Indeed, it seemed at first that the instrument was destined to remain mere waste paper. The episcopal plot existed; the deed had been signed by the prince-bishop on the 12th of January, but on the first of February it was still a dead letter. Portier, aware of the spirit with which the citizens were animated, feared to make the episcopal ordinance known, either to magistrates or people. Privately, however, he discussed with some of his confidants the means of putting it into execution; among them were two brothers named Pennet, one of whom was the episcopal jailer. The bishop’s partisans at Geneva, as well as at Arbois and Turin, thought that logical discussions only did harm: that they should have recourse to more vigorous measures; that force only would constrain the Genevese to bend their necks to the yoke; and, finally, that a riot which disturbed the public peace would be, even if it failed, the best means of justifying the nomination of a lieutenant invested with absolute power. Some hot-headed episcopals, and particularly the two Pennets, the _séides_ of the party, resolved to act immediately: ‘They undertook, with several others, to spill much blood,’ says a document written a few days after the affair.[467] [Sidenote: Two Huguenots Assassinated.] On Tuesday, 3d February, the most excitable of the episcopal party met at the palace: Pennet, the jailer, his brother Claude, Jacques Desel, and several others. It was after dinner. Inflamed by the desire of saving the authority of the prince and the pope, excited by the ordinance which they had hitherto kept by them, and irritated at seeing Furbity, the Dominican, contradicted by Farel and prosecuted by the Bernese, perhaps also (as some have believed) acting under positive orders emanating from the bishop, these men armed themselves and issued from the palace, ‘proposing to strike and kill the others,’ says the document which we have just quoted. These fanatics—we believe them to have been sincere, but unhappily of opinion that to stab a heretic was one of the most meritorious works to win heaven—these fanatics entered the court of St. Pierre’s. Just as they came in front of the steps, and the large platform on which the white marble portal of the cathedral opens, they met two huguenots, Nicholas Porral, the notary, and Stephen d’Adda.[468] Their blood boiled at the sight of the two heretics: Pennet the jailer drew his sword, sprung at Porral, struck him; and, seeing him fall, impudently continued his way, with his band, by the Rue du Perron to the Molard, the rallying ground of all rioters. D’Adda, and some other huguenots who had come up, surrounded the wounded Porral, lifted him up, and, wishing to stop the commencing riot as soon as possible, carried him to the hotel-de-ville, and laid him, all pale and bleeding, before the syndics and the council.