cried one of those who had been in prison with Sérais, Jacques Pattu, ‘yes, they brought Farel to prison and he told us that he would sooner drink a glass of blood than drink with us.’ Scarcely had he let fall these strange words, when Pierre Butini mounted on a bench and cried out, ‘The franchise has been taken from us by the Porrets (Porral’s friends), for we were seized, many good men, without informations and without plaintiffs.’--‘I complain,’ resumed Pattu, ‘that they gave me the halter without cause,’--‘I complain,’ said Sérais, further, ‘that Claude Bernard told me that I would not go to hear Farel preach.’--‘Let the others speak now!’ cried Baudichon de la Maisonneuve, annoyed at Sérais beginning over again. But the friends of Sérais cried, ‘And we, we will have Baudichon hold his tongue.’ Then Etienne Dadaz, resuming the series of grievances, said, ‘I complain that I have been sent to prison and accused of meaning to sell the town.’--‘Thou oughtest to be silent,’ said the syndic Goutaz, ‘for thou hast brought from France articles designed to make us subjects of the king.’ On which Dadaz replied, ‘It is not I who made them, it is M. de Langey who gave them me.’ This was certainly not justifying himself, for Langey was a minister to the king.[547] [Sidenote: CONFUSED COMPLAINTS.] The most reasonable of the leaders saw that they must put a stop to these turbulent complainings, which were ruining their interests. The former syndic, Jean Philippe, a friend of freedom and courageous, but also rash and leading a loose life, began to speak, and, addressing the secretary of the council, Rozet, accused him of having caused the confession to be sworn which he declared he had not sworn. This was not escaping from the question, but plunging into it. This was the master grievance of the opposition, and the matter to be investigated. ‘We did ill to swear it,’ said Jean Lullin. ‘The ambassadors of Berne have told us that we were perjured.’ De Chapeaurouge himself, who at first had kept silence, getting enraged with the secretary of the council, Rozet, who had caused the confession to be sworn, accused him of being ‘a witness of Susanna’ (that is to say, a false witness). ‘Gentlemen,’ said the respectable Rozet, with much feeling, ‘I have served you long, and I have neither done wickedly nor borne false witness; and here is De Chapeaurouge making me out to be a _witness of Susanna_!’ Chapeaurouge replied, ‘You told me, before the syndic Curtet, that you had no conscience at all.’ Curtet answered, ‘I never heard that;’ and everyone began to laugh. Jean Philippe, a clever man, then made a proposition which he thought likely to satisfy the opponents. He wished to place the syndics under guardianship. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it would be a long task to listen in this place to all these plaintiffs and to provide for them. It seems to me better that we should choose, in general council, twenty-five men.’ These were twenty-five