One day as the gouty bastard, stretched on a couch, was suffering cruelly from his disease, he heard a noise in the street. ‘What is the matter?’ he asked.--‘They are taking a thief to be hanged,’ replied the old woman that tended him, who added: ‘If your Lordship would but pardon him, he would pray for your health all the days of his life.’ The bishop, carried away by that fancy of sick people which makes them try everything in the hope that it will cure them, said: ‘Be it so, let them set him at liberty.’ It was the custom--a strange custom--in Geneva for the syndics to hand over to the vidame the men they had condemned; the vidame transferred them to the governor of Gaillard in Savoy, and the governor to the executioner. The executioner, attended by the governor, was about to hang the man when the bishop’s officers brought an order to release him. ‘I am the servant of my most dread lord the Duke of Savoy,’ said the governor, ‘and I shall discharge the duty intrusted to me.’ It was agreed, however, that the execution should be put off, and the bishop called his council together to examine whether he had not the right to pardon a malefactor even when he was already in the hands of the officer empowered to execute him. There was among the members of the episcopal council a man of noble character destined to take a place in the history of Geneva by the side of Berthelier and even above him. Aimé Lévrier, judge in the criminal court, son of a former syndic, knew no rule but the law, and had no motive but duty. Serious, calm, full of dignity, endowed with the wisdom of a Nestor, he was decided and energetic in carrying the laws into execution, and as soon as his conscience spoke, he obeyed it in his humble sphere with the impetuosity of an Achilles, if one may compare small things with great. The turbulence of the people and the self-will of princes found him equally unbending. He saw in this little incident the great question between the legitimate authority of the bishop and the usurpations of the duke. ‘The prince of Geneva,’ he said, ‘has the right to pardon a criminal, even if he is on the territory of Savoy and at the foot of the scaffold.’ And then, wishing to seize the opportunity of showing that the duke was servant in Geneva and not master, he left the hall, went up to the culprit, cut his bonds, took him by the hand, and, leading him to the bishop, said to the poor wretch: ‘Give thanks to God and my lord;’ and after that, boldly set him at liberty. But the bishop, who had never imagined the existence of such power, began to tremble already.