The Vagaries of Conquest 143
by leading a detachment which defeated a Savoy troop at Cologny to the east of
the city,634 while another sortie put the duke’s Italian mercenaries to flight at
Versoix on the north shore of Lake Geneva, thus paving the way to retake Morges,
where the remaining Italian forces melted away like snow.635 The blockade of
Geneva was lifted. The duke’s castle of Gaillard and the bishop’s castle of Jussy were
recaptured and the fugitives swept out of Peney, which was burnt to the ground.636
Thus emboldened, Geneva decided to exploit its regained room for manoeuvre.
Up to mid-March 1536 the city accepted the submission of over twenty villages
and parishes in its environs, many formerly under the bishop or chapter, or the
abbey of St-Victor; out of these it created new administrative districts (mandements),
whose castellans were appointed by the Council of Two Hundred and into which
Reforming preachers were sent.637
The rapid advance of the Bernese army masked considerable uncertainty about
the campaign’s ultimate purpose. This may be illustrated by the army’s irresolution
at Gex. Its instructions were to relieve Geneva: there had been no explicit injunc-
tion to occupy the Vaud, where only Yverdon under Michel Mangerod, baron of
La Sarraz, and Romont under Louis de Bonvillars, lord of Mézières, were holding
out.638 Oskar Vasella speaks of a threatened mutiny by those in the army who
believed that the goal was the relief of Geneva and that any occupation of the Vaud
should only be temporary.639 Confronted with Gex castle, the commanders delib-
erated whether to destroy it or else preserve it as seat of a future Bernese bailiwick.
Nägeli sought advice from the Bernese council, which turned out to be as unsure of
the way ahead as Nägeli himself—though the castle was subsequently set ablaze.640
Even after the army’s withdrawal from the city to its camp at St-Julien, the indeci-
sion persisted. It was the Genevan council itself, fearing rearguard reprisals from
the Savoy heartlands, which encouraged the army to cross the river Arve and head
for Chambéry.641 But there were those at St-Julien who argued that any further
territory should be ransomed (that is, forced to pay a levy) rather than taken into
Bernese control: the Vaud, Gex, and the Chablais should suffice.642 The implica-
tions of any further advance cannot have been lost on the army commanders when
a delegation from the parlement in Dole arrived in the camp to enquire whether
Bern intended to abide by the terms of the Hereditary Agreement of 1511, that is
to say, to steer well clear of the Franche-Comté as a Habsburg territory.643 This
request was by no means far-fetched, since the very same month Bern received a
complaint from the emperor himself that Neuchâtel troops (including some
634 De Crue, ‘Délivrance’, 264–5. That allowed Bern to secure castle Gaillard, which separated the
city from the Chablais and Faucigny.
635 SASO, Missiven 16, pp. 27–9: Aber so balld die Sauoÿschen den Berneren ansichttig worden,
haben si nit wöllen rÿtten.
636 Gilliard, Eroberung, 58–9 [95–6]; Santschi, Crises et Révolutions, 17.
637 Santschi, Crises et Révolutions, 18–19.
638 EA IV, 1c, 612 (no. 374) (Jan.–Feb. 1536); Gilliard, Eroberung, 46 [72–3]. In rather different
circumstances Rue also did not surrender.
639 Vasella, ‘Krieg Berns’, A 241. 640 Gilliard, Eroberung, 62–3 [102–3].
641 Gilliard, Eroberung, 63 [103]; Freymond, ‘Politique’, 134.
642 Vasella, ‘Krieg Berns’, A 270–1. 643 Vasella, ‘Krieg Berns’, A 273.