Montmollin procured from the
Classe (the ministers) a commission to summon me to the Consistory,
there to give an account of the articles of my faith, and to
excommunicate me should I refuse to comply. This excommunication could
not be pronounced without the aid of the Consistory also, and a
majority of the voices. But the peasants, who under the appellation of
elders, composed this assembly, presided over and governed by their
minister, might naturally be expected to adopt his opinion, especially
in matters of the clergy, which they still less understood than he
did. I was therefore summoned, and I resolved to appear.
What a happy circumstance and triumph would this have been to me
could I have spoken, and had I, if I may so speak, had my pen in my
mouth! With what superiority, with what facility even, should I have
overthrown this poor minister in the midst of his six peasants! The
thirst after power having made the Protestant clergy forget all the
principles of the reformation, all I had to do to recall these to
their recollection and reduce them to silence, was to make comments
upon my first Letters from the Mountain, upon which they had the folly
to animadvert.
My text was ready, and I had only to enlarge on it, and my adversary
was confounded. I should not have been weak enough to remain on the
defensive; it was easy to me to become an assailant without his even
perceiving it, or being able to shelter himself from my attack. The
contemptible priests of the Classe, equally careless and ignorant, had
of themselves placed me in the most favorable situation I could desire
to crush them at pleasure.
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