The noble citizens threatened by the sword of Charles, or rather by the axe of his executioners, wished to come to some understanding with each other, but they had not the time to confer together. They knew the fate that awaited them, and the alarm of their friends and wives, of those who had nothing to fear, drove them out like a blast of wind. Some would have sold their lives dearly; others said that their task was not yet completed, that if the duke attacked them perfidiously, if the bishop basely abandoned them, they must retire elsewhere, pray for the hour of justice, and procure powerful defenders for Geneva. Their resolution was hardly formed when the field-sergeants approached the gates. The huguenots pursued by the sword of Savoy could neither carry away what would be necessary during their exile, nor take leave of their friends; people in the streets had hardly time to enter their houses. All departed amid the tears of their wives and the cries of their children. The exodus began, not the exodus of a whole people, but of the flower of the citizens. Many were seen leaving the gates of the city. There was Jean Baud, captain of the artillery, with his brother Claude, a zealous episcopalian, but a friend of independence; Girard, who had succeeded Boulet as treasurer of the city; Jean Philippe, afterwards first syndic; the intrepid Jean Lullin, Hudriot du Molard, and Ami Bandière, who were syndics in the year of the Reformation; Jean d’Arloz, afterwards one of the Council of Two Hundred; Michael Sept, a frequent deputy to Switzerland; G. Peter, Claude Roset, father of the celebrated syndic and chronicler; J. L. Ramel, Pierre de la Thoy, Chabot, and Pécolat. Others quitted Geneva secretly; some by day, some by night, in disguise, on foot or on horseback, ‘in great haste, by different roads, without consulting one another.’ Some crept along the edge of the lake, others hastened towards the mountains. Melancholy dispersion, sad calamity![370] And yet as they departed, these generous men kept up the hope of seeing liberty victorious. In this dread and critical hour, they cast their eyes over the walls of the old city, and swore that they left it not to escape death, but to save it from oppression. They were going in search of help--not towards the enslaved banks of the Tiber, as they did once in their folly; but towards those noble mountains of Switzerland, which had thrown off the yoke of foreign tyrants. The sword of Savoy pursues them; but, wonderful providence of God! it drives them towards those countries where a new light has dawned, and where they will meet at nearly every step the friends of Zwingle and of the Reformation. It is a prince, a friend of the pope, that is sending them to the school of the Gospel.