insulting me, not only in the country and upon the road, but in the street.  Those to whom I had rendered the greatest services became most irritated against me, and even people who still continued to receive my benefactions, not daring to appear, excited others, and seemed to wish thus to be revenged of me for their humiliation, by the obligations they were under for the favors I had conferred upon them.  Montmollin seemed to pay no attention to what was passing, and did not yet come forward.  But as the time of communion approached, he came to advise me not to present myself at the holy table, assuring me, however, he was not my enemy, and that he would leave me undisturbed.  I found this compliment whimsical enough; it brought to my recollection the letter from Madam de Boufflers, and I could not conceive to whom it could be a matter of such importance whether I communicated or not.  Considering this condescension on my part as an act of cowardice, and moreover, being unwilling to give to the people a new pretext under which they might charge me with impiety, I refused the request of the minister, and he went away dissatisfied, giving me to understand I should repent of my obstinacy.

He could not of his own authority forbid me the communion:  that of the Consistory, by which I had been admitted to it, was necessary, and as long as there was no objection from that body I might present myself without the fear of being refused.  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 to reduce them to silence, was to make comments upon my first ’Letters from the Mountain’, upon which they had the folly to animadvert.