With the party of Libertines completely broken, Calvin ruled from this time forth with a rod of iron.

The new Geneva was so cowed and subservient that the town council dared not install a new sort of heating apparatus without asking the permission of the theocrat.

But a deep rancor smouldered under the surface.

"Our incomparable theologian Calvin," wrote Ambrose Blaurer to Bullinger, "labors under such hatred of some whom he obscures by his light that he is considered the worst of heretics by them." Among other things he was accused of levying tribute from his followers by a species of blackmail, threatening publicly to denounce them unless they gave money to the cause.
[Sidenote: International Calvinism] At the same time his international power and reputation rose.

Geneva became the capital of Protestantism, from which mandates issued to all the countries of Western Europe.