Note 91 — Chapter XII · THE REFORMATION AND FREETHOUGHT
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On the social and political side the rule of the Protestant princes was not only as tyrannous but as indecorous as that of their Catholic days, each playing pope in his own dominions;91 and their clergy were not in a position to correct them. Menzel notes that the normal drunkenness of the Protestant aristocracy at this period made current in Europe the expression “a German swine.” And whereas Germany before the Reformation was at various points a culture force for Europe—whence the readiness in other nations at first to follow the Lutheran lead—it progressively became more and more of an object-lesson of the evils of heresy, thus fatally weakening the cause of Protestantism in France, where its fortunes hung in the balance.