strait into which they had fallen? Bonivard in truth hated despotism, and was one of the most honestly liberal men of the sixteenth century. ‘Monarchical princes are always enemies of the liberty of the people,’ he said, ‘and the servants whom they keep are the same, because they can live in greater licence under king than under law. This nearly caused the ruin of Rome, when the young men conspired to restore the kings, as Livy bears witness in his second book.’[208] But if Bonivard was opposed to the despotism of princes, he was equally so to the disorders of the people. Accordingly he did not hesitate, but hurried to the episcopal vicar’s. De Gingins, who was waiting for the return of his messenger in the keenest anxiety, flew to meet the prior, exclaiming: ‘Ah, St. Victor, if you do not give orders, some disaster will happen to the canons. Our folks have done a foolish thing, and the people have heard of it: see if you can quiet them.’[209] Bonivard hastily lighted a torch (for it was night) and ran to meet the people. He found them at the top of the Perron, a steep street, which opens between the cathedral and the Rue des Chanoines. Berthelier and the ex-syndic Hugues ‘were in front,’ he tells us. The former of the two, seeing his friend Bonivard at the top of the street, with a furred amice upon his head, holding a torch in one hand, and with the other making eager signs for them to stop, exclaimed with an oath: ‘Ah! you _Bouche-Coppons_, you make a fair show in front with treachery behind.’--‘Bouche-Coppon (or hooded friar) was a name they gave us,’ says the prior, ‘because we carried the amice on our heads in winter.’[210]