Wernli had made up his mind to give his life, if necessary, for the cause of Rome. This was not with him the hasty resolution of a moment. Seeing the progress of the Reformation, he had vowed to sacrifice everything for its destruction, and it was with this intention he now descended from the neighbourhood of St. Pierre's to the Molard. It was necessary to accomplish on the 4th May what the 28th March had been unable to do. 'Wernli desired to be the first,' says Froment, 'to support as a man of war the holy mother Church.' He was both the hero and the victim of this important day. Vainly did the people shout to him on every side that 'Peace was made;' ... he would hear nothing. 'He was the most obstinate and the maddest of the priests.'[718] Full of venom and devotion for the cause of popery, he exclaimed: 'Ho! all good christians to my aid.' Many laymen and clerks joined him, and they proceeded hurriedly towards the square. 'The canons and other churchmen were the first under the flag,' says Sister Jeanne. In a short time fifteen hundred men, 'many of them priests,' were assembled.[719] During this time, other ecclesiastics were gathering in arms in the court of St. Pierre, so as to stop the huguenots who might desire to go to the scene of the tumult. Three reformers, coming from the Bourg du Four, soon arrived with hasty steps in front of the cathedral. The sacerdotal corps immediately barred the way, and the priests began to attack them. One of them was 'unfortunate enough to receive _twenty-eight_ wounds at their hands, and fell to the ground.' As for the other two, 'the dogs took flight,' says the bulletin of St. Claire.[720] [Sidenote: WERNLI HEADS THE FIGHT.] At this moment Wernli and his followers reached the Molard. The night was dark, the stars above gave a faint light; men appeared like shadows, and it was hard to distinguish friends from foes. Obscure and confused noises, inarticulate sounds, marks of approbation or of anger, issued from the darkness. It was like the hoarse roaring of the sea before the storm bursts forth. For a few seconds there was a dead silence, then on a sudden loud shouting. When the canon arrived, armed from head to foot, he heard the cries of the reformers, and, stirred with anger, he flourished his halberd, and pointing it in their direction, shouted out in his Friburg patois: 'Dear God! where are these Lutherans who speak ill of our law?... God's blood! where are they?'[721] With a coarse oath, he turned round to his followers, and said, 'Courage, good christians! do not spare those rascals.' One might fancy him the giant Goliath, who, with a helmet of brass upon his head, and armed with a coat of mail, came forth, spear in hand, to defy the army of Israel.[722]