This attack, abortive as it was, had one important consequence; it delivered the city from the canons, and thus paved the way for the Reformation. These men were in Geneva the representatives and supporters of all kinds of religious and political tyranny. To save catholicism, it would have been necessary for the clergy, and particularly for the canons, who were their leaders, to unite with the laity, and, while maintaining the Roman ceremonial, to demand the suppression of certain episcopal privileges and ecclesiastical abuses. Some of the huguenot chiefs—those who, like Hugues, loved the bishop, and those also who subsequently opposed Calvin's reformation—would probably have entered with joy into this order of things. For the execution of such a plan, however, the priests ought to have been upright and free. But the absolute authority of the Church, which had enfeebled the vigour of the human mind, had specially degraded the priests. The clergy of Geneva had fallen too low to effect a transformation of catholicism. Many of the canons and even of the curés could see nothing but the act of a revolutionist or even of a madman in the bishop's desire to ally himself with the Swiss, and had consequently entered into Charles's scheme, which was so hateful to the Genevans. [Sidenote: THE BISHOP IMPRISONS THE CANONS.] The huguenots hastened to take advantage of it. If the ducal plot had not delivered them from the bishop, it must at least free them from the canons. These ecclesiastical dignitaries never quitted Geneva, while the bishop often absented himself to intrigue in Italy or to amuse himself in Burgundy. They were besides more bigoted and fanatical than the worldly prelate, and therefore all the more dangerous. And then, if they desired to get rid of the bishop, was it not the wisest plan to begin with his council? Shortly after the famous alert, some Genevan liberal went to the palace and said to La Baume: 'The canons, my lord, are the duke's spies: so long as they remain in Geneva, Savoy will have one foot in the city.' The poor bishop was too exasperated against the canons not to lend an ear to these words, and after ruining himself with the duke, he took steps to ruin himself with the clergy, and to throw overboard the most devoted friends of the Roman institutions. 'Yes,' said he, 'they intrigue (_grabugent_) against the Church!... Let them be arrested.... It is they who wished to see me kidnapped.... Let them be put in prison!' The next morning the procurator-fiscal, with his sergeants, knocked at the doors of the most influential of the canons, Messieurs De la Madeleine, De Montrotier, De Salery, De Veigy, and others, arrested them, and, to the indescribable astonishment of the servants and neighbours of these reverend gentlemen, carried them off to prison.[737]