Berthelier’s death was to have still more serious consequences. His enemies had hoped to stifle liberty by killing him. Perhaps ... but it was one of those deaths which are followed by a glorious resurrection. In the battle which had just been fought noble blood had been spilt, but it was blood that leads to victory at last. _Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit._ Religious liberty had many victims three centuries ago in all the countries of the Reformation; but the noblest martyrs of political liberty, in modern times, have fallen at Geneva (if my judgment does not mislead me), and their death has not been useless to the universal cause of civilisation. _Cruciate, torquete, damnate ... sanguis christianorum, semen._ The blood of the martyrs is a seed--a seed which takes root and bears fruit, not only in the spot where it has been sown, but in many other parts of the world. Berthelier’s friends were struck by his contempt of death and assurance of eternal life. They still seemed to hear the noble testimony he had borne to immortality. Hence one of them wrote this noble epitaph for him:-- Quid mihi mors nocuit? Virtus post fata virescit; Nec cruce nec gladio sævi perit illa tyranni.[274] As we see, the idea of a resurrection, of a life after death, over which man has no power, seems to have been uppermost in the mind of Berthelier as well as of his friends. This man was not a common martyr of liberty. ‘Verily,’ said some, ‘the maxim lately set forth is a true one: Heroes and the founders of republics and empires have, next to God, the greatest right to the adoration of men.’[275]