136 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
who was a Savoy vassal, was present in the city in the summer,577 and William
Monter believes it was Meigret who persuaded Verey in August to take command
of a cavalry detachment to march on Geneva. If so, Verey took his time, for his first
sortie was only launched in mid-November with a mere 500 men. They fell foul of
winter snow in the Alpine passes and were easily repulsed. A second attempt a
month later was defeated by forces from the League of the Spoon (its last hurrah)
under Michel Mangerod, baron of La Sarraz.578 Verey with a handful of officers
found refuge in Geneva, where he displayed his cloven hoof579 by reminding the
magistrates that they had a prince-bishop and a duke who had rights of justice
vested in the vidomne, who were both oppressing them, but whose authority had
been recognized by Bern and Fribourg in the deed of arbitration at Payerne;
accordingly, they could not count on the Swiss for help and should therefore throw
in their lot with France and acknowledge the French king’s supremacy. Verey
assured his listeners that King Francis desired only to be the city’s protector!580
Showing commendable caution, the Genevan syndics played for time by insisting
that they must first consult the Great Council, representing the commons at large. 581
Their deliberations turned on the delicate issue of how to accept help without
inviting de facto submission. After requesting a missive from King Francis himself,
the council decided in late December as belt-and-braces to send letters to King
Francis, to his sister, Queen Marguerite of Navarre, and to the French admiral
Philippe de Chabot, seigneur de Brion, who was commander of the army, guard-
edly welcoming any support the king might offer and enquiring whether Verey was
acting on royal instructions (he almost certainly was).582 That the king’s chief con-
cern was that Geneva should not fall to France’s enemies (leaving aside his designs
upon the duchy of Savoy) can be gleaned from correspondence between the French
diplomat Cardinal Jean du Bellay and Pope Paul III, in which the former described
Geneva as better in French hands than in those of hostile neighbours.583 Yet, as
Jacques Freymond has observed, neutralization, not subjugation, was the likely
aim, since Francis’s essential goal remained the recapture of Milan.584
For the best part of a year, therefore, Bern had sat on its hands. Was this masterly
inaction or mere indecision? Bern sought to avoid war at all costs. It feared that
armed conflict in the Romandie would suck in not only the Catholic cantons,
577 EA IV, 1c, 600 (no. 365: 2; 3) (Dec. 1535); 601–2 (no. 366: I; II) (Dec. 1535); Freymond,
‘Politique’, 124.
578 EA IV, 1c, 601–2 (no. 366: I) (17–20 Dec. 1535); Paquier, Pays de Vaud, 2, 254; François de
Crue, ‘La deliverance de Genève et la conquête du duché de Savoie en 1536’, Jahrbuch für schweizer-
ische Geschichte, 41 (1916), 231–96, here at 256–7: Il fauldra bien que vous luy [Francis] faictes
quelque prééminence en vostre ville.
579 ‘montrer le bout à l’oreille’, as Genevan scholars have graphically put it: Santschi, Crises et
Révolutions, 15.
580 Santschi, Crises et Révolutions, 15–16.
581 EA IV, 1c, 601–2 (no. 366: I; II) (17–20 Dec. 1535).
582 De Crue, ‘Délivrance’, 258–9, 262; Freymond, ‘Politique’, 124–5; Santschi, Crises et
Révolutions, 16. Chabot was to command the French army of invasion into Savoy the following year.
583 Freymond, ‘Politique’, 125 n 1: [Geneva was a] chose si commode estant en voz mains et si
incommode estant en mains d’un mauvais voisin qu’il ne feust possible de plus.
584 Freymond, ‘Politique’, 127.