The bishop had no notion of excusing himself to the pope: on the contrary, he thought only of pursuing his revenge. The _decoy_ was in the cage and some small birds with him; he wished now at any cost to catch the large one,--Berthelier. Most of the youth of Geneva were either out of the way or disheartened; the league _Who touches one touches all_ was nearly dissolved, at the moment when it ought to have been ready to save its founder. The bishop thought it superfluous to resort to stratagem or violence and simply required the syndics to surrender the great agitator to him. At eight o’clock in the evening of the 28th of July, 1517, the council was sitting, when the president who was on the bishop’s side said: ‘It is my lord’s pleasure that we take up one of his subjects against whom he possesses sufficient informations which he will communicate in proper time and place; and that when the said subject is in prison, the syndics shall execute justice, if the affair requires it.’[114] At these words every one looked at a seat which was empty for the first time. Berthelier’s friends were uneasy; and as the bishop had adopted a lawful course, the council answered the prelate that they would take up the accused, provided that on his part he maintained the liberties of Geneva. As the councillors left the Hôtel de Ville in the dark, they said to one another: ‘It is Berthelier.’ The friends he had among them ran off to tell him the news, conjuring him to escape the vengeance of the prince by flight. Bonivard joined his entreaties to theirs: ‘The sword is over your head,’ he said.--‘I know it,’ answered Berthelier, ‘yes, I know that I shall die, and I do not grieve at it.’ ‘Really,’ said Bonivard, ‘I never saw and never read of one who held life so cheap.’ The friends of the noble-minded citizen redoubled their entreaties. They represented to him that there remained in Geneva only a small number of civic guards, imperfectly trained to arms;[115] that one part of the burgesses would assent through fear to the plots of the Savoyard party, and that another part would aid them. Berthelier still resisted: ‘God,’ said he, ‘will miraculously take away their power.’[116] His friends resorted to another argument. There happened to be just then in Geneva some envoys from Friburg; Berthelier’s friends begged him to depart with them. ‘Out of Geneva,’ they said, ‘you will serve the city better than within.’ That consideration decided him. He went during the night to the hostelry of the Friburgers. ‘We leave to-morrow,’ they told him; ‘here is a livery cloak with the arms of Friburg; put it on, and thus disguised you shall come with us, like one of the state riders. If you are not recognised at the gates of Geneva or in the Pays de Vaud, you are safe.’ The Friburgers left the city very early: the guard looked at them for a moment as they passed the gate, but without suspecting that the great republican was with them. He was safe.