The episcopal council prolonged its sittings. Monseigneur de Bonmont, a sincere but moderate and liberal catholic, was ill at ease. Seeing angry faces and flashing eyes around him, he represented that it would be necessary to proceed cautiously and in accordance with justice. Some of those present were exasperated, for in their eyes De Gingins' moderation was flagrant treason. In their opinion it was necessary to prosecute immediately not only the foreign preachers, but 'all who inviting them into their houses (as Maison-Neuve for instance) to converse about the Gospel, wished to live differently from what their forefathers, pastors, and bishops had taught them.' The most reverend vicar represented that persons were not convicted without being heard, that they must summon these strangers before them, call upon them to explain their doctrine, and then they would be sentenced upon full knowledge of the facts. This alarmed the council, and Dom Stephen Piard, proctor to the chapter, exclaimed with a frown:[516] 'If we dispute, all our office is at an end.'[517] He urged that 'to discuss theological questions was to overlook the authority of the church; that we must believe because Rome has spoken; that these people with their Bibles were subtle spirits and dangerous adversaries, ... and that the authority of the chapter would be overthrown if they permitted any disputation.' [Sidenote: CONSPIRACY AGAINST FAREL.] Dom Stephen enjoyed a certain authority; the assembly was about to refuse to hear Farel, when it was opposed by some of the members who were most notorious for their fanatical zeal. In the sixteenth century not only jurists regarded it as a duty to condemn heretics to death, but devout persons, laymen as well as priests, thought they did an acceptable thing to God by putting them to death. It would appear that these latter persons had made up their minds to this meritorious work. 'Having deliberated to kill Farel and his companion,' says a manuscript, 'they found the best means of getting them to come would be by giving them to understand that they desired to debate with them.' The pious sister Jeanne de Jussie corroborates this statement.[518] The conspirators carried the proposal to summon Farel. He was never to go out again from the vicar-general's house; but first of all it was necessary for him to enter it. Machard, the bishop's secretary, was deputed to summon Farel and Saunier, and also Olivetan, 'to retract publicly, or to explain before the episcopal council what they had preached in the inn.'