The meeting of the 5th of December was no sooner dissolved than the citizens dispersed through the town. The insolent request of the princes and the refusal of the people were the subject of every conversation: nothing else was talked of ‘in public or in private, at feast or funeral.’ The letter which demanded on behalf of Geneva an alliance with Friburg was not sealed like the bishop’s; it was openly displayed in the streets, and carried from house to house; a large number of citizens hastened to subscribe their names: there were three hundred signatures. It was necessary to carry this petition to Friburg; Berthelier, who was still under trial, could not leave the city; besides, it would be better to have a new man, more calm perhaps, and more diplomatic. They cast their eyes on the syndic Besançon Hugues, who in character held a certain mean between Berthelier the man of action, and Lévrier the man of law. ‘No one can be more welcome among the confederates than you,’ they said; ‘Conrad Hugues, your father, fought at Morat in the ranks of Zurich.’--‘I will go,’ he replied, ‘but as a mere citizen.’ They wished to give him a colleague of a more genial nature, and chose De la Mare. He had resided for some time on a property his wife possessed in Savoy; but the gentry of the neighbourhood ‘playing him many tricks,’ because he was a Genevan, he had returned to the city burning with hatred against the Savoyard dominion. The two deputies met with a warm reception and great honour at Friburg. The pensioners of Savoy opposed their demand in vain; the three hundred Genevans who had signed the petition received the freedom of the city, with an offer to make the alliance general if the community desired it. On Tuesday, December 21, the two deputies returned to Geneva, and on the following Thursday the proposal of alliance was brought before the people in general council. It was to be a great day; and accordingly the two parties went to the council determined, each of them, to make a last effort. The partisans of absolutism and those of the civic liberties, the citizens attached to Rome and those who were inclined to throw off their chains, the old times and the new, met face to face. At first there were several eloquent speeches on both sides: ‘We will not permit law and liberty to be driven out of Geneva,’ said the citizens, ‘in order that arbitrary rule may be set up in their place. God himself is the guarantee of our franchises.’ They soon came to warmer language, and at last grew so excited that deliberation was impossible. The deputy from Friburg, who had returned with Hugues and De la Mare, strove in vain to calm their minds; the council was compelled to separate without coming to any decision. Switzerland had offered her alliance, and Geneva had not accepted it.[189]