the cities, or that other considerations prevailed, the cities did not insist as formerly upon religious concessions.”[194] The nobles only kept up an opposition; but the duke, catching the opportunity of a sort of conspiracy which he had discovered, deprived them of their right to seats in the diet, and so became the almost absolute and uncontrolled master of his people’s franchises. Then commenced the reaction. Encouraged by the Jesuits, who had now acquired an unlimited influence over him, Albert resolved not to leave a vestige of those new doctrines which for the last forty years had been spreading so fast in his kingdom. All the professors, all his household, all the civil officers—in a word, all the public functionaries—were compelled to subscribe the _Professio Fidei_ of the Council of Trent, and on their refusal, were immediately dismissed. To obtain a recantation from the common people, he sent through all his provinces swarms of Jesuits, accompanied by bands of troopers, whose bayonets came to the aid of the preachers, when their eloquence was unsuccessful in converting the heretics. The mildest treatment the obstinate Protestants could expect, was to be expelled from the duke’s estates without delay. Prohibited books were sought for in the libraries, and burned in large numbers; those of a rigidly Catholic character, on the contrary, were highly favoured. Relics were again held in great veneration; and, in short, throughout the whole country were revived all the ancient practices, all the absurd superstitions, of the Popish religion. “Above all,” says Ranke, “the Jesuit institutions were promoted; for by their agency it was, that the youth of Bavaria were to be educated in a spirit of strict orthodoxy.”[195] Duke Albert was now spoken of as the most bigoted Roman Catholic in Germany, and became the protector of all those petty sovereigns who wished to tread in his footsteps.