th
Francis's own sister, had cherished illusory hopes that the eloquent
addresses of Roussel and other court-preachers had left a deep impress
on the king's heart.

[Sidenote: The orthodoxy of Francis no longer questioned.]

But the "Placards" effectually dissipated alike these hopes and these
fears. There was no longer any question as to the orthodoxy of Francis.
Apologists for the Reformation might seek to undeceive his mind and
remove his prejudices. His own emissaries might endeavor to persuade the
Germans, of whose alliance he stood in need, that his views differed
little from theirs. But there can be no doubt that, whatever his
previous intentions had been, from this time forth his resolution was
taken, to use his own expression already brought to the reader's notice,
to live and die in Mother Holy Church, and demonstrate the justice of
his claim to the title of "very Christian." The audacity of the
Protestant enthusiast who penetrated even into the innermost recesses of
the royal castle, and affixed the placards to the very chamber door of
the king, was turned to good account by Cardinal Tournon and other
courtiers of like sentiments, and was adduced as a proof of the
assertion so often reiterated, that a change of religion necessarily
involved also a revolution in the State. The free tone of the placards
seemed to reveal a contemptuous disregard of dignities. The ridicule
cast upon the doctrine of transubstantiation was an assault on one of
the few dogmas respecting which Francis had implicit confidence in the
teachings of the Church. Henceforth the king figures on the page of
history as a determined opponent and persecutor of the Reformation, less
hostile, indeed, to the "Lutherans," than to the "Sacramentarians," or
"Zwinglians," but nevertheless an avowed enemy of innovation. The
change was recognized and deplored by the Reformers themselves; who,
seeing Francis in the last years of his reign give the rein to shameful
debauchery, and meantime suffer the public prisons to overflow with
hundreds of innocent men and women, awaiting punishment for no other
offence than their religious faith, pointedly compared him to the
effeminate Sardanapalus surrounded by his courtezans.[387]

[Sidenote: Change in the courtiers.]

While so marked a change came over the disposition of the king, it is
not strange that a similar revolution was noticed in the sentiments of
the courtiers--a class ever on the alert to detect the