At this time several meetings of an extraordinary kind were held at the Louvre, and upon them, as some thought, the future of christendom depended. The opinions of Melanchthon, Bucer, and Hedio, demanded by the king, brought by Chelius, and laid before the monarch by Du Bellay, were in his majesty's closet. The walls of the Louvre, which had witnessed such levity of morals, and which hereafter were to witness so many crimes, heard those holy truths explained in which everlasting life is to be found. Around the table on which these documents lay, there were politicians no doubt who in this investigation looked only to temporal advantages, and Francis was at their head; but there were also serious men who desired for the new Church both unity and reform. We will let the reformers speak. They were not present in person, it will be understood, before the King of France; it is their written advice which he had asked for, and which was probably read by one of the Du Bellays. But, for brevity's sake, we shall designate these memoirs by the names of their authors, since it is the authors themselves who speak, and not the historian. [Sidenote: THE PROPOSALS EXAMINED.] Francis I., eager both to emancipate France from its subordination to the papacy, and to form in Europe a great united party capable of vanquishing and thwarting Austria, listened with goodwill to Melanchthon and his friends; yet he found the language of the reformers a little more severe and _heretical_ than he had imagined. Some of the persons around him were pleased; some were astonished, and others were scandalised, and not without reason. To place the moderate Melanchthon by the side of the pacific Bishop of Paris, well and good! but to hope to unite the unyielding Luther and the fiery Beda, the pious elector and the worldly Francis ... what a strange undertaking! Let us listen, however; for these personages have taken their seats, and the inquiry is about to begin.[634] BUCER. 'There can be no concord in the Church except between those who are really of the Church.[635] There is nothing in common between Christ and Belial. We cannot unite God and the world.... Now, what are the majority of bishops and priests?... I grieve to say.' This introduction appeared to the king rather high-flown; but he said to himself that Bucer doubtless wished to make protestation of his loyalty at the very outset. Perhaps his colleagues will be more conciliating. MELANCHTHON. 'The catholic doctrine, say some, has a few trifling blemishes here and there; while we and our friends have been making a great noise without any cause.... That is a mistake. Let not the pontiff and the great monarchs of christendom shut their eyes to the diseases of the Church.[636] They ought, on the contrary, to acknowledge that these pretended trifling blemishes destroy the essential doctrines of the faith, and lead men into idolatry and manifest sin.' BUCER.