The old society, whose place was about to be occupied, did all in its power to resist the light. A terrible voice issued from the Vatican; a hand of iron executed its behests in many a country, and strangled the new life in its cradle. Spain, Italy, Austria, and France were the chief theatres of the deplorable tragedies, whose heroes were Philip II. and the Guises. But there were souls, we may even say nations, protected by the hand of God, who have been ever since like trees whose leaves never wither.[699] Intelligent men, struck by their greatness, have been alarmed for the nations that are not watered by the same rivers. Against such a danger there is, however, a sure remedy; it is that all people should come and drink at those fountains of life which have given protestant nations 'all the attributes of civilisation and power.'[700] Or do they perchance imagine that by shutting their windows against the sun, the light will spread more widely?... A new era is beginning, and all lingering nations are now invited to the great renovation of which the Gospel is the divine and mighty organ. [Sidenote: NEW SITUATION OF GENEVA.] In 1526 Geneva was in a position which permitted it to receive the new seed of the new society. The alliance with the cantons, by drawing that city nearer to Switzerland, facilitated the arrival of the intrepid husbandmen who brought with them the seeds of life. At Wittemberg, at Zurich, and even in the upper extremities of Lake Leman, in those beautiful valleys of the Rhone and the Alps which Farel had evangelised, the divine sun had poured down his first rays. When the Genevans made their alliance with the Swiss, they had only thought of finding a support to their national existence; but they had effected more: they had opened the gates of day, and were about to receive a light which, while securing their liberties, would guide their souls along the path of eternal life. The city was thus to acquire an influence of which none of its children had ever dreamt, and by the instrumentality of Calvin, one of the noblest spirits that ever lived, 'she was about to become the rival of Rome,' as an historian says (perhaps with a little exaggeration), 'and wrest from her the dominion of half the christian world.'[701] If the alliance with the cantons opened Geneva on the side of Switzerland, it raised a wall of separation between that city and Savoy—which was not less necessary for the part she was called upon to play in the sixteenth century. The valley of the Leman was at that time dotted with châteaux, whose ruins may still be seen here and there. As invasion, pillage, and murder formed part of social life in the middle ages, the nobles surrounded their houses with walls, and some even built their dwelling-places on the mountains. From Geneva might be descried the castle of Monnetier standing on immense perpendicular rocks on Mont Salève....