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POLITICS AND THE ARTS
city was afterwards annexed by inheritance to the German empire, and Conrad went there to take the imperial crown in 1034. But, since the emperors who succeeded him were occupied for three hundred years with the very important troubles which the popes stirred up for them and had neglected to keep an eye on Geneva, it gradually shook off the yoke and became an imperial city which had its bishop for prince or, rather, for lord; for the authority of the bishop was tempered by that of the citizens. The coat of arms which it took at this time expressed this mixed constitution; there was on one side an imperial eagle and on the other a key representing the power of the Church, with this motto, Post tenebras lux. The city of Geneva kept its anllS after having renounced the Roman Church; they have nothing more in common with the papacy than the key they have in their escll:tcheon; it is even rather surprising that they should have kept them after having, as it were, superstitiously broken all the ties they had with Rome. They apparently thought that the motto, Post tenebras lux, which expresses perfectly, so they believe, their present state in regard to religion, permitted them to change nothing in their coat of arms. The dukes of Savoy, neighbors of Geneva sometimes supported by the bishops, tried on different occasions to establish their authority gradually in this city; but it resisted courageously, sustained by the alliance of Freiburg and Bern. It was then, that is to say around 1516, that the Council of the Two Hundred was established. The opinions of Luther and Zwingli began to be introduced; Bern had adopted them; Geneva was tasting them; it admitted them in 1535; the papacy was abolished; and the bishop, who still assumes "the title of Bishop of Geneva without having any more jurisdiction there than the bishop of Babylon has in his diocese, resides at Annecy since that time. A Latin inscription in memory of the abolition of the Catholic religion is still to be seen between the two doors of the Geneva town hall. The pope is called the Antichrist in it; this expression, in which the fanaticism of liberty and novelty indulged itself during a still semibarbaric age, seems to us hardly worthy today of a city so philosophic. We dare to request it to substitute for this insulting and crude memorial a truer, nobler, and simpler inscription. For the Catholics, the pope is the head of the true Church; for the wise and moderate Protestants, he is a sovereign whom they respect as a prince without obeying him; but in an age such as ours, he is no longer the Antichrist for anyone. Geneva, in order to defend its liberty against the enterprises of the dukes of Savoy and its bishops, fortified itself with the alliance of Zurich and especially with that of France. It is with this aid that it resisted the arms of Charles-Emmanuel and the riches of Philip II, that prince whose ambition, despotism, cruelty, and superstition assure to his
