in
'tortuous hiding-places,' when it ought to act boldly in the light of
day. The evangelicals thought that 'as God gives us everything openly,
the secrets of our hearts ought also to be open and displayed.'

Never had courage and firmness been more necessary. Great miseries were
beginning. Since the disputation not a sack of wheat or a load of wood
had entered the city, while previously they used to enter in great
numbers twice a week. There were no eggs, or butter, or cheese, or
cattle. One day, however, a cow was brought by a man from a neighboring
village; what a supply for a whole city! But the man had scarcely got
out of the city, when the enemy seized him roughly and made him pay
three times the price he had received. If friends wanted to bring some
trifling stores from the nearest farms, they dared not do it by
daylight.[557] Finding themselves reduced to such extremities, a few
citizens on one or two occasions went out of the city to procure bread:
they were insulted and beaten. 'Alas!' said the poor creatures, 'we have
only to move the tips of our fingers, or go a nail's breadth out of the
city, to make our enemies cry out that we are upsetting heaven and
earth.'[558]

Seeing that no progress was made, the evangelicals determined to assert
the free publication of the Word of God. It was not enough for them to
have it printed, they wanted it preached,—not only in their own houses
or in the great hall of Rive, but in the churches. They had within their
walls one of the most powerful preachers of the age—Farel: they believed
that their duty towards God and their fellow-citizens called upon them
to make his eloquent voice heard by the multitude.

[Sidenote: FAREL AT THE MADELEINE.]

The 22d of July was the feast of Mary Magdalen. The bells had been
solemnly rung to call worshippers to the church of that name, and
already a great number of catholics and even evangelicals had gathered
within its walls. Was it by a Latin mass that the memory of that
Magdalen ought to be commemorated to whom Jesus had said: _Thy faith
hath saved thee_? Ought not those words to be preached which Jesus had
addressed to her, and not the rubbish with which the priests sent their
flocks to sleep? This was what the reformers asked each other. They
observed, moreover, that the catholics, less numerous than the
protestants, had six churches, while the latter had scarcely one or two
places of worship. They added that if the marvellous work begun in
Geneva was to be completed, great meetings must be held in the temples.
Some persons called out, 'Farel.'—'Yes, Farel,' repeated many: 'let us
go and fetch him;' and they all ran to the convent of Rive. The reformer
had just gone into the pulpit when the message was handed to him. Farel
was always ready and believed he had a right to speak in a church. 'My
friends,' he said to his congregation, 'we must to-day preach the good
news under the vaulted roof of the Madeleine, and abolish idolatry
there.' He then came down from the pulpit and bent his way towards that
huge old gothic church, with its Carlovingian tower, whose foundation
dates from the eleventh century. The crowd of his hearers followed him.
He entered: his friends made signs of joy: the priest standing before
the altar, where he was celebrating mass, stopped in alarm and ran away;
his acolytes followed him, and all the worshippers wished to do the
same. But the huguenots, thinking that the Word of God was specially
necessary for them, shut the doors. This roused the catholics, the
frightened women shrieked, and all made such an uproar, that the
reformers opened the doors and let those depart who pleased. There
remained, however, a certain number of undecided persons; and Farel
began to preach with power, that Saviour who had pardoned the Magdalen
and who still pardons sinners.

Meantime those who had fled, dispersing in the streets and houses, cried
out against the scandal, while the parish priest, running off to the
hôtel-de-ville, complained to the council. Farel was forbidden to preach
again in that church. When the sermon was ended, the catholics returned
and the priests sang mass in it with more fervor than ever. The
huguenots made no opposition, but they also claimed that no one should
oppose their meetings. The two worships were to be free. In fact the
very same day at vespers, 'those rascals (_canailles_),' says Sister
Jeanne, 'again took possession of the holy church, and every day
afterwards it was the usual custom to preach in it.'[559]

The irritated council summoned Farel before them on the 30th of July.
'Sirs,' said the reformer, 'you have yourselves acknowledged that
whatever cannot be proved by Scripture ought to be suppressed; why then
do you delay doing so? Were not the defenders of popery vanquished in
our debates? And has not almost the whole city recognized the finger of
God in this signal defeat of the papacy? Give us orders which we can
obey, for fear we should be constrained to answer you with Scripture,
that _it is better to obey God rather than men_. Assemble the Council of
Two Hundred and let them decide.' The syndics, knowing that the friends
of Reform had a majority in that assembly, refused the demand, and
repeated their prohibition to Farel, adding: _For good reasons_.

Farel thought their reasons bad. In such a matter he knew but one really
good: _Preach the Gospel to every creature_, the Lord had said. He set
no bounds either to his desire for the triumph of the truth, or to his
expectation of help from God to give him the victory. A holy ambition
that would not be straitened, animated him, and according to the words
of Elisha, he _smote five or six times_ until the enemy was vanquished.
Farel was one of those men whom God raises up for great and salutary
revolutions: opposition only served to inflame his courage.

[Sidenote: FAREL AT SAINT-GERVAIS.]

On the 1st of August he went to Saint-Gervais, where the friends of the
Reform were numerous. The uneasy syndics sent a guard of fifty men; but
Farel went into the pulpit and preached in the old church the ever new
Gospel of Jesus Christ. On the 5th of August he became still bolder, and
proclaimed the anti-Roman doctrine in the church dedicated to St.
Dominic, the father of the Inquisition. This evangelist did not perform
his office at his own time only and according to his own convenience: he
never spared himself, whatever were the vexations he gathered from his
labors. He summoned weary souls to rest at the feet of Christ; he
followed up the obstinate; he argued, reproved, entreated, exhorted. He
multiplied the inducements to make the dilatory enter upon the way of
life, and 'his vehemence was always tempered with meekness.' The hour
had arrived when divine truth was to triumph over human errors; he
therefore multiplied his attacks. The greatest blow yet remained to be
struck. A thunder-clap was about to bring down an abundant rain upon the
thirsty earth, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost which cometh from
heaven.[560]

The cathedral of St. Pierre, whose three old towers soar above the city,
played a great part in its history, and every Genevan was attached to
its stones, though they were now (as it were) broken and scattered, and
the divine service was contaminated by mournful profanations. But the
greater the desolation, the more did pious men desire to see that august
temple purified and the good news proclaimed beneath its vaulted roof.
Fourteen canons still belonged to it, established to defend it; but
those unhappy clerks, isolated, scared, and conquered before a blow was
struck, waited trembling until the tide of Reform, which still kept
rising, invaded their sanctuary. They had not long to wait. On Sunday
morning, 8th of August, a crowd of reformed Genevans mounted the streets
leading to the church, and approached it with the firm intention of
replacing the light upon the candlestick. 'When rust has tarnished
iron,' said a reformer, 'we endeavor to restore it to its former
brightness: must we not, then, cleanse away from the Church of Christ
the thick rust which ages of darkness have accumulated on it?'[561]
Having entered the noble edifice, the reformers began to ring the great
bell to call the people to hear the Gospel. _Clémence_ was tolling the
last hour of the Middle Ages, the _De Defunctis_ of images, 'those gods
of the priests,' as the huguenots called them. The chapel which
contained the arm of St. Anthony, on which men used to swear in serious
cases, was to be pulled down; all that mass of waxen hands offered by
devotees, and a thousand other relics equally stupid, were to disappear.
In that temple, now 'crammed with idols,' God and his Word were
henceforward to reign alone.

[Sidenote: FAREL IN THE PULPIT.]

Farel arrived and went into the pulpit. The worship they were about to
celebrate was not to be an ordinary service: a religious revolution was
about to be accomplished. Ceremonies were the essence of popery. Now
Farel was full of the idea that there are no ceremonial laws in
Christianity; that an act of worship, discharged according to the rules
of the Church, is not on that account pleasing to God and meritorious:
that to overburden believers with festivals, bowing of the head,
crossing, kneeling before pictures, and ceremonies, is opposed to
worship in the spirit; that to fill the churches with images, offerings,
relics, and tapers is dealing a blow at justification by faith and the
merit of Christ's death which alone save the sinner. He believed with
his whole heart that divine worship, according to the New Testament,
does not consist in processions, elevations, salutations, bowings,
genuflexions before the host, and other superstitious usages; that its
essence is faith in the Gospel, the charity which flows from it,
patience in bearing the cross, public confession of Jesus Christ, and
the living prayer of the heart. At the sight of the statues, the
pictures, the votive offerings which surrounded him—at the recollection
of the superstitious ceremonies which for centuries had profaned that
cathedral, Farel in great emotion was ready to do anything, even at the
risk of his life, to establish that religion which is _spirit and life_.
'Those idols,' he said, pointing from the pulpit to the images around
him, 'the mass and the whole body of popery are condemned by the Holy
Ghost. The magistrates, ordained by God, ought to pull down everything
that is raised in opposition to God's glory.' The images, if they
remained, would be in his eyes a sign of the victory of catholicism; but
if they fell, their fall would proclaim the victory of the Reformation.
This point had been often discussed: the priests and devout people
opposed Farel's intentions with all their power, and maintained that
such changes required the consent of a general council. The alarmed
politicians objected that if they pulled down the images, then for one
enemy Geneva would have a hundred—the duke of Savoy, the king of France,
the emperor, the pope, the cardinals, and all the bishops in the world.

There were at this time two powers and two systems in the city:—the
reformers, whose ideal theories had not yet been modified by reality,
said that the State, as well as individuals, ought to become a new
creature; that the Gospel would accomplish this work of transformation;
that the Church would change the people and would make of the State a
kingdom of God upon earth.... Alas! that task is still far from being
accomplished, and can it ever be? On the other hand the politicians,
without wishing to reject the influence of the Gospel, thought that the
State occupied the first place in human society, and that order was not
possible without it. They believed that the magistrates, without being
the masters of the faith, ought to be the source of regularity in the
Church, and accordingly the State undertook to restrain the
evangelicals. It was attempted later in Calvin's day; now it was done in
Farel's. The council sent for him after the sermon at St. Pierre's and
asked him why he had preached in the cathedral. 'I am surprised,' said
the reformer, 'that you make a crime of what is in accordance with
Scripture.' If, however, he rendered unto God the things that were
God's, he was willing to render unto Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's.
He therefore expressed a desire that the reformers should be summoned by
the legitimate authority, and renewed his demand for the convocation of
the Council of Two Hundred.

The syndics ordered him to discontinue his sermons at St. Pierre's until
further notice.[562]

[546] Annales de Boyne, ad annum.

[547] Calvin, Letter at the head of the Bible of 1535.

[548] Preface to the Bible of 1535.

[549] Olivetan took advantage of all the Hebrew commentaries and
paraphrases contained in the Bible of Bomberg. (Venice, 1518-1526.) See
the articles in the _Revue de Strasbourg_, by M. Reuss.

[550] Em. Pétavel, _La Bible en France_, pp. 106, 107.

[551] According to Olivetan, the Bible is the 'corbeille de mariage'—the
casket containing the jewels and presents which the bridegroom sends to
the bride.

[552] 'Viens avec tes tenaillés (torn with red-hot pincers), tes
flétris, tes oreillés, tes démembrés.'

[553] Calvin placed two writings at the head of the volume: _Une épître
à tous empereurs, rois, princes, et peuples soumis à l'empire de
Christ_, and a _Discours préliminaire_, which was long at the head of
the ancient Genevan Bibles.

[554] 'Idolotramenta.' Registres du Conseil du 28 Juin 1535.—Farellus
Calvino.

[555] 'Magistratus fungeretur officio patris . . . . officium faceret
pro gloria Dei et plebis salute.' Farel to Calvin, _Epist.
Calv._—Chronique MSC. de Roset, iii. p. 37.

[556] 'Le conseil donc, délayant, ne faisait rien.'—Chronique MSC. de
Roset, iii. p. 37.

[557] Collection Galiffe.

[558] Dépêches des Syndics, du 18 Juillet, aux Cantons Suisses.

[559] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_,
p. 127.—Registres du Conseil du 23 Juillet.

[560] Registres du Conseil du 30 Juillet.

[561] Calvin.

[562] Registres du Conseil du 8 Août 1535.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_,
pp. 142, 144.

 CHAPTER VI.
 IMAGES AND THE MASS ABOLISHED.
 (8TH TO 11TH AUGUST 1535.)

The Reformation protested against a ritualistic and meritorious worship;
against the multiplicity of feasts, consecrations, ecclesiastical usages
and customs; against any adoration whatever rendered to creatures,
images, and relics; against the invocation of mediators who usurped the
function of the Son of God; lastly, and chiefly, against a pretended
expiatory sacrifice, effected by the priests, which was substituted for
the only sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ.

[Sidenote: CHANTS OF THE PRIESTS.]

All these human vanities were about to disappear. Farel and his friends
waited for the reformatory ordinance; but the ardent huguenots, among
whom Ami Perrin was the most active, became impatient at the perpetual
hesitations of the council. A chance event called forth an energetic
demonstration on their part. The same Sunday (8th August) in the
afternoon at vespers, the canons, assembling again in their church,
chanted the Psalm _In exitu Israël_, 'When Israel went out of
Egypt,'[563] and, with the utmost simplicity, repeated in Latin what
Farel had said in the morning in French:

  Simulacra gentium argentum et aurum,
  Opera manuum hominum.
  Os habent et non loquentur.
  Oculos habent et non videbunt.
  Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea
  Et omnes qui confidunt in illis.[564]

The canons could not have chosen a fitter text. Some huguenots, who knew
Latin better perhaps than they did, smiled and called out: 'Ho there,
you priests, you curse in your chants those who made the images and
trusted in them, and yet you allow them to remain.' They restrained
themselves, however, for the moment. The magistrates continued
repeating, 'There is no need to abolish the mass and images; else very
formidable princes will be to you like ravening wolves rushing upon
sheep.'[565]

A very extraordinary thing occurred at this moment. Nobody was willing
to begin the work and yet it was accomplished. 'God,' said the
reformers, 'who holds the world in his hand, loves to choose the
contemptible rather than what is great and apparent.' In fact, it was a
mischievous jest of some children which dealt the first blow. 'For this
work,' says Froment, 'God stirred up a score of little boys.' These
children had often heard the priests, and their errors and abuses spoken
of; and their parents had added that it was time they were ended. They
slipped into St. Pierre's; stopped and listened, and were struck with
the strange intonations of the canons. Making their way towards a part
of the church remote from that in which the reverend fathers were
chanting, they began to play like boys of their age, 'while nobody
thought anything about it,' says the chronicler. They commenced singing
and shouting in imitation of the canons' voices. Presently they lifted
up the seats of the low stalls, on which the reverend fathers used to
sit when they were not engaged in the service, and let them fall with a
noise. Everybody knows the fondness little boys have for amusements of
this kind. They gambolled about, but in their games there was a certain
opposition to the worship which their fathers condemned. The petulance
of their age carried them away. They saw in a corner certain things that
resembled dolls; they could not resist their desire to take them; and
catching hold of the 'priests' mannikins,'[566] as Froment calls them,
they began to toss to one another the small grotesque figures with which
the chapels were decorated.

[Sidenote: THE IMAGES BROKEN.]

At this moment Perrin, Goulay, and their friends, attracted perhaps by
the noise, entered the cathedral. They saw that the great execution had
begun; children were beforehand with them. Passion and impulse carried
them away. They knew that it was the province of the government only to
work out a reform; but when the government hangs back from its duty,
what is to be done? 'We have petitioned the council to pull down the
idols,' they said; 'and it has not done so for want of courage. Let us
then come to its help and do what God commands.' At once the daring
citizens, going farther than the children, penetrated into the choir
where the priests were singing, and the latter asked in alarm what these
laymen were going to do. 'On a sudden,' says the chronicler, 'Perrin and
his companions threw the idols to the ground and broke them.' The
children who saw this began to run about and 'jump upon those little
gods.' Taking up the pieces, they ran to the door with glee, and called
to the people collected in front of the church: 'Here are the gods of
the priests, will you have a piece?' At the same time they threw the
fragments among the crowd. There was great confusion. The wiser heads
ineffectually argued that this work of reform should be left to the
council; those huguenots had no doubts as to their duty. If the
magistrates were unwilling to have the images destroyed, the Bible
commands it. 'The sun is now rising,' they said, 'and scattering
throughout Christendom the dense clouds that obscure the religion of
Jesus Christ.'

The order of things in the middle ages was indeed incompatible with the
new wants of society. Later, in the time of Calvin, after the first
victory had been gained, it was important to establish Christian
doctrine and to constitute Christian society; but now it was the time of
Farel. It was necessary to appeal to the spirit of liberty and to the
energetic development of the will—this a conservative writer has
acknowledged[567]—a necessity in the first ages at the time of the
establishment of Christianity; it was no less a necessity in the
sixteenth century. The powers that had invaded the Church were so
tenacious that the labor necessary to pull them down was a work of
revolution and of war. The moral fact was the same at the epoch of these
two great dispensations. Whoever applauds the axe which shattered the
colossal statue of Serapis at Alexandria,[568] cannot blame that which
threw down the images of a corrupt worship in the temples of Geneva.

Great was the sorrow felt by the devotees during that execution; they
seemed looking at the fall of the papacy itself. Some who had remained
in the church contemplated the heart-rending spectacle from afar.
Foolish women of the city, says Froment, began to weep and to groan.
'Alas! our good saints, our sacred images (they said) before which we
used to kneel!... Whom shall we adore now?'—and they 'cursed those dogs
(_cagnes_).'

A new and still more striking act increased the wrath of the priests and
that of their partisans. Of all the Romish dogmas there was none which
more disgusted the huguenots than transubstantiation. To affirm it (they
maintained) was to presume that Jesus Christ, man and God, was
transformed into a little cake. And hence a French refugee, Maigret,
surnamed the Magnificent, a man without pity for Roman errors, having
found some wafers in the church, threw them upon the ground; his dog,
who followed him, sprang upon them and ate them up. 'Now if these little
cakes had been real gods,' said the pitiless Maigret, 'they would not
have allowed themselves to be eaten by that beast.'[569] No one has
combated the doctrine of transubstantiation more vigorously than Calvin,
but he would not have approved of such a rude mode of acting; later, he
expressly condemned it. 'Let us not take too great license,' he said.

[Sidenote: HUGUENOT DISCOVERIES.]

The horror of the priests knew no bounds; they ran out of the church,
hastened to the hôtel-de-ville, and described to the council the violent
scenes that had just taken place. The syndics, irritated because the
huguenots had despised their orders, sent two of their number to the
cathedral—Antoine Chiquand and Ami Bandière. They were 'much excited,'
shouting and threatening 'those who had done this.' But the reformed
were not inclined to give way. They had made strange discoveries. Some
who had begun to search after the famous arm of St. Anthony—upon which,
in important cases, oaths used to be made with the ringing of bells and
great pomp, found—not the arm of the saint, but the limb of a stag.
Others, opening the precious shrine which inclosed the head of St.
Peter, brought out a piece of pumice-stone instead of the skull. 'See,'
they exclaimed, showing these objects to the surrounding crowd, 'see
what the priests used to make us worship.' This gave another direction
to the indignation of the delegates from the council, and one of them,
disgusted at such mean frauds, said to the other: 'If the gods of the
priests are true gods, let them defend themselves. As for us we can do
no more.' The huguenots, wishing to make these scandals known to the
people, put the pumice-stone and the stag's bone under magnificent
canopies, and prepared to carry these precious relics of an apostle and
a saint all round the city. The novel procession attracted an immense
crowd, and the disgusting falsehoods, of which it was a proof, opened
the eyes of the most obstinate. 'Now we know,' they said, 'the value of
the priests' words! They made us pay five florins for the ceremony; they
pretended that if any one made a false oath, the saint would wither up
his hand. All that was only to frighten and plunder us.' Every one began
to despise a clergy who, for so many ages, had thus played upon the good
faith of the people. An old writer has said: '_Justæ quibus est
iræ_.'[570] 'Woe unto the Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!'[571]

In the evening, a certain number of citizens met together after supper,
when the more excited 'proposed that they should make the round of the
other churches and throw down the idols everywhere.'—'No,' replied the
wiser ones, 'not now; if we did it at so late an hour, folks would say,
as they did of old at Pentecost, that we are _full of new wine_. Let us
wait until to-morrow morning.'[572] This was the general opinion.

The next day, Monday the 9th of August, early in the morning, the drum
beat in the streets. Some people asked 'Whether there was any alarm of
the enemy.'—'Make yourselves easy,' they answered; 'it is only a fight
against Rome and her idols.' Everything was conducted with order: the
citizens were drawn up in their companies. Baudichon de la Maisonneuve,
Pierre Vandel, and Ami Perrin, who were the three captains of the city,
put themselves at their head, and then they all marched with drums
beating to the church of St. Gervais. It was not a tumultuous band, but
the majority of the people advancing under the orders of their regular
captains. None of those citizens had the least doubt as to the
lawfulness of his proceedings. The new crusade, like that of Peter the
Hermit, was accomplished to the cry of—_It is the will of God!_

[Sidenote: SCANDALS AT ST. GERVAIS'.]

There were at St. Gervais' scandals still greater than at St. Pierre's.
The priests, to procure money, pretended that St. Nazaire, St. Celsus,
and St. Pantaleon were buried under the high altar. When a poor woman
approached, she heard a confused noise.[573] 'It is the voices of the
holy bodies,' said the priests, 'praying to be taken up and canonized;
but that requires a large sum of money.' Others related how at the dead
of night small luminous creatures were often seen moving about the
cemetery. 'They are souls from purgatory,' explained the ecclesiastics;
'they wander about here and there asking for masses for their
deliverance.' Certain persons, wishing to learn the truth, crept one
night into the cemetery, caught some of those poor souls, and found that
they were—crabs, with small wax tapers lighted and fastened on their
backs.[574] Frivolous men laughed, but serious men, seeing to what
guilty manœuvres the priests had been driven by the love of gain, were
seized with horror. 'Avarice so excites them,' said Calvin one day,
'that there is nothing they will not try, how bad soever it may
be—treacheries, frauds innumerable, hatreds, poisonings—as soon as the
gleam of silver or gold has dazzled their eyes.'

The three captains and their companies, having reached the church, began
by exploring the vault where the three saints groaned, and discovered
the trick. They found under the altar two earthen vessels connected by a
tube, and pierced with holes like those in an organ-pipe, so that the
least noise over the vessels produced the effect of organ-bellows, and
caused a sound like the indistinct murmur of persons talking.[575] 'The
poor papists could not believe it.'—'No!' they said; 'it is St. Nazaire,
St. Celsus, and St. Pantaleon.'—'Come and see then,' answered the
reformers. They came and saw, and 'some of them from that hour refused
to believe any more in such abuses.'[576]

[Sidenote: MIRACLES AT ST. DOMINIC'S.]

The judgment having been accomplished at St. Gervais, the three captains
turned their steps towards the church of St. Dominic, one of the chief
sanctuaries of popery between the Jura and the Alps. Great miracles were
worked there: the huguenots called them 'great swindles.' A beautiful
image adorned in a costly manner, and representing Our Lady, stood in
the church, and had the power (it was said) of calling back to life the
children who had died without baptism. Poor people came to Geneva from
all the country round, with their lifeless little children, and laid
them on the altar before the image. Then a feather placed on the
infant's mouth flew into the air, or else the cheeks flushed with red:
sometimes the child perspired. The spectators cried out: 'A miracle!'
'The child is resuscitated' (_revicoullé_), said the monks. Immediately
the bells rang, the child was christened, and then buried. 'The child
had never been restored alive to its father or mother,' said the
huguenots, 'and yet they had to pay dearly for it.' The citizens lifted
up the altar and found two machines under it: on one side were certain
instruments in which they blew to make the child breathe, and on the
other some stones which were heated to make the child turn color or
perspire. An ointment with which they had smeared it became soft, and
gave a certain hue to its flesh. 'Really,' exclaimed the Genevans,
'those who believe such clumsy absurdities ought to have been
converted—into blocks!' Henceforth Our Lady ceased to work
miracles.[577]

The band of reformers, having passed to the refectory, found there a
carving representing a big fat woman at a table cutting up a large pie,
with monks seated round her. Beneath were these words from psalm
cxxxiii., _Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity!_ At this moment Farel came up: 'Is it thus, my
fathers,' he said, 'that you interpret Holy Scripture? Have you not
jeered enough at men, but you must jeer also at the Word of God? By what
right do you adapt it to your gluttony?' 'Alas!' exclaimed the monks,
'excuse us; you have come too late to make us renounce our good
customs.'[578]

Meanwhile some huguenots had stopped before another piece of sculpture,
at which they were quite amazed. At the top they saw a devil with seven
heads: from the devil issued the pope with his triple crown; from the
pope issued the cardinals; from the cardinals the bishops, monks, and
priests ... and below them was a burning furnace representing hell. The
reformed Genevans were astonished to find in a convent of St. Dominic a
satire upon the papacy, more cutting than all that they had ever
imagined.[579]

The three captains and their companies arrived at last near the Arve,
where stood the church of Notre Dame; but the syndic, informed of what
was going on, arrived at the same time, and wishing to save a famous
picture of the Virgin, had it carried before them to the hôtel-de-ville.
There was no lack of raillery; people asked if they were going to work
miracles with the picture? and they were compelled to burn it in the
great hall to escape the jokes that were showered upon them.

The campaign was over; the citizens returned to their homes; the
Christian conscience approved of their work. The suppression of so many
shameful frauds—was it not ordered in heaven? From that day mass was
sung no longer in any of the churches.[580] The action of the citizens
was more than a popular movement: the Reform was strengthened by it. No
one would have condemned the vile tricks of the priests more than the
honest and brave Luther. Yet Luther, putting specially in the foreground
the great doctrine of man's justification by faith, thundered against
indulgences and other pretended good works, but tolerated images; while
Zwingle, Farel, and Calvin, regarding especially God, His glory, and His
grace, protested against every apotheosis of the creature, against all
paganism, and particularly against all images in the Lord's temple. Here
then was a characteristic difference between Lutheranism and the Reform.

Great was the sorrow and anger of the priests. Gathered round the ruins
of what they had adored, some remained silent while others uttered cries
of horror. The threats of the clergy were such that the alarmed council
that very day called the three captains before them, and asked if they
intended to obey orders. 'Certainly,' they replied; 'we destroyed the
images, because they were set up contrary to God's Word.' The syndics,
struck with the firmness of those men, summoned the council of Two
Hundred for the next day.[581]

The next day was the 10th of August, a memorable day which was to decide
the destiny of Geneva. There was great agitation throughout the city.
Some of the friends of Rome still hoped, trusting in the antiquity of
their forms and traditions; but the reformed believed the cause of the
Reformation gained, since there was on its side God, His Word, and the
majority of the citizens and of the councils. The two hundred senators
having taken their place, and many other persons of note sitting near
them, Farel appeared, accompanied by Pierre Viret, Jacques Bernard, and
several laymen. His slight appearance, his complexion tanned by the sun,
and his red beard, so dreaded by the priests, had nothing imposing; but
there was in that man a heart burning with love for Christ's Gospel, and
from those thick lips flowed streams of masculine eloquence which
carried away all hearers. He advanced firm and sure of the victory of
the Reformation. It is written: _Whatsoever is born of God overcometh
the world. Fear not._ There was much talking and agitation in the
assembly: the men who composed it had a presentiment of great things;
they felt the importance of the crisis, and, full of anxiety about what
would happen, fixed their eyes on Farel.

[Sidenote: FAREL BEFORE THE COUNCIL.]

Silence having been proclaimed, the reformer, holding the minutes of the
disputation in his hand, began to speak, and selected as the principal
points of the debate the worship of images and the sacrifice of the
mass. He reminded them 'that most of those who demanded their
maintenance had abstained from appearing; that others had not been able
to defend them, and that many had rejected them. 'Why,' he exclaimed,
'should not all embrace the Gospel? We are ready, my colleagues and I,
not only to make a public confession, but (if necessary) to sprinkle it
with our blood.' Then addressing the council directly, and raising his
'voice of thunder,' says a Roman-catholic author, he called upon the
assembly to deliver a judgment that should give glory to God. 'What!'
said he: 'the dominion of the papacy is falling, and would you lift your
hands to support what God is overthrowing? Will you always halt between
two opinions? If the pope really utters oracles, listen to him; but if
the voice we hear in Scripture is God's voice, do what it ordains.'—Here
Farel stopped: he felt the importance of the decision that was about to
be taken, and a profound emotion came over him. Lifting his hands
towards heaven, he exclaimed: 'O God! enlighten this council, make it
understand that Thy glory and the salvation of all this people are
concerned; humble the loud boasting of the priests,[582] and make Thy
cause triumph.' This 'earnest prayer,' as a manuscript terms it, made a
deep impression upon all who heard it.

The deliberation began: it was calm, serious, thoughtful, and marked
with all the dignity such an important affair demanded. The most earnest
reformers would have liked the immediate cessation of popery in Geneva;
but the council thought it wiser to proceed slowly. As Farel had uttered
a new challenge against the priests, the premier syndic proposed to call
upon them to defend the mass and image-worship if they could. Meanwhile
it was ordered, that (not to offend the catholics) the pulling down of
images should be stopped, and that (not to offend the reformers) the
celebration of mass should cease. These resolutions passed almost
unanimously.[583]

But Rome was already vanquished and the friends of the reformed were
eager to prove it. A layman stood up and said: 'You call up the priests,
but I am much afraid there is not one left in the city. They are all
thinking of running away and carrying off the church treasures. Why
should we always temporize? The reform of the abuses which disfigured
religion, far from damaging its existence, will restore it to itself,
just as washing a smeared and dirty picture restores it to its primitive
condition. That bishop, those priests, those citizens who run away, are
not the Church, they are only deserters.' The council resolved
unanimously that the Romish priests who fled were not carrying the
Church of Geneva with them, and ordered an inventory to be taken of all
ecclesiastical property. The sitting then broke up.[584]

[Sidenote: CONFISCATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY.]

The mass was suppressed: this was an enormous step. The abolition of the
mass was the abolition of popery. The reform was immediately carried
into execution. The next day (11th August) a formal order was issued
'neither to sing nor to say mass' in the city of Geneva. The frightened
priests obeyed: they drew in their horns, they hid themselves, and took
good care not to permit the least chant to be heard. Ere long there was
a new trouble. They saw the commissioners of the council enter the
churches and draw up an inventory of the furniture, jewels, and
ecclesiastical property. With downcast eyes and silent lips, the
ministers of Rome beheld the disappearance of the fine portraits, pyxes,
chalices, and other precious works, which were removed to a place of
safety beyond the reach of dilapidation. They were valued at more than
ten thousand crowns. From that day no Roman service was celebrated in
the city. There was not to be found among the clergy one of those
enthusiastic souls who rush into the midst of danger to uphold and to
proclaim their faith.

These bold acts were not, however, accomplished without a murmur. The
populace generally was for the Roman worship, and some opposition cries
were heard. 'If the mass is no longer sung,' said some timid souls to
the syndics, 'the people may rise.'[585] 'Ah!' said some prudent men,
'if the mass is sung again, that would create a still greater
disturbance.' The council therefore maintained the prohibition. A few
catholics, faithful to the superstitions of ages, might be seen going at
the canonical hours into the silent churches, wandering like ghosts
through the deserted aisles, and shedding tears. Alas! there were no
more chants, no more prayers, no more masses, no more litanies, no more
incense! The priests and the organ—all were silent.

In those days of great alarm a few women only displayed any courage. 'We
will not strike our colors,' said the sisters of St. Claire. And in fact
they did hear the mass, but with closed doors and in low tones in the
middle of the choir, and sometimes, for greater security, in the
refectory. Zealous catholics went and knocked stealthily at the convent
gate and begged in a whisper to be admitted to the masses celebrated
without singing and without pomp. They joined in the service with
trembling: they pricked up their ears and were alarmed at the least
noise. This fidelity did not last long. Five days later, on the 5th of
August, the feast of the Assumption, the last communion took place. The
father-confessor and his companions, after saying mass timidly, stole
out of the city.[586]

[Sidenote: CHRIST, AND NOT CEREMONIES.]

While night was gradually stretching its veil over popery and its
followers, the sun rose higher upon the friends of the Holy Scriptures.
There were no more Latin chants, no more theatrical postures, sacerdotal
garments, pictures and incense; none of those practices pleasing to the
eye, to the ear, or to the smell, which had so long reigned in the
Church; but in their place Jesus Christ;—Christ, in the past, making
atonement on the cross for the sins of His people;—Christ, in the
present, always in the midst of His followers, vivifying, sanctifying,
and consoling their hearts. These Christian men had entered into the new
era of truth and charity, to which the reformers invited them. While the
councils were busy particularly with the maintenance of tranquillity;
while the great body sought only independence and liberty—precious
goods, but which cannot suffice—the small body of truly pious souls,
acknowledging the Son of God as the author of a new life, were decided
to follow wherever He should lead them.

The fall of the mass, which dates from the 10th of August, was regarded
by the reformed as a sign of victory, and the Genevan Church, adopting
this idea, celebrates every century in the month of August (reckoning
from 1535) the jubilee of its reformation. After three years of
struggles the first victory was gained; but a fourth year was to pass
away before the definitive establishment of the Reform. Let us therefore
continue our march until May 1536, and even until the arrival of Calvin.

[563] Psalms cxiv. and cxv. In the Vulgate cxiii.

[564] 'Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They
have mouths but they speak not; eyes have they but they see not. They
that make them are like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in
them.'

[565] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 144.

[566] 'Les marmousets des prêtres.'

[567] M. Guizot.

[568] Sozomenes, vii. 15.

[569] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 146.

[570] Virgil, _Æneid_, x. 716.

 But otherwise the troops, with hate inspired And _just revenge_,
 against the tyrant _fired_.—Dryden.

[571] Matthew, xxiii. 14.

[572] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp. 144-146.—Registres du Conseil du
8 Août 1535.

[573] 'Bonæ vetulæ mulieres solebant suos chapelettos, in eas quas
credebant ibidem esse sanctas reliquias, demergere.'—Registres du
Conseil du 8 Décembre 1535.

[574] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 149.

[575] 'Duo vasta terrea habebant vaginam seu conductum terreum de uno ad
alium; adeo ut vasa, sic sibi respondentia, resonarent ad modum murmuris
hominis.'—Registres du Conseil du 8 Août 1535.

[576] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 150.

[577] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 152.

[578] _Ibid._ p. 151.

[579] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 153. An engraving of this picture
is given in the edition of Froment published by M. Revilliod.

[580] Registres du Conseil du 9 Août 1535.

[581] Registres du Conseil du 9 Août 1535.

[582] 'Rabats le haut caquet des prêtres.'

[583] Registres du Conseil du 10 Août 1535.—MSC. Chouet.

[584] _Ibid._—Chronique de Roset, iii. ch. xxxvii.

[585] Registres du Conseil, ad annum.

[586] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, pp.
144, 145.—Registres du Conseil des 10 et 12 Août.—Chron. MSC. de Roset.

 CHAPTER VII.
 PRIESTS, MONKS, NUNS, AND VICAR-GENERAL DEPART.
 (AUGUST TO DECEMBER 1535.)

The Reformation protested against the hierarchy. It denied that Christ
had given to the Church or to its heads the power of making laws by the
fulfilment of which Christians would be justified before God. The
Reformation protested against monkery. It denied that a cloistered life
could merit salvation and give a piety superior to what the Word of God
requires of all Christians; it reproached the monastic discipline with
lowering the divine institutions of marriage, government, and labor; and
was an occasion of backsliding and unheard-of scandal.

[Sidenote: THE MONKS ARE DUMB.]

The priests were about to quit Geneva and carry away with them those
abuses; but the council, which always studied to proceed by equitable
ways, would not condemn them without hearing them. The monks of the
different convents, demoralized and trembling like culprits, had, it is
true, fled in great numbers. Still there were some remaining, and they
received an order to appear before the Great Council to defend their
faith. They were very alarmed, but the order was peremptory. On the
morning of the 12th of August those members of the order of St. Dominic,
St. Augustin, St. Francis, and the minors of Ste. Claire who were still
in Geneva arrived at the hôtel-de-ville. They were twelve in number, a
poor remnant of those powerful bodies who for long had possessed such
great power in the city. The twelve, standing with bent heads before the
council, heard a summary of the disputation read, and this added to
their alarm. The premier syndic having asked them if they had anything
to say in favor of the mass and of images, all remained silent. St.
Dominic, St. Francis, and even St. Augustin were dumb before the Reform.
The syndics, desiring at any price to extract a sound from them, ordered
the monks to be called up one after the other. Chapelain, a brother of
St. Dominic, was called first. 'We are simple people,' he said, 'who
cannot answer for want of knowledge. We are accustomed to live as our
fathers lived and to believe as the Church does. Do not ask us about
matters beyond our reach.' The other monks were unanimous in requesting
that they might be permitted not to inquire into such questions. Monkery
fell in Geneva amid universal astonishment and indignation.

But after the monks came the priests. Monseigneur de Bonmont,
vicar-episcopal, had, at the request of the council, assembled the
canons and the secular clergy at his house. The same day (12th August)
in the afternoon, a distinguished deputation of syndics and councillors,
wishing to honor the church, went to the grand-vicar, instead of making
him come to the hôtel-de-ville like the monks. The wise and pious
Savoye, who had been elected spokesman, informed the priests that a
summary of the great disputation having been drawn up, it was about to
be read to them, 'that they might come to a better decision.' The latter
displayed less weakness than the monks. Indignant that laymen should
presume to catechise the priesthood, they replied haughtily: 'We do not
want to hear your debate, and we do not care what Farel said. We wish to
live as we have hitherto done, and beg you will leave us in peace.' As
the priests rejected the opportunity given them of justifying their
doctrines, the representatives of the state interdicted them from
celebrating mass until further orders. Some days later the council
ordered them 'to worship God according to the Gospel,' and forbade them
to perform 'any act of popish idolatry.'[587]

A great and salutary revolution was thus carried out. The Romish
priests, seeing their vast temples now silent, their rich abbeys now
bare, and themselves reduced to silence, determined to quit Geneva. The
fear of being detained made them have recourse to various expedients. In
the evening or early in the morning they stole out of the city, or else,
hiding in some corner during the day, they fled during the night.
Priests, laymen, women holding their children's hands, bade adieu to the
cheerful city, to the shores of the beautiful lake, and to its smiling
hills. They loved Rome and Rome was sufficient for them. On the 13th of
August a cry of alarm was heard in the council: 'Geneva,' it was said,
'by losing a part of its population, will lose its importance.' But it
was the contrary that happened. Confessors of the Gospel compelled to
quit their country in the cause of faith, and especially Frenchmen, were
to fill up the void made by the adherents of the pope.

The exodus continued day and night, but not without difficulty. Jean
Regis, a priest, and two of his colleagues crept one dark night to the
back of St. Victor's convent, entered the stables, and took out three
horses. They were preparing to mount them when they were arrested. The
council assembled at two hours after midnight, and sent to prison the
priests who were running away on stolen horses.[588] The council
prevented the clergy from laying hands upon what did not belong to them,
but not from going wherever they pleased.

A great number of ecclesiastics and laymen succeeded, however, in
gaining the states of the Duke of Savoy, and wherever they went they
stirred up the anger of the catholics against Geneva. The storm that was
brewing became more threatening. It was not enough for the Genevans to
see their fields laid waste, they learnt from Savoy that the city itself
was going to be destroyed. The citizens thrilled with anger: 'As the
attack is to take place in favor of popery,' they said, 'it is right
that popery should pay for the defence.' The council, therefore, decided
that the church jewels should be devoted to the necessities of the
state. The priests of St. Germain, St. Gervais, and other parishes
brought their reliquaries and vessels; but the proctors of the Madeleine
appeared empty-handed at the hôtel-de-ville, and said: 'By what right do
you demand our treasures?' At the same time the ex-syndic, Jean Balard,
and other catholics, seizing the opportunity, exclaimed: 'Why do you
deprive us of our masses?' But the council was firm, and the priests of
the Madeleine, quite broken-hearted, were obliged to bring their
chalices and other vessels to aid in combating the defenders of their
faith. As the value of these ornaments did not exceed three hundred
crowns, those of St. Pierre were added to them.[589]

[Sidenote: PAUL III. INFORMED.]

It was time for Geneva to be on its guard. At the beginning of September
1535, the ambassador from the duke of Savoy, prince of Piedmont,
informed the pope (on behalf of his master) of what had taken place and
asked for prompt repression. He told the pontiff that 'on the 10th of
August the wretched Lutherans had abolished religion; that they had
entered the churches, had thrown out the relics and the images, had
proclaimed the mass to be an abuse, and had set the ministers
preaching.' Paul III. was thunderstruck; but true to his silent habits,
he only expressed his surprise by signs. He shrugged his shoulders, said
the ambassador, as if a thrill of horror had run through him. Then
bowing his head he sighed gently, and said in a low tone: 'Holy Virgin!
Holy Virgin!' and sank into a deep silence. But if his lips were dumb
and his body motionless, his mind, full of activity, was agitated and
sought some means of conjuring the evil. At last, breaking silence, he
turned to the ambassador: 'Tell the duke that he has behaved like a good
servant of the Church. He has done all in his power to prevent this
disaster. Let him persevere in the same course.'[590] The duke
understood him, and, secure of the support of the pope and of his
brother-in-law the emperor, he continued his preparations against
Geneva.

[Sidenote: FAREL PREACHES TO THE NUNS.]

During this time the houses of the priests who remained in the city, and
the aisles of the almost deserted cloisters, resounded with wailings.
This was particularly the case in the convent of St. Claire.

  . . . Penitusque cavæ plangoribus ædes
  Femineis ululant.[591]

That convent was the only one worthy of any interest: the reformers
wished to attempt to introduce a little light into it. The Sunday of the
Octave after the Visitation of the Virgin, the syndics, with Farel,
Viret, one of the monks who had embraced the reform, and about a dozen
notables of the city, made their appearance there about ten o'clock.
When the sisters were assembled, Farel took for his text the gospel of
the day: '_Maria abiit cum festinatione in civitatem Judæ_:' 'Mary went
with haste into a city of Juda,'[592] and tried to enlighten the nuns.
'You see,' he said, 'the Virgin Mary did not lead a solitary life; she
was diligent in aiding others, and went to the town where her cousin,
who was older than herself, lived, in order to do her a service. God
said in the days of the Creation: _It is not good that the man should be
alone_. Why then should man contradict this law of God? The Lord is
unwilling that any restraint should be imposed upon the conscience,
since he has given it liberty. The service rendered to God in the
cloisters is therefore a diabolical tyranny.' At these words the
mother-vicar, a violent woman, rose hastily, left her seat, went and put
herself between the sisters and the _heretics_, and said sharply to the
latter: 'Be off, for you will gain nothing here!'—'Return to your
place,' said the syndics; but the mother replied: 'I will do nothing of
the sort.' Consequently they turned her out.

Farel continued: 'What is this monastic life that is substituted for
holy matrimony and liberty? It is a life full of great abuses, monstrous
errors, and carnal corruption.' At these words the sisters began to cry
out, 'It is a falsehood,' and spat at the reformer in their wrath.[593]
But Farel, who had suffered worse things than this, said to the
confessor: 'We know that many of these poor young women would willingly
come to the truth and liberty, if you and the old ones did not keep them
so close.' While saying these words he was stopped by loud blows which
prevented his being heard. It was the mother-vicar, who had been
listening to him; she struck against the partition with her fists, and
cried out: 'Hah! you wretched, cursed man! You are wasting your coaxing
words. Bah! you will make nothing of them!' She then backed up her words
by a terrible drumming upon the panels.[594] Some of the sisters stopped
their ears with wax, so as not to hear Farel's sermon. The latter,
calling to mind the saying, _Give not that which is holy unto the dogs_,
retired, and the deputation went down the staircase. The monk who had
embraced the Reform was the last of the file; one of the sisters walked
behind him, thumping him on the shoulders with her fists, and saying:
'Wretched apostate, out of my sight!' 'But this fine fellow did not seem
to notice them,' says Jeanne, who was present; 'he said not a word, his
tongue was palsied.'[595] The same could not be said of the
mother-vicar, and some others, who kept on vociferating and thumping.
Farel returned no more to the convent.

One nun, however, had opened her heart to the Gospel. Claudine Levet,
who had a sister named Blaisine Varembert, in the cloister, had often
visited her, had given her a New Testament, and prayed night and day to
God that Blaisine might be enlightened. The latter was touched with the
love of the Saviour, of which Claudine had spoken to her; and on the
festival of Corpus Christi she refused to adore the holy sacrament.
Three of the sisters fell upon her, 'and bruised her all over.' They put
her in prison, and tied her hands and feet. 'Ah!' said Blaisine, 'you
keep me in prison, because I reproach you for making good cheer and
living in strife with one another day and night.'[596]

Claudine Levet and some other Genevan ladies, with Baudichon de la
Maisonneuve and Pierre Vandel, went to the convent with the intention of
liberating the poor girl. The mother-vicar 'stood upright on her feet,'
and said: 'Gentlemen, consider well what you are about to do, for if any
man comes near, either he or I shall die upon the spot.'[597] Upon this,
the men remaining in the background, two or three ladies approached the
prisoner. The latter, standing by the side of her sister, declared that
she desired to serve God purely, according to Holy Scripture, and added
that she was detained in the convent against her will. 'In that case you
are free,' said De la Maisonneuve. To no purpose did the mother-vicar
rush impetuously forward, wishing to detain her by force, and several
nuns did the same; Blaisine left the convent without saying a word,
entered a neighboring house, took off her religious dress, and went in
plain garments to her sister's.[598]

Claudine and Blaisine could not, however, make up their minds to abandon
the poor recluses. Possessing the Word of God, and the salvation that it
announces, they desired to share their good things with them. The
Genevese ladies, attached to the Gospel, had much faith and activity.
The two sisters, therefore, returned to the convent on Saturday, 28th,
and Sunday, 29th August, and Dame Claude began to speak; but the nuns
tossed their heads, and called out: 'Oh the great story-teller! Oh the
devil incarnate!' And the mother-vicar, turning towards a syndic who had
accompanied Claudine, along with other 'respectable persons,' said:
'Take that witch away from here.' 'Beware how you abuse her,' answered
the magistrate, 'for she is a holy creature, enlightened by the true
God, and produces great fruits by her divine doctrines, converting the
poor ignorant people, and continually taking great pains for the
salvation of souls.' '_Convert_,' exclaimed the superior, 'you should
rather say _pervert_.' At the same time the sisters spat in her face,
according to the report of one of their number.[599]

[Sidenote: DEPARTURE OF THE NUNS.]

When the syndic saw this, he lost all hope. The duke of Savoy invited
the sisters to take refuge in his states, making them fine promises.
'Fair ladies,' said the magistrate, 'name the day you wish to
depart.'—'To-morrow,' said the mother-superior, 'to-morrow, at
daybreak.'—'Fair ladies,' resumed the syndic, 'pack up your goods.'[600]

Early next morning the syndics arrived, when the sisters, after singing
a _De Profundis_, put their breviaries under their arm, and drew up in
two ranks. The mother-vicar placed the young sisters, who might have any
longing to quit the veil, by the side of some sturdy nuns who could
detain them. A great crowd had assembled before the convent and in the
streets. Seeing this, many of the nuns 'shrank back with fear,' but the
courageous superior said, with animation: 'Cheer up, my sisters, make
the sign of the cross, and keep our Lord in your hearts.' They stepped
forward. This procession of veiled and silent women represented
Roman-catholicism leaving Geneva. Sobs were heard here and there. Three
hundred archers marched in front, behind, and at the side of the nuns,
to protect them. 'If any one moves,' said the syndic to the spectators,
'he shall lose his head.' The crowd looked on silently as the sisters
passed along.[601]

When the procession arrived at the Arve bridge, where the territory of
the city ceased, the nuns, who had imagined they would find the duke and
his court waiting at the frontiers of his states to receive them with
great honor, could see nobody. A poor monk alone appeared, bringing a
wretched wagon, in order to carry the old and sick.[602]

The rain and the muddy roads delayed their progress. The poor nuns, who
knew nothing but their convent, were startled at everything. Seeing a
few sheep grazing in a meadow, they screamed aloud, taking them (says
one of the sisters) for _ravening wolves_. A little farther on, some
cows which were in the fields, attracted by this troop passing along,
stretched out their heads towards the road, and lowed. The nuns imagined
they were _hungry bears_, and had not even strength to run away. At
nightfall they reached St. Julien, having taken fifteen hours to go a
short league. The next day they entered Annecy, where the duke gave them
the monastery of the Holy Cross. All the bells of the city rang at their
arrival. Here the poor nuns found some repose; but they did not forget
the judgment of God that had banished them from Geneva, and did not hide
the cause of their misfortunes. 'Ah!' said Sister Jeanne de Jussie, 'the
prelates and churchmen did not observe their vows at this time, but
squandered dissolutely the ecclesiastical property, keeping women in
adultery and lubricity, and _awakening the anger of God_, which brought
divine punishment on them.'[603]

If the truth extorted such a confession from a nun, an honest but
fanatical disciple of popery, we may understand what the reformed
thought and said. A cry came from their hearts against the immorality
and hypocrisy of those who ought to have been their guides. Hence there
was great agitation among the priests; they came running in a distracted
manner to Monseigneur de Bonmont, and asking him: 'What is to be done?
must we stay or go?'

[Sidenote: FLIGHT OF THE GRAND-VICAR.]

The grand-vicar thought it was necessary to go. Public opinion declared
unequivocally against him: he was one of those priests who called forth
Sister Jeanne's reproof. 'Monseigneur keeps in his house several
mistresses and agents of debauchery,' people said. 'Gaming, _mots de
gueule_, dances, banquets, impudicity, and every kind of dissolute
living, are his delight. He generally has five vile prostitutes at his
table, seated according to their degree, two at his right and two at his
left, while the oldest waits upon the others. He smiles when he talks of
impudicity, and says, "It is a mere backsliding, and does not count."'
Seeing the storm grow darker, the wretched priest was terrified in his
conscience, and resolved to act like his bishop, and quit a city where
he could no longer live as he had always lived. The Reformation was the
re-establishment of morality as well as of faith. Monseigneur fled to
the mountain, to solitude in the abbey of Bonmont, near Nyon, on a spur
of the Jura, which overlooks Lake Leman and its rich valley. Another
terror was soon to drive him thence.[604]

The anger of God (spoken of by Jeanne) continued to work out his
judgments: opprobrium accumulated on those priests who had thought
themselves the kings of the earth. On the 18th of September, some of the
citizens having caught one of them in an act of impurity, they set him
on a donkey, and paraded him thus through the city, making his mistress,
disguised as a lackey, walk behind him. Serious men disapproved of such
buffoonery. 'Ah!' they said, 'disease, the consequence of their
disorders, has so punished them, that as we see them pass along in their
processions we might imagine them to be soldiers returning from the war,
they are so covered with scars—true martyrs of the pope!'[605] The
magistrates would have liked not to punish them, not to banish them, but
to reform them. 'Give up,' they said, 'your dances, gluttony, and
dissolute living, and dwell in our city according to God's law, like
citizens and good friends.' But that seemed too difficult for the
priests: they preferred to leave Geneva.

The most active, however, remained. Dupan and some of his colleagues
went from house to house, strengthening the weak. They might be seen
passing along the streets, wearing their sacerdotal vestments. If a
child was born, they hastened to christen it according to the Roman
ritual; if fervent Catholics desired the sacrament, they met secretly in
some chamber, knelt down before a hastily constructed altar, crossed
themselves, and said mass. They even carried their zeal so far as to
visit certain of the reformed, in order to bring them back to the fold
of the Church. At the very moment when the edifice was giving way on all
sides, their natural inflexibility and enthusiasm for the papacy made
them remain, as if their feeble hands were sufficient to support it.
Such courage claims our admiration, but the reformed considered it
rather as a matter for serious anxiety. They felt the necessity of
concord and unity at this critical moment. 'See what your condescension
exposes us to,' they said to the magistrates. 'Just as the enemy is
marching against the city, these priests are going to stir up a civil
war within our gates.'[606]

[Sidenote: HOSPITAL AND SCHOOL FOUNDED.]

The syndics who knew the danger and the necessities of the city, thought
that the best means of securing to Geneva her independence and her
faith, would be to set everything in good order. The Reformation is a
good tree; let it therefore bear its fruit! Christians ought to take
care of their sick and of their poor. Accordingly, a general hospital
was founded at Ste. Claire, and endowed with the revenues of the old
hospitals and the property become ownerless through the departure of the
ecclesiastics. Claude Salomon, one of the most fervent evangelicals,
dedicated himself, his wife, and his fortune to its service.

Christians ought to take care of their children. It is true that in
1429, F. de Versonex, the syndic, had founded a school where grammar,
logic, and the liberal arts were taught; but the director of that
institution having left the city, the school had been shut. It must be
restored and improved. Farel and his friends required that the
instruction should be universal—for all children. The school was
established in the place which is still named Rue du Vieux Collège, and
its direction intrusted to Saunier, a capable man.[607]

After the extirpation of ignorance came the suppression of mendicity. An
order was published by sound of trumpet on the 29th of October, 'that no
person should beg, but seek shelter in the poor-house.'[608]

Subsequently these institutions received important developments. It was
not until the period when the college and academy were founded by Calvin
that instruction took a start in Geneva, which carried intellectual
culture to such a height in that city. But the starting-point was
Saunier's college, where primary instruction was mixed up with religion.
The Reformation launched Geneva like a ship, which at first coasts along
the nearest shores, but reaches at last the remotest seas. It was not
simply a matter of theological dogma, as some believe; it developed the
conscience, the understanding, and the heart, and regulated the will. It
did not form merely a few Christian men; it gave to that city a new
people, school, church, literature, science, and charity; it gave new
value to the great interests of man, and called into existence a
well-spring of useful research and elevated thoughts. The Reformation
was able to say:

  Humani nihil a me alienum puto.[609]

[Sidenote: ROMANISM ENDS IN GENEVA.]

While the council was carrying out these beneficent measures, a certain
number of agitated and restless priests kept going from house to house,
consulting together and professing opinions that tended to rebellion.
Instead of taking harsh measures against them, the magistrates loyally
determined to give them a fresh opportunity of defending their faith. On
the 29th of November thirty priests, headed by Dupan, appeared before
the council. There were still thirty priests in Geneva and only three
ministers! It was not, therefore, by numbers and by the might of man,
that the Reformation was established, but by the power of God. The
premier syndic asked them to undertake the defence of popery. 'We have
neither the ability nor the learning,' answered Dupan; and he added:
'Sooner than expose our religion to a new discussion, we will give up
all pastoral functions.' The priesthood abdicated. On the 6th of
December the council again called the priests before them, and gave them
this option: 'If your doctrine is good, defend it; if bad, renounce it.'
Then the break-up began. 'For a long time,' said Delorme, 'I have been
saying mass unwillingly,' and he passed over, with others, to the side
of the Reform. Some left the city; and the council required that those
who remained 'should wear other hats,' and live like the rest of the
citizens. Lastly, wishing to make it evident that there was no longer in
Geneva either bishop or prince, the council voted that the episcopal
palace should be converted into a prison.[610] This was no change in its
destination, according to certain sarcastic huguenots, since the bishop
and his see had never been of any use but to keep liberty captive. Thus
ended the existence of the Romish priesthood in Geneva. The magistrates,
far from persecuting catholicism, had on several occasions put the
priests in a position to defend it: it was the religion of the popes
that fled and made way for the religion of the Holy Scriptures. Complete
religions liberty, the conquest of modern times, did not certainly
preside at that day in the councils of the republic; but as an historian
of Geneva, who is not a protestant, has said, 'We must not demand of an
age ideas, theories, and acts which could not exist until after events
and revolutions still to come.'[611]

Seeing that the priests were departing, that their chants no longer
re-echoed through the lofty Gothic aisles, that the tapers no longer
burnt upon the gorgeous altars and the varied ceremonial had
disappeared, Farel, Viret, and Froment came forward and said: 'We are
ready to preach without sparing ourselves either weariness or labor, and
to employ all the power of the Word to lead the flock into the straight
road with wisdom and gentleness.' And in fact from that hour the Word
which awakeneth and teacheth was heard daily in the churches, and
particularly at St. Pierre and St. Gervais. The hearers said that these
true ministers of the Gospel 'did not behave like old-clothes men
(_revendeurs_), who are accustomed to polish up their wares and put a
gloss upon their old rags, in order to get more money for them; but they
offered the pure and simple doctrine of Jesus Christ.' Many felt that
the Word of God was a sword which pierces to the heart and kills the old
man in such a manner that a new man takes the place of him that was
slain.

Farel assembled the people in the cathedral in order that they should
all pray for peace to God who giveth it.[612] These prayers ascended to
heaven. Geneva was to have peace, but after new trials.

[587] Registres du Conseil du 12 Août.—Chronique MSC. de Roset.

[588] Registres du Conseil du 12 Août.

[589] Registres du Conseil des 16 et 17 Août 1535.

[590] Archives de Turin. Mémoire sur les droits de la maison de Savoye.

[591] Virgil, _Æneid_, ii. 487. 'Shrieks of women rend the vaulted
skies.'—_Dryden._

[592] Luke, i. 39.

[593] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, p. 131.

[594] _Ibid._

[595] 'Ce brave homme n'en faisait aucun semblant, ni oncques dit mot;
il avait la langue amortie.'

[596] 'Vous faites bonne chère et vivez en noise.'—Jeanne de Jussie,
_Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, pp. 170-173.

[597] _Ibid._ pp. 141-148.

[598] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, pp.
150-152. Registres du Conseil du 25 Août 1535.

[599] 'Décrachaient.'—Jeanne de Jussie.

[600] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, pp.
175, 189, 197.

[601] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, pp.
192, 197.

[602] _Ibid._ pp. 199-201.

[603] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, pp. 34,
201-223.

[604] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_,
p. 34.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 157.

[605] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, pp.
154-160.—Roset, Chron. MSC. liv. iii. ch. xxxvii.

[606] Registres des Conseils des 15 Octobre, 12 et 29 Novembre 1535.

[607] He was probably the writer of a treatise entitled _Ordre et
manière d'enseigner en la ville de Genève, au collège_, recently
reprinted by Professor Bétant.

[608] Registres du Conseil des 27 Août, 7 et 17 Septembre, 29 Octobre,
12, 14 et 15 Novembre 1535.—Des Hôpitaux de Genève.—_Mémoires
d'Archéologie_, iii. pp. 155-366.

[609] 'Nothing that concerns mankind is indifferent to me.'

[610] Registres du Conseil des 12, 23, 24 et 29 Novembre, 6 Décembre
1535.

[611] Thourel, _Histoire de Genève_, ii. p. 163.

[612] Kirchhofer, _Farel_, p. 193.

 CHAPTER VIII.
 AN ENERGETIC CITIZEN CALLS SWITZERLAND TO HELP
 GENEVA AND THE REFORMATION.
 (SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER 1535.)

[Sidenote: THE COMING TEMPEST.]

The joy which then filled Geneva was not to be of long duration. The sky
was fair, and yet certain signs indicated that the tempest was not far
off. The Reformation which had been accomplished excited the most
serious uneasiness at Turin, at Rome, and around the puissant Charles V.
Hitherto a few desultory attacks had been made against the city: its
territory had been laid waste, its provisions intercepted, and ladders
had been placed against its walls: but now a regular campaign was about
to be opened, and the enemy were decided not to lay down their arms
until they had taken it and transformed it into a popish and Savoyard
city. The partisans of Rome felt their danger; they saw that as Geneva
was at the gates of France, Italy, and Germany, if the Reformation was
settled there, it might compromise the existence of the papacy
itself.[613] Accordingly all their thoughts were bent on putting down
_the revolt_, though at the cost of much bloodshed, and of treating
Geneva as Alby, 'of holy and illustrious memory,' had been treated
formerly. Paul III., a friend of the world and of the fine arts, wished,
however, to employ milder means at first—to reduce the city by famine.
'These Lutherans of four days' standing,' he said, 'will soon be
disgusted with their heresy.' He was deceived, but the duke of Savoy did
not share his mistake. That prince, who showed a certain kindness
towards his party, was hard, violent, and merciless whenever Geneva was
concerned. He was to be the Simon de Montfort of the new crusade. 'It is
impossible,' people said, 'that the Genevans can hold out in the face of
the duke's alliances. On the one hand, there is his brother-in-law the
emperor, his nephew the king of France, his father-in-law the king of
Portugal, and his allies the Swiss; and then all his own subjects, who
hem in Geneva for two hundred leagues round, as wolves surround a fold
of helpless sheep. On the other hand, there is the pope, the cardinals,
the bishops, and the priests, whose favor and support the bishop of
Geneva possesses.'[614] The cabinet of Turin resolved, therefore, to set
to work. On the 30th of August the duke publicly proclaimed Geneva as
infected with the plague, forbade his subjects, under pain of death, to
have any communication with its inhabitants, and promised hospitality in
his states to all who desired to escape from the pestilence. It was
thought in Piedmont that only a few mischief-makers would remain, and
that one bold stroke would make the ducal army master of the city.
Everything was prepared in the states of Charles IV. to strike a
decisive blow.[615]

[Sidenote: THE EMPEROR'S PROJECTS.]

On the 28th of August and 24th of September, numerous companies came as
far as the gates of Geneva, but the citizens drove them back. These were
mere skirmishes of outposts: more formidable attacks were in
preparation. Charles V., victorious over Barbarossa, called upon the
Swiss League, assembled at Baden near Zurich, to give material help to
the duke of Savoy. It was said in many quarters that the plan of that
ambitious monarch was to destroy four cities—Algiers, Geneva,
Wittemberg, and Constantinople—two cities of the Koran and two of the
Gospel. Did not an old prophecy speak of an emperor who was to achieve
the conquest of the world, command 'the adoration of the cross under
pain of death, and then be crowned at Jerusalem by _an angel of
God_?'—'That emperor,' said many, 'is Charles V.'[616]

Alarm was beginning to creep over the Genevese people; the councils
deliberated, but in vain, as to what could be done to save the city.
Fathers and mothers sat by their firesides with downcast eyes, silent
lips, and foreheads burdened with care; and groups collected here and
there in the streets, talking earnestly about their misfortunes! 'All