It transpired, however, that one of the Sisters--‘the ill-advised Sister Blasine’--had been converted by the Reformers’ arguments. The other nuns tried to detain her, but the citizens broke into the convent and fetched her out in triumph, and also insisted that the convent should provide her with a dowry and pay her damages for the disciplinary whippings inflicted upon her during her membership of the Order. It was the culminating outrage. The nuns decided to leave Geneva, and the Lady Superior applied to the Syndic for an armed escort. The request was granted, and the ‘dolorous departure’ began. Three hundred soldiers were turned out to see the Sisters safely across the bridge over the Arve, where the territory of Geneva ended. It was the first time since their taking of the veil that they had been outside the convent walls, and some of them had spent all their lives in the cloister and grown old there, so that they were in no fit state to travel thus on foot. Let Sister Jeanne tell us what befell them: [Illustration: GENEVA FROM THE ARVE] ‘Truly it was a pitiful thing to see this holy company in such condition, so overcome by pain and toil that several of them broke down and fainted by the way--and that on a rainy day and in a muddy road, and with no means of getting out of their trouble, for they were all on foot, except four invalids who were in a cart. There were six poor aged Sisters, who had been for sixteen years members of the Order, and two who for sixty-six years had never been outside the convent gate. The fresh air was too much for them. They fainted away; and when they saw the beasts of the fields, they were terrified, thinking that the cows were bears, and that the sheep were ravening wolves. Those who met them could not find words to express their compassion for them; and, though the Mère Vicaire had given each Sister a stout pair of boots to keep her feet dry, the greater number of them would not walk in boots, but carried them tied to their girdles, and in this way it took them from five o’clock in the morning until nearly nightfall to reach Saint Julien, though the distance is less than a league.’ CHAPTER V THE RULE OF CALVIN