impression on men's minds.
The nations had been struck with dismay. The masses, who had sought in
the Reformation nothing but political reform, withdrew from it of their
own accord, when they saw it offered them spiritual liberty only.
Luther's opposition to the peasants was his renunciation of the
ephemeral favor of the people. A seeming tranquillity was soon
established, and the noise of enthusiasm and sedition was followed in
all Germany by a silence inspired by terror.

Thus the popular passions, the cause of revolution, the interests of a
radical equality, were quelled in the empire; but the Reformation did
not yield. These two movements, which many have confounded with each
other, were clearly marked out by the difference of their results. The
insurrection was from below; the Reformation, from above. A few horsemen
and cannon were sufficient to put down the one; but the other never
ceased to rise in strength and vigor, in despite of the reiterated
assaults of the empire and the Church.

FRANCE LOSES ITALY

BATTLE OF PAVIA

A.D. 1525

WILLIAM ROBERTSON

Close upon the election of Charles V as emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire came the first of a series of wars between that
sovereign and Francis I, King of France, who had been
Charles's rival for the imperial crown. The Emperor was at
this time, 1521, favored by Henry VIII of England, and a
secret treaty with Charles was finally concluded by Pope Leo
X, who from the first had hesitated between the two young
rivals, and who had already treated with Francis. The papal
support proved the foundation of future power for Charles in
Italy. The Pope and the Emperor agreed to unite their forces
for expulsion of the French from their seat in the duchy of
Milan.

In 1521 hostilities broke out in Navarre and in the
Netherlands, and finally in the Milanese, where the people
were tired of French government. The various allies drove
the French completely out of Italy, and Charles invaded
France, but was there repulsed. King Francis, elated by this
last success, determined upon another invasion of the
Milanese. He went in person to Italy, leaving his mother as
regent in France. With largely superior forces, he drove the
imperialists before him.

Instead, however, of pursuing the enemy, whom he might have
overtaken at an untenable position, Francis, a