'Really,' said the council, 'we have had enough and too much even of one pope, and we do not care to have two—one at Rome and the other at our very gates.' The citizens were so irritated at Charles's singular claim, that they did not return an answer in the usual form. 'We will not write to the duke,' said the syndics; 'we will delegate no one to him, seeing that we are not his subjects; but we will simply tell the bearer of his letter that _we are going on very well_, and that the duke, having no authority to correct us, ought to _mind his own business_.' Such is the minute recorded in the council register for this day. As for La Baume, the poor prelate, who did not trouble himself much either about pope or Lutheranism, wrote the same day to the Genevans, that he permitted them 'to eat milk-food during the coming Lent.' This culinary permission was quite in his way, and it was the most important missive from the bishop at that time.[764] [Sidenote: THE DUKE REPRIMANDS THE CANONS.] When the episcopal council heard of the syndics' answer, they were in great commotion. They thought it rude and unbecoming, and trembled lest Charles should confound them with these arrogant burgesses. They therefore sent M. de Veigy, one of the most eminent canons, to the duke, in order to pacify him. The reverend father set off, and while on the road, he feared at one moment Charles's anger, and at another enjoyed in anticipation the courtesies which the ducal court could not fail to show him. But he had scarcely been presented to the duke, and made a profound bow, when Bishop de Belley, standing at the left of his highness, and commissioned to be the interpreter of his sentiments, addressed him abruptly, and, calling him traitor and huguenot, insulted him just as De la Thoy might have done. But this abuse was nothing in comparison with Charles's anger: unable to restrain himself, he burst out, and, giving utterance to the terrible schemes he had formed against Geneva, declared he would reduce that impracticable city to ashes, and ended by saying: 'If you do not come out of it, you will be burnt in it with all the rest.' The poor canon endeavoured to pacify his highness: 'Ah, my lord,' he said, 'I shall not remain there: all the canons now in the city are about to leave it!' And yet De Veigy was fond of Geneva, and thought that to reside in Annecy would be terribly dull. Accordingly, on his return to the city, he forgot his terror and his promises, whereupon he received this short message from Charles III.: 'Ordered, under pain of death, to quit Geneva in six days.'—'He left on the 3rd of March, and with great regret,' adds Balard.[765] Charles wished to put the canons in a place of safety, before he burnt the city. [Footnote 754: 'Que qui en volisse contredire' (whatever any one may do to oppose it), he added.—_Journal de Balard_, p. 124.]