As it was not enough to lay their hands upon men, the princes of Savoy laid their hands upon the constitution. War was made against principles still more than against persons. It was necessary to stifle those strange aspirations which carried men’s minds towards new ideas, and to put an end to imaginations which denied the lawfulness of absolute power. The duke, in accord with the bishop, published, although he was a foreign prince, an act restricting the liberties of Geneva, which banished from the general council all young men (for they were suspected of independence), and deprived the people of the direct election of syndics. On the 3rd of September, the general council, at which few but mamelukes were present, accepted these articles in silence. Thus did the Duke of Savoy, with the bishop’s help, triumph over principles, rights, and liberties, and think he had strangled in their nest the young eagles whom he had once feared to see soaring into the heavens. Geneva, humbled and silenced by a bad prince and a maimed constitution, was no longer to be feared.
The sorrow was general, and it might have been supposed that the community only possessed strength enough to yield its last breath. But as was seen formerly in Israel, in moments of crisis, how prophets and prophetesses arose, so voices were heard in Geneva--voices of the weakest creatures--proclaiming the ruin of the people and denouncing the awful judgments of God. A poor girl for three days walked up and down the city, neither eating nor drinking, but crying everywhere as she went: _Le maz mugnier! le maz molin! le maz molu! ... tout est perdu._ ‘Wicked miller! wicked mill! wicked meal!.... All is lost!’ The miller was the prince, the mill was the constitution, the meal was the people.... It seems that this monotonous and doleful voice affected everybody, even the mamelukes; the world readily believed in the marvellous in those days; and the vidame dared not arrest the prophetess. Syndic Balard, one of the most enlightened men in Geneva at that time, saw a deep meaning in the poor girl’s mission.[288]
STRUGGLES OF LIBERTY. LUTHER. DEATH OF THE BISHOP. HIS SUCCESSOR.
The prophetess was mistaken: the _meal_ was good. On a sudden the sky hitherto so dark cleared up, and there was a gleam of sunshine. The duke, who was thinking of marriage, returned to Turin; the bishop, who was seriously ill and needed a warmer air, withdrew to his abbey of Pignerol, and the huguenots, freed from their two oppressors, raised their heads. Ramel, Hugues, Taccon, Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, and two others, waited upon the episcopal vicar, prothonotary of the holy see, and demanded the revocation of the decrees contrary to the liberties of the city, and the liberation of all citizens imprisoned by the bishop. ‘In case of refusal,’ they said, ‘we shall appeal to the metropolitan see of Vienne.’[289] The vicar, remembering the excommunication incurred in the affair of Pécolat, was alarmed, and granted all they demanded. This concession raised the courage of the most timid, and the patriots immediately held meetings to provide for the safety of the city. Aimé Lévrier, the judge, was especially prominent. Berthelier had been the man of action, Lévrier was the man of right: he had seen with sorrow force substituted for law. In his opinion, every idea hostile to right ought to be combated; and the government of the bishop was not that of the laws, but of arbitrary power and terrorism. Lévrier had examples in his own family: the prelate had caused his brother-in-law (the procurator Chambet) to be thrown into prison because he was a huguenot, and to be tortured so severely that his limbs remained out of joint. ‘God made man free,’ said Lévrier, ‘ages have made Geneva free; no prince has the right to make us slaves.’ Despairing of ever seeing the bishop reign with justice, he proposed an effectual remedy: ‘Let us petition the pope for the prelate’s destitution.’ The daring motion was agreed to, and Lévrier was commissioned to go to Rome to see to its execution. The princes of Savoy succeeded in stopping him, and parried the blow, in part at least. Leo X., however, acknowledging how shameful the bishop’s conduct had been, ordered the bastard never to return to Geneva, and to select a coadjutor to replace him. This was a cruel disgrace to the prelate.