Pontverre's humour was not so pacific. One of the last representatives of feudal society, he saw that its elements were on the verge of dissolution, and its institutions about to disappear. Power, which had long ago passed from the towns to the country, was now returning from the country to the towns; Geneva, in particular, seemed as if it would nullify all the seigneurs in its neighbourhood. And, further still, the Church which puts forward creeds in an absolute manner, so that no person has the right to examine them, was attacked by the religious revolution beginning in Geneva. Pontverre desired to preserve the ancient order of things, and, with that object, to take and (if necessary) destroy that troublesome city. He therefore, as prior of the order, convened a general assembly of the knights of the Spoon at Nyon, in order to arrange, in concert with the duke, the requisite measures for capturing the city. The bailiwick of Ternier, the lordship of Pontverre, was situated about a league from Geneva, between the verdant flanks of the Salève and the smiling shores of the Rhone. It would have been easy, therefore, for that chief to cross the river between Berney and Peney, and thus get on the right bank of the lake; but he thought it more daring and heroic to traverse Geneva. They represented to him, but to no purpose, the danger to which he would expose himself, for if he was always quick to provoke the Genevans, they were equally quick to reply. Pontverre would listen to nothing. There was a treaty by which Savoyard gentlemen had the right of free passage through the city; and, armed with a sword, he feared nobody. It was in the month of December, when, presenting himself at daybreak at the Corraterie gate, Pontverre passed in; he rode quietly through the city, looking to the right and to the left at the shops which were still closed, and did not meet a single huguenot. On arriving at the Swiss gate, by which he had to leave the city, he found it shut. He summoned the gate-keeper, who, as it appears, was not yet up. The horse pawed the ground, the rider shouted, and the porter loitered: he ran out at last and lowered the chain. The impatient Pontverre paid him by a slap in the face, and said: 'Rascal, is this the way you make gentlemen wait?' He then added with violent oaths: 'You will not be wanted much longer. It will not be long before we pull down your gates and trample them under foot, as we have done before.' He then set spurs to his horse and galloped away. The porter, exasperated by the blow he had received, made his report, and the Genevans, who were irritable folk, became very angry about it. 'It is not enough,' they said, 'for these Savoyards to do us all sorts of injury outside the walls, but they must come and brave us within. Wait a little! We will pay them off, and chastise this insolent fellow.' The council, while striving to restrain the people, ordered sentinels to be stationed everywhere.[792]