Since the death of Besançon Hugues, the bishop had taken no steps to recover his power. Wounded by what had occurred in his principality, he kept his vexation to himself, made up his mind to remain quiet, and sought consolation at Arbois in good living. 'I have received your capons,' he wrote, 'send me some fish. I have been enjoying myself, and am much better supplied with provisions here than at Geneva.' He was at heart neither wicked nor cruel; he had taste, education, and talent, and his conversation abounded in wit. But he had two passions—the table and money, besides a weak and selfish temper which made him incline one time to the duke, another to Geneva, and appear servile or tyrannical according as he hoped to obtain anything by baseness or by despotism. The Genevans, and particularly the huguenots, knew him well. 'He wants to ride _one_ and lead the _other_,' said Robert Vandel, 'and does nothing except for his own advantage.' When the Friburgers arrived at Arbois, they drew him from his stupid tranquillity, disturbed his feasting, and firmly represented to him that they wanted to know whether he desired to maintain catholicism in Geneva, or to let it perish. They even attacked him with personal arguments, which they knew must have great force for him. 'Return to your city, my lord,' they said, 'to recover your lost authority, and protect your threatened rents.' But La Baume was too timid, and would willingly have lived anywhere except in his own diocese and principality. He defended his absenteeism in a singular manner. 'Many of these heretics have uttered great threats against me,' he said; 'they will kill me like poor Wernli.'[739] A mightier voice than that of Friburg now made itself heard. The condition of Geneva was known in all catholic countries. Men were uneasy everywhere; even Pope Clement VII. felt anxious. He did not admire those ecclesiastics who, following the example of Leo X., neglected business for pleasure. In some places the catholics imagined that if the Reform were crushed in Geneva, the recoil would act on the Reformation in general; that the other protestant nations would feel its effects, and that such a defeat would be the beginning of the end. Representations to this effect reached the pope from every side, and he, being a skilful politician and having the saving of the Roman court at heart, wrote to the bishop: 'I command you to proceed to Geneva immediately you receive this bull, under pain of excommunication. Is it not singular that you pass your life in a foreign province as if you were not the pastor of that city? You, by your absence, are the cause of all the misfortunes with which it is afflicted.... Go, speak, act ... defend the flock which Jesus Christ and the holy see have entrusted to you, and rescue your sheep from the ravening wolf that is preparing to devour them.'[740]