Terrible as were the losses of the Huguenots by fire and sword, considerable as were the defections from their ranks of those who found in the reformed Catholic church a spiritual refuge, still greater was the loss of the Protestant cause in failing to secure the adherence of such minds as Dolet and Rabelais, Ronsard and Montaigne, and of the thousands influenced by them.

And a study of just these men will show how the Italian influence worked and how it grew stronger in its rivalry with the religious interest.

{232} Whereas Marot had found something to interest him in the new doctrines, Ronsard bitterly hated them.
Passionately devoted, as he and the rest of the Pleiade were, to the sensuous beauties of Italian poetry, he had neither understanding of nor patience with dogmatic subtleties.

In the Huguenots he saw nothing but mad fanatics and dangerous fomentors of rebellion.

In his _Discourses on the Evils of the Times_, he laid all the woes of France at the door of the innovators.