De la Maisonneuve gave the necessary orders for placing the people. The assembly, although respectful, was profoundly agitated. In the place where they had met, men of different parties crowded together: the opportunity of hearing the famous Farel, and the object which such meetings were to attain, namely, a change in the religion of Geneva—all stirred their minds deeply. But if there was any unbecoming movement, Maisonneuve, from his elevated place, imposed silence by his hand. At length the reformer appeared. The catholics were astonished when they saw him: ‘What!’ they said, ‘no sacerdotal ornaments! He is dressed like a layman, with a Spanish cloak and brimmed cap.’[494] But under that cap and cloak lay hid what was rarely found beneath the robes of priests—an ardent soul, a heart overflowing with love, and such eloquence that the hearers exclaimed, as Calvin did once: ‘Your thunders have caused an indescribable trouble in my soul.’[495] Farel began to speak: borrowing his fire from the writings of the prophets and apostles, says one of his biographers, he enlightened and inflamed the heart.[496] He excited in many a lively feeling of love for Christ. God, as Calvin says, was at work in his own through the ministry of the reformer. Some began to consider and to relish the grace which they had formerly swallowed without tasting.[497] The assembly was charmed and enraptured; the souls of many were inflamed by the ardor of the divine spirit. Among the Franciscans who listened to Farel was Jacques Bernard, belonging to one of the best families in Geneva. He was lively, intelligent, learned, and defiant, and had long been a sincere worshipper of the Virgin. He had often spoken violently against the reformers, and a few days before, meeting Farel and Viret, he told them with a scowl: ‘In times past there were schismatics enough who forbade men to salute the Virgin and make the sign of the cross.’ Then, without another word, he rudely turned his back on them. But on this occasion no one in the grand auditory was more attentive than Jacques. God gave him _new eyes_ and _new ears_. It has been said that the convent at Rive was to him as the road to Damascus—that there this new Saul became a new Paul.[498] This first preaching of Farel’s contributed at least to Bernard’s conversion, and ere long he maintained courageously the truths he had once so much attacked.