Other perils of an incalculable kind threatened him in the announced approach of the mighty Cardinal of Lorraine, brother to the Duke of Guise, with a retinue of French bishops released from the Conference at Poissy.

Though he kept on packing the Council with fresh relays of Italians, it was much to be apprehended that they might be unable to oppose a coalition between French and Spanish prelates, should that be now effected.
Pius, at this crisis, resolved on two important lines of policy, the energetic pursuit of which speedily brought the Council of Trent to a peaceful termination.

The first was to meet the demand for a searching reformation of the Church with cheerful acquiescence; but to oppose a counter-demand that the secular States in all their ecclesiastical relations should at the same time be reformed.

This implied a threat of alienating patronage and revenue from the princes; it also indicated plainly that the tiara and the crowns had interests in common.

The second was to develop the diplomatic system upon which he had already tentatively entered.
The events of the spring, 1563, hastened the adoption of these measures by the Pope.