How could a pontiff always occupied in plundering others to enrich and exalt his own kindred, compromise so glorious an alliance in order to maintain the independence of an unknown city in the wild country of the Alps? Besides, the situation at Geneva was disquieting; the free institutions of the city threatened the temporal power of the bishop, and if that were destroyed, what would become of his spiritual power? But if the Duke of Savoy should become sovereign prince there, he would revoke the insolent liberties of the citizens, and thus save the episcopal prerogative. Such had been the history of most cities in the middle ages: was it also to be that of Geneva?[78] Lorenzo de’ Medici had been accustomed to say: ‘My son Julian is good; my son John (Leo X.) is crafty; my son Peter is mad.’ Leo thought he was displaying considerable tact by sacrificing Geneva to the glory of the Medici and the ambition of Savoy. ‘The Duke of Savoy,’ says a catholic historian, ‘took advantage of this circumstance (the marriage) to procure a bull confirming the transfer of the temporal authority.’[79] Charles III. triumphed. He had reached the end which his predecessors had been aiming at for centuries: he had done more than Peter, surnamed Charlemagne; more than Amadeus the Great; he fancied himself the hero of his race. ‘I am sovereign lord of Geneva in temporal matters,’ he told everybody. ‘I obtained it from our holy father the reigning pope.’ But what would they say at Geneva? Would the ancient republic meekly bow its head beneath the Savoyard yoke?[80] The whole city was in commotion when this important news arrived. Berthelier, Bonivard, Hugues, Vandel, Bernard, even the most catholic of the citizens, exasperated at such a usurpation, hurried to and fro, conversing eagerly and especially blaming the pontiff. ‘The power of the popes,’ they said, ‘is not over principalities but over sins--it is for the purpose of correcting vices, and not to be masters of sovereigns and peoples, that they have received the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ There was at Geneva a small number of scholars (Bonivard was one) who opened the dusty tomes of their libraries in search of arguments against the papal resolution. Did not St. Bernard say to Pope Eugene: ‘To till the vineyard of the Lord, to root out the noxious plants, is your task.... You need not a sceptre but a hoe.’[81]