On the 12th of July, 1533, Baudichon had passed the day in the country, making preparations for the harvest. Returning from the fields at night, he was surprised to see an extraordinary guard at the city gate, and on asking what it meant, he was told that the episcopalians were going to convey the prisoners to some place of strength. Immediately he determined to compel the bishop—but solely through fear—to follow the course prescribed by the laws. He desired fifty of the most resolute of his friends to take each an iron-tipped staff and to place five matches at the end. He then concealed them all in a house not far from the palace. Ere long darkness covered the city; there was nobody in the streets except a few patrols. De la Maisonneuve bade the men of his troop light their matches, and put himself at their head. In their left hands they held the staff, and the sword in their right. Entering the palace, and making their way to the prince’s apartment, they appeared before him, surrounded him with their two hundred and fifty lights; and Baudichon, acting as spokesman, called upon him to surrender his prisoners to their lawful judges. The bishop stared with amazement at this band of men with their swords and flaming torches; the night season added to his terror, and he thought that if he did not give way he would be put to death. Baudichon had no such idea; but Pierre de la Baume, imagining his last hour had come,[393] gave the required order. Upon which the troop defiled before him with their port-fires, and quitted the episcopal palace. The huguenot prisoners having been transferred to the syndics, the latter intrusted them to the gaoler of the same prison ‘to keep them securely under pain of death.’ They had passed from the arbitrary power of the bishop to the lawful authority of the councils. Constitutional order was restored.[394] The bishop passed a very agitated night. The huguenots and the torches and the swords with which he had been surrounded would not let him sleep; and, when daylight came, he, as well as his courtiers, was quite unmanned. The 13th of July fell on Sunday, and what a Sunday! ‘I shall leave the city,’ the prelate said to his servants. A rumor of his approaching departure having got abroad, some of the canons hurried to the palace to dissuade him. ‘I will go,’ he repeated. To no effect did his followers represent to him that, if he left, the catholic faith, the episcopate, the authority of the prince, his revenues, would all be lost; nothing could shake him. He was determined to go. A Thomas à Becket would have died on the spot; but Pierre de la Baume, says a contemporary document, ‘was very warm about his own safety, but more than cold for the church.’[395]