The first measure Charles exacted from his new ally was to revoke the civil rights he had conceded to the citizens. The bishop consented. In order to deprive the secular magistrate of his temporal privileges, he resolved to employ spiritual weapons. Priests, bishops, and popes have always found their use very profitable in political matters; princes of great power have been known to tremble before the documents launched into the world by the high-priest of the Vatican. The bishop, therefore, caused an order to be posted on the church doors, forbidding the magistrates to try civil causes under pain of excommunication and a fine of one hundred pounds of silver. It seems that the bishop had thought it prudent to attack the purses of those who were not to be frightened by his _pastorals_. 'Remove these letters,' said the syndics to the episcopal secretary, 'and carry them back to the bishop, for they are contrary to our franchises.' At the same time they said to the judges: 'You will continue to administer justice, notwithstanding the excommunication.' This, be it remarked, occurred at Geneva in the beginning of the sixteenth century. [Sidenote: THE BISHOP AND THE SYNDICS.] When informed of these bold orders, the bishop-prince roused himself.... One might have fancied that the spirit of Hildebrand and Boniface had suddenly animated the weak La Baume. 'What! under the pretence of maintaining your liberties,' he wrote to the Genevans, 'you wish to usurp our sovereignty!... Beware what you do, for if you persevere, we will with God's help inflict such a punishment that it shall serve for an example to others.... The morsel you desire to swallow is harder to digest than you appear to believe.... We command you to resign the administration of justice; to receive the vidame whom the duke shall be pleased to send you; to permit him to exercise his power, as was done in the time of the most illustrious princes his grace's predecessors; and finally to remit to his highness and us the whole case of the fugitives. If within a fortnight you do not desist from all opposition to our authority, we will declare you our enemies, and will employ all our resources and those of our relations and friends to punish you for the outrage you are committing against us, and we will strive to ruin you totally, whatever may be the place to which you flee.'