The magistrates were moved at the sight as of old—if we may compare the great things of antiquity with the little things that inaugurated modern times—as of old the corpse of Cæsar, gashed with wounds and carried through the Forum, excited the indignation and cries of the startled people. D’Adda informed the syndics of Pennet’s violent attack, and called for the punishment of the assassin. But he had scarcely ceased speaking when a great noise was heard from without: the court-yard of the hotel-de-ville was filled with agitated citizens; tumultuous shouts were raised, the gates of the hall were dashed open and ‘incontinent (says the Register) many people rushed in furiously crying out: Justice! justice!’ An estimable man, a worthy tradesman and zealous huguenot, Nicholas Berger by name, who lived in the Rue du Perron, happened to be in his shop just as the band, which had wounded Porral, was passing by. Attracted by the noise, he had probably moved towards the door: Claude Pennet observing him, stopped, and, as if jealous of his brother’s exploit, sprung at the unarmed citizen, and with one blow of his dagger, laid him dead at his feet. ‘All good men,’ added the citizens, ‘are filled with horror, and demand that the criminal be punished according to law.’ This event was not without importance. It was a new act in that obstinate struggle which, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, took place in a permanent manner in a little city on the shore of the Leman lake, and was repeated in other shapes in other countries. Combatants do not cross a frontier without marking their path by their blood. Those who were then fighting the last battles of what may be called the iron age, believed they were serving the cause of justice. Impartial history shrinks from tracing too hideous a picture of these insolent champions of Rome and feudalism. Even at Geneva, where they were perhaps more violent than elsewhere, they were not all devoid of generous sentiments. Undoubtedly many were animated by party-spirit; but there were some also who desired the good of their country. In their eyes, both religion and order were compromised by the alliance between Switzerland and the Reformation, and that sacred cause could only be upheld, they thought, by the energetic intervention of the episcopal party. They were mistaken; but their error did not lie essentially in that. The great evil consisted in the corruption of their moral sense by the principles of a fanatical bigotry, so that all means appeared good to attain their end; all—even the dagger.