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.  But what of this?  It was necessary I should speak without hesitation, and find ideas, turn of expression, and words at will, preserving a presence of mind, and keeping myself collected, without once suffering even a momentary confusion.  For what could I hope, feeling as I did, my want of aptitude to express myself with ease?  I had been reduced to the most mortifying silence at Geneva, before an assembly which was favorable to me, and previously resolved to approve of everything I should say.  Here, on the contrary, I had to do with a cavalier who, substituting cunning to knowledge, would spread for me a hundred snares before I could perceive one of them, and was resolutely determined to catch me in an error let the consequence be what it would.  The more I examined the situation in which I stood, the greater danger I perceived myself exposed to, and feeling the impossibility of successfully withdrawing from it, I thought of another expedient.  I meditated a discourse which I intended to pronounce before the Consistory, to exempt myself from the necessity of answering.  The thing was easy.  I wrote the discourse and began to learn it by memory, with an inconceivable ardor.  Theresa laughed at hearing me mutter and incessantly repeat the same phrases, while endeavoring to cram them into my head.  I hoped, at length, to remember what I had written:  I knew the chatelain as an officer attached to the service of the prince, would be present at the Consistory, and that notwithstanding the manoeuvres and bottles of Montmollin, most of the elders were well disposed towards me.  I had, moreover, in my favor, reason, truth, and justice, with the protection of the king, the authority of the council of state, and the good wishes of every real patriot, to whom the establishment of this inquisition was threatening.  In fine, everything contributed to encourage me.

On the eve of the day appointed, I had my discourse by rote, and recited it without missing a word.  I had it in my head all night:  in the morning I had forgotten it.  I hesitated at every word, thought myself before the assembly, became confused, stammered, and lost my presence of mind.  In fine, when the time to make my appearance was almost at hand, my courage totally failed me.  I remained at home and wrote to the Consistory, hastily stating my reasons, and pleaded my disorder, which really, in the state to which apprehension had reduced me, would scarcely have permitted me to stay out the whole sitting.