106 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
resentment felt by Fribourg towards its erstwhile overlord was evidently still
acute,303 fuelled by anger at the murder of its citizen Philibert Berthelier, whose
corpse Savoy henchmen had seemingly dragged through the streets of Geneva,
with the Savoy hangman then seeking out Fribourg citizens in Geneva’s taverns to
confront them with Berthelier’s head on a pole, shouting, ‘See what will happen to
you!’304 Some decades later, the city secretary and councillor of Fribourg, François
Gurnel, was to accuse Bern in retrospect of conspiring to thwart Fribourg’s plans
because it feared that its overture to Geneva would undermine long-standing
cordial relations with Savoy.305 In the light of Bern’s subsequent efforts to rein in
Fribourg this charge had some substance.
The crisis passed but calm had not been restored. The early 1520s are something
of a blank page in Genevan history, but between 1523 and 1524 Duke Charles
spent eight months in the city, taking up residence in the Dominican convent.
Perhaps he intended to construct a ducal palace, or to show off his young wife,
Beatrice of Portugal, or simply to escape the devastation of his heartlands which
marauding French troops had recently inflicted.306 At all events, the high-handed
behaviour of the ducal entourage, whose sojourn was marked by lavish expenditure,307
further embittered the citizens towards their supposed overlord; they might have
expected support from their bishop, Pierre de la Baume, but he, choosing prudence
over valour, had removed to St-Claude in the Franche-Comté.308
The execution of Amé Lévrier in March 1524 heralded a new chapter of conflict.
In his place was elected the following year Besançon Hugues,309 who wisely
declined to become one of the city’s four syndics in view of Lévrier’s fate, but who
later became the leader of Geneva’s resistance to Savoy. Yet the Eidguenot party was
fast gaining the upper hand. In October 1524 the leader of the Mammelus, the
city treasurer Bernard Boulet, was physically assaulted after he had taunted his oppon-
ents with the cry ‘Are we to be governed by Eidguenots?’ Boulet sought redress at
the ducal court in Chambéry, to which the city’s syndics were summoned to appear,
prompting an ineffectual protest from the absent bishop. Duke Charles’s response
was to impose an economic blockade on Geneva.310
By the summer of 1525 the duke’s fortunes took a turn for the worse. Apart
from abandoning the delicate balancing act between France and the Empire,
303 There were rumours of continuing sorties by Fribourgers (possibly freebooters) in May, with
Bern again calling upon the council to summon them home. AEF, Diplomatische Korrespondenz a)
Bern, 40 (May 1519); SABE, Teutsche Missiven-Buch 17 O, fo. 207v (May 1519).
304 EA III, 2, 1189–90 (no. 793: f ) (Sept. 1519); SABE, Unnütze Papiere, Freiburg 391,
no. 70 (Sept. 1519).
305 Despite earlier undertakings, Fribourg was still refusing to guarantee that it would accept no
further Genevans into citizenship: EA III, 2, 1204 (no. 800: c); Gaston Castella, ‘Un mémoire inédit
du chancellier François Gurnel (1521–1585)’, Archive de la Société d’Histoire du Canton de Fribourg,
11 (1921), 425–531, here at 433.
306 Naef, Fribourg, 27; Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 37; cf. Freymond, ‘Politique’, 71.
307 Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 37. 308 Documenti di Storia Sabauda, 25.
309 On Hugues see Henri Naef, Bezanson Hugues (Geneva, 1934). Hugues was effectively bilingual;
on his relations to Fribourg see ibid., 51–2. On Fribourg friends and associates of Hugues see ibid.,
79–84.
310 Naef, Fribourg, 28–9.