But a new change then occurred: suddenly, and with greater violence than ever, new difficulties arose, which threatened to make shipwreck of the whole business. Francis I. had caused the conciliatory opinions of Melancthon, Hedio, and Bucer to be circulated in Germany.[675] Some unwise and by no means upright adherents of catholicism mutilated and abridged those opinions,[676] and then proclaimed with an air of triumph that the heretics, with Melancthon at their head, were about to return into the bosom of the Church!... Excessive was the irritation of the evangelical flocks, and loud cries arose from every quarter against the temporizers and their weakness. They called to mind that truth is not a merchandise which can be cheapened; but a chain, of which if but one link be broken, all the rest is useless. ‘Melancthon is of opinion,’ said some, ‘that a single pontiff, residing at Rome, would be very useful to maintain harmony of faith between the different nations of Christendom. Bucer adds that we must not overthrow all that exists in popery, but restore in the protestant churches many of the practices observed by the ancients. The men who speak thus are deserters and turncoats. They betray our cause, they commit a crime.’[677] If such protestants as these were heard among the Lutherans, doctors such as Farel and Calvin spoke out still more plainly against all attempts at a union with popery. ‘It is wrong,’ wrote Calvin afterwards to some English friends, ‘to preserve such paltry rubbish, the sad relics of papal superstition, every recollection of which we ought to strive to extirpate.’[678] The thought that Francis I. was at the head of these negotiations filled the Swiss theologians in particular with ineffable disgust. ‘What good can be expected of that prince,’ said Bullinger, ‘that impure, profane, ambitious man?[679] He is dissembling: Christ and truth are of no account in his projects. His only thought is how to gain possession of Naples and Milan. What does this or that matter, so that he makes himself master of Italy?’ These honest Swiss were not wanting in common sense. Alarmed at the trap that was preparing for Reform, Bullinger, Blaarer, Zwyck, and other reformed divines wrote to Bucer: ‘It is of no use your contriving a reunion with the pope; thousands of protestants would rather forfeit their lives than follow you.’ At the same time the Sorbonne and its followers raised their voices still higher against all assimilation with Lutheran doctrines. The storm swelled on both sides, and burst upon the moderate party. Poor Bucer, driven in different directions, succumbed under the weight of his sorrow. ‘Would to God,’ he exclaimed, ‘that, like the French martyrs, I were delivered from this life to stand before the face of Jesus Christ!’[680] [Sidenote: Hope Of Union Lost.]