The Vagaries of Conquest 145
was reinforced by further envoys from King Francis himself, who was Charlotte’s
nephew.651 This clearly had the desired effect, since the Bernese army respected the
territorial integrity of the Genevois and chose instead to head eastwards into the
Chablais,652 taking oaths of submission from several feudal lords as well as towns
and villages, including Thonon and Allinges, as far as the river Dranse.653 There
they encountered men from the Valais communes who had seized the opportunity
to occupy the eastern part of the Chablais beyond the Lower Valais which they had
conquered from Savoy in 1475/77. Their envoys had already visited the camp at
St-Julien, where they justified their proposed venture by claiming that Bern’s
declared motive was to relieve Geneva, not to seize Savoy territory.654 In fact,
despite protestations that they were only acting to defend the Catholic faith, their
aim was to prevent Bern taking the entire southern shore of Lake Geneva, which
would have isolated the Valais both territorially and confessionally and turned the
lake into a Bernese mare nostrum.655 The whole of the Chablais south of the lake,
however, was restored to Savoy after the mid-sixteenth century.656 For Bern itself
the Valais advance conveniently allowed the city to maintain over against the
Catholic cantons that it was not engaged in a religious crusade.657
Hopes of a renewed march southwards were abruptly stymied by the arrival at
St-Julien of the French ambassador to the Swiss, Louis Daugerant, seigneur de
Boisrigaut,658 whose official credentials contained an offer of French mediation,
but who secretly brought news of Francis I’s intention to seize Savoy.659 He stuck
to the official line during a Confederal diet at Lausanne on 12th February, but the
651 Vasella, ‘Krieg Berns’, A 269; B 1–2. Charlotte was the widow of Duke Philippe of Savoy,
Charles II of Savoy’s younger brother; after his death in 1533 the apanage passed to his son Jacques,
who was 3 years old in 1536. Laurent Perrillat, ‘Justice and Politics: The Conseil de Genevois during
the Early Sixteenth Century’, in Vester, Sabaudan Studies, 63–78, here at 65. Charlotte was the
daughter of Margravine Johanna of Hochberg, ruler of Neuchâtel, and her spouse, Duke Louis
d’Orléans-Longueville, grand chamberlain of France, thereby underscoring the French connection.
652 Paul Guichonnet, Histoire de la Savoie (Toulouse, 1973), 232. Bern agreed, provided that it
could deliver foodstuffs to Geneva unimpeded and that Genevan citizens could move freely without
let or hindrance. Gilliard, Eroberung, 85–6 [139–40].
653 Santschi, Crises et Révolutions, 20. Thonon and Allinges only submitted on condition of remaining
Catholic. Vasella, ‘Krieg Berns’, B 3.
654 EA IV, 1c, 615 (no. 376: to i, 3 c) (Feb. 1536); 624 (no. 380: b) (Feb. 1536); ACV, B u 15,
Valais to Bern, 28 Feb. 1536.
655 André Bonnet, ‘L’occupation du Chablais oriental par les Valaisans (1536–1569): l’organisation
et l’administration du territoire par les gouverneurs’, Vallesia, 15 (1960), 155–77, here at 155–7.
Enclaves remained: Bern held Maxilly, while the abbey of Aulpes had parishes on Bernese territory.
Rachel Siggen-Bruttin, ‘Das Wallis und das östliche Chablais: Die Anziehungskraft des
Genferseegebiets’, in Gérard Delaloye (ed.), Die Schweiz und Savoyen. Das Walliser Chablais und die
Neutralisierung Savoyens 1476–1932 (Baden, 2003), 10–18, here at 11–14.
656 Meyer, ‘Geographische Voraussetzungen’, 232, 343, 346. The southern Chablais (Haute-
Savoie) was declared neutral at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, a status which it retained to 1918. See
the essays in Delaloye, Schweiz und Savoyen at note 655, esp. Paul Guichonnet, ‘Die Neutralisierung
Nordsavoyens (1815-1928)’, 55–68.
657 Gilliard, Eroberung, 67–70 [110–15]. The population of the eastern Chablais naturally submitted
to the Valais communes under a Catholic sign, but in the event of reconquest they wished to revert to
their Savoyard allegiance. EA IV, 1c, 625–6 (no. 381) (Feb. 1536).
658 Boisrigaut, a long-standing roving ambassador, had been installed as permanent French
representative to the Confederation with his seat in Solothurn in 1530. See HLS, s.v. Ambassador.
659 EA IV, 1c, 641–2 (no. 390: II, a, 1) (Feb. 1536).