La Baume, who had forgotten Plutarch's treatise, _De cohibenda ira_, could not recover from his emotion, and kept walking up and down the room with agitated step. Suddenly, remembering certain cutting expressions, uttered in Switzerland by Ami Girard, a distinguished, well-read, and determined huguenot, who was generally envoy from Geneva to Berne and Friburg, he said to his servants: 'Bring that man back.' Poor De Combes was brought back like a criminal whose rope has once broken, and who is about to be hanged again. 'Mind you tell those folks at Geneva all that I have ordered you,' exclaimed the bishop. 'There is one of them (I know him well—it is Ami Girard) who said that I wish to bridle Geneva in order that Monsieur of Savoy may ride her.... I will be revenged on him ... or I will die for it.... Out of my sight instantly. Be off to your huguenots.' [Sidenote: CALM OF THE GENEVESE.] De Combes retired without saying a word, and reported in Geneva the prelate's violent message. He had committed nothing to writing; but the whole scene remained graven in his memory. 'What!' exclaimed the huguenots, 'he said all that?' and then they made him tell his story over again. The murmurs now grew louder: the Genevans said that 'while in the first centuries the ministers of the Church had conciliated general esteem by their doctrine and character, modern priests looked for strength in alliances with the princes of this world; formerly the vocation of a bishop was martyrdom, but now it is eating and drinking, pomp, white horses, and ... bursts of anger.' All this was a deadly blow to the consideration due to the clergy. The council was, however, wiser than the prelate; they ordered that no answer should be returned him. This decision was indeed conformable to custom, as the report had been made to the syndics _viva voce_, and not by official letter. La Baume, at the time he gave audience to the envoy from Geneva, was too confused to hold a pen or to dictate anything rational to his secretary; but the magistrates of Geneva, on the other hand, were always men of rule and law.[785]