Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

epublic, set up a gibbet in the Place St. Gervais.
The hint was understood and respected.
In the following year (1547) events of greater
consequence occurred. One day a paper was found
affixed to the pulpit of St. Peter's, full of abuse of
the ministers, and threatening them with death.[3]
Suspicion fell on Jacques Gruet, who had been
seen loitering about the cathedral. From a canon in
the Roman Church, Gruet had passed to the ranks
of the Libertines, to whose principles his notorious
profligacy did honor. The Council arrested him. A
domiciliary visit brought to light another trait of his
character, which until then was unknown, save to
his more intimate friends. His shorn head had not
prevented him becoming an infidel, and an infidel
of a very malignant type. Certain writings, his own
composition, breathing an envenomed hatred of
Christ, were discovered in his house. A clue,
moreover, was there found to a correspondence
tending to deliver up Geneva to the duke. The billet
affixed to the pulpit was forgotten in the graver
discoveries to which it led. Gruet confessed his
guilt, and was condemned and beheaded.[4]
271