While they were making these preparations at Turin to crush liberty, others were preparing at Geneva to fight and to die for her. Both parties took up arms: the contest could not fail to be severe, and the issue important to Geneva and to society. Two friends especially did not lose sight of the approaching struggle. Berthelier inclined to the revival of Geneva from democratic motives; Bonivard, from a love of learning, philosophy, and light. Seated opposite each other in the priory of St. Victor, with the mild sparkling wine of the country on the table, they discoursed about the new times. Bonivard possessed an indescribable attraction for Berthelier. The young prior whose mind was full of grace, simplicity, poetry, imagination, and also of humour, was waking up with the sixteenth century, and casting an animated glance upon nature and the world. His style indicates his character: he always found the strongest, the most biting expressions, without either the shades of delicacy or the circuitousness of subtlety. There were however elevated parts in him: he could be enthusiastic for an idea. A thought passing through his mind would call up high aspirations in his soul and bring accents of eloquence to his lips. But, generally, men displeased him. A well-bred gentleman, a keen and graceful wit, a man of the world, he found the townspeople about him vulgar, and did not spare them the sting of his satire. When Berthelier, in the midst of the uproar of a tavern, shook the youths of Geneva warmly by the hand, and enlisted them for the great campaign of independence, Bonivard would draw back with embarrassment and put on his gloves. ‘These petty folks,’ he said with some contempt, ‘only like justice in others; and as for the rich tradesmen, they prefer the feasts and the money of the Savoyard nobles to the charms of independence.’ He was inclined to suspect evil: this was one of the disagreeable features in his character. Even Besançon Hugues was, in his eyes, nothing but pride, hidden under the mask of a citizen. Bonivard, like Erasmus, laughed at everybody and everything, except two: like him he was fond of letters, and still more fond of liberty. At Geneva he was the man of the Renaissance, as Calvin was the man of the Reformation. He overcame his antipathies, sat down at table with the young Genevans, scattered brilliant thoughts in their conversations, and kindled in their understanding a light that was never to be extinguished. Frivolous and grave, amiable and affectionate, studious and trifling, Bonivard attacked the old society, but he did not love the new. He scourged the enormities of the monks, but he was alarmed at the severe doctrines of the Reformation. He desired to bury the past joyously, but he did not know what future to set up in its place.