The remembrance of Pécolat’s torture long remained in the memory of the citizens of Geneva, and contributed to make them reject the rule of the Romish bishops.[141] In fact the interest felt for this victim of episcopal cruelty was manifested in every way. The cell of brother Yvonnet, in the Grey Friars’ convent, was never empty; everybody wished to see the bishop’s victim. The prior of St. Victor was one of the first to come, attended by several friends. The poor man, being tongue-tied, told ‘the mystery of his sufferings with his fingers,’ says Bonivard. It was long since there had been such an interesting sight in Geneva. The citizens, standing or sitting around him, could not turn their eyes away from his thin pale face. By his gestures and attitudes Pécolat described the scenes of the examination, the torture, and the razor, and in the midst of these remembrances which made the tears come to his eyes, he from time to time indulged in a joke. The young men of Geneva looked at each other and trembled with indignation ... and then sometimes they laughed, at which the episcopal officers ‘were terribly enraged.’ The latter were in truth both vexed and angry. What! they receive an order from the bishop, an order from the pope, and only a few minutes before they have issued a contrary order! Strange mishap! Not knowing whom to blame, they imprisoned the governor, who had only released Pécolat by their command, and to cover their responsibility were actually planning to put him to death. Some timid and alarmed citizens dared not go and see Pécolat; one of these was Blanchet, the friend of Andrew Navis, who had been present at the famous meeting at the Molard and the _momon_ supper, and who, falling not long after beneath the bishop’s violence, was doomed to expiate his errors by a most cruel death. Blanchet is the type of a character frequent at this epoch. Having learnt, shortly after the famous _momon_ banquet, that a certain individual whose name even he did not know, but who, he said, ‘had given him the lie to his face,’ was in Burgundy, Blanchet set off after him, gave him a box on the ears, and returned. He came back to Geneva, thence he went into Faucigny, and afterwards to Italy; he took part in the war between the pope and the Duke of Urbino (who so terribly frightened Leo X.); returned to Pavia, thence to Turin, and finally to Geneva. His cousin Peter, who lived in Turin, had told him that during his travels Pécolat had been arrested for plotting against the bishop. ‘I shall not go and see him,’ he said, ‘for fear of compromising myself.’ In spite of his excessive precaution, he could not finally escape the barbarous vengeance of the prelate.[142] CHAPTER XI. BERTHELIER TRIED AT GENEVA; BLANCHET AND NAVIS SEIZED AT TURIN; BONIVARD SCANDALISED AT ROME. (1518.)