The poor bishop, when he read the bull, was seized with the most violent emotion. He saw himself between two dangers almost equally great: the pope who threatened him with excommunication, and the huguenots who threatened him with death. What was to be done? He was urged on both sides. At last he formed an heroic decision and determined to obey the pope. He will leave Arbois and the pleasant life he had led there, with all its earthly advantages, and go to that terrible city which appears to him inhabited by wild beasts thirsting for his blood. 'Only you must obtain a safe-conduct for me from Messieurs of Geneva,' he said to the Friburg ambassadors, who were greatly surprised at having to ask a safe-conduct for a prince who desired to visit his principality, for a bishop who desired to enter his diocese. However, they promised everything. [Sidenote: THE BISHOP INVITED TO RETURN.] Wernli's death had not only enraged the enemies of the Reformation, but had weakened its friends and occasioned a reaction in Geneva favourable to catholicism. The syndics and council now leant decidedly that way, and the return of the bishop seemed to them the only means of restoring order. 'The bishop does not need a safe-conduct,' they said; 'only let him come. If anybody threatens him, we will punish him so severely, that Monseigneur shall have cause to be satisfied.'—'Let him come back, let him come back,' was the general cry except among the pious evangelicals and the proud huguenots. The emancipation had hardly begun, when a strong counter-revolution threatened to stifle it. On the 26th May the council elected Domaine Franc, Stephen d'Adda, and Bon Officher to go and humbly urge their bishop and prince to return. Thus Geneva herself was preparing to bury its Reformation and its liberty.