opened their deliberations; and ‘the stout master-courtiers who had the right to speak first began to say _amen_.’ Bonivard, who saw these fat canons one after another bending low their bloated faces, grew alarmed at the turn matters were taking. What would be the consequence if the Church said No, while the people said Yes? What disorders at home, what weakness abroad! He saw that the opposition in the chapter fell to his share; he performed his duty valiantly and paid dearly for it. He had not been asked for his vote, and the secretary was preparing to commit the resolution to writing, when the prior rose and said: ‘Stop a little, Mr. Secretary, although I am not _in sacris_ (in orders) and have no vote in the chapter, I have a duty here. Now it seems to me that before granting the illustrious duke his request, you should consider the purport of it a little better.[206] It tends to break off that alliance with Friburg which the people of this city have so much at heart that they would lose their wives and children sooner than renounce it. Think of what you are doing.... Very reverend sirs, you cannot return an answer to the duke without that answer being known to our people with whom you have promised to live and die. What will they say of you? With your permission I will tell you. They will say that you are playing the scorpion’s trick--that you pretend to be friends in front, and behind you inflict a mortal wound with your tail.... Fear their anger. Rest assured that if they say nothing at the moment, they will bear you in mind another day.’ The ‘stout masters,’ who were far from brave, began to feel uneasy and to turn in their stalls. They were in an awkward dilemma. ‘There is one way of satisfying both parties,’ continued Bonivard; ‘that is, reply to my lord of Savoy, and to the people also, that your business does not extend to alliances and other like civil matters, but to spiritual things only; that it does not concern you to make or unmake treaties; and that your function is only to pray to God and to pray principally for peace among all men. If you do this, no one will have reason to be dissatisfied with you.’ Thus did Bonivard at the beginning of the sixteenth century lay down a categorical distinction between the spiritual and the temporal government, and maintain that the Church and the State had each its own sphere. The canons thought this theory very strange, and stranger still that a young man of twenty-five should presume to teach it them.