It must be done, for every day the danger appeared to draw nearer. The Genevese ambassadors at Berne wrote to the Council: ‘Be on your guard.’ Acts of violence and trifling skirmishes announced more serious combats. On the 14th of August, Richerme, a merchant of Geneva, returning from Lyons, was seized, dragged successively to three of the bishop’s castles, and put to the torture. On the 25th, Chabot, another citizen, was stopped at the Mont de Sion, taken to the castle of Peney, and also put to the torture; but the judges, wishing to give a proof of their good nature, added: ‘Do not let his bones be broken or his life endangered.’ They soon brought in a new prisoner. [Sidenote: The Embroiderer Of Avignon.] There was an embroiderer at Avignon, ‘so superstitious in fasting,’ that he had sometimes gone several days without eating or drinking. The poor artisan, having received the Gospel, had ceased to attend mass, and had consequently been sent to prison. The churchmen asked him how long it was since he had been present at the sacrifice of the altar. ‘Three years,’ he replied; ‘and with my own will neither myself nor any of my family would ever have gone there.’ When they heard him talk in this way, the priests did not dare put him to death, for they thought him mad. Six months afterwards there came a great pestilence; every one fled, and the prison-doors were left open: ‘seeing which the pious embroiderer went out.’ He thirsted for the Gospel, and knowing that there were great preachers at Geneva, he took the road to that city. His travelling expenses were not great: ‘he had been accustomed to go from Avignon to Lyons, more than sixty French leagues, for a _sol-de-roi_,’ says Froment. At last he reached the valley of the Leman, alone and a fugitive, but joyfully anticipating the words of life that he was soon to hear. Suddenly he was surrounded by a troop of horsemen, who asked him roughly: ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To Geneva.’ ‘What to do?’ The embroiderer answered frankly and courteously, as was his custom, ‘I am going to hear the Gospel preached; will you not go and hear it also?’ ‘No, indeed,’ answered the men. He began to press them: ‘Go, I entreat you,’ he said. ‘I am surprised at you: you are so near, and I am come expressly all the way from Avignon to hear it. I entreat you to come.’ ‘March, rascal!’ they cried, ‘and we will teach you to hear those devils of Geneva.’ They took him to Peney, and, on reaching the castle, said to him: ‘We will give you three strappadoes in the name of the three devils you wished to go and hear preach.’ Having tied his hands behind his back, they raised him to the top of a long beam of wood, and let him fall suddenly to within two feet of the ground. ‘That is in the name of Farel,’ they cried; then came one for Froment, and another for Viret. The poor fellow, all bruised as he was, getting on his legs as well as he could, again looked at his tormentors, and, touched with love for