The episcopal messenger, having made the customary salutations, said: 'My lord has decided to send his officers beyond the frontiers to take certain _criminals_ (this was the term he applied to those noble citizens). Our very reverend prince therefore requires the council to lend him some of the city officers to accompany his own and pursue the fugitives in the territory of Savoy.' This was too much. De la Baume required the magistrates of Geneva to employ in oppressing citizens the power they had received to defend them. Such an audacious proposition disgusted the syndics; they did not hesitate to refuse his demand; desiring, however, to keep on good terms with him to the last, they gave a specious motive for their refusal. 'Pray pardon us,' they answered the bishop, 'if we cannot do it; we should be afraid lest the duke, whose territories our officers would have to enter, should be angry with us for violating the treaties.' This refusal threw him into a great passion. He believed, perhaps not without reason, that the duke of Savoy would overlook the violation of territory, as its object was to catch huguenots. 'Return,' he said to his officer, 'and tell those gentlemen to do justice, and that if they do not, there are fourscore in the city who will help me to do it. Add, that they are to act straightforwardly.' The magistrates remained firm. But the prelate found some little consolation in the cooperation of people better disposed than the syndics of Geneva to subserve his anger.[771]