The canons quitted the place where they had been confined, bursting with anger and indignation. Having had time to reflect on what was passing in Geneva, on the impetuous current that was hurrying the citizens in a direction contrary to Rome, they had made up their minds to quit a city where they had been so unceremoniously thrown into the receptacle for criminals. De Montrotier, De Veigy, and their colleagues had hardly returned to their houses when they told everybody who would listen to them that they would leave Geneva and the Genevans to their miserable fate. This strange resolution immediately spread through the city, and excited the people greatly; it was important news, and they could hardly believe it. The canons of Geneva were a very exalted body in the opinion of catholicity. In order to be received among them, the candidate must show titles of nobility or be a graduate in some famous university; and since the beginning of the century their number included members of the most illustrious families of Savoy—De Gramont, De la Foret, De Montfalcon, De Menthon, De la Motte, De Chatillon, De Croso, De Sablon, and others as noble as they.[741] [Sidenote: THE CANONS LEAVE THE CITY.] The canons kept their word. As soon as they had made the necessary arrangements for their departure, they mounted their mules or got into their carriages, and set off. The Genevans, standing at the doors of their houses and in groups in the streets, watched these Roman dignitaries thus abandoning their homes, some with downcast heads, others with angry looks, who moved along sad and silent, and went out by the Savoy gate with hearts full of resentment against a city which they denounced as ungrateful and rebellious. Out of thirty-two, only seven or eight remained.[742] The citizens, assembling in various places, were agitated with very different thoughts. The huguenots said to themselves that these high and reverend clerks, true cardinals, who supported the papacy much better than the bishop, would no longer be there to prevent the new generation from throwing off the shackles of the middle ages; that this unexpected exodus marked a great revolution; and that the old times were departing, and the Reformation beginning. On the other hand, the creatures of Rome felt a bitter pang, and flames of vengeance were kindled in their hearts. Lastly, those citizens who were both good Genevans and good catholics, were seized with fear and melancholy. 'No more canons, erelong perhaps no more bishop!... Will Geneva, without its canons and bishops, be Geneva still?' But the great voice, which drowned all the rest, was that of the partisans of progress, of liberty, of independence, and of reform, who desired to see political liberty developed among the community, and the Church directed by the Word of God and not by the bulls of the pope. Among them were Maison-Neuve, Bonivard, Porral, Bernard, Chautemps, and others. These men, the