This is one of the most remarkable documents that we have met with in relation to the intercourse between France and Rome, and it has not attracted sufficient attention. In it Francis makes an immense stride. Convinced that the new times ought to tread in a new path, he inaugurates a great revolution. He emancipates the political power, so far as regards religious matters, and desires that it shall take precedence of the pontifical power in everything. If his idea had been carried out, great ecclesiastical questions would no longer have been decided in the Vatican, but in the cabinets of princes. This system, indeed, is not the true one, and yet a great step had been taken in the path of progress. A new principle was about to influence the destinies of the Church. Up to this time the clerical element had reigned in it alone; but now the lay element claimed its place. The new society was unwilling that priests alone should govern christians, just as shepherds lead their flocks. But this system, we repeat, was not the true one. Christian questions ought not to be decided either by pope or prince, but by the ministers of the Church and its members, as of old in Jerusalem by the _apostles_, _elders_, and _brethren_.[387] For this we have the authority of God's Word. That evangelical path is forbidden to the Roman-catholic Church; for it is afraid of every christian assembly where the opinions of believers are taken into account, and finds itself miserably condemned to oscillate perpetually between the two great powers—the pope and the king. [Sidenote: THE LAY COUNCIL REJECTED.] It was very near the end of February when the emperor received at Bologna this singular opinion of the French king. Having failed in his attempts to prevent the Orleans marriage, he was busy forming the Italian league, and preparing to leave for Spain. Charles instinctively felt the encroachment of modern times in this project of Du Bellay's. To deprive the pope and clergy of their exclusive and absolute authority would lead (he thought) to taking it away from kings also. It seemed to him that popery rendered liberty impossible not only in the Church but also among the people. Francis, or rather Du Bellay, had imagined that Charles would say (as one of his successors said[388]): 'My trade is to be a king,' and that he would grasp at the institution of a _diplomatic_ papacy. But whether Charles wished to profit by this opportunity 'to fish up again' the pope who had plunged into French waters, or simply yielded to his Spanish catholic nature and the desire he felt for unlimited power, he rejected Francis's proposal. 'What!' he exclaimed, 'shall the ambassadors of christian kings and potentates lay down beforehand the points to be discussed in the council?... That would be depriving it of its authority by a single stroke. Whatever is to be discussed in the council ought to depend entirely on the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and not on the appetites of men.'[389]