Meanwhile, the gentleman amused himself by walking up and down in front of his lodging. Presently he saw fifteen persons, ‘of the most respectable of the city,’ approaching, who saluted him and said: ‘We have heard that you are come from Lyons; is it true that Baudichon is about to be released?’ De Simieux asked the gentlemen what they thought of the prisoner. ‘If he is discharged,’ said one of them, ‘we and all the Catholics in Geneva will be totally ruined and lost. His accomplices, the Lutherans of the city, have prepared their plan, and the only thing they are waiting for, before putting it into execution, is Baudichon’s release.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ said all the fifteen, ‘we are sure of it.’[568] De Simieux asked them to specify some overt act. ‘On Corpus Christi day,’ said one, ‘as the procession was passing Baudichon’s house, his wife was at the window with her maid, and both were spinning with their distaffs. When Madame de la Maisonneuve saw the priests marching before her _all in white_, she exclaimed: “Look what fine _goats_!” ... as if a flock of those animals had been passing by twos before her.’[569] As this remark of the wife was not sufficient to burn the husband, De Simieux asked for something more. ‘It is notorious,’ they told him, ‘that Baudichon is the person most employed in seducing the city of Geneva to the Lutheran heresies; that it was he who caused the preachers to come; and that, if he is liberated, everybody will go over to his faith.’[570] While this conversation was going on in a narrow street, an official interview of far greater importance was taking place not far off. Two ambassadors from the King of France had just arrived at Geneva, and the syndics who waited upon them declared they thought it very strange that messieurs of Lyons should presume to give them the law. The ambassadors promised to speak to the king on the subject.[571] [Sidenote: Baudichon Locked Up.]