The more light-hearted among them went further than this. For ages the Roman Church had accustomed its followers to unite masquerades with the most sacred recollections. In some cantons there had been great rejoicings over the abolition of the mass. Such a fire could not be kindled in Switzerland without scattering a few sparks over Geneva. Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, a great enemy to superstition, an active and even turbulent man, and daring enough to attempt anything, resolved to organise a funeral procession of the papacy. He would attack Rome with the weapons that the Roman carnival supplied him, and would arrange a great procession. Whilst serious men were reading the epistle from heaven (the Gospel), which absolved them from the excommunication of its pretended vicar, the young and thoughtless were in great excitement; they dressed themselves in their houses in the strangest manner; they disguised themselves, some as priests, some as canons, and others as monks; they came out, met together, drew up in line, and soon began to march through the streets of the city. There were white friars, grey friars, and black friars, fat canons, and thin curates. One was begging, another chanting; here was one scourging himself, there another strutting solemnly along; here a man carrying a hair shirt, there a man with a bottle. Some indulged in acts of outrageous buffoonery; others, the more completely to imitate the monks, went so far as to take liberties with the women who were looking on, and when some fat friar thus made any burlesque gesture, there was loud applause, and the crowd exclaimed: 'That is not the worst they do.' In truth the reality was more culpable than the burlesque. When they saw this tumultuous procession and heard the doleful chanting, mingled with noisy roars of laughter, every one said that popery was dying, and singing its _De profundis_, its burial anthem. The priests took the jest in very bad part, and the procession was hardly over before they hurried, flushed with anger, to complain to the syndics of 'the enmity raised against them by Baudichon and others.' The syndics referred their complaint to the episcopal council, and the latter severely reprimanded the offenders. But Maison-Neuve and his friends withdrew, fully convinced that the priests were in the wrong, and that the victory would ultimately be on their side.[762] [Sidenote: BONIVARD AT THE PRIORY.]