Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

companion had betrayed them. Their fate having
awakened great interest, powerful influence was
used in their behalf [3] at the court of France. The
Bernese Government interceded for "their
scholars" with the king. Some among the
Romanists even, touched by their pure lives and
their lovely characters, interested themselves for
their safety. Meanwhile their trial proceeded at
Lyons. The brutality of the judges was as
conspicuous as the constancy of the prisoners.
From the sentence of the Lyonnese court, which
adjudged them to death, they appealed to the
Parliament of Paris.
On the 1st of March, 1553, the decree arrived
from the capital confirming the sentence of the
court below. So, then, it was by their burning pile,
and not by the eloquence of their living voice, that
they were to aid in dispelling the darkness that
brooded over their native land. There was
mourning in Lausanne and Geneva, and in other
places on the shores of the Leman, when it was
known that those who had so lately gone forth from
them, and for whom they had augured a career of
388