[Footnote 377: "Qui est, Sire," they observe with evident amazement at the bare suggestion, "demander de nous retirer à eux, plus qu'eux se convertir à l'Église." The _articles_ having been submitted through Du Bellay, August 7, 1535, the Faculty's answer was returned on the 30th of the same month, accompanied by a more elaborate _Instructio_, the former in French, the latter in Latin. Both are printed among the _Monumenta_ of Gerdes, 75-78, and 78-86.] [Footnote 378: Florimond de Ræmond (l. vii. c. 4), and others writers copying from him, represent Tournon as purposely putting himself in the king's way with an open volume of St. Irenæus in his hands. Obtaining in this way his coveted opportunity of portraying the perils arising from intercourse with heretics, the prelate enforced his precepts by reading a pretended story related by St. Polycarp, that the Apostle John had on one occasion hastily left the public bath on perceiving the heretic Cerinthus within. Soldan (Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 163) sensibly remarks that little account ought to be made of the statements of a writer who associates Louise de Savoie--in her later days a notorious enemy of the Reformation, _who had at this time been four years dead_--- with her daughter Margaret, in "importuning" the king to invite Melanchthon.] [Footnote 379: Some years earlier, Du Bellay had, while on an embassy, set forth his royal master's pretended convictions in favor of the Reformation with so much verisimilitude as to alarm the papal nuncio, who dreaded the effect of his speeches upon the Protestants. "Non è piccola murmoration quì en Corte, ch'l Orator Francese _facea più che l'officio suo richiede in animar Lutherani_." Aleander to Sanga, Ratisbon, July 2, 1532, Vatican MSS., Laemmer, 141.] [Footnote 380: Sleidan, De statu rel. et reipubl., lib. ix., ad annum 1535. The Jesuit Maimbourg rejects the secret conference of Du Bellay as apocryphal, in view of Francis's persecution of the Protestants at Paris, and his declaration of January 21st. But Sleidan's statement is fully substantiated by an extant memorandum by Spalatin, who was present on the occasion (printed in Seckendorff, Gerdes, iv. 68-73 Doc., and Bretschneider, ii. 1014). It receives additional confirmation from a letter of the Nuncio Morone to Pope Paul III., Vienna, Dec. 26, 1536 (Vatican MSS., Laemmer, 178). Morone received from Doctor Matthias, Vice-Chancellor of the Empire, an account of Francis's recent offer to the German Protestants "_di condescendere nelle loro opinioni,_" on condition of their renouncing obedience to the emperor. He reserved only two points of doctrine as requiring discussion: the sacrifice of the mass, and the authority and primacy of the Pope. The Protestants rejected the interested proposal of the royal convert.]