to the single object of preventing the freedom of religious belief. His first step to this end was to require that the Profession of Faith prescribed by the Council of Trent should be subscribed and adhered to; that is, that Protestants should renounce the religion which their consciences approved, and accept that which their consciences did not approve. That the people might be brought into obedience and forced to this, "he sent through all the provinces swarms of Jesuits, accompanied by bands of troopers, whose bayonets came to the aid of the preachers when their eloquence was unsuccessful in converting the heretics"--that is, the Protestants. Those who remained unsubdued were expelled from their estates. Prohibited books were seized and burned. All the ancient practices were revived. And, "above all," says Ranke, "the Jesuit institutions were promoted; for by their agency it was, that the youth of Bavaria were to be educated in a spirit of strict orthodoxy"--which meant then, what with the Jesuits it still means, opposition to religious freedom. For a time the Jesuits were restrained in Austria by Ferdinand I and Maximilian; but during the reign of Rudolph II they became bolder and more exacting. The provincial of the society obtained great influence over Rudolph, and was urgent in his demands that he should extirpate heresy from his dominions. At last he succeeded in inducing Rudolph to inaugurate a general persecution of the Lutherans, and "the greatest atrocity and the utmost rigor were displayed in destroying every trace of Protestantism." The work of extirpation began in the cities. "The Reformed clergy were removed, and their places filled by Catholic priests." A religious formula was prescribed, which required universal assent to the doctrine "that everything is true which the Church of Rome has laid down as the rule of life and doctrine," and that "the pope is the head of one Apostolic Church." The Protestants were expelled from all offices of State. Papists alone could become burghers. Doctors' degrees in the universities were conferred only upon those who subscribed to the Roman Confession of Faith. The Jesuit schools were governed by regulations "which prescribed Catholic formularies, fasts, worship, according to the Catholic Ritual," and all the pupils were taught the Jesuit Catechism. All Protestant books were seized and taken away from booksellers' shops, and all that were found in the custom-houses were confiscated. And the historian, summing it all up, says: "All through Germany the same proceedings were resorted to, and everywhere we find the Jesuits foremost in the reaction. There was no bishop, no prince, who went to visit a province upon religious concerns, who did not bring with him a troop of Jesuits, who, on his departure, were often left there with almost unlimited powers."[72]