4. If the pillage be accorded, the town hall is not to be touched.
5. The prince shall have half the plunder.
6. The nobles, canons, and those who have escaped from the city shall be allowed the first bid for their articles when offered for sale.
7. No fixtures shall be removed by the soldiery.
8. After the capture of the town, the custody of the gates and ramparts shall be confided to those whom the prince-bishop shall appoint.
9. The city taken, and its pillage permitted, the soldiers shall be allowed eight days for distribution and sale of the plunder. The soldiers shall receive their pay with punctuality.
10. The heads of the revolt shall, as far as possible, be taken alive and delivered up to the bishop for a recompense.[157]
The Anabaptists were not afraid at these preparations; they made ready vigorously for the defence of the New Zion. As a preliminary, a body of five hundred burnt the convent of St. Maurice, outside the city gates, and levelled all the houses of the suburbs, which obscured the view, and might serve as cover for the besiegers.
On the 26th February Matthisson preached in the afternoon to a congregation summoned by the discharge of a culverin. At the end of the sermon he assumed an inspired air, and announced that he had an important revelation to communicate. Having arrested the attention of his hearers, he said in a solemn tone, "The Father requires the purification of the New Jerusalem and of His temple; for our republic, which has begun so prosperously, cannot grow and endure if a prey to the confusion produced by the presence of impious sects. My advice is that we kill without further delay the Lutherans, the Papists, and all those who have not the right faith, that there may remain in Zion but one body, one society, which is truly Christian, and which can offer to the Father a pure and well-pleasing worship. There is but one way of preserving the faithful from the contagion of the impious, and that is to sweep them off the face of the earth. Nothing is easier than the execution of this scheme. We form the majority in a strong city, abundantly supplied with all necessaries; there is nothing to fear from within or from without."[158]
This suggestion would have been carried into immediate execution by the frenzied sectarians, had it not been for the intervention of Knipperdolling, who, fearing that a general massacre of Lutherans and Catholics would combine the forces of the Smalkald union and of the Imperialists against the city, urgently insisted on milder measures. "Let us be content," said he, "with driving, to-morrow, out of the city those miserable creatures who refuse the sign of the New Covenant; thus shall we thoroughly purge the floor of the Lord, and nothing that is impure will remain in the New Jerusalem."[159]