There was another and more solemn assemblage, his relations with which were less tender. This was the consistory of the Church, which found it less easy to allow for the old man's infirmities. His first appearance before this body was under accusation of playing at dice with Clement Marot, another famous character and the sweet singer of the French Reformation. He comes next time of his own accord, asking the venerable brethren to interfere because his second wife ran away from him on their wedding-day, she defending herself on the ground of a bad cold. His domestic troubles bring him thither so often as to put the clergy out of patience. He is called up for beating his wife, but shows that the discipline was needed, and she is admonished to be more obedient in future. Later on he is questioned why he does not come to church. He can't walk, is the answer. But he is told that if he can get himself carried to the hôtel de ville to see the new carvings, he could get carried to church. And why does he neglect the communion? _Answer_: He has been debarred from it. "Then present your request to be restored." So the poor old gentleman presents himself six weeks later, asking to be readmitted to the Church; which is granted, but with the remark, entered on the record, that he "does not show much contrition in coming with a bunch of flowers over his ear--a thing very unbecoming in a man of his years."
The dreadful consistory had a principal concern in the affair that darkened the declining days of Bonivard with the shadow of a tragedy. An escaped nun had found refuge in his lodgings after his third wife's death; and after some love-making--on which side was disputed--there was a promise of marriage given by him, which, however, he was in no hurry to fulfil. The consistory deemed it best to interfere, in the interests of propriety, and insist on the marriage; and the decrepit old invalid in vain pleaded his age and bodily infirmities. So he was married in spite of himself to his nun, and showed his disposition to make the best of it by making her a wedding-present of his new Latin treatise, just finished, on _The Origin of Evil_, and receiving in tender return a Greek copy of the _Philippics_ of Demosthenes. Three years later the wretched woman was accused of adultery, and being put to the torture confessed her crime and was drowned in a sack, while her paramour was beheaded. Bonivard, being questioned, declared his belief of her innocence, and that her worst faults were that she wanted to make him too pious, and tormented him to begin preaching, and sometimes beat him when he had a few friends in to drink.[13]