The latter was the patron upon whom the Sorbonne thought they could rely. Enterprising and systematic, at once supple and firm, slavish and tyrannical, an intriguer and debauchee, often exasperated, never discouraged, ‘very clever, knowing, and subtle,’ says the _Bourgeois de Paris_; ‘one of the most pernicious men that ever lived,’ says another historian:[633] Duprat sold offices, ground the people down, and if any of them remonstrated against his disorders, he sent the remonstrants to the Bastille.[634] This man, who was archbishop of Sens and cardinal, and who aspired to be made legate _a latere_, having become a prince of the Roman Church, placed at its service his influence, his iron will, and even his cruelty. But nothing could be done without the king. Louisa of Savoy and the cardinal, knowing his fickleness and his love of pleasure, and knowing also that in religious matters he cared only for pomp and ceremony, hoped to induce him easily to oppose the Reformation. Yet Francis hesitated and even resisted. He pretended to have a great taste for letters, of which the Gospel, in his eyes, formed part. He yielded willingly to his sister, who pleaded warmly the cause of the friends of the Gospel. He detested the arrogance of the priests. The boldness with which they put forward ultramontane ideas; set another power (the power of the pope) above his; attacked his ideas in conversations, pamphlets, and even in the pulpit; their restless character, their presumptuous confidence in the triumph of their cause,--all this irritated one of the most susceptible monarchs that ever reigned; and he was pleased at seeing a man like Berquin take down the boasting of the clergy. Yet it may well be that the king was influenced by higher motives. He saw the human mind displaying a fresh activity in every direction. The literary, the philosophical, the political, the religious world were all undergoing important transformations in the first half of the sixteenth century. In the midst of all these different movements, Francis I. may have sometimes had a confused feeling that there was one which was the mainspring, the dominant fact, the generating principle, and, if I may use the words, the _fiat lux_ of the new creation. He saw that the Reformation was the great force then acting in the world; that all others were subordinate to it; that to it belonged, according to an ancient prophecy, _the gathering of the people_;[635] and in these moments, when his sight was clear, he wished to join himself to that invisible power which was effecting more than all the other powers. Unfortunately his passions soon disturbed his sight, and after having caught a glimpse of the day, he plunged back again into night.