All this time Geneva was greatly agitated: the news of Baudichon’s arrest had caused uneasiness among his friends. Men spoke about it ‘in the city and in the fields,’ everywhere, in short. When friends met one another, they asked: ‘Have you heard that Baudichon has been brought before the archiepiscopal court of Lyons for being a Lutheran?’ The devout (if we may use the words of the manuscript) ‘consigned him to Satan, as being the principal cause of heresy in Geneva;’[528] while the huguenots, agitated and alarmed at the dangers that threatened their friend, considered what was to be done. They determined to act immediately and simultaneously at Lyons, Berne, and even at Paris, if they could. Thomas, Baudichon’s brother, started for Lyons at once, and asked for an audience with Monseigneur du Peyrat, the king’s Lieutenant-general. ‘For what reason,’ he said, ‘and by what authority has my brother, Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, been sent to prison?’—‘I do not detain him,’ answered du Peyrat; ‘apply to the vicars general.’ Thomas, learning that his brother was in the hands of the priests, and his danger therefore greater, resolved to make every effort to save him. Thomas and the Genevans were not the only persons interested in this matter. Baudichon’s imprisonment was an attack upon the rights of the foreign merchants, and compromised the fairs at Lyons. What German Lutheran would come there in future? The inhabitants, especially the innkeepers, tradespeople, and merchants, foresaw great pecuniary loss, and the princes of commerce felt the injury done to one of their number. There was, consequently, a great commotion in the city, and many merchants, ‘as well of the city as foreigners,’ determining to complain of it, proceeded to the _consulate_ (or town-council), to whom they represented, ‘with much grief,’[529] that the imprisonment of Baudichon de la Maisonneuve was an infringement of the privileges of the fairs; and that many merchants had to receive from him certain sums which it was impossible for him to pay now, because he could not collect the money which other merchants owed him. ‘We pray you, therefore,’ they said, in conclusion, ‘not to suffer our privileges to be violated.’—‘Release my brother, _à pur et à plein_, without reserve,’ added Thomas de la Maisonneuve. Four of the consuls seconded the remonstrance.[530] The municipality resolved that Jean de la Bessie, procurator-general of Lyons, and one councillor should demand Baudichon’s liberation of the inquisitional court. ‘My brother,’ said Thomas, ‘is a burgess of Berne and of Friburg, and by virtue of the treaties between the king and the lords of the League, he cannot be made a prisoner in this kingdom.’[531] The priests were determined to pay no regard to the request of the magistrates: a serious incident roused them from their listlessness. [Sidenote: Bernese Intervention.]