they would have carried out their intentions had it not been for the interference of Bonivard, to whom they appealed in their extremity, and who, torch in hand, opposed himself to their progress, quieting them by saying that the letter refusing the alliance of Friburg had not yet been despatched. The canons, terrified, agreed to alter the words of the letter, and said, in the quaint wording of the time, that they were desirous of living under no other protection but that of God and of "Monsieur Saint Pierre," and that as to the alliance of Friburg, they neither cared to accept it nor to refuse it.

The duke, upon this new defeat, raised an army as quickly and yet as secretly as he could. He wished to act without giving time for the interference of the Friburgers and the Bernese. The Savoyard lords summoned their vassals, and the army was placed under the command of Montrotier, a good soldier, cousin of Bonivard. Marching by night, he assembled ten thousand men around Geneva, before the citizens knew even of their approach. Charles III. was himself at St. Julian, only a league from the devoted city. "These turbulent shopkeepers," exclaimed some of the haughty lords, "must be subjected with a horsewhip." No sooner said than done. Fifteen knights started for the city, and handing their horses to their valets, presented themselves before the councilgeneral booted and spurred. "His highness," they arrogantly announced, "being desirous to enter the city, orders that all arms be laid aside and the gates opened." The Genevese senators quietly answered, if the duke was coming on a peaceful mission the arms might be used for his protection. "His highness," retorted the knights, "will come into your city when and how he pleases." "Then," replied the syndics, "we shall not let him come in." At these words the knights rose to a man, and said, haughtily, "We shall come in spite of your teeth, and we shall do with you just what we like." And, stamping on the floor with their boots, they left the place and cantered off back to St. Julian.

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There were ten or twelve thousand souls in Geneva, including women and children, while the Savoyards were ten thousand strong without. It is not surprising, then, that besides the party that was in favour of Savoy, there were also many who shrank from hostilities. "The spirit of the Reformation," says D'Aubigné, was destined to give them, at a later epoch, the courage and endurance that was then wanting." Berthelier and his followers alone held firm, and Hugues went off to claim the aid of the Friburgers. The ensuing day the king-at-arms, Provena of Chablais, presented himself before the council with a still more insulting message. The council held firm; whereupon the herald cast his wand (gaule, the chroniclers call it) into their midst, and defied them on the part of the duke. The people were terrified, but the Huguenots prepared for resistance, and compelled the Mamluks to give aid. The duke deemed it wise, on seeing this, to temporise, and he asked to be allowed to enter the city with a suite of only a few hundred men. Another council-general was held, and the opposition party, who were in favour of conciliation, not gaining their point, they treacherously abandoned the city, and went over to the Savoyards. The canons and priests followed their example, and joined the duke at Gaillard. A plot was then laid to let the Savoyards into the city at night-time, but it was counteracted by the loyalty of an arquebusier, who, firing his piece at the

moment the Mamluks were about to open the gates to the enemy, roused the citizens, and the Count of Genevois and his horsemen were obliged to beat a hasty retreat. A herald had arrived in the mean time from Friburg, who recommended submission, and the duke having promised to enter with a limited suite, and to harm neither the commonalty nor any individual, he was at length admitted into the city. The duke, as might have been expected, broke his faith. He entered the city with his whole army, and Geneva was delivered up to the sack as if it had been taken by assault. Four syndics, twenty-one councillors, and a number of notable citizens, making altogether forty, were proscribed. Luckily, at this crisis, a body of Swiss, some thirteen or fourteen thousand strong, arrived at Liellins, and despatched a herald to the duke, summoning him, at his peril, not to hurt the Genevese citizens. Hugues had arrived at Friburg, and by his eloquence had won over this auxiliary force. It is an old and oft-tried proverb, that the most haughty and tyrannical are generally the most cowardly. The recreant duke, who had entered the city upon his "superbe haquenée" over the ruins of the gates, and the valiant count upon his "roussin" (entire horse), with breastplate and helmet with a great plume, felt that they had acted without faith both to the Genevese and to Marti, the envoy of the Friburgers, and they now changed their tactics, and proclaimed that if any one did harm to the citizens, it would be under penalty of the "hart" (being strangled). The Huguenots, on their side, picked up courage, and began to ridicule the men who had so treacherously obtained possession of the city. It was Lent, and the army had to feed upon the little fish now called féras, but at that time "besolles," so the citizens designated this war as that of the "Besolles"-a name that ever after remained to it. Zurich, Berne, and Soleure decided that the alliance of the Friburgers should be withdrawn if the duke, on his side, would withdraw his troops. He was only too happy to accept of the alternative, and the Savoyards left the city with much less haughtiness than they had effected their entrance, and leaving, sad to say, the plague behind them.

But worse even than the plague that decimated the city were the traitors who were within its bosom. Bonivard, who had fled from his priory, which was without the city, at the approach of the Savoyards, was betrayed by two friends-the Lord of Voruz and the Abbot of Mantheron-in whom he had placed every confidence, and was imprisoned in the Château of Grolée, on the Rhône, and afterwards in the wellknown dungeons of Chillon. His priory was made over to the treacherous abbot, while Voruz received two hundred florins. The princebishop next re-enacted the part played by the duke. He asked for admission for himself and suite, promising to protect every citizen in his rights. He was allowed to enter with five hundred men-at-arms. Berthelier was at once arrested, walking in the meadows now called "Savoises," with a pet kid in his arms, and was imprisoned in Cæsar's Tower, in the Castle of L'Ile. The patriot was less concerned than his friends at his arrest. He had always foretold his end, and had held by the wellknown Horatian proverb, Dulce et decorum pro patria mori." He trusted also in his Saviour, for he wrote upon the walls of his prison, "Non morior sed vivans et narrabo opera Domini." D'Aubigné, how

ever, the days of Reformation not having yet come-would almost deprive the patriot of the credit of faith in his Redeemer-albeit he was so important an instrument, in the hands of Providence, in the muchwanted cleansing of the worship then paid to the great apostle of liberty and morality. It was indeed at this very moment (1519) that the Christians of Wittemberg were rising up against absolute power in spiritual things, that Berthelier was about to seal by his death the struggle of his Huguenot compatriots against absolute power in a temporal hierarchy. In the presence of death he sought for comfort in the Word of God and not in the rites of the priesthood, "which is the essence of Protestantism." Berthelier had also imbibed from antiquity the notion that the voluntary sacrifice of an innocent life out of love for one's country, has a mysterious power in ensuring its safety. But if he was willing to save Geneva, the Genevese were also resolved upon an attempt to save him. But the Mamluks joined themselves to the men-at-arms of the princebishop to prevent any attempt at rescue. Berthelier was led forth from the castle on the 23rd of August, 1519, and was decapitated, upon a little bit of land, so protected by the fortress on one side and the Rhône on the other, that fifty men could have defended it against all the citizens of Geneva. François de Ternier, Lord of Pontverre, one of the most violent enemies of the Genevese, who commanded at this judicial assassination, was himself put to death, at a subsequent period, on the same spot. The patriot's head was, after his death, promenaded through the city to Champel, the ordinary place of execution, where it was gibbeted, and thence it was removed to the bridge of the Arve, where the heads of Navis and Blanchet had so long swung. The Genevese, from that day forth, no longer looked upon their pastor the prince-bishop as aught but an assassin. The waters of the Rhône, they said, might flow over that cursed spot for ages, they would never wash out the blood that stained it.

A reign of terror followed in Geneva upon the execution of Berthelier, and all Huguenots were excluded from public offices; but, notwithstanding the edicts of the prince-bishop, they still continued to hold secret meetings. Amédée de Joye, who two years previously had taken a black idol of wood, much venerated by the Catholics, and called by them Saint Babolin, and cast it among its followers, exclaiming, "It is the devil, and he is going to eat you all up," was the next victim of importance; but his judges, seeing in this act only a joke, connived at his evasion. Others were, however, less lucky. Bonivard relates in his chronicles that people were imprisoned, beat, tortured, and hung and decapitated, till the whole city was in a state of consternation. Minds became superstitiously excited, and believed that a doom hung over the place. One frenzied girl ran about the streets, crying, "Le maz mugnier! le maz molin! le maz molu! tout est perdu!" Bad miller! bad mill! bad sheep! The miller was the prince, the mill the constitution, the sheep the people!

But neither the spirit nor the people of Geneva were as yet extinguished. The prince-bishop, who had long been struck down by disease and debility, was obliged to seek the warmer climate of Pignerol, and the Huguenots, disembarrassed of their persecutors, began to raise their heads again. They demanded the revocation of all edicts that were opposed to the ancient civic privileges from the episcopal vicar, or declared that they

would appeal to the metropolitan of Vienne. The vicar gave way, and the spirits of the patriots were proportionately raised. Levrier, whose brother-in-law, Chambet, had been tortured and maimed, merely because he was a Huguenot, was charged with a mission to Rome to demand the deposition of the prince-bishop, but the Pope anticipated the request by ordering the prelate not to return to Geneva. The Huguenots reestablished at the same time their rights to vote and to election to public offices. The rich priests having refused to contribute their share to the war of the "Besolles," and cast the responsibility upon the working classes, the latter demurred. D'Aubigné will not have it that Luther interfered in any way at Geneva, save by his writings. This is doubtful. Bonivard avows that Luther had sent instructions to Geneva. The question is, were these of a practical or of a merely theoretical character? Be this as it may, his influence had already made itself felt in a place so well prepared by priestly tyranny and persecutions to receive it, and the egotism of the priests upon this occasion caused the words of Luther to be appealed to, that there was not one word in the Bible concerning the Papacy, and that the power of the sovereign-pastor ought not to be made use of to strangle the sheep of Jesus Christ, and to cast them to the wolves. The priests, hearing the name of Luther, organised processions to exorcise the arch-heretic of Wittemberg. One day that they had thus proceeded without the city, the Huguenots were actually on the point of closing the gates against them, and shutting the whole lot out of the city. They had learnt from Luther that "a Christian elected by Christians to preach the Gospel, was more truly a priest than if he had been consecrated by all the bishops and the popes." The counsels of the more wise and moderate among them prevailed, and they did not proceed to such extremities. The canons, priests, and monks, however, got such a fright, that they consented to pay their share of the expenses of the war. Montheron, to whom Bonivard's priory of Saint Victor had been made over, did not long enjoy the fruits of his treachery. Having gone to Rome, Bonivard relates, some abbots, who envied his cure, invited him to a Romanesque banquet, at which they gave him some cardinal's powder, which purged his soul out of his body." It was with the same useful powder that the guilty soul of Pope Alexander VI. had been expelled from this world. The miserable John of Savoy was at this time extended on a couch of death at Pignerol. His death, according to Galiffe and Bonivard, was a most signal instance of Divine judgment. He was covered with foul ulcers, and suffered horribly. He was surrounded by greedy satellites, who awaited his last moments to pillage him. His room was filled with the shadows of his victims. The cross when presented to him appeared as if dipped in gore, and he rejected it with horror. Outrages and blasphemies mingled with the froth of a moribund on his trembling lips. But with his dying breath he acknowledged his guilt and his murderous acts.

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D'Aubigné's work is, as will be seen up to this point, a stirring tale, full of incidents, narrated with unwonted spirit and picturesque power, and we shall possibly devote a few more pages to the consideration of the events that preceded the advent of Calvin in Geneva-one of the great epochs in the history of the religious and intellectual development of the human mind.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF THE AMAZONS.*

THE boundless forest district which, in the torrid zone of South America, connects the river basins of the Orinoco and the Amazon is, undoubtedly, one of the wonders of the world. This region deserves, according to De Humboldt, to be called a Primeval, or Virgin Forest, in the strictest sense of the word. If every wild forest, densely covered with trees, on which man has never laid his destroying hand, is to be regarded as a primitive forest, then, argues that great naturalist, the phenomenon is common to many parts both of the temperate and the frigid zones; if, however, this character consists in its impenetrability, primitive forests belong exclusively to tropical regions. ("Views of Nature," Bohn's ed., p. 193.)

This is the view entertained of a primeval forest by one of the great authorities on the subject-one who, of all old investigators, Bonpland, Martius, Poppig, and the Schomburgs, and before the time of Wallace and Bates, had spent the longest period of time in primeval forests in the interior of a great continent. Although we prefer to use the term in its simplest and accepted sense, of a forest with which man's toil has had nothing to do, we may add, that in Humboldt's somewhat arbitrary definition as to its "impenetrability," that this is by no means, as is often erroneously supposed in Europe, always occasioned by the interlaced climbing lianas, or creeping plants, for these often constitute but a very small portion of the underwood. The chief obstacles are the shrub-like plants, which fill up every space between the trees in a zone where all vegetable forms have a tendency to become arborescent.

In these great primeval forests man is not. "In the interior of part of the new continent," Humboldt says, in another work, "we almost accustom ourselves to regard men as not being essential to the order of nature. The earth is loaded with plants, and nothing impedes their development. An immense layer of free mould manifests the uninterrupted action of organic powers. The crocodiles and the boas are masters of the river; the jaguar, the peccari, the dante, and the monkeys traverse the forest without fear and without danger: there they dwell as in an ancient inheritance." In fact, just as, geologically speaking, the earth in the epoch of the growth of arboreal ferns in temperate climates, the reign of huge and paradoxical amphibia, and the possible predominance of a hot and humid atmosphere, charged with carbonic acid, was not

The Naturalist on the River Amazons: a Record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, during Eleven Years of Travel. By Henry Walter Bates. Two Vols. John Murray.

June-VOL. CXXVIII. NO. DX.

K