I answered him: “It may be that you do not want me there. But I want to be at your side, to answer you. Remember that you are not on your own ground here; but on mine!”
He then, silently and slowly, walked up. When on the platform, I offered him a good arm chair, which he refused, and sat on one of his own choice, with his priests around him. I then addressed him as follows:
“My lord, the people and pastor of St. Anne are exceedingly pleased to see you in their midst. We promise to listen attentively to what you have to say, on condition that we have the privilege of answering you.”
He answered, angrily: “I do not want you to say a word, here.”
Then, stepping to the front, he began his address in French, with a trembling voice. But it was a miserable failure from beginning to end. In vain did he try to prove that out of the Church of Rome, there is no salvation. He failed still more miserably to prove that the people have neither the right to read the Scriptures, nor the intelligence to understand them. He said such ridiculous things on that point, that the people went into fits of laughter, and some said:
“That is not true. You do not know what you are talking about. The Bible says the very contrary.”
But I stopped them by reminding them of the promise they had made of not interrupting him.
A little before closing his address, he turned to me and said:
“You are a wicked, rebel priest against your holy church. Go from here into a monastery to do penance for your sins. You say that you have never been excommunicated in a legal way! Well, you will not say that any longer, for I excommunicate you now before this whole people.”
I interrupted him and said: “You forget that you have no right to excommunicate a man who has publicly left your church long ago.”