As for the priory, it had disappeared
bodily, the Genevese having levelled their
suburbs, as, indeed, it was needful they
should when they set up for being
independent in real earnest. Bonnivard claimed
compensation. Martyrs generally have a
pretty high opinion of their own deserts:
and the Genevese were very poor just now.
They offered him the freedom of the city,
two hundred silver crowns a year, a seat in
the Council of Two Hundred, and a house
for himself and his lawful male heirs, on
condition of his living in Geneva, and living
withal a thoroughly reputable life.
Bonnivard was not satisfied; he appealed to
the Bernese town council, which was glad
of the chance of interfering. Of course,
the Genevese burghers were indignant at
this step; but the ex-prior did not care.
"I give up" (he wrote) "the freedom of
your city, and all that, and I reserve all
my vested rights as owner of my priory."
At the same time he sent to the tenants,
forbidding them to pay rent to any one
but himself, their rightful landlord. The
Council of Geneva seems to have been
amused at his peremptory tone; indeed,
they sent him back one of his protests with
"stultus" written on the wrapper; but
perseverance gained the day. Thanks to
Bernese intervention, the income was raised
to one hundred and forty gold crowns,
and he received an advance of eight
hundred to pay his debts, indebtedness being,
it would seem, Bonnivard's normal state.
Henceforward, for more than thirty years,
his life was as unheroic as possible. He
took care of himself, kept his room
well-heated—a great luxury in those days—
gathered books, which he bequeathed (with
his debts) to the town, and married four
wives; not simultaneously, of course. His
first wife was a Bernese; his second, the
widow of a Genevan syndic, ran away from
him several times, and he brought her up
periodically before the " tribunal of morals,"
the records of which are still extant, and
show a pitiable series of counter-charges,
she complaining of being beaten, he that
she ran away because she was tired of him.
After eight years of this sort of life the widow
died, and Bonnivard had the courage to
marry another lady with a grown-up son.
His last wife, Catherine de Courtavel, was
a young nun to whom he had written
verses so affectionate, that the consistory
decided they were equivalent to an offer
of marriage. Bonnivard appealed to the
civil magistrates, who put him on his oath:
"If you can swear that you did not mean
marriage—that, as you say, you could not
marry without consulting your relations,
then you must be punished for writing love
letters, implying such a promise. We won't
send you to prison, old man as you are"
(he was close upon seventy), " but you will
have to attend all the Wednesday and
Friday preachings." Poor Bonnivard tried
hard to get off. He swore that he only
loved Catherine as a sister; but the dread
of the sermons prevailed, and he married
her in 1562. Catherine was as good a
Greek scholar as Lady Jane Grey; but the
marriage turned out ill; and the lady was,
after a short time, accused of being too fond
of an ex-monk whom the ex-prior had taken
into his service. The pair were tortured,
and under torture confessed their crime.
The monk's head was cut off; and
Catherine was sewn up in a sack and thrown
into the Rhone. Geneva was changed,
indeed, when punishments like this were the
order of the day.

Now Bonnivard was not at all the man
to make a good Calvinist. He had only
become a reformer to spite the Pope for
adjudging his priory to the rival claimant,
the Abbot of Montheron; he was not
a predestinarian; he was an easy-going
free liver, who found the strict rules and
compulsory church-goings intensely
vexatious; he even wrote a song against Calvin,
who despised him, only mentioning him
once, and that slightingly, in all his
voluminous correspondence. Yet, shortly after
his return, our ex-prior threw all his
influence into the scale of Calvinism, and
fiercely attacked his old associates, "the
libertines," as the "patriots" were now
called—for most of them, unable to bear
the Frenchman's iron rule, were restless
and planning a revolution. For this change
Michelet credits Bonnivard with something
more than shrewdness and the desire
to be on the winning side: " He saw
that nothing but Spartan austerity could
save the place from falling under duke or
bishop. The Calvinist discipline triumphed
where anything else would have failed—
triumphed over lack of men, lack of
territory, lack of all material things, and gave
us what may well be styled the city of
mind, built by stoicism on the rock of
predestination. Geneva may, indeed, be
called the modern Sparta. When any
Greek state was in peril, Sparta used to
send it a general; when any state in
Europe wanted a man to organise the
new faith in the face of torture and death,
Geneva always had one ready. Peter Martyr