The extremes of anguish were felt in the homes of the prisoners. The most sinister stories were propagated through the city as to the severity employed by the bishop towards his captives. Some began to lose courage and to ask—it was a question often put in the time of the Reformation—why the disciples of the Gospel had to endure not only the afflictions common to all men, but calamities from which their enemies were exempt? 'Ah!' replied the wiser ones, 'the corn is first threshed in the barn along with the straw; but afterwards it is pressed and crushed alone on the millstone.'[775] All were not to be comforted, and from many an afflicted house the cries of sorrow rose to heaven. Meanwhile, the avoyers of Friburg pressed the council to grant to Wernli's relations the justice they demanded, and insisted that the Genevans arrested on the 23rd May and 4th June should be brought to trial immediately. The mamelukes cried still louder than the Friburgers, and demanded the trial of the eleven persons imprisoned on the 5th July. While the case of the Friburgers was entirely judicial, that of the mamelukes was political: they wished to take advantage of a trial to effect a revolution. The council instructed the procurator-fiscal to have the accused brought before him, as the Genevan constitution required; but the fiscal declared he could not do so on account of the order of the prince, who had cited the case before himself. The bishop meant to be at once judge and interested party, and to substitute clerical despotism for the protecting forms of the lay tribunals. The alarmed magistrates immediately waited on the prince to make their humble but resolute protest.[776] Pierre de la Baume had just dined when the syndics appeared. 'I have cited the cause before me,' he said: 'I have my reasons.' The syndics represented to him that he might pardon men after sentence, but not try accused persons, who must necessarily appear before the lawful tribunals. 'I cite the case before me,' repeated the bishop. The indignant syndics bowed and withdrew. Sebastian de Diesbach, the banneret of Weingarten and other deputies from Berne, had arrived at Geneva, and Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, as it seems, had returned with them. The syndics prayed their intervention, and the Bernese spoke to the bishop; but the passionate headstrong churchman would not listen to them. He stretched the cord at the risk of breaking it. 'I have cited the case before me,' he said again.