and Germany, complaining of the Pope's
absolutism in Council, and demanding that the reform of the Church
should be taken into serious and instant consideration. His devoted
adherent, Lainez, General of the Jesuits, embittered opposition by
passionately preaching the doctrine of passive obedience. Two dangers
lay before him. One was that the Council should break up in confusion,
with discredit to Rome, and anarchy for the Catholic Church. The other
was that it should be prolonged in its dissensions by the princes, with
a view of depressing and enfeebling the Papal authority. Other perils
of an incalculable kind threatened him in the announced approach of the
mighty Cardinal of Lorraine, brother to the Duke of Guise, with a
retinue of French bishops released from the Conference at Poissy. Though
he kept on packing the Council with fresh relays of Italians, it was
much to be apprehended that they might be unable to oppose a coalition
between French and Spanish prelates, should that be now effected.

Pius, at this crisis, resolved on two important lines of policy, the
energetic pursuit of which speedily brought the Council of Trent to a
peaceful termination. The first was to meet the demand for a searching
reformation of the Church with cheerful acquiescence; but to oppose a
counter-demand that the secular States in all their ecclesiastical
relations should at the same time be reformed. This implied a threat of
alienating patronage and revenue from the princes; it also indicated
plainly that the tiara and the crowns had interests in common. The
second was to develop the diplomatic system upon which he had already
tentatively entered.

The events of the spring, 1563, hastened the adoption of these measures
by the Pope. Cardinal Lorraine had arrived with his French bishops[44];
and the Papal Legates found themselves involved at once in intricate
disputes on questions touching the Huguenots and the interests of the
Gallican Church. The Italians were driven in despair to epigrams: _Dalla
scabie Spagnuola siamo caduti nel mal Francese_. Somewhat later, the
Emperor dispatched a bulky and verbose letter, announcing his intention
to play the part which Sigismund had assumed at the Council of
Constance. He complained roundly of the evils caused by the reference of
all resolutions to Rome, by the exclusive rights of the Legates to
propose decrees, and by the intrigues of the Italian majority in the
Synod. He wound up by declaring t