The princes of Savoy, who had combined with the bishop against the Count of Geneva to oust the latter, having succeeded so well in their first campaign, undertook a second, and joined the citizens against the bishop in order to supplant him. Amadeus became a liberal. He knew well that you cannot gain the hearts of a people better than by becoming the defender of their liberties. He said to the citizens in 1285, ‘We will _maintain_, _guard_, and _defend_ your city and goods, your _rights_ and _franchises_, and all that belongs to you.’[34] If Amadeus was willing to _defend_ the liberties of Geneva, it is a proof that they existed: his language is that of a conservative and not of an innovator. The year 1285 did not, as some have thought, witness the first origin of the franchises of Geneva but their revival. There was however at that time an outgrowth of these liberties. The municipal institutions became more perfect. The citizens, taking advantage of Amadeus’s support, elected _rectors_ of the city, voted taxes, and conferred the freedom of the city upon foreigners. But the ambitious prince had calculated falsely. By aiding the citizens to form a corporation strong enough to defend their ancient liberties, he raised with imprudent hand a bulwark against which all the plans of his successors were doomed to fail. In the fifteenth century the counts of Savoy, having become dukes and more eagerly desiring the conquest of Geneva, changed their tactics a third time. They thought, that as there was a pope at Rome, the master of the princes and principalities of the earth, a pontifical bull would be more potent than their armies and intrigues to bring Geneva under the power of Savoy.