Meanwhile the rumor of these preparations reached the castle of Neuchâtel. The Sire de Rive de Prangins, governor of the county for the princess of Longueville, 'a papist and a Savoyard,' says the chronicler Roset; 'a great enemy of the Word,' says Froment; had done all he could to prevent the establishment of the Reformation in the county, and now the Neuchâtelans wanted to go and support Geneva. Astonished at so much audacity, he forbade those brave men to move under pain of his serious indignation. Among those who had answered to the appeal of Savoye, there were some who now hesitated. A certain number of these brave men had no strong belief or strong will to maintain them. Full of respect for the princess and her lieutenant, they bent easily beneath the authority which presumed to constrain them. Their wives endeavored to revive their zeal. In the eyes of the latter it was not an ordinary war; it was a struggle for the Word of God. Being ardent evangelists, they had at heart, as much as Farel, to uphold the faith, and combined with pure doctrine that keen sensitiveness, that impulsiveness of the heart, which are the portion of their sex. 'Go,' they said; 'if you do not go, we will go ourselves.' Some, indeed, did go, like the heroine of Nidau. Others, speaking in the name of religion, overawed their husbands and decided them: 'We will not leave our Christian brethren of Geneva to perish miserably,' said the Neuchâtelans to those who wished to detain them; 'they are attacked for no other cause than to destroy the Gospel and their liberties. _In such a quarrel we will all die._' It was necessary to depart at once. The men who had risen in the towns, the valleys, and the plain, to defend, without official character, a city they had never seen, were not armed _cap-à-pied_ like the brilliant knights of Savoy whom they were going to fight. Some had muskets, all had swords, but they wore neither helmet nor cuirass. The justice of their cause was to be their breast-plate. In the evening of the 7th October the most distant corps—that from Bienne, the bishopric of Basle, Nidau, and the Seeland—began their march. It is probable that they crossed the lake of Neuchâtel to avoid the city. On arriving at the entrance to the Val de Travers they halted, that being the place of rendezvous. Those from Neuchâtel, Valangin, and other places soon arrived, and all were now assembled in that picturesque country where the Areuse rushes out of the valley. The intrepid Wildermuth took the command.[632] [Sidenote: STRUGGLE OF THE NEUCHATELANS.]