The first point which the emperor desired to carry was the convocation of a general council. A grave man and always occupied with business, he possessed a soul greedy of dominion. Ferdinand and Isabella having founded their power in Spain by restoring that country to unity, he desired to do in central Europe what they had done in the peninsula, that is, unite it under his patronage, if not under his sceptre. And lo! Germany is suddenly broken in his hands and divided into two parts. Sad humiliation! When he had crossed the Alps, after Soliman's retreat, he had no longer that unlimited confidence in his genius and authority which he had felt two years before, when going to the diet of Augsburg. He had come from Spain to crush that new sect which thwarted the dreams of his ambition; and instead of crushing it, he had been forced to recognise it. After the retreat of the Turks, Charles found himself at the head of a numerous and triumphant army, and men asked one another if he would not fall upon the protestants with it; but the best soldiers of that army were protestant themselves. Other means must be resorted to in order to bring the schism to an end. He weighed everything carefully, and brought to this business that nice and calm attention which always distinguished him. Knowing that the result of an appeal to arms was uncertain, and that instead of restoring concord he might stir up a hatred that nothing could extinguish, he decided in favour of a council to restore unity, and made his demand to the pope at Bologna. But Clement VII. feared a council as much as Charles desired it. 'They would want to redress grievances,' he said to his confidants, 'and reform abuses, quite as much as to extirpate heresy.' Possessing great intelligence and rare ability, vain, cunning, false, and with no elevation of soul, Clement determined to put off this assembly indefinitely, although always promising it. While the emperor recognised the inefficiency of temporal arms, the pope felt still more keenly the inefficiency of spiritual arms. Each of these two personages distrusted the power of which he had most experience. The humble Gospel of the reformers intimidated both Church and Empire. Clement conferred on the subject with the Archbishop of Cortona, governor of Bologna, with the legate Campeggio, and with the nuncio Gambara: all agreed with him, and declared that to desire to bring back protestants to the Romish faith otherwise than by force was a very perilous enterprise. [Sidenote: CLEMENT AGAINST A COUNCIL.]