Another circumstance, quite as extraordinary, still further increased the beauty of this festival. During the rejoicings of that first evangelical Pentecost, a knight of Rhodes came to Geneva in search of liberty of faith. A knight of Rhodes was a strange visitor in that city. It was known confusedly that those warlike monks, instituted to defend the pilgrims in the Holy Land, had been expelled from Jerusalem by Soliman, and had finally settled in Malta. But why should this one come to Geneva? The ex-knight, whose name was Pierre Gaudet, related how, being born at St. Cloud, near Paris, he had heard the Gospel, and that, having chosen for his glory the cross of the Son of God, he held the world in contempt. The scandal he had thus occasioned had forced him to flee. Having an uncle living about a league from Geneva—the commander of Compesières—he had taken refuge with him; but feeling the need of Christian communion, he had come to his brethren that he might enjoy it. The huguenots received him like a friend. That city which had seen in Berthelier and Lévrier the martyrs of liberty, was to have in Gaudet the first martyr of the Gospel.[551] [Sidenote: Old And New Manners.] While the Word of God was forming new manners, the contrast of the old manners asserted itself more boldly. The people of the lower classes—men and women, youths and maidens—danced, according to custom, in the public square on the evening of Whitsunday. The _tabarins_ played their music in the streets, and merry-andrews made the people laugh. The women of St. Gervais, disguised and carrying bunches of box, set the example to those of the other quarters. The young men united with them, and the joyous troops paraded the streets in long files, singing, capering, and sometimes attacking the passers-by. George Marchand, a huguenot no doubt, who was very ready with his hands, being caught hold of by a woman who wanted to make him dance with her, gave her a slap on the face. There was a fierce disturbance; and the Council consequently forbade these dancing promenades, and ordered that every one should be content ‘to dance before his own house:’ and this was surely enough. From that time such idle processions were not repeated. While the catholic common people were indulging in wanton sports, not perceiving that they were dancing round the open grave of Roman-catholicism, the evangelicals increased in zeal and faith to extend the teaching of the Word of God; and a gentler and more Christian life was about to be naturalized in that small but important city. The Whitsuntide procession of 1534, with its coarse jests, was, in Geneva, the funeral procession of popery.[552]