Of these two methods, the first would naturally seem by far the more difficult. So it was not in reality. In the letter which Sarpi presented to the Doge, he devoted less than four lines to the first and more than fourteen pages to the second. As to the first remedy, severe as it was and bristling with difficulties, it was, as he claimed, a simple, natural, straightforward use of police power. As to the second, the appeal to a future Council was to the Vatican as a red flag to a bull. The very use of it involved excommunication. To harden and strengthen the Doge and Senate in order that they might consider it as an ultimate possibility, Sarpi was obliged to show from the Scriptures, the Fathers, the Councils, the early Popes, that the appeal to a Council was a matter of right. With wonderful breadth of knowledge and clearness of statement he made his points and answered objections. To this day, his letter remains a masterpiece.[1] [1] For Sarpi's advice to the Doge, see Bianchi Giovini, vol. i. pp. 216, et seq. The document is given fully in the Lettere di F. P. S., Firenze, 1863, vol. i. pp. 17, et seq.; also in Machi, Storia del Consiglio dei Dieci, cap. xxiv., where the bull of excommunication is also given. The Republic utterly refused to yield, and now, in 1606, Pope Paul launched his excommunication and interdict. In meeting them, the Senate took the course laid down by Sarpi. The papal Nuncio was notified that the Senate would receive no paper from the Pope; all ecclesiasties, from the Patriarch down to the lowest monk, were forbidden, under the penalties of high treason, to make public or even to receive any paper whatever from the Vatican; additional guards were placed at the city gates, with orders to search every wandering friar or other suspicious person who might, by any possibility, bring in a forbidden missive; a special patrol was kept, night and day, to prevent any posting of the forbidden notices on walls or houses; any person receiving or finding one was to take it immediately to the authorities, under the severest penalties, and any person found concealing such documents was to be punished by death. At first some of the clergy were refractory. The head of the whole church establishment of Venice, the Patriarch himself, gave signs of resistance; but the Senate at once silenced him. Sundry other bishops and high ecclesiastics made a show of opposition; and they were placed in confinement. One of them seeming reluctant to conduct the usual church service, the Senate sent an executioner to erect a gibbet before his door. Another, having asked that he be allowed to await some intimation from the Holy Spirit, received answer that the Senate had already received directions from the Holy Spirit to hang any person resisting their decree. The three religious orders which had showed most opposition--Jesuits, Theatins, and Capuchins--were in a semi-polite manner virtually expelled from the Republic.[2]