This was the most flourishing and purest period of the French Reformation. There were, no doubt, among the faithful, some unquiet, restless minds, who only joined it out of an empty passion for novelty; there were among them also many differences, which compromised the general cause, and many lukewarm, that were called temporisers, middle-course men, or Nicodemites. But the rivalries of the great houses of the kingdom, and political quarrels, had not yet mixed themselves up with religion. The Reformers suffered, and took no vengeance; they received death without a desire to retaliate, and displayed more severity against themselves than their enemies. VIII. In a more enlightened age, the great progress of the Reformation would soon have brought about a crisis. Unfortunately, the minds of the people were not yet ripe, and no one comprehended that there might be two religions at once in the same state. Francis I., besieged by women and priests, had died in 1547, little regretted by the Catholics, who reproached him for not having done enough for the Church, and still less regretted by the Protestants, who accused him of having cruelly persecuted them. His son, Henry II., who succeeded him, was nineteen years of age. His nature was mild, his countenance open, his speech easy and ready, his manners graceful; but he was deficient in all the high qualities of a king. Ill instructed in business, and incapable of constant application to it, he chiefly passed his time in diversion with his courtiers. The government fell into the hands of favourites of both sexes,—Anne de Montmorency, the duke François de Guise, the Marshal de Saint André, Diane de Poitiers, duchess of Valentinois; and it is under his reign that the great factions, which covered France with ruins and blood, commenced. Henry II., in concert with his Italian wife, Catherine de Medicis, opened the court to the arts of magic and sorcery, whence arose acts of the most shameful credulity amongst some, and of cold impiety among others. “Two great sins,” says an old historian, “crept into France in the reign of this prince; namely, atheism and magic.”[23] At the _fêtes_ of the coronation of the queen, in 1549, Henry II. displayed great magnificence; and as voluptuousness and cruelty have much natural affinity, he determined upon combining with the pomp of the tournaments the spectacle of the execution of four Lutherans.