hence he often said: 'If the Lord would raise up many men like this _hero_, the kingdom of Christ would soon come out of the pit.'[587] According to Bucer, Du Bellay was meditating a very perilous but still a great enterprise: it was a labour worthy of Hercules.... The counsellor of the King of France was satisfied to find the great pacificator agreeing with him, and hastened to Paris, flattering himself that he would gain a victory more striking than that of Francis I. at Marignan, or of Charles V. at Pavia. Everything seemed favourable: Francis, delighted at his conference with the landgrave, had never been better disposed for conciliation. Du Bellay endeavoured to convince him that Germany was quite ready for the _great fusion_. Melanchthon, whom all Germany venerated, was (in his opinion) the man of the hour, by whose agency the two contrary currents would mingle their waters and form but one stream bearing life to every part. Was it not he who said: 'Preserve all the old ceremonies that you can: every innovation is injurious to the people?' Had he not declared at Augsburg that no doctrine separated him from the Roman Church; that he respected the universal authority of the pope, and desired to remain faithful to Christ and the Church of Rome? Margaret of Navarre also spoke to her brother of this great and good man: 'Melanchthon's mildness,' she said, 'contrasts with the violent temper of Zwingle and Luther.' Other persons observed to the king that what distinguished France from all catholic nations was its attachment to those liberties of the Church, which were on that account denominated _Gallican_. 'It would thus be a thoroughly French enterprise,' they said, 'to strip the pope of his usurped privileges.'