The haste with which the victim had been sacrificed, the remote theatre of the crime, the hour of night that had been chosen, all show that Charles had an uneasy conscience. He soon discovered that he had not been mistaken in his fears. The indignation was general. The men of independence took advantage of the crime that had been committed to magnify the price of liberty. ‘A fine return,’ they said, ‘for the honours we have paid Monsieur of Savoy and his wife!’ Though their anger broke out against the duke, the bishop had his share of their contempt. The reflection that he had permitted his friends to be sacrificed on one side of the Alps while he was amusing himself on the other, shocked these upright souls. ‘A pretty shepherd,’ they said, ‘who not only abandons his flock to the wolves, but the faithful dogs also that watch over it!’ They were disgusted with priestly government: some citizens even went so far as to say: ‘We had better grant Monsieur of Savoy his request, than let ourselves be murdered for a prelate who gives us no credit for it. If the duke takes away certain things, he will at least guarantee the rest; while the bishop devours us on one side and lets us be devoured on the other.’[350] They concluded that ecclesiastical principalities only served to ruin their subjects--at Geneva as well as at Rome. Liberals and ducals held almost the same language. The temporal power of the bishop was a worm-eaten building that would tumble down at the first shock. When the news of the murder at Bonne was heard among the young worldlings who frequented the court, they were aghast, and a change came over them. All that the duke had done to win them, the splendid entertainments, the graces of the duchess, the charms of her ladies, were forgotten. In the ball-room they could see nothing but Death leaning on his scythe and with hollow eyes looking round for some new victim. Their past pleasures seemed a mockery to them. A brilliant representation had taken place: on a sudden the curtain fell, the lights were extinguished, and the most enthusiastic spectators, seized with terror, hastened to escape far from a place which appeared to run with blood. That murder, ‘in the night by torchlight, put all the city in great alarm,’ says a chronicler. Amid all these cries of indignation, of contempt, of terror, there was a small group of firm men who saw the dawn of liberty piercing through the darkness of crime. The generous spirits who had received the Divine Word from France--Porral, Maison-Neuve, Vandel, Bernard, even Bonivard--took courage in their tears. ‘One single obstacle will check the duke,’ they said, ‘and that obstacle is God! God desires by means of the duke to chastise Geneva, not destroy it. The stripes that he inflicts are not for its death, but for its improvement. Yes! God, after punishing us with the rod of a father, will rise with the sword in his hand against those whose crimes he appears to permit.’[351]