During the war the Spanish Jesuits had gone from Paris to Louvain and began to teach there. Here again the university scorned and opposed them, and for many years (until they secured the interest of the Archduchess) they made no progress. Ribadeneira, who was in charge, used to break down and retire from the room to weep. In Germany they had a different and more spirited struggle, but they seem to have had little influence in the various conferences and diets at which attempts were still made to reconcile the parties. Favre was at the Diet of Worms in 1540, then at the Ratisbon Conference, where Bobadilla and Le Jay succeeded him. They were restricted to an effort to reform the Catholics themselves, and found it difficult. The letters of these early Jesuits make it quite impossible for any historian to question the appalling corruption of priests, monks, and people in every part of Europe at the time of the Reformation. From Worms Favre wrote to Ignatius that there were not three priests in the city who were not stained by concubinage or crime. At Ratisbon the Catholics threatened to throw Le Jay into the river. "What does it matter to me whether I enter heaven by water or land?" he said. They knew very little German, generally preaching in Latin, and had slight influence for some years.
In time, as they learned German, and confined themselves to the Catholic provinces, their work was more successful. They fastened especially on Cologne, and assailed the Archbishop, a very worldly prelate of the old type, who was annoyed to find these Jesuit wasps buzzing about him, and their house was closed for a time by the authorities. But they had the favour of the Emperor, and the Archbishop was deposed. In 1545 the Council of Trent opened, and Lainez and Salmeron appeared there as the Pope's theologians, together with Peter Canisius (an able German student whom Favre had attracted to the Society) as theologian of the new Archbishop of Cologne. It need only be said of the earlier sittings of the famous Council (in 1545 and 1551) that the Jesuits had little influence, and this they used to oppose any concession to the Protestants and magnify the authority of the Pope. This will be plainer in connection with the later sittings.