There existed at that time in all parts of Europe men of wit and learning, children of the Renaissance, who disliked the superstitions and abuses of Rome, as well as the bold doctrines and severe precepts of the Reformation. They wanted a religion, but it must be an easy one, and more in conformity (as they held) with reason. Between Luther and the pope, they saw Erasmus, and that elegant and judicious writer was their apostle: hence the Elector of Saxony called them Erasmians.[670] They thought that by melting popery and protestantism together they might realize their dreams. In like manner, too, there were persons to be found of greater or less eminence in whom the desire prevailed to maintain Europe in that papal wardship which had lasted through all the middle ages: they feared the most terrible convulsions if that supreme authority should come to an end. At their head in France was the king. Francis I. had also a more interested object: he desired, from political motives, to unite protestants and catholics, because he had need of Rome in Italy to recover his preponderance there, and of the protestants in Germany to humble Charles V. To this class also belonged, to a greater or less extent, William du Bellay, the king’s councillor and right hand in diplomacy. So far as concerns doctrine, both were on the side of Erasmus; but, in an ecclesiastical point of view, while the prince inclined to a moderate papal dominion, the minister would have preferred a still more liberal system. [Sidenote: The Moderate Evangelicals.]