[Footnote 241: _Lettres Françaises de Calvin. A la Reine de Navarre_, i. p. 114, ed. J. Bonnet.] [Footnote 242: Calvin, _in 2ᵃᵐ Epist. ad Corinth._ ch. x.] CHAPTER XXI. CONFERENCES AT SMALCALD AND CALAIS. (MARCH TO OCTOBER 1532.) [Sidenote: DU BELLAY'S PROJECTS.] France, or at least the king and the influential men, appeared at this time to be veering towards a moderate Reform. Francis I. seemed to have some liking for his sister's religion; but there were other motives inclining him to entertain these ideas. Finding himself without allies in Europe, he endeavoured to gain the friendship of the protestants, hoping that with their help he would be in a condition to oppose the emperor and restore the French preponderance in Italy. One man in particular set himself the task of directing his country into a new path; this was William du Bellay, brother to the Bishop of Paris, and 'one of the greatest men France ever had,' says a catholic historian.[243] A skilful, active, and prudent diplomatist, Du Bellay called to mind the memorable struggles that had formerly taken place between the popes and the kings of France; he believed that christendom was in a state of transition, and desired, as the Chancellor de l'Hôpital did in later years, that the new times should be marked with more liberty, and not with more servitude, as the Guises, the Valois, and the Bourbons would have wished. He went even farther: he thought that the sixteenth century would substitute for the papacy of the middle ages a form of christianity, catholic of course, but more in conformity with the ancient Scriptures and the modern requirements. From that hour his dominant idea, his chief business, was to unite catholic France to protestant Germany. Having received the instructions of Francis I., Du Bellay left Honfleur, where the king was staying,[244] on the 11th of March, 1532, and crossed the Rhine about the middle of April. At Schweinfurth-on-the-Maine, between Wurtzburg and Bamberg, he found an assembly composed of a few protestant princes on one side, and a few mediators on the other, among whom was the elector-archbishop of Mayence. As this brings us into Germany, it is necessary that we should take a glance at what had happened there since the great diet of Augsburg in 1530.[245]