This was only a little joke of the young ones among the knights; the Sire de Viry and his colleagues had more serious thoughts. The attack upon Geneva, resolved upon at the castle of Nyon, was to be put into execution. The lords issued with their armed retainers from all the castles in the great valley, and on the 24th of March some peasants from the banks of the Arve came and told the syndics that there was a great concourse of gentlemen and soldiers at Gaillard; that these armed men intended on the following night to secretly scale the walls of the city, and that there was a strong guard upon all the roads to detain everybody who ventured out of Geneva. At that time the whole garrison consisted but of fifty soldiers, 'keeping watch and ward by turns,' as Bonivard informs us. How was it possible to resist with such a few men? Yet two powers kept the walls: the energy of the citizens and the providence of God. [Sidenote: THE DAY OF THE LADDERS.] At midnight on Holy Thursday (25th of March), the knights of the Spoon, with about four thousand Savoyard troops and the fugitive mamelukes, moved forward as secretly as possible to take Geneva by surprise. The citizens, accustomed to false alarms, had not paid much attention to the warning they had received. At the head of the band that was to lead the assault were a certain number of men carrying long ladders which had been made at Chillon. The men-at-arms who followed them wore white shirts over their armour in order to be recognised in the darkness; they had even sent to their friends in Geneva certain tokens which the latter were to fasten to the ends of their spears in order that the assailants might know them in the confusion. The city clocks had struck two when a few Savoyards arrived at the foot of the wall: not a sound was heard, the night was dark, and everything promised complete success. Meanwhile the main body had halted a quarter of a league from the city, and hesitated to make the attack. Pontverre was no longer among them, and Viry had not inherited his influence. 'At the moment of execution, a spirit of fear fell upon the Savoyards,' says a chronicler; 'God took away their courage, so that they were not able to come near.'—'We are not strong enough to carry out our enterprise,' said one.—'If we fail,' said another, 'Messieurs of the Swiss League will not fail us.' They consequently withdrew, and, in order to conceal their disgrace, said that the duke or the bishop had forbidden them to advance. Might not the duke, influenced by the cantons, have really given them the order to retreat at the last moment? That alone appears to explain this retrograde movement. However, the Genevans ascribed their deliverance to a higher cause; they entered on the registers of the council the following simple words which we copy: 'The gentlemen (_gentils_) had undertaken to attack the city, _which God has preserved hitherto_.' The 25th of March was called _the day of the ladders_.[800]