Francis was reaping the natural rewards of a crooked policy, dictated by no strong convictions of truth or duty, but shaped according to the narrow suggestions of an unworthy ambition. If he punished heretics at home, it was partly to secure on his side the common sentiment of the Roman Catholic world, partly because the enemies of the Reformation had persuaded him that the change of religion necessarily involved the subversion of established order and of royal authority. If he made overtures to the Protestant princes of Germany, the flimsy veil of devotion to their interests was too transparent to conceal the total want of concern for anything beyond his own personal aggrandizement. Two mournful exemplifications of the fruits of his persecuting measures must, however, be presented to the reader's notice, before the curtain can be permitted to fall over the scene on which this monarch played his part. The massacre of Mérindol and Cabrières and the execution of the "Fourteen of Meaux" are the melancholy events that mark the close of a reign opening, a generation earlier, so auspiciously. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 387: The Protestants might be pardoned, under the circumstances, if their language was somewhat bitter respecting both emperor and king. "Combien que j'espère que nostre _Antioche_ (Charles V.), qui nous presse maintenant, sera serré de si près, _qu'il ne luy souviendra des gouttes_ de ses mains, ne de ses pieds; _car il en aura par tout le corps_. De son compagnon _Sardanapalus_ (Francis I.), _Dieu luy garde la pareille_. Car ils sont bien dignes de passer tous deux par une mesme mesure." Calvin to M. de Falaise, Feb. 25, 1547, Lettres françaises, i. 191.--The expression "Sardanapalus inter scorta" occurs in a letter of Calvin to Farel, Feb. 20, 1546 (Bonnet, Letters of John Calvin, ii., 35, 36). It will, therefore, be seen from the date that Merle d'Aubignê is mistaken in referring the description to Henry II. Hist. de la Réf., liv. xii. c. 1.] [Footnote 388: Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 14.] [Footnote 389: Mémoires de Martin du Bellay (Edition Petitot), xviii. 271-273. See also Mignet, Établissement de la réforme religieuse à Genève, Mém. historiques, ii. 308, etc. Also, Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, v. 395, etc.]