Giangiacomo was just the man for the work. At a later period Charles V., wishing to employ him against the German Reformation, created him marquis of Marignano, and gave him the command of the artillery in his campaign against the Lutherans. For the present, however, it was not Wittemberg but Geneva that Medici was to lay waste.[696] The duke of Savoy placed his general at the head of an army composed of four thousand Italians,[697] besides Savoyards and Spaniards, stout, strong fellows, most of them old soldiers. A considerable number of armed men were summoned from the valley of the Leman to join Medici, and thus double or even triple his forces. The warlike brother of the future Pope Pius IV., supported by great princes, by the duke of Savoy and the emperor, had no doubt of victory. He began his march along the valley of the Leman. The peril was great, but was everything lost? Was there not a power in Geneva which had not been found in Verceil or Asti? 'There seem to be no means of escaping from the hands of our enemies,' said the pious Genevans; 'but our hope is in God, who will not suffer His holy name to be blasphemed by infidels.'[698] Berne had long closed her ears to the cries of Geneva. Baudichon de la Maisonneuve had gone thither to point out the extremity to which his country was reduced. At the moment when the peril had become greatest, the Bear awoke, and prepared to descend from his mountains. Political motives had no doubt something to do with this decision of the Council. After the war in Burgundy, the 'pays romand' (the French-speaking part of Switzerland) had attracted the attention of that powerful republic. Somewhat later she had formed treaties of co-citizenship with Geneva and Lausanne; and when she saw the king of France raising an army, and moving it towards the Alps, she feared lest that prince should be beforehand with her. But the solicitations of Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, and the voices of the Bernese citizens who were for independence and the Reformation, had, after God, the greatest share in the decision of that state. The Bernese Council issued a proclamation to the people, in which, after setting forth the peril of Geneva, they went on to say: 'This matter touches, first of all, the glory of God, and next it touches us.' 'We are ready,' answered the people, 'to sacrifice our goods and our lives for the maintenance of the faith and of our oaths.' Twenty thousand men offered to march. The change which now took place in the councils of Berne was so unexpected that it was generally ascribed to the direction of God. 'Berne, urged by the divine inspiration, is moving,' wrote a pious Bernese to Bullinger, Zwingle's successor at Zurich.[699] And that excellent Genevan, Porral, said in the fulness of his joy: 'O God, I thank Thee for that Thou hast inspired our citizens to give us help and comfort.'[700]