The Council of Trent, the Jesuits, the other new orders, were only symptoms of a still more widely prevalent Catholic revival that came, in France, just in the nick of time to deprive the Protestants of many of their claims to popular favor.
[Sidenote: Beaten by the Renaissance] But probably the heaviest weight in the scale against the Reformation was the Renaissance--far stronger in France than in Germany.

The one marched from the north, while the other was wafted up from Italy.

They met, not as hostile armies but rather--to use a humble, commercial illustration--as two competing merchants.

The goods they offered were not the same, not even similar, but the appeal of each was of such a nature that few minds could be the whole-hearted devotees of both.

The new learning and the beauties of Italian art and literature sapped away the interest of just those intelligent classes whose support was needed to make the triumph of the Reformation complete.