Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland were alienated, ripe for open schism.

The tenets of Zwingli had taken root in German Switzerland.

Calvin was gaining ground in the French cantons.

Geneva had become a stationary fortress, the stronghold of belligerent reformers, whence heresy sent forth its missionaries and promulgated subversive doctrines through the medium of an ever-active press.

Transformed by Calvin from its earlier condition of a pleasure-loving and commercial city, it was now what Deceleia under Spartan discipline had been to Athens in the Peloponnesian war--a permanent _epiteichismos_, perpetually garrisoned and on guard to harry the flanks of Catholics.