But in the midst of these intrigues the moderate party held firm. The Du Bellays belonged to one of the oldest families in France; their nobility could be traced back to the reign of Lothaire,[683] and their mother, Margaret de la Tour-Landry, reckoned among her ancestors a man who had occupied himself with laying down the rules of a good education. After a life of busy warfare, the Chevalier de la Tour-Landry, seignior of Bourmont and Claremont, who lived in the fourteenth century, wrote two works on education: one for his sons, the other for his daughters, copies of which became numerous. The treatise intended for the girls was printed in 1514, perhaps by the direction of the parents of the Du Bellays. ‘Out of the great affection I bear to my children,’ wrote the old cavalier, ‘whom I love as a father ought to love them, my heart will be filled with perfect joy if they grow up good and honorable, loving and serving God.’[684] William and John particularly seemed to have responded to this prayer. William, the elder, was not void of Christian sentiments. ‘I desire,’ he said, ‘that nothing may happen injurious to the cause of the Gospel and the glory of Christ;’[685] but he was specially one of the most distinguished generals and diplomatists of his epoch. He knew, says Brantome, the most private secrets of the emperor and of all the princes of Europe, so that people supposed him to have a familiar spirit. Although maimed in his limbs—the consequence of his campaigns—he was a man of indefatigable activity. His brother John, Bishop of Paris, who was also ‘another master-mind,’ professed like him an enlightened catholicism; and hence it happened that on the accession of Henry II. he was deprived of his rank by the intrigues of the papist party, and driven from France. Still, to show that he remained a catholic, he took up his residence in Rome. [Sidenote: Melancthon’s Position.] In 1535 the moderate catholic party, at the head of which were these two brothers, seeing the chances of success at Rome as well as at Paris, resolved to take a more decided step, and to invite Melancthon to France. The proposal was made to Francis I., and supported by all the members of the party. They knew that Melancthon was called ‘the master of Germany,’ and thought that if he came to France he would conciliate all parties by the culture of his mind, by his learning, wisdom, piety, and gentleness. One man, if he appears at the right moment, is sometimes sufficient to give a new direction to an entire epoch, to a whole nation. ‘Ah, sire,’ said Barnabas Voré de la Fosse, a learned and zealous French nobleman, who knew Germany well, and had tasted of the Gospel, ‘if you knew Melancthon, his uprightness, learning, and modesty! I am his disciple, and fear not to tell it you. Of all those who in our days have the reputation of learning, and who deserve it, he is the foremost.’[686]