But Hugues was a better Latin scholar and knew his man better than Mullinen. As soon as the ambassador returned, he handed to the Genevese, with an air of triumph, the important paper that was the reward of his journey, and Hugues read it eagerly. On coming to the last phrase he smiled bitterly: _Dummodo non intrent civitatem, nec suburbia ejus_, said the safe-conduct; ‘which means,’ said Hugues to the deputies, ‘that we can return to Geneva provided we do not enter the city or the suburbs.... The duke will be within and we without.... What services can we render the city? You know the smallness of our territory. If we are neither in the city nor in the suburbs, we are on the lands of Savoy.... Now if Berthelier was arrested close under the walls (at La Treille), if Lévrier was seized at the very gate of St. Pierre, what would befall us on the ducal territory?... The duke is laying a snare: it is a condition which nullifies the act.--The bird which the duke has sent us,’ he added, ‘has a fine head and beautiful plumage; but there is a tail at the end which spoils all the rest.’--‘This grace is a mere trap,’ said the indignant exiles. The knight of Mullinen was offended and annoyed at the manner in which the Duke of Savoy had befooled him, and perhaps began to imagine that a knowledge of Latin might be of use. ‘My lords,’ said the fugitives to the councils of Berne and Friburg, ‘the duke is a great traitor. He fears not God, but he fears men the more. For this reason, make us free of your cities; for if he knows that we are your allies, then only will he leave us in peace.’[380] At the same time the Genevans, wishing to show the duke what confidence they placed in his safe-conduct, sent for their wives and children. This was making an energetic answer to Savoy.