On Tuesday (February 1st) ten syndics of Geneva came to present the Bernese general with the thanks of the city. While they were in conference with him, a noise was heard in the castle. They all pricked up their ears. The old abbot De Gingins, episcopal vicar of Geneva, who had retired (as we have seen) into the Jura, to his isolated convent of Bonmont, alarmed at the approach of the army, disturbed by the recollection of his licentious life, and remembering that the Swiss had no liking for wicked priests, a great number of whom had fallen at Gingins, had taken refuge at Divonne in his nephew's castle, where he believed himself safe from all harm. He kept quiet in a secret hiding-place, greatly tormented by fear that the Bernese might discover him. Some soldiers, who were ordered to search the castle, found him and brought him more dead than alive before their general. As the latter sharply reproached the lord of Divonne with violating their convention, the alarm of the old sinner increased; but he began to breathe again, when the general declared that he would be willing to release him for a ransom of four hundred crowns. The poor abbot, though the fear of death was passed, never recovered from his fright. The Savoyard troops, whose arrival had been announced to Medici by the count of Challans, had not appeared, and we may understand the reason. Consequently, next morning (February 2d) Nägueli, finding that there was no enemy to prevent his entering Geneva, divided his soldiers into three corps: one was to reduce the country between the Rhone and the Jura as far as the Fort de l'Ecluse, which it was to take; the other was to march to Gex, and burn the castle; while the rest of the army started for Geneva.[719] [Sidenote: BERNESE WAR-SONG.] The Genevans awaited with great impatience the arrival of their liberators. The sun cheered with its beams the brightest of the days in Genevese history. The snows which covered the mountains glittered in the distance; but in the plain at their feet, flashes of light were observed which delighted the citizens still more. 'Two leagues off,' says Froment, 'we could see the arms glittering, which was a great joy to us.' The young people ran forward to meet their deliverers, and in a short time the Bernese army approached and passed through an enthusiastic crowd stationed on both sides of the road. The leaders Nägueli, Weingarten, Cyro, Diesbach, and Graffenried, came first on horseback; then followed the bannerets, councillors, provosts, and other members of the Councils of Berne; and last of all the liberating army, seventeen pieces of artillery, and the companies of Neuchâtel, Lausanne, and other places in Vaud. As the Bernese passed the gates and entered the city, they sang aloud once more these strains to the glory of God: