The bearers of this order were hardly halfway, when they met a numerous jubilant and noisy crowd returning from Peney. The friends of Pécolat, preceded by the official letters addressed to the governor, had appeared before that officer, who, after reading the despatch over and over, had thought it his duty to obey. Pécolat’s friends hurried after the gaoler, who, carrying a bunch of keys in his hand, went to open the cell; they entered with him, shouting release! They broke the prisoner’s chains; and, finding him so weak, carried him in their arms and laid him in the sunshine in the castle yard. Without loss of time they placed him in a peasant’s cart and all started for Geneva. This was the crowd met by the episcopal officers. The Genevans were bringing back their friend with shouts of joy. In vain did the episcopal officers stop this joyous band, and require that the prisoner should be led back to Peney; in vain did they speak of the bishop and even of the pope; all was of no use. Despite the _rogations_ of the pope, the prelate, and the messengers, the people carried Pécolat back in triumph. This resistance offered to the Roman pontiff, at the moment he was lending assistance to the bastard in his oppression of a poor innocent man, was, as it were, an affair of outposts; and the Genevans were thus training themselves for more notable battles. ‘Forward,’ they shouted, ‘to the city! to the city!’ and the crowd, leaving the episcopal officers alone in the middle of the road, hastened to the gates.