Pontverre, checking the speed of his horse, reflected on the work he was about to undertake. He thought it worthy of the name he bore, and of the memory of his ancestors. By lending his sword to the Duke of Savoy and to the pope, he would make absolutism in the Church and in the State triumphant in Geneva; at one blow he would crush in that restless city both independence and the Reformation. He reached Geneva between four and five o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, the 2nd of January, 1529, and night had set in. Pontverre hid his face in his cloak, presented himself with his escort at the Pâquis gate, and passed through. He entered the streets. The commander of an army which purposed capturing and destroying Geneva, was traversing, like an ordinary traveller, the city he was about to surround with his forces, besiege, and perhaps burn.... Such impudent assurance has perhaps never been witnessed in modern times. He was hardly inside the city, when, no longer able to contain himself (for pride and anger prevailed over discretion), he put aside all precaution, threw off his cloak, and, drawing his sword, 'uttered threats and insults out of his haughtiness and insolence.'[795] He went even further than this: the streets of Geneva, and the presence of the detested huguenots whom he saw moving about, made his wrath boil over; and striking one of the citizens on the head with his sword, he exclaimed with a round oath: 'We must kill these traitors!' The assaulted citizen turned round, and others ran up: this took place in the Rue de Coutance, which has witnessed many other fights since then, even in very recent times.[796] The huguenots surrounded the horseman, and, recognising him, called out: 'It is Pontverre! it is Pontverre!' The crowd increased and blocked up the bridge over the Rhone, which the chief of the knights of the Spoon would have to cross. [Sidenote: FIGHT ON THE BRIDGE.]