of this new lull, desired Farel and his friends to withdraw, in order that the episcopal council might deliberate. Farel left the room covered with spittle and severely bruised.[527] [Sidenote: FAREL ASSAULTED.] While the superior clergy were behaving in this way, the inferior clergy were assembling, and about eighty priests had collected before the house of the vicar-episcopal, 'all well armed with clubs to defend the holy catholic faith and prepared to die for it.' This mode of defending religion, so different from that of the first fathers of the church, has been made known to us through the reverend Sister Jeanne de Jussie. The priests were stout, resolute men; they had formed a plot and were there to carry it into execution. 'They wished,' adds Sister Jeanne, 'to put that wretch and his accomplices to a bitter death.'[528] Such was the exploit they contemplated, and for its accomplishment they carefully surrounded the grand-vicar's house. They filled the narrow area of the Puits St. Pierre and the Rue des Chanoines, and had even penetrated into M. de Bonmont's courtyard and garden, so that it was impossible for Farel to escape. The fanatical and agitated crowd, which had been there for some time, was beginning to grow impatient that the episcopal council sat so long. Farel and his two friends, when they had turned into a long gallery, could hear the raised voices of some of the members of the council, and the increasing noise of the crowd that filled the courtyard. But another danger threatened them. One of the grand-vicar's servants, Francis Olard, surnamed Ginin, a violent man, stood at the end of the gallery, having been posted there arquebus in hand, as a sentinel. He had listened to the tumult from within; the shouting from without excited and inflamed him. Was not this Farel the enemy of his masters—a heretic whom everybody wished dead? His weapon was ready: he levelled it at Farel and prepared to fire. Had the priests stationed Olard there for this purpose, as the chronicles say, or did he act of his own accord, being more fanatical than his masters, as the servants of political or ecclesiastical corporations often are? Be it as it may, the arquebusier pulled the trigger, the priming flashed ... but the gun did not go off. Farel turning to him said coldly: 'I am not to be shaken by a popgun; your toy does not alarm me.'—'Verily,' said his friends, 'God of His mercy turned aside the blow, in order to preserve Farel for struggles still more formidable.'[529] [Sidenote: DANGER OF FAREL AND HIS FRIENDS.]