raising their hands, bound themselves by a solemn oath to execute the plan and to secresy;[649] after which they retired to take a brief repose. The festival of Easter was approaching: more than two centuries before, the Sicilian Vespers had filled Palermo and all Sicily with massacre; the enemies of the Reformation in Geneva desired also to celebrate the same festival with rivers of blood. The Council of Sixty met the next day (Friday, 28th March 1533). Never perhaps was there a body more divided. When the catholics demanded that the promise made to Friburg should be kept, the huguenots represented that if the council decided in favour of the Romanist party, not only would the bishop resume his former power, but that having seen the Reform on the brink of triumphing, he would throw himself into the arms of Savoy, as the only power capable of saving the Roman faith. The council, placed between these two fierce currents, remained in its usual indecision, and declared in favour of neither. This was just what the leaders of the Romanist party expected. Everything was prepared for carrying out the _conspiracy_ (to use Froment's word) which had been planned the night before.[650] [Sidenote: THE PARTIES ASSEMBLE.] The cathedral had been selected as the place of meeting. The first who entered it was the valiant canon, Peter Wernli. He was armed from head to foot, and advanced into the sanctuary as a general goes to battle. Wernli handled the sword as well as his brother, who was a captain in the service of the king of France. Gifted with the strength of a Hercules or a Samson, he designed, like the first, to drive Cerberus out of the city; and like the second, to pull down the pillars of the temple. He said to those who had gathered round him in St. Pierre's: 'We will cut off the heads of those who went to Berne and of all their friends.' Three hundred armed canons and priests came after him, and then a great number of their lay followers. 'The Lutherans threaten us,' said some of these angry citizens; 'they want to rob the churches and convents.' Such a tale could not fail to excite their minds still more. The huguenots, informed of the plot arranged at the vicar-general's, and observing the catholics making ready for the attack, saw at once that their first act would be to seize Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, on account of his journey to Berne, and inflict on him the fate of Berthelier and Levrier. They therefore assembled to the number of sixty around their friend to defend his life at the price of their blood. Some of Moine's partisans went to inform the assemblage at St. Pierre's that they had seen several persons enter Maisonneuve's house.