A town lying at the foot of the lower slopes of the Jura attracted his thoughts during his solitary hours at Morat: this was Orbe. The ancient city of Urba, built, it is said, in the same century as Rome, was situated on the Roman way that led from Italy to Gaul. Being rebuilt later some little distance off, the kings of the first race of France, as the people of Orbe boasted, had taken up their residence there, as if, immediately after crossing the Jura, they had exclaimed at the ravishing prospect of the Alps: 'It is enough! we will stop here.' A torrent issuing from the lakes that are found in the high Jurassic valleys plunges into the gigantic clefts of the mountain, and after pursuing a subterranean and mysterious career, reappears on the other slope, towards the plain, whence descending from one fall to another, it gracefully sweeps round the beautiful hill on which the town of Orbe is situated, surrounded with vineyards, gardens, and orchards, 'with all kinds of plants and good things.'[380] [Sidenote: FAREL PREACHES AT ORBE.] A dealer in indulgences, attracted by this wealth, was just at this time noisily selling his pardons for every offence. Farel, still detained at Morat, hearing the sound of his _drum_, as Luther says, made an effort to walk: he left the latter town, and proceeded to Orbe. On the next market-day, being determined to resist the new Tetzel, he quitted his inn and went to the market-place, where he found the indulgence-seller offering his wares with much shouting. The monk, whose eye was always on the watch, soon noticed in the middle of the crowd a little man with a red beard and piercing eyes who caused him some uneasiness. Farel, approaching slowly, took his place quietly before the stall and said to the quack, just as an ordinary purchaser would have done, but with concentrated anger: 'Have you indulgences for a person who has killed his father and mother?' Without waiting for an answer, and wishing to undeceive the superstitious crowd, he boldly stept on the basin of the public fountain, and began to preach as if he were in the pulpit. The astonished market-people left the monk and gathered round the new orator, whose sonorous voice entreated the multitude to ask pardon of the Saviour instead of buying indulgences from the monk. As the priests and the devout were exceedingly irritated at both preaching and preacher, Farel could not remain at Orbe; but a few drops of living water had gushed forth, and some souls had had their thirst quenched by them. A tradesman, Christopher Hollard by name, and one Mark Romain, a schoolmaster, were converted to the gospel at this time.