[999] Choupart MS. [Sidenote: FAREL'S DANGER.] Such a daring act at first produced the desired effect. The Mass was interrupted, the chantings ceased, and the crowd, as if struck by a supernatural intervention, remained silent and noiseless. Farel, who was still in the pulpit, immediately took advantage of this calm, and proclaimed that Christ "whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things."[1000] Then the priests and choristers with their adherents rushed to the towers, ran up into the belfry, and sounded the tocsin. [1000] Acts iii. 21. These means succeeded: a crowd was collected, and if Farel had not retired, his death and Boyve's would have been inevitable. "But God," says the chronicle, "delivered them." They crossed the interval that separates Boudevilliers from Valangin, and drew near the steep gorges of the torrent of the Seyon. But how traverse that town, which the tocsin had already alarmed? Leaving Chaumont and its dark forests to the left, these two heralds of the Gospel took a narrow path that wound beneath the castle: they were stealing cautiously along, when suddenly a shower of stones assailed them, and at the same time a score of individuals,--priests, men, and women,--armed with clubs, fell furiously upon them. "The priests had not the gout either in their feet or arms," says a chronicler; "the ministers were so beaten that they nearly lost their lives."[1001] [1001] Les prêtres n'avoient pas la goutte aux pieds et aux bras, et ils les battirent tellement que peu s'en fallut qu'ils ne perdissent la vie. (Choupart MS.) Madame de Vergy, who descended to the terrace, far from moderating the anger of the priests, cried out: "Drown them!--drown them! throw them into the Seyon--these Lutheran dogs, who have despised the Host!"[1002] In fact, the priests were beginning to drag the two heretics towards the bridge. Never was Farel nearer death. [1002] A l'eau! à l'eau! jettez les dans le Seyon ces chiens de Luthériens qui ont méprisé le bon Dieu! (Choupart MS.) [Sidenote: ILL-TREATMENT OF FAREL.] On a sudden, from behind the last rock that hides Valangin in the direction of the mountain, there appeared "certain good persons of the Val de Ruz coming from Neuchatel"[1003] and descending into the valley. "What are you doing?" asked they of the priests, with the intention no doubt of saving Farel; "put them rather in a place of safety, that they may answer for their proceedings? Would you deprive yourselves of the only means in your power of discovering those infected by the poison of heresy?" [1003] Choupart MS.