Agitation, anger, and affright, were manifested on every branch of that august assembly.[698] This reply of the Evangelicals was war--was rebellion. George of Saxony, the Princes of Bavaria, all the violent adherents of Rome, trembled with indignation; there was a sudden, an impetuous movement, an explosion of murmurs and of hatred; and it might have been feared that the two parties would have come to blows in the very presence of the Emperor, if Archbishop Albert, the Elector of Brandenburg, and the Dukes of Brunswick, Pomerania, and Mecklenburg, rushing between them, had not conjured the Protestants to put an end to this deplorable combat, and not drive the Emperor to extremities.[699] The diet separated, their hearts filled with emotion, apprehension, and trouble. [698] Und darob wie man Spüren mag, ein Entzet zen gehabt. (Ibid.) [699] Hi accedunt ad nostros principes et jubent omittere hoc certamen, ne Cæsar vehementius commoveatur. (Corp. Ref. ii. p. 254.) [Sidenote: RESOLUTIONS OF THE CONSISTORY.] Never had the diet proposed such fatal alternatives. The hopes of agreement, set forth in the edict of convocation, had only been a deceitful lure: now the mask was thrown aside; submission or the sword--such was the dilemma offered to the Reformation. All announced that the day of tentatives was passed, and that they were beginning one of violence. In truth, on the 6th July, the Pope had assembled the consistory of cardinals in his palace at Rome, and had made known to them the Protestant ultimatum; namely, the cup for the laity, the marriage of priests, the omission of the invocation of saints in the sacrifice of the Mass, the use of ecclesiastical property already secularized, and for the rest, the convocation of a council. "These concessions," said the cardinals, "are opposed to the religion, the discipline, and the laws of the Church.[700] We reject them, and vote our thanks to the Emperor for the zeal which he employs in bringing back the deserters." The Pope having thus decided, every attempt at conciliation became useless. [700] Oppositas religioni, disciplinæ, legibusque Ecclesiæ. (Pallav. i. p. 234.) Campeggio, on his side, redoubled in zeal. He spoke as if in his person the Pope himself were present at Augsburg.[701] "Let the Emperor and the right-thinking princes form a league," said he to Charles; "and if these rebels, equally insensible to threats and promises, obstinately persist in their diabolical course, then let his Majesty seize fire and sword, let him take possession of all the property of the heretics, and utterly eradicate these venomous plants.[702] Then let him appoint holy inquisitors, who shall go on the track of the remnants of Reform, and proceed against them, as in Spain against the Moors. Let him put the university of Wittemberg under ban, burn the heretical books, and send back the fugitive monks to their convents. But this plan must be executed with courage."