'Have you ever seen souls out of purgatory? Nothing is easier at Geneva,' said a huguenot after supper. 'It is quite dark; let us go to the cemetery, and I will show them to you.... Here we are.... Do you see those little flames creeping slowly here and there among the scattered bones?... They are souls (the priests tell us) which, having left their place of anguish, crawl slowly about the cemetery at night, and entreat their relatives to pay the priests for masses and prayers to free them from purgatorial fires.... Wait a little ... there is one coming near us ... I will deliver it.' He stooped, and, picking it up, showed it to his companions: 'Ha! ha! upon my word, these souls are curiously made ... they are crabs, and the priests have fastened little wax tapers to their backs.'[805] 'That is one of the tricks of our clergy,' said a learned huguenot. (Bonivard often took part in these conversations.) 'They are buffoons in their repasts, fools in all difficult discussions, snails in work, harpies in exaction, leopards in friendship, bulls in pride, minotaurs in devouring, and foxes in cunning.'[806] The Genevans went further still. One day—it was Tuesday, the 4th of January, 1530—when several huguenots had met together, and the relics and impositions of the priests had formed the subject of conversation, some of them, living in St. Gervais, indignant at the frauds of the clergy, who metamorphosed the bodies of saints into mines of gold, determined to protest against these abuses. They went out of the house in a body, marched up and down the different streets, and, stopping at certain places, assembled the people in the usual manner, when, surrounded by a large crowd, they held (says the council register) 'an auction of an unusual sort, by way of derision.' Perhaps they offered the bodies to the highest bidder; but, in any case, they themselves were sent to prison. This scene had greatly amused the inhabitants of the suburb. Old superstitions were giving way in Geneva and falling to the ground amid the applause of the people. The huguenots claimed the right of free inquiry, and desired that the human understanding should have some authority in the world. These experiments of liberty, which alarmed the Church, delighted the citizens. The inhabitants of St. Gervais, animated with generous sentiments, went in great numbers to the hôtel-de-ville. 'We desire that the prisoners be set at liberty,' said they to the syndics, 'and we offer to be bail for them.' The magistrates still clung to the old order of things.—'I ought to reprimand you severely for your disorders,' said the premier syndic. 'We will have no tumult or sedition here. Let the relatives of the prisoners come before the council to-morrow, and we will hear them.' On the 9th of January, the Two-Hundred resolved to pardon the prisoners, and to tell them that this folly, if they ever committed another like it, should count double against them.[807] [Sidenote: A NEGATIVE REFORM.]