Blanchet, disgusted with his condition since he had been to the wars, cared little for Geneva. During his sojourn at Turin, in the house of the magnificent lord of Meximieux, the splendour of the establishment had dazzled him. His love for liberty had cooled down, his taste for the luxuries and comforts of life had increased. ‘I will seek patrons and fortune,’ he often repeated. With this object he returned from Geneva to Turin. It was the moment when the bishop was on the watch to catch one of the ‘children of Geneva.’ Blanchet was seized and thrown into prison; and that was not all.[148] Andrew Navis, who, since the affair of the mule, had led a more regular life, was dreadfully weary of his father’s office. One Sunday, M. de Vernier gave his friends a splendid breakfast, to which Navis and Blanchet had been invited. Andrew was never tired of hearing ‘the wanderer’ talk about Italy, its delightful landscapes, the mildness of its climate, its fruits, monuments, pictures, concerts, theatres, beautiful women, and of the war between the pope and the Duke of Urbino. A desire to cross the Alps took possession of Andrew. ‘As soon as there is any rumour at Geneva of a foreign war,’ he said, ‘some of my companions hasten to it: why should I not do the same?’ The Duke of Urbino, proud of the secret support of France, was at that time a cause of great alarm to Leo X. An open war against a pope tempted Navis. The vices from which he suffered were not those base errors which nullify a man; but those ardent faults, those energetic movements which leave some hope of conversion. Leaning on his father’s desk, disgusted with the pettifogging business, he felt the need of a more active life. An opportunity presented itself. A woman named Georgia, with whom he had formerly held guilty intercourse, having to go to Turin, to join a man who was not her husband, asked Andrew to be her escort, promising him ‘a merry time of it.’ Navis made up his mind, and without his father’s knowledge left Geneva and his friends, and reached Turin at noon of Saturday the 8th of May. One Gabriel Gervais, a Genevan, was waiting for him: ‘Be on your guard,’ he said; ‘Blanchet has been taken up for some misunderstandings with the bishop.’ The son of the procurator-fiscal thought he had nothing to fear. But on the morrow, about six o’clock in the evening, the same Gabriel Gervais came and told him hastily: ‘They are going to arrest you: make your escape.’ Andrew started off directly, but was caught as he was about to leave the city and taken to the castle.[149]