All was not over: the story of the apparition of the Virgin and of her commandment having reached as far as the capital of the Chablais, the heights of Cologny were soon crowned by a numerous and compact procession, in appearance more formidable than the first: it was the men of Thonon and the adjoining places, who, carrying banners, crosses, and relics, were descending the hill with a firm step. The stalwart pilgrims boldly passed the gates of the city, the huguenots, who were listening to Farel, not being there to prevent them; and on reaching the Bourg de Four, halted before the church of St. Claire. The alarm spread immediately: some citizens entering the auditory where Farel was preaching, announced this Romish invasion. The reformer did not disturb himself; but some of his hearers, the fiery Perrin, the energetic Goulaz, and others, went out, and, charging the head of the procession, drove back at the point of the sword the Savoyards who had entered Geneva as if it were a village of the Chablais. The startled pilgrims threw away their banners with affright, and fled from the city. Froment supposes that as the enemy from within had not had time to join with those from without, the plot had failed; but we rather believe that these devout pilgrims calculated only on their litanies in their war against the Lutherans. Those processions, those banners of the Virgin, those paltry relics, inspired the reformed with a still deeper disgust for Roman-catholicism: even the pomps of St. Pierre’s touched them little more than the fetichism of the Savoyards. They were beginning to understand that public worship ought not to be a spectacle, and that to burden the Church with a multitude of rites is to rob her of the presence of Christ. [Sidenote: The Images Destroyed.]