Mark Romain, as pleased at having rescued his friend, 'as if he had gained a thousand crowns, and thinking he had achieved a master-piece,' says a contemporary, was going quietly home. Meanwhile the people, alarmed at the arrival of the bailiff and the imprisonment of the monk, had assembled in the market-place, and spoke of flinging the schoolmaster into the river to punish him for having gone to fetch the Sieur de Diesbach. Unfortunately Mark Romain came in sight just at this moment. The townspeople, 'seeing him come joyfully along,' pointed him out to one another. 'There he is,' they said, and began to cry: 'Master, come here!' Romain, observing the tumult, passed suddenly from joy to fear and took to flight, all following in pursuit. They gained upon him: he looked from side to side to see if some door would not open to receive him, but all remained closed. Arriving in front of the church, he rushed into it; but had hardly set his feet inside, when he stopped in astonishment. The women who had desired to tear Hollard to pieces were in the church, as well as some men, on account of the _Salve Regina_ which was said daily at five in the afternoon. Kneeling before the altar, with clasped hands and eyes turned to the ground, they were invoking the _Queen of heaven_: 'Hail, queen of mercy; we send up our groans to thee! O thou who art our advocate, save us!' At the moment when Romain entered, the women turned their heads and caught sight of him; being suddenly changed into furies, they rushed upon him, as they had done before upon Hollard, 'caught him by the hair, threw him on the ground, and beat him.' The women were the champions of Catholicism in Orbe. The grand banneret looked on quietly at this execution. 'I saw the whole affair,' he said, 'and I did not think the schoolmaster would ever get out alive.' Pierrefleur took care not to go to his help, and the blows continued to fall on poor Romain, until one of his friends arrived. 'I am certain,' says the banneret, who had seen all this without being moved, 'that had it not been for the assistance he received from this Lutheran, he would never have gone out of the place until he was dead.'[385] We read in Scripture of people who ceased not to beat St. Paul; Romain, who experienced 'this riotous and cruel rage,' was afterwards a minister of the gospel. He was now going through his apprenticeship.