The language of the Friburgers, repeated from house to house, inflamed all hearts. The union between Geneva and Switzerland was, so to speak, accomplished before any public act had rendered it official and authentic. Berthelier had foreseen that Geneva would find in the Helvetic league a mightier protection than in that of the young men enrolled beneath the flag of dissipation.[120] From that moment a political party was slowly formed, a party calm but firm, which put itself at the head of the movement and replaced the licentious band of the ‘children of Geneva.’ The Friburg deputies had hardly left the city, when the duke’s party accosting the independent Genevans, and gallicising each in his own way the German word _Eidesgenossen_ (confederates) which they could not pronounce, called after them _Eidguenots_, _Eignots_, _Eyguenots_, _Huguenots_! This word is met with in the chronicles of the time written in different ways;[121] Michel Roset, the most respectable of these authorities of the sixteenth century, writes _Huguenots_; we adopt that form, because it is the only one that has passed into our language. It is possible that the name of the citizen, Besançon Hugues, who became the principal leader of this party, may have contributed to the preference of this form over all the others. In any case it must be remembered that until after the Reformation this sobriquet had a purely political meaning, in no respect religious, and designated simply the friends of independence. Many years after, the enemies of the protestants of France called them by this name, wishing to stigmatise them, and impute to them a foreign, republican, and heretical origin. Such is the true etymology of the word; it would be very strange if these two denominations, which are really but one, had played so great a part in the sixteenth century, at Geneva and in French protestantism, without having had any connection with one another. A little later, about Christmas, 1518, when the cause of the alliance was more advanced, its use became more general. The adherents of the duke had no sooner started the nickname than their opponents, repaying them in their own coin, called out: ‘Hold your tongues, you Mamelukes!... As the Mamelukes have denied Christ to follow Mahomet, so you deny liberty and the public cause to put yourselves under a tyranny.’[122] At the head of these Mamelukes were some forty rich tradesmen, men good enough at heart despite their nickname, but they were men of business who feared that disturbances would diminish their gains. The term Mamelukes put them into a great passion: ‘Yes,’ continued the Huguenots, ‘Sultan Selim conquered the Mamelukes last year in Egypt; but it seems that these slaves, when expelled from Cairo, took refuge at Geneva. However, if you do not like the name ... stay, since you deliver up Geneva through avarice, we will call you Judases!’[123]