Behind a coppice between the village and the mountain was a ravine, worn by the waters which descend from the hills during the heavy rains; it would scarcely hold two persons abreast, a streamlet flowed along the bottom, and thick underwood bordered it on both sides. The guides of these valiant men said that they must be careful not to go near the village, for fear the enemy should hear of their arrival, and desired them to hide in the ravine and wait until their return. 'We will run to Gingins,' they said, 'and bring you back refreshments; and then we will all set out for Geneva.' 'Go,' said the troop; 'we will pay fairly for all you can bring us.' The Swiss drew up noiselessly in the hollow way, and their guides quitted them. [Sidenote: BATTLE OF GINGINS.] At Gingins there was a body of the enemy composed of Italians, Savoyards, and gentlemen and men-at-arms of the bailiwicks of Nyon, La Côte, Gex, La Sarraz, and other localities. The priests had preached a crusade in those parishes.[638] They had done more: they had armed themselves[639] and marched at the head of their villages, saying that they would not lay down their arms until heresy was extirpated from the valley of the Leman. They were all waiting for the Swiss, impatient to fall upon that little band of four to five hundred ill-armed soldiers, which they had seen descending the mountain. The duke of Savoy, according to the official report, had on foot to stop them three to four thousand men. Froment, who often exaggerates numbers, speaks of four to five thousand, and reckons Spaniards among them. This force was divided into corps, one of which was then at Gingins. This first division, composed of fifteen hundred men, was commanded by the Sieur de Lugrin, chief of the Gex contingent, and an Italian, according to a chronicler. Devoted to the Romish Church and to his master the duke, Lugrin detested Geneva and the Reform. Towards him the three guides had made their way; and, being received into the castle, they informed him of the results of the stratagem to which they had had recourse, and told him that the Swiss were shut up in a narrow place, where it would be impossible for them to move, and where it would be easy to kill them all. Lugrin immediately marched out at the head of his men, confident of crushing at the first blow these adventurers, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, and of staining with heretics' blood that deep mountain ravine.