Other events gave some hope to the Genevans, whose franchises were so rudely trodden under foot; their greatest friend came out of prison, and their greatest enemy quitted this world. Bonivard was still in confinement, but his relations, who had great influence at court, solicited the duke to restore him to liberty. ‘I dare not,’ said Charles, ‘for fear of offending the pope.’ They then applied to Rome: Leo X. commissioned the Bishop of Belley to investigate the matter, and the friends of the prior entreated this prelate to set the prisoner at large: ‘I dare not,’ he replied, ‘for fear of offending the duke.’ At last the duke consented, and Bonivard recovered his liberty but not his priory. The Abbot of Montheron, to whom Charles had given it, having gone to Rome to arrange his affairs, was invited by certain ecclesiastics who coveted his benefice to a banquet ‘after the Roman manner, and there,’ says Bonivard, ‘they gave him some cardinals’ powder, which purged the soul out of his body.’[300] It was by having recourse to this ‘romanesque’ fashion that the guilty soul of Pope Alexander VI. had been hurried from the world. A deed was found by which the repentant Montheron resigned to Bonivard whatever rights he had over the priory;[301] but Leo X. gave St. Victor to one of his cousins, who leased the revenue for 640 gold crowns; and Bonivard, the amiable and brilliant gentleman, brought up in abundance, at one time prior and even prince, was left in poverty. It is true that he succeeded for a time in being put in possession of his priory; but the duke soon made him regret in a horrible dungeon the liberty and goods that had been restored to him. Geneva’s day of agony was not yet ended, and at the very time when the citizens hoped to be able to breathe a purer air, oppression once more came and stifled them.