None felt these reproaches more keenly than the pastors, for they knew that they all recoiled on themselves. On September 17 they all appeared, the two Genevese and the two foreigners, before the council. ‘Calumniators,’ they said, ‘are spreading reports in the cantons which are doing serious injury to the Gospel.’ They requested that two of their number might have leave of absence to go and refute the slanders, which inflicted a blow on the honor of the town. The request was granted. Marcourt and Morand set out for Berne, and presented themselves before the assembly of the pastors, in which Kunz could not fail to support them. In fact it was resolved at this meeting ‘that those who rose against the persons in office at Geneva were worse than wicked men, traitors, and Jews.’ The Bernese pastors communicated this declaration to the council, which contented itself with deciding that if any defamers of Geneva appeared at Berne, information should be given to the magistrates of that town. The lay authorities were obviously less under the influence of passion than the ecclesiastics. It appears even that the council of Berne did not place implicit confidence in the report of the Genevese ministers, for one of their own number was immediately after sent to Geneva to see with his own eyes what was the real state of the Genevese Church. The complaints made both at Geneva and in other places were well grounded. This is proved by the proceedings of the magistrates, who, although they were hostile to the reformers, perceived that their own honor required them not to authorize licentiousness. It is quite certain that people ‘went about the streets at night, uttering cries and singing indecent songs;’ that ‘gaming, lewdness, haunting of taverns, and drunkenness,’ were common offences; for a decree of July 19 prohibited them under a penalty of sixty sous for the first time; and, as the evil continued, other decisions of a similar character were taken on August 20 and October 22. It is certain that, as was said in Switzerland, some citizens went to mass, for according to the intolerant customs of the age, they were ordered ‘to leave the town.’ The councils were seen to be as much opposed to religious liberty as Calvin had been. Perhaps they went even further than he would have gone; for, on August 20, they ordered the priests who were still on Genevese soil to go to sermon if they wished to remain there. [Sidenote: CALVIN’S LETTER TO THE GENEVESE.]