The Swiss! it was the same thing as rebellion. This alliance was the phantom incessantly invoked at Augsburg to alarm Charles the Fifth. And in reality deputies or at least friends of the Swiss, had already appeared in that city, and thus rendered the position still more serious. [Sidenote: ZWINGLE'S CONFESSION.] Bucer had arrived two days before the reading of the Confession, and Capito on the day subsequent to it.[661] There was even a report that Zwingle would join them.[662] But for a long time all in Augsburg, except the Strasburg deputation, were ignorant of the presence of these doctors.[663] It was only twenty-one days after their arrival that Melancthon learnt it positively,[664] so great was the mystery in which the Zwinglians were forced to enshroud themselves. This was not without reason: a conference with Melancthon having been requested by them: "Let them write," replied he; "I should compromise our cause by an interview with them." Bucer and Capito in their retreat, which was like a prison to them, had taken advantage of their leisure to draw up the _Tetrapolitan Confession_, or the confessions of the four cities. The deputies of Strasburg, Constance, Nemmingen, and Lindau, presented it to the Emperor.[665] These cities purged themselves from the reproach of war and revolt that had been continually objected against them. They declared that their only motive was Christ's glory, and professed the truth "freely, boldly, but without insolence and without scurrility."[666] [661] Venimus huc, ego pridie solemnitatis Divi Johannis, Capito die dominica sequente. (Zw. Epp. ii. p. 472.) [662] Rumor apud nos est, et te cum tuis Helvetiis comitia advolatarum. (Ibid. pp. 431, 467.) [663] Ita latent ut non quibuslibet sui copiam faciant. (Corp. Ref. p. 196.) [664] Capito et Bucarus adsunt. Id hodie certo comperi. (Ibid.) [665] Cinglianæ civitates propriam Confessionem obtulerunt Cæsari. (Corp. Ref. p. 187.) This Confession will be found in _Niemeyer_, Collectio Confessionum, p. 740. [666] Ingenue ac fortiter; citra procaciam tamen et sannas, id fateri et dicere quod res est. (Zw. Epp. ii. p. 485.) Zwingle about the same time caused a private confession to be communicated to Charles,[667] which excited a general uproar. "Does he not dare to say," exclaimed the Romanists, "that the _mitred and withered race_ (by which he means the bishops) is in the Church what hump-backs and the scrofula are in the body?"[668]--"Does he not insinuate," said the Lutherans; "that we are beginning to look back after the onions and garlic of Egypt?"--"One might say with great truth that he had lost his senses," exclaimed Melancthon.[669] "All ceremonies, according to him, ought to be abolished; all the bishops ought to be suppressed. In a word, all is perfectly _Helvetic_, that is to say, supremely barbarous." [667] See Niemeyer Coll. Conf. p. 16.