Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

fought about this time. In this fight the arms of
Charles of Spain were victorious over those of
Henry II. of France. Philibert Emmanuel, Prince of
Piedmont, who commanded the Spanish army, was
the heir of the titles and rights of his father Charles,
Duke of Savoy; but he inherited the titles only; the
estates had gone from his house, and were now
partly in the hands of the King of France, and
partly in possession of Bern, and other Swiss
cantons. The French king being now humbled, the
Prince of Piedmont deemed this a favorable
moment for reclaiming his hereditary dominions.
He issued an edict to that effect, and immediately
thereafter dispatched a body of eight thousand
lanzknechts, or lancers, to establish his authority
over his former subjects. The alarm was great
throughout Switzerland, and more especially in
Geneva and Bern. The Bernese had now other
things to think of than the quarrel into which the
banished Libertines had led them. This last matter
gradually went to sleep; and thus Geneva, by this
shifting in the great European winds, was delivered
without the necessity of striking a single blow.[5]
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