Thus died François de Ternier, lord of Pontverre, whose ancestors had always been enemies of Geneva, 'and who himself had been the worst,' says one of his contemporaries. He fell a martyr to feudalism, say some; a victim to his own insolence, say others. His sole idea had been to ruin Geneva, to disperse its inhabitants, to throw down its walls; and now he lay dead a few yards from the place where, in 1519, he was present at the head of his troopers to take part in the murder of Berthelier, and in the very place by which he had arranged to enter and destroy the city by fire and sword.—'A memorable instance of divine justice,' said some of the citizens; 'a striking deliverance for Geneva; a terrible lesson for its enemies!' There is a great difference, it must be observed, between the martyrs of liberty and right, and those of feudalism and the papacy. Arbitrary power perfidiously seized the greatest citizens, the Bertheliers and Lévriers, in the midst of an inoffensive life, and put them to death by the vile hand of the common headsman, after a sham trial, which was a disgraceful mockery of justice; but it was only when provoked by the champions of feudalism, and at the risk of their own lives, that the men of liberty struck their adversaries. Pontverre died in a contest in which he had been the first to draw the sword. [Sidenote: HONOURS TO THE DEAD.] As the Genevans wished to show every mark of respect to their dead enemy, the council ordered that he should be buried with the usual rites by the Franciscans in a chapel of the convent of Rive, which had been founded by his family, and where some of his ancestors had been laid. After this ceremony had taken place according to the forms of the Roman ritual, an inquest was made into the cause of this tragical death, 'to do justice therein, if there should be need.' All the cool-headed people in Geneva were seriously grieved: 'Alas!' said they, 'what a pity that he would not live in peace, for he was a virtuous cavalier, except that he was so pugnacious! It would have been better to make him prisoner; it would have been the means of obtaining a perpetual treaty!' The officers of justice found letters on his person which had reference to the plot hatched against Geneva, and in which the knights of the Spoon were ordered to assemble 'with swords and spears' against the city. It was made evident that he had been the chief of the bands which pillaged and killed without mercy the citizens and inhabitants of the country, and that he was to blame, having first wounded Bandière: the magistrates, therefore, came to the conclusion that there were no grounds for bringing any one to trial. The Sire de Simon and the other companions of the famous captain were conducted uninjured to the frontier of Savoy.[798]