No wonder that the citizens frequently chafed under the yoke.
If we ask how much was actually accomplished by this minute regulation accompanied by extreme severity in the enforcement of morals, various answers are given.

When the Italian reformer Bernardino Occhino visited Geneva in 1542, he testified that cursing and swearing, unchastity and sacrilege were unknown; that there were neither lawsuits nor simony nor murder nor party spirit, but that universal benevolence prevailed.

Again in 1556 John Knox said that Geneva was "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the apostles.

In other places," he continued, "I confess Christ to be truly preached, but manners and religion so sincerely reformed I have not yet seen in any place besides." But if we turn from these personal impressions to an examination of the acts of the Consistory, we get a very different impression.

[Sidenote: Morals of Geneva] The records of Geneva show more cases of vice after the Reformation than before.
The continually increasing severity of the penalties enacted against vice and frivolity seem to prove that the government was helpless to suppress them.