At the same time the crafty monk had with him a weapon which, he thought, must infallibly procure Baudichon’s death. Pierre de la Baume, in his quality of bishop and prince, had given him a sealed letter addressed to the judges, praying them to send the culprit to him, or at least, to treat him with all the rigor of justice. Coutelier handed it to the Court. The bishop informed his ‘good brothers and friends’ that Maisonneuve had already been convicted of Lutheran heresy (this was five or six years back), that he had done penance, and promised him, his bishop, that he would not go astray again. ‘Cum nemini gremium ecclesia claudat,’ continued La Baume, ‘as the Church shuts her bosom against no one, I was content to pardon him, but threatened him with the stake in case of relapse.’ It is possible that De la Maisonneuve may formerly have had some conversation of this sort with the bishop, who took advantage of it. The law threatened very severe penalties against such as relapsed; they were not allowed a trial, and were delivered up immediately to the secular arm to be put to death. ‘I beg you to transfer him to me’ continued the bishop, ‘to execute justice upon him to the contentment of _God and the world_, and the maintenance of our holy faith.’ But a rivalry worthy of Rome existed between the Bishop of Geneva and the primate of France; each wished to have the honor of burning the Genevan.[582] The struggle was natural. The affair had all the more importance in the eyes of the bishops and priests inasmuch as Maisonneuve was guilty of a blacker crime in their opinion than that of Luther and of Farel. He was a _layman_, and yet he presumed to reform the Church. The clergy believed that the intervention of the laity was the most menacing circumstance possible. A great transformation was going on: opinion was changing; as the understanding became enlightened, it condemned abuses and reformed errors. One of the evils introduced by catholicism, aggravated still further by the papacy, had been to nullify the faithful in religious matters. It was endurable that a bishop should go to war; but for a layman to have anything to say in the Church was inadmissible. This perversion of the primitive order was pointed out by the reformers: in their eyes the despotism of priests was still more revolting than the despotism of kings. A man might, they thought, give up to another man his house, his fields, his earthly existence; but to give up to him his soul, his eternal existence, ... impossible! One of the forces of protestantism was the influence of the laity; one of the weaknesses of Roman-catholicism was their exclusion from the direction of religious interests.