Whilst the patriots were thus making efforts to save the independence of the city, the duke, the bishop, the count, Archbishop Seyssel, and other councillors, meeting at Turin, were pursuing contrary schemes. Would they succeed? Seyssel, the illustrious author of the _Grande Monarchie_, might tell them that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, the bishop and the lay lord had combined against the liberties of the towns, and aided by arms and anathemas had maintained a war against the communes which had ended in the destruction of the rights and franchises of the citizens. Then the night was indeed dark in the social world. At Geneva, these rights existed still: you could see a flickering light glimmering feebly in the midst of the darkness. But would not the bishop and the duke succeed in extinguishing it? If so, despotism would hold all Europe under its cruel hand, as in the Mahometan and other countries of the world. Why should the operation carried through at Cambray, Noyon, St. Quentin, Laon, Amiens, Soissons, Sens, and Rheims, fail on the shores of the Leman? There was indeed a reason for it, but they did not take it into account. We do not find this reason--at least not alone--in the fact that the heroes of liberty were more intrepid at Geneva than elsewhere. The enfranchisement was to come from a higher source: God then brought forth light and liberty. The middle ages were ending, modern times were beginning. The princes and bishops of Roman Catholicism, in close alliance, had everywhere reduced to ashes the edifice of communal liberties. But in the midst of these ashes some embers were found which, kindled again by fire from heaven, lighted up once more in the world the torch of lawful liberty. Geneva was the obstacle to the definite annihilation of the popular franchises, and in Geneva the strength of the obstacle was Berthelier. No wonder then that the Savoyard princes agreed that in order to check the triumph of the spirit of independence, it was absolutely necessary to get rid of this proud, energetic, and unyielding citizen. They began to prepare the execution of their frightful project. A strange blindness is that which imagines that by removing a man from the world it is possible to thwart the designs of God!