One burgher smiled while attending a baptism: three days’ imprisonment. Another, tired out on a hot summer day, went to sleep during the sermon: prison. Some working men ate pastry at breakfast: three days on bread and water. Two burghers played skittles: prison. Two others diced for a quarter bottle of wine: prison. A man refused to allow his son to be christened Abraham: prison. A blind fiddler played a dance: expelled from the city. Another praised Castellio’s translation of the Bible: expelled from Geneva. A girl was caught skating, a widow threw herself on the grave of her husband, a burgher offered his neighbour a pinch of snuff during divine service: they were summoned before the Consistory, exhorted, and ordered to do penance. And so on, and so on, without end. Some cheerful fellows, at Epiphany, stuck a bean into the cake: four-and-twenty hours on bread and water. A burgher said “Monsieur” Calvin instead of “Maitre” Calvin; a couple of peasants, following ancient custom, talked about business matters on coming out of church: prison, prison, prison. A man played cards: he was pilloried with the pack of cards hung round his neck. Another sang riotously in the street: was told “he could go and sing elsewhere,” this meaning that he was banished from the city. Two bargees had a brawl, in which no one was hurt: executed. Two boys, who behaved indelicately, were sentenced first of all to burning at the stake, then the sentence was commuted to compelling them to watch the blaze of the faggots.
Most savagely of all were punished any offenders whose behaviour challenged Calvin’s political and spiritual infallibility. A man who publicly protested against the reformer’s doctrine of predestination, was mercilessly flogged at all the crossways of the city and then expelled. A book-printer, who, in his cups, had railed at Calvin, was sentenced to have his tongue perforated with a red hot iron before being expelled from the city. Jacques Gruet was racked and then executed merely for having called Calvin a hypocrite. Each offence, even the most paltry, was carefully entered in the records of the Consistory so that the private life of every citizen could unfailingly be held up against him in evidence.
—Zweig, ibid.