With the English minister Cromwell he came to an agreement, notwithstanding the Protestant tendencies of his policy.

An alliance was also made with the Sultan Suleiman, secretly in 1534, and openly proclaimed in 1536.
In order to prepare for the military strife destined to be renewed at the earliest practical moment, an ordinance of 1534 reorganized and strengthened the army.
Far more important for the life of France than her incessant and inconclusive squabbling with Spain was the transformation passing over her spirit.

It is sometimes said that if the French kings brought nothing else back from their campaigns in Italy they brought back the Renaissance.

[Sidenote: Reformation] There is a modicum of truth in this, for there are some traces of Italian influence before the reign of Francis I.

But the French spirit hardly needed this outside stimulus.