ellar might have over this kind of people, he could not gain one of
them, more than the two or three who were already devoted to his will,
and who were called his 'ames damnees'.--[damned souls]--The officer of
the prince, and the Colonel Pury, who, in this affair, acted with great
zeal, kept the rest to their duty, and when Montmollin wished to proceed
to excommunication, his Consistory, by a majority of voices, flatly
refused to authorize him to do it. Thus reduced to the last expedient,
that of stirring up the people against me, he, his colleagues, and
other persons, set about it openly, and were so successful, that
not-withstanding the strong and frequent rescripts of the king, and the
orders of the council of state, I was at length obliged to quit the
country, that I might not expose the officer of the king to be himself
assassinated while he protected me.

The recollection of the whole of this affair is so confused, that it is
impossible for me to reduce to or connect the circumstances of it.
I remember a kind of negotiation had been entered into with the class,
in which Montmollin was the mediator. He feigned to believe it was
feared I should, by my writings, disturb the peace of the country, in
which case, the liberty I had of writing would be blamed. He had given
me to understand that if I consented to lay down my pen, what was past
would be forgotten. I had already entered into this engagement with
myself, and did not hesitate in doing it with the class, but
conditionally and solely in matters of religion. He found means to have
a duplicate of the agreement upon some change necessary to be made in it.
The condition having been rejected by the class; I demanded back the
writing, which was returned to me, but he kept the duplicate, pretending
it was lost. After this, the people, openly excited by the ministers,
laughed at the rescripts of the king, and the orders of the council of
state, and shook off all restraint. I was declaimed against from the
pulpit, called antichrist, and pursued in the country like a mad wolf.
My Armenian dress discovered me to the populace; of this I felt the cruel
inconvenience, but to quit it in such circumstances, appeared to me an
act of cowardice. I could not prevail upon myself to do it, and I
quietly walked through the country with my caffetan and fur bonnet in the
midst of the hootings of the dregs of the people, and sometimes through a
shower of stones. Several times as