he has been chosen, or placed there, constitutionally. Yet, for my part, I believe that a Christian should obey such a tyrant until the opportunity is offered, of which Paul speaks: 'Canst thou make thyself free? then delay not.' But this opportunity will be pointed out to him by God alone, not by man, and that not doubtfully, but as clearly and plainly, as when Saul was rejected and David chosen his successor." It is easy to see, that, amid the universal excitement then prevailing, language like this, so unusual in documents laid before the Imperial Diet, as well as him who employed it, would be styled dangerous. More than ever did Charles and his brother Ferdinand, King of Hungary, withdraw their favor from the Reformed party and incline toward the Catholics. But just in proportion as Zwingli was convinced, that the number and hatred of his enemies in the German Empire were increasing, his own earlier dislike to France and fear of an alliance with her, appear to have essentially diminished. Already, in the secret political conferences held at Marburg, he directed his attention to that country, and it may indeed have been through a French channel, that a portion of the news concerning the transactions of the Emperor in Spain and Italy, especially with the Roman See, reached there. Still the French monarch, Francis I., was not at all friendly to the Reformation. In his own kingdom he tried to keep it down by force. His queen, a sister of Charles V., did much to strengthen this feeling. Just at that time letters from her brother at Augsburg, full of bitter complaints against the spirit of the Protestants, so hostile to all civil and ecclesiastical rule, were received in France. But what the King was not willing to suffer in his own dominions, he beheld not without secret pleasure in those of his envied and hated rival, for so he always considered the Emperor, in spite of all ties of relationship. Out of policy, therefore, in order to weaken the power of Austria, he supported the German Protestants; and out of policy his envoys in Switzerland, Dangerant, _seigneur de Boisrigault_ and Maigret, _seigneur de Villequoy_, sought access even to Zwingli. With Maigret it appears to have been equally a matter of spiritual interest; for he was inclined to the Gospel and in after life became a decided Huguenot.