The council of Berne thereupon decreed that the parishioners of the four mandemens should assemble. Those of Bex declared for the Reform; Aigle followed their example, but with indecision; and in the mountains above Ollon, the peasants not daring to maltreat Farel, set their wives at him, who rushed upon him with their fulling-clubs. But it was especially the parish of the Ormonds which, calm and proud at the foot of its glaciers, signalized itself by its resistance. A companion of Farel's labourers, named Claude (probably Claude de Glontinis), when preaching there one day with great animation, was suddenly interrupted by the ringing of the bells, whose noise was such that one might have said all hell was busy pulling them. "In fact," says another herald of the Gospel, Jacques Comralis, who chanced to be present, "it was Satan himself, who, breathing his anger into some of his agents, filled the ears of the auditors with all this uproar."[874] At another time, some zealous Reformers having thrown down the altars of Baal, according to the language of the times, the evil spirit began to blow with violence in all the chalets scattered over the sides of the mountains; the shepherds issued precipitously like avalanches, and fell upon the Church and the Reformers. "Let us only find these sacrilegious wretches," cried the furious Ormondines; "we will hang them,--we will cut off their heads,--we will burn them,--we will throw their ashes into the Great Water."[875] Thus were these mountaineers agitated, like the wind that roars in their lofty valleys with a fury unknown to the inhabitants of the plains. [874] Sed Sathan per ejus servos, voluit aures auditorum ejus sono cymbali implere. (Neuchatel MS.) [875] Quo invento suspenderetur primum, deinde dignus comburi, alterius capitis obtruncatione, novissime in aquis mergeretur. (Neuchatel MS.) Other difficulties overwhelmed Farel. His fellow-labourers were not all of them blameless. One Christopher Ballista, formerly a monk of Paris, had written to Zwingle: "I am but a Gaul, a barbarian,[876] but you will find me a man pure as snow, without any guile, of open heart, through whose windows all the world may see."[877] Zwingle sent Ballista to Farel, who was loudly calling for labourers in Christ's vineyard. The fine language of the Parisian at first charmed the multitude; but it was soon found necessary to beware of these priests and monks disgusted with Popery. "Brought up in the slothfulness of the cloister, gluttonous and lazy," says Farel, "Ballista could not conform to the abstemiousness and rude labours of the Evangelists, and soon began to regret his monk's hood. When he perceived the people beginning to distrust him, he became like a furious monster, vomiting waggon-loads of threats."[878] Thus ended his labours. [876] Me quantumvis Gallum et barbarum. (Zw. Epp. ii. p. 205.) [877] Absque ullo fuco, niveum, et aperti fenestratique pectoris. (Ibid.)