At this moment the sound of a trumpet was heard; it was not the signal of battle, but the prelude: the city crier, stopping at the corner of some neighbouring street, proclaimed, 'that every foreigner should retire to his lodging under pain of three lashes with a rope.' In this way they cleared the place where the battle was to be fought. The trumpet and the crier's shrill voice soon died away, and there was a deathlike silence. On each side there were noble souls, lovers of peace, who were a prey to the deepest emotions at the thought that brothers were about to attack brothers, and many turned a sorrowful look on the streets that were soon to be stained with the blood of their fellow-citizens. These compassionate men would have liked to restrain the fratricidal arms, but they trembled before the priests. 'No one,' says a contemporary, 'dared venture to speak to the ecclesiastics to propose peace; the great pride of the priests intimidated them, and they feared to be called Lutherans.'[686] To desire to prevent the shedding of blood, was to be a partisan of the Reformation.[687] The parties cast threatening glances at each other, and the two armies were about to come into violent collision. [Sidenote: PRAYERS AND TEARS.] Then the agony burst forth. Some of the wives, mothers, and daughters, who were in the Place du Molard, and who up to this moment had been full of ardour for the combat, were moved and could not restrain their anguish. The tenderness of their sex resumed its sway: they let go their aprons, and the stones contained in them fell to the ground. They burst into tears and gave utterance to long and sorrowful moaning. 'Alas!' they said, 'the father is armed against the son, brother against brother, neighbour against neighbour.... They are all ready to kill one another.'[688] The emotion became almost universal. Whilst many of the catholic women were thus transformed, the evangelical women who remained at home were praying. They reflected that, however the world may torment and vex, nothing can happen but what God Himself has ordained. They put the immutable decree of the Lord, who wills to maintain the kingdom of His Son for ever, in opposition to the wicked conspiracies by which the men of the world assail it, and doubted not that God would look upon and help them in their necessity. 'It was God's will,' said Froment, 'to avoid bloodshed, and He ordained it accordingly.'[689] [656] Froment, _Gestes_, p. 51. [657] 'The standards of the king go forth.'—Rambach, _Anthologie christliche Gesänge_, i. 104. The use Dante made of the first line of this hymn is well known: Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni.—_Inferno_, xxxiv. 1. [658] La Sœur J. de Jussie, _Le Levain du Calvinisme_, p. 53. [659] Ibid. Froment, _Gestes_, &c. p. 51. [660] Council Registers, _ad diem_.—Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 51. Gautier MS. [661] La Sœur J. de Jussie, _Le Levain du Calvinisme_, p. 51. The number is probably exaggerated.