These conversions increased the dangers of Geneva, by exciting the wrath of the catholics. Four days after the touching confession of the Dominican the projected plot was to be carried out. The Savoyard troops, assembling at a little distance from the city, were to approach it under cover of the darkness. One detachment would arrive by the lake and the tower guard, bribed by ten crowns, would let the boats pass without firing on them. Within the city, more than three hundred foreigners had entered separately and stealthily, and were hidden in catholic houses. In the middle of the night F. du Crest was to go to the Molard with fire-arms and hoist a red flag. The firing of a heavy culverine would be the signal for the priests to come to the support of their friends. Certain episcopals would mount to the roofs of their houses with lighted torches to summon the foreign troops to approach. The catholics of Geneva and their allies would then leave their houses; three of the city gates were to be forced by a locksmith of their party, the troops would enter, and Genevans and strangers would advance shouting: ‘Long live our prince, monseigneur of Geneva!’ The friends of independence and reform, thus caught between two fires, would be unable to make any resistance. Then would begin the executing of the judgment of God: if it had been waited for long, it would only be the more terrible now. The pious soldiers of the Church would fall upon the Lutherans and put them to death. The city would be purged of all those seeds of the gospel and liberty which were choking, within its walls, the ancient and glorious plants of feudalism and popery. Finally to complete their work, the conquerors would share the property of the vanquished, which the bishop had in anticipation confiscated for their benefit, and Geneva, forever bound to Rome, would thus become its slave and never its rival.[600] On the 29th and 30th July all began to move round the city. On the north, the Marshal of Burgundy, the bishop’s brother, was to descend into the valley of the Leman, with six thousand men, raised in imperial Burgundy. On the south, the Duke of Savoy had obtained permission of the king of France to enlist in Dauphiny, ‘persons experienced in war.’ Numerous soldiers—some coming by land, others by water—were expected from Chablais, Faucigny, Gex, and Vaud. A galley and other boats had been fitted out near Thonon, to which place the artillery of Chillon had been removed. Several corps were marching on Geneva. The bishop, who was anything but brave, did not wish to leave Chambéry; but the duke, to encourage him, gave him a body-guard of two hundred well-armed men, and Pierre de la Baume quitted, not without alarm, the capital of Savoy early in the morning of the 30th July, and halted at Lé-luiset, a village situated about two leagues from Geneva, where he intended to wait in safety the issue of the affair.