The cruelties of the princes of Savoy had already fallen upon Bonivard. The very day when the duke entered the city, the prior of St. Victor left it, ‘disguised as a monk,’ accompanied by two friends of the Pays de Vaud with whom he was very familiar, the Sieur de Voruz and the Abbot of Montheron. ‘Fear nothing,’ said the latter to him; ‘we will go first to my abbey; then we will conduct you to Echallens, a town dependent on Berne, where you will be in safety.’ But they were leading him to a very different place of safety. The priest and the gentleman had made their account together. They had said that no one in Geneva was more hated by the bishop and the duke than Bonivard, that in their eyes he was not a Genevese, but a Savoyard who had betrayed his prince; so that, to get him into their power, these princes would give his weight in gold. The priory of St. Victor was a good benefice; the two perfidious friends had therefore determined to propose an exchange: they would put the duke in possession of the prior, while the duke should put them in possession of the priory. This establishment would naturally fall to the abbot; but the latter engaged to pay the Sieur de Voruz an annual pension of two hundred florins out of the stipend. The flashing of the gold dazzled these wretches, and they concluded their infamous bargain. The gentleman and the abbot appeared to redouble their vigilance lest any harm should befall the prior. When the three travellers reached Montheron, in the forest of Jorat, between Lausanne and Echallens, the prior was courteously conducted into a room, which, without his suspecting it, was to be his prison. The next morning Voruz, whom Bonivard trusted like a brother, entered the chamber, sat down opposite him, and, laying a sheet of paper on the table, said: ‘Resign your priory of St. Victor in favour of the abbot.’--‘What!’ exclaimed the startled Bonivard, ‘is it under a show of friendship that you lay these plots?’--‘You are our prisoner,’ Voruz answered coldly; ‘all attempts to escape will be useless.’ Bonivard now understood into what hands he had fallen. ‘So, then, instead of taking me to Echallens,’ he said, ‘you will prevent my going there.’ He declared that he would set his hand to no such robbery, and bluntly refused to resign his priory. ‘The duke is going to put Berthelier and his companions to death,’ resumed Voruz coldly; ‘be careful. If you will not do what we tell you, we will deliver you into his hands, and there will be one huguenot the more for the scaffold. You are free; make your choice--resignation or death!’ Bonivard had no wish to die. Could he leave so soon this world that he loved so passionately? Could he see rudely interrupted that beautiful dream of liberty, philosophy, and poetry, in whose chimeras he had so long indulged? He consented to everything. ‘Good!’ said Voruz, as he took away with him the renunciation the prior had signed, and locked the door behind him.