The Year of the French 139
persistent foot-dragging. What credence to lend to this report is unclear, since
Baudichon’s mission was to raise troops on Geneva’s behalf.603
The tripartite negotiations dragged on through the closing months of 1535 with
no prospect of success, since each party was defending an irreconcilable position.
Bern and Savoy agreed on a truce in October, but Geneva was in no mood to
follow suit. That prompted Duke Charles to riposte that Geneva had no locus
standi in the negotiations as it was not a free city but a subject of Savoy; in any case,
there was no point in Geneva’s invoking the treaties of St-Julien and Payerne since
the duke had never ratified them. Far better, he suggested, if Geneva were simply
to forsake its Burgrecht with Bern.604 Bern naturally took the opposite view, though
it regarded Geneva’s refusal to subscribe to the truce as high-handed, the city’s
Great Council having defiantly boasted that it would never negotiate with traitors
(the refugees in Peney castle). But in other respects Bern would not budge on the
issue of treaty recognition and protection for the Gospel in Geneva.605
To cut the Gordian knot Bern then proposed that it should enter bilateral talks
directly with Savoy, to which end a meeting was arranged for late November in
Aosta. If Geneva refused to attend (presumably as an observer), Bern threatened to
withdraw its support and cancel the Burgrecht since, as it sighed, it was ‘tired of the
whole affair’.606 Geneva, too, had had enough—of Bern’s foot-dragging, and of
the interminable discussions at Thonon, Luzern, and Baden—but faced with this
ultimatum it promised to attend, though it was quickly pleading that the meeting
should be abandoned, since Duke Charles’s assurances could not be trusted.607 For
its part, Savoy understandably wished the invitation to Aosta to be extended to its
ally Fribourg.608
But Aosta was born under a fateful sign. Duke Charles claimed he was too ill to
attend in person; he had learnt, in any case, that a French army was approaching
(this presumably refers to Verey’s escapades). Bern’s envoys espied a deliberate delaying
tactic and refused to journey further to Turin to meet the duke face to face.609 To
move matters along Savoy’s envoys suggested relegating the religious issue to later
in the agenda, while Duke Charles offered to consult Emperor Charles V in person
(clearly his illness did not preclude a visit to distant Naples, warmer in the winter
than snowy Aosta). Above all, he proposed an extension of the truce for another six
months.610 In the light of Geneva’s continuing breaches of the truce (however
excusable given its predicament), Bern’s commissioner in the city, Hans Rudolf
Nägeli, asked to be stood down.611 His parting shot was to point out that if Bern
603 EA IV, 1c, 595–6 (no. 360) (Dec. 1535).
604 EA IV, 1c, 576–8 (no. 340: I, 1; I, 2; I, 2, 1; I, 2, 2; I, 2, 3) (Oct. 1535).
605 EA IV, 1c, 576–8 (no. 340: II, 2a; II, 3; III) (Oct. 1535).
606 EA IV, 1c, 579–80 (no. 342: II, 1; II, 2) (Oct. 1535).
607 EA IV, 1c, 597–8 (no. 362) (Dec. 1535). 608 EA IV, 1c, 583 (no. 346) (Nov. 1535).
609 EA IV, 1c, 589–92 (no. 354: 3) (Nov. 1545).
610 EA IV, 1c, 596–7) (no. 361: 1) (Dec. 1535).
611 EA IV, 1c, 600 (no. 365: 2) (Dec. 1535). In November Bern had reminded Nägeli of the
implications if Geneva broke the truce. SABE, Teutsche Missiven-Buch 24 W, pp. 85–6 (22 Nov.
1535). Nägeli had previously been bailiff of Aigle.