The monarch, greedy of glory, ambitious of association with cultivated minds, and aspiring to the honor of ushering in the new Augustan age, more than once seemed half-inclined to embrace those religious views which commended themselves to his taste by association with the fresh and glowing ideas of the great masters in science and art. More than once had the champions of the Church trembled for their hold upon the sceptre-bearing arm; while as often their opponents, with Francis's own sister, had cherished illusory hopes that the eloquent addresses of Roussel and other court-preachers had left a deep impress on the king's heart. [Sidenote: The orthodoxy of Francis no longer questioned.] But the "Placards" effectually dissipated alike these hopes and these fears. There was no longer any question as to the orthodoxy of Francis. Apologists for the Reformation might seek to undeceive his mind and remove his prejudices. His own emissaries might endeavor to persuade the Germans, of whose alliance he stood in need, that his views differed little from theirs. But there can be no doubt that, whatever his previous intentions had been, from this time forth his resolution was taken, to use his own expression already brought to the reader's notice, to live and die in Mother Holy Church, and demonstrate the justice of his claim to the title of "very Christian." The audacity of the Protestant enthusiast who penetrated even into the innermost recesses of the royal castle, and affixed the placards to the very chamber door of the king, was turned to good account by Cardinal Tournon and other courtiers of like sentiments, and was adduced as a proof of the assertion so often reiterated, that a change of religion necessarily involved also a revolution in the State. The free tone of the placards seemed to reveal a contemptuous disregard of dignities. The ridicule cast upon the doctrine of transubstantiation was an assault on one of the few dogmas respecting which Francis had implicit confidence in the teachings of the Church. Henceforth the king figures on the page of history as a determined opponent and persecutor of the Reformation, less hostile, indeed, to the "Lutherans," than to the "Sacramentarians," or "Zwinglians," but nevertheless an avowed enemy of innovation. The change was recognized and deplored by the Reformers themselves; who, seeing Francis in the last years of his reign give the rein to shameful debauchery, and meantime suffer the public prisons to overflow with hundreds of innocent men and women, awaiting punishment for no other offence than their religious faith, pointedly compared him to the effeminate Sardanapalus surrounded by his courtezans.[387] [Sidenote: Change in the courtiers.]