Father Furbity and the priests were in great spirits when the “two Mahometans” were gone. Sunday, December 21, was the Feast of S. Thomas of Canterbury. Father Furbity preached a sermon on that day, of which Sister Jane gives us the following notes:-
“The holy father preached very faithfully, touching those dogs to the quick. He said that all who follow that cursed sect are nothing else than people given up to lust, gluttons, unclean, ambitious, murderers and thieves, led only by their sensual passions, living like beasts, without owning God or their superiors, but bent upon indulging themselves in their damnable liberty; at which words the Christians rejoiced, and after the sermon the Captain de Pesmes, who was the leader of the good party, went with many of his band to thank the reverend father for his good discourse, saying they would defend him from all his enemies. But the reverend gentleman replied, ‘Sir Captain, I have only done my duty, and I entreat you and all good faithful Christians to make good use of your swords, and I on my part will employ the spirit, and use my tongue to defend the truth.’ "
Scarcely had these words been spoken, when, like a sudden peal of thunder, the terrible news ran through the city—“Baudichon has come back from Berne, bringing—not an army of soldiers, but the banished Alexander and William Farel!”
“What! that wretch! that devil!” exclaimed the priests; “he is come back!”
And before the day was over, the Captain de Pesmes, seeing Baudichon and Farel in the street, put Father Furbity’s words into execution, and rushed upon them, followed by his “Christians.” But the Huguenots were on the watch, and dragged off their friends to a place of safety.
The next day Baudichon appeared before the council, and handed in a letter from the great lords of Berne.
“You drive away the preachers of the Holy Word,” said the Bernese, “you allow men to preach who blaspheme against God. We command you to arrest your preacher" (Furbity): “moreover, we ask for a place in which William Farel may preach the gospel publicly.”
The council knew not what to do. They dared not, for fear of the priests, arrest Furbity, but they placed him under a guard of soldiers, still allowing him to preach. The priests had finer services than ever before—the dresses, the music, and the shows, were beyond all “that any alive had ever beheld.” William Farel meanwhile preached in a large room to the crowds who came there.
New Year’s Day arrived, the New Year’s Day of 1534—just one year since little Anthony’s sermon on the fish-stall. A very different message was delivered that day from all the pulpits of Geneva. “In the name of my Lord of Geneva, and of his vicar”: thus sounded the awful words in every parish church, “it is ordered that no one shall preach the Word of God, either in public, or in private, and that all the books of Holy Scripture, whether in French or in German, shall be burnt.” On that same day did Father Furbity preach his farewell sermon, and for this occasion he had composed a doggerel verse which may be thus translated—
“I will give you a New Year’s gift-
Those Lutheran fellows that plague you:
May God convert them, or, if not,
May He give them the quartan-ague.
If any agree with what I say,
Let him take his measures without delay.”
Of this farewell Sister Jane writes: “He preached with great fervor and devotion, giving a beautiful New Year’s gift to men of all estates, and so politely and with such devotion did he make his farewell, that all were in tears, and he thanked them for the good fellowship and help they had rendered him, and prayed them to persevere in devotion; and having given them his blessing he took his leave.”
But Father Furbity forgot that he was still in the keeping of his guard of soldiers, and to his great surprise, he was informed that he was a prisoner, and was not permitted to leave the city.
The Bishop’s message had roused up every Huguenot of Geneva. In spite of Farel’s warning as to the weapons of the flesh, that same evening the Huguenots appeared in arms. They did not mean to attack their enemies, but, if needful, to defend their Bibles.
The Catholics had been in arms ever since the fourth Sunday in Advent. Their reason was to prevent the gospellers from bringing “their idol,” William Farel, to preach in St. Peter’s Church, a plan which had been talked of by the Huguenots.
“It was a beautiful sight,” says Sister Jane, “to see so many handsome young men burning with the love of God, ready to expose their lives to maintain the holy faith; and to these Christians there joined themselves great troops of women and children armed with stones. And I and my company of 24, who could not carry arms of steel, carried nevertheless the arms of hope and the shield of faith; and I write this, that those who have to suffer for the love of God may know that those before them have suffered also, following the example of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ, who suffered first and most.”
I do not write these words of Sister Jane to hold her up to ridicule, but as a solemn warning. She was sincere in what she said, and God desires that we should take such warnings to ourselves. It may be just in the matter in which we seem to ourselves the most to be praised, we are the furthest from God, and the most displeasing to Him. “Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts,” is a prayer just as fit for you and me, as for David long ago.
In the midst of the tumult caused by the bishop’s message, the Catholics were roused by a fresh arrival. Anthony Froment had come back! and scarcely had he appeared, when the Bernese ambassador himself demanded admittance at the city gates. He brought with him a young man, pale and ill. It was Peter Viret. He had been stabbed in the back by a priest at Payerne, but he was ready to preach, weak and exhausted as he was.
Farel, Viret, and Anthony Froment were all in their midst! Alexander had left. We shall hear news of him later. The bishop had forbidden preaching, and now the three great gospel preachers were all there together—all preaching, and none dared to hinder.
The Bernese ambassador demanded that Father Furbity should be brought before the council, to answer for his evil words. On the 9th of January this was done. The ambassador took his place. By his side sat Farel, Viret, and Froment. Furbity was brought in. He had been kept in prison since his last sermon. The sisters of St. Claire had sung many masses and hymns to the Virgin on his behalf. “Several times,” says Sister Jane, “it was proposed to him to hold a disputation with the Satan Farel; but never would he consent, saying he would not put divine things before a man so vile and wicked, nor would he condescend to hear him, which much enraged the caitiff, who saw how the reverend father despised him.”
The Bernese ambassador, finding that Furbity refused to give any explanation of his words and deeds, desired the council to punish him for contempt of authority. He demanded also a church for the preaching of the gospel. “If you refuse,” he said, “our alliance is over. Here are the letters of our alliance, take them back.” The council dared not refuse. The end of the matter was that Furbity had to promise he would hold a public discussion with Farel in the Town Hall on the 29th of January. In the meantime he was kept in prison, “where,” says Sister Jane, “he received many letters from the sisters, and wrote many to them, and I doubt not God gave him great consolation, and caused him to have frequent visits from His angels, although I only know this dimly.”
I cannot in this short history give you a full account of the discussion at the Town Hall. Farel kept to the point that the Bible, and the Bible only, is the one authority for doctrine and practice; and he said further that all Christian people were bound to read the Bible diligently, and to submit to that only in all matters of faith and conduct. Furbity maintained that the priests only might read the Bible, and explain it to the people, according to the meaning given to it by the councils. Furbity further endeavored to prove that authority rests in the bishops, and in his attempts to quote a verse to prove this, he read by mistake the verse which says that a bishop ought to be the husband of one wife; and to explain that there should be bishops in authority over bishoprics, he was equally unfortunate in quoting the verse, “his bishopric let another take.”
“As to that good bishop, Judas, to whom you refer,” replied Farel, “he who sold the Savior of the world, he has had alas! many successors who, instead of preaching the Word of God, carry the bag.”
For several days the discussion lasted. At the end of it Father Furbity was taken back to his prison. In the meanwhile the priests had not been idle; some of them preached diligently against heretics; some went about telling strange stories to warn all good Christians against the three devils, Farel, Viret, and Froment.
“It is plain that Farel is a devil,” they said: “he has no whites to his eyes, his beard is red and stiff, and there is a devil in each hair of it; he has horns and cloven feet like a bullock: moreover he is the son of a Jew.”
The landlord of the Black Head, where the preachers lodged, did his best to spread these stories about the town. This man had two wives, one of whom was the servant who waited on the preachers. Anthony remarked that both the landlord and the servant made wry faces at one another, as they listened to the conversation at dinner-time. It was very unpleasant to them to hear the preachers talking together of God and His Word.
“I would rather,” the landlord said, “that they went away without paying their bill, if only they would go a long way off, and never come back.”
“Only think,” added the maid, “I followed them upstairs one night when they were going to bed. I peeped through a hole in the door. What did I see? They were feeding devils! Yes, I can assure you, it was just as I tell you. The devils were like black cats, with fiery eyes. They had crooked pointed claws. They were under the table, moving backwards and forwards; I saw all this with my own eyes through the hole.” The priests repeated these stories to all who would listen, adding more of their own composition.
The Huguenots cared but little for this idle talk; but, just as a discussion was going on in the Town Hall, they were startled by the news that some Catholics had stabbed in the street two Huguenot citizens. One was dangerously wounded, the other, a worthy respectable tradesman, was dead. Neither of them had given any cause for the attack made upon them. A large body of Huguenots drew up before the Town Hall. Four of them went into the council room, where they found the Bernese ambassador. He had just arrived to warn the council that a massacre was about to begin. The four Huguenots brought the same tidings. They said the priests had resolved upon another riot.
The council sent out officers immediately to arrest the murderers. But where were they?
“No doubt they are hidden in the bishop’s palace,” said the Huguenots; “he is most likely at the bottom of the plot.”
The magistrates commanded the palace doors to be opened, and they searched the house from the garrets to the cellars, but not a trace could they find of the murderers. They left a guard of Huguenot soldiers in the house, and went to search elsewhere. An hour or two later, when it was quite dark, as the Huguenot soldiers sat keeping watch in the hall of the palace, a low voice was heard through the keyhole.
It was someone speaking from the street outside. A soldier put his ear to the key-hole. A voice repeated the name of one of the maids. One of the Huguenots, imitating a woman’s voice, said “What do you want?” “I want some keys,” replied the speaker outside, “I want them for Portier and Claude Pennet.”
Portier was the bishop’s secretary, the same who had stabbed the young Huguenot a year before in the cathedral. Pennet was one of the murderers on the present occasion.
“What will you do with them?” asked the Huguenot.
“I shall take them to St. Peter’s church, where they are hidden,” replied the voice through the key-hole.
That was just what the Huguenots wanted to know. They threw open the door, and the speaker, who was a priest, seeing an armed man, instead of the maid, fled in terror. The magistrates, hearing the tidings, went themselves to the church, or rather the cathedral. They took a number of officers with them, carrying torches. They wandered over the great cathedral —through the side chapels, the galleries, the vestries—all in vain. At last, after three long hours, they determined to go up the winding stairs into the tower. The officer who first reached the top of the tower caught sight, in a dark corner, of some sparkling eyes, which shone in the light of his torch. Pennet and his accomplice Portier were crouching in the corner, shaking and trembling from head to foot.
Very speedily they were locked up in the prison of the Town Hall.
Meanwhile the Huguenot soldiers who had remained in the palace, were chatting and joking with the bishop’s servants. They talked about Portier, and made various disrespectful remarks concerning him. “Indeed,” said the servants, “Portier is not such a nobody as you suppose; he has confidential letters from my lord the bishop, yes, and from his highness the Duke of Savoy himself.”
“Indeed!” said the Huguenots, who saw they were on the eve of making a great discovery; “you don’t mean us to believe that such grand people trouble themselves to write to Portier. You must have dreamed it.”
“There are the letters in his cupboard,” answered the servants. “If you don’t believe it, we should only have to get the cupboard open, and you would see them, with the duke’s great seal, too.”
Up sprang the Huguenots, and in another moment the cupboard was broken open, and the letters all cleared out and carried off to the council. Great was the horror and consternation of the citizens of Geneva, when these startling letters were read before them. They now saw the fearful pit, upon the brink of which they had been standing.
Their bishop himself had written to Portier appointing a governor, who was to have absolute power in Geneva, with no law but that of his own will. He was to put to death whom he would, being answerable to no one but the bishop. To carry out this plot, the bishop had entered into a compact with his old enemy, the Duke of Savoy. The duke had sent blank warrants, with his seal attached to them. Any citizen might thus be seized in the name of the duke, and according to the pleasure of the bishop. Just as Herod and Pilate had forgotten their enmity in order to join in the murder of the Son of God, so had the duke, and his rival the bishop, now joined hands to put down the blessed gospel which was hateful alike to both. The bishop, whom the council had trusted, had betrayed them to their bitterest enemy.
Portier had now enough to answer for. He was kept in prison awaiting his trial. Pennet, who had murdered the good tradesman, was tried at once.
His brother, who had stabbed the other man, could not be found. He was hidden in the house of a beggar-woman, where Sister Jane and her nuns supplied him with food.
Claude Pennet, the murderer, was condemned to death by a Catholic magistrate. There were some amongst the Catholics who cared more for the laws and liberties of their city than for the praise and goodwill of the priests.
But that you may know how this matter was looked upon by the priests and their friends, I must relate it to you in the words of Sister Jane. It is well to hear both sides of a story, and you shall hear both in the present case.
“The Christians were now beginning to fail in courage, and day by day more were perverted, so that no Christian dared to say a word, without being put to death for it. For one day a perverse heretic spoke in mockery of the Holy Church and of the divine sacraments, saying words so contemptuous, that a true Christian who heard them could not bear it. He therefore drew his sword, and killed the heretic on the spot. But the Christian was pursued, and caught in the tower of St. Peter’s, and executed on the day of St. Agatha. And it was proposed to him first that he should be a gospeller, in which case he should be forgiven. But he said that he would not, for the sake of this passing life, be the servant of iniquity.”
I would observe that as Pennet was condemned by a Catholic magistrate, it is not likely that he was offered his life on condition of being a “gospeller.”
“He then asked that he might see the reverend father (Furbity) who was in prison. When they saw one another they could not refrain from weeping. Then this good Catholic confessed, and declared how he was condemned to the gibbet for the love of Jesus Christ, and the reverend father kissed him, saying, ‘Sir Claude, go joyfully to enjoy yourself. This is your martyrdom, do not doubt it, for Heaven is open to you, and the angels wait for you.’ And when he passed before the convent of St. Clara, he said to his sister, ‘My sister, go and tell those ladies I implore them to pray for my poor soul, for I am going my way joyfully.’"
I cannot explain to you why the ladies were to pray for his poor soul, as he believed he was going straight to Heaven, where the angels were waiting for him. But to return to Sister Jane.
“When the message came to the sisters, they were just sitting down to dinner. Some of them became insensible, and made their dinner of sorrow. When he had been hanging three days on the gibbet, his face was as rosy, and his mouth as fresh, as when he was alive, and it is said that a white dove was seen hovering over his head, with other evident signs. This good Christian had a brother not less ardent and zealous for the holy Catholic faith; he was hidden in the house of a beggar. One night he came to the convent, barefoot, in the hard frost, and took leave of the sisters weeping bitterly. In the morning he escaped in a disguise, and was thus saved by the grace of God.
“And on the l0th of March was beheaded the secretary Portier, because he was found with letters from my lord the bishop, saying that he might catch Lutherans wherever he could, and kill them, or hang them on a tree without making any difficulty about it. And for this he suffered martyrdom that afternoon of the 10th of March; and there was great mourning for him, for he was a worthy man, and like the other he made a holy end. And the dogs would not allow him to be taken down from the gibbet: therefore this holy body remained hanging there with thieves and murderers; and, they say, many beautiful signs were seen; but, as I do not know the truth as to this, I will not write them.
“And that day was executed a thief and robber of the Lutheran sect, whom the monks exhorted that he should die in the faith, but on the way to the execution he was taken from their hands, and given to Farel to be preached to. So he died a heretic. And a miraculous thing happened thereupon, when he was hung on the gibbet. There was a woman who had been hung there a year before, who had died in the faith of our holy mother church, and miraculously did she turn towards this Lutheran boy, who was hung on a gibbet by her side, and opening her mouth wide, she bit him on the chin. And to see this admirable sight, crowds ran together from all parts of the city, and they saw the woman turning again and again to bite the boy. More than 4000 persons beheld this miracle.”
You have now heard both sides of the story. And let us not forget that the same old serpent, who could thus persuade the poor nuns that an ungodly murderer was a saint and martyr, can persuade you and me that evil is good, and good evil, and none but God Himself can give to us the eye-salve which we all need as much as Sister Jane.
With regard to the last miracle, I would mention that miraculous sights were by no means uncommon at Geneva. It was quite usual on a dark night, for the priests to call the passers-by to look into the cemetery, “There,” they said, “you see the poor souls from purgatory, who are come back to entreat their friends and relations to pay for masses to deliver them out of torment. Do you not see them? There is one! there is another!” And the horror-stricken people beheld here and there a little flame slowly moving amongst the long grass—sometimes quite a company of flames, all wandering about in a restless manner.
But it happened at last, that a strong-minded Huguenot pursued one of the flames, and caught it. It was a little crab with a small wax taper fastened on its back.
In fact so many were the miracles worked at this time by the priests that the Council was requested to interfere. It was represented to the Council that the priests were “growing fat, and their faces red as lobsters "(so writes the chronicler), in consequence of the large sums they received from the poor mothers of Geneva, whose babies had died without baptism. When such a calamity happened, a priest was always ready to raise the dead baby to life. It is true this miracle was not performed in the presence of the parents, but only in the church, whither the baby was carried by the priests. As soon as the baby was baptized it invariably died again, and was buried at once. But the mother had the happiness of knowing that her child was at least on the way to Paradise, instead of being sent for all eternity to dwell in “the suburbs of hell.” In this month of May, therefore, the Council decreed that the priests and monks were strictly forbidden to work miracles any more, under penalty of their severe displeasure.