Henry M. Baird · 54 of 379

CHAPTER I · Foundation of the Collége Royal.

Among the most notable achievements of this prince was the foundation of a school of learning intended to supply the deficiencies of the instruction given by the university. In the "Collége Royal" Francis desired to leave a lasting token of his devotion to letters. Here he founded chairs of three languages—of Greek and Hebrew at first, and afterward of Latin—whence was derived the name of Trilingue, under which the college was celebrated in the writings of the day. The monarch's plan encountered the obstacles which prejudice always knows how to set in the way of improvement. The university doctors, fearing that their own prelections would be forsaken for the more brilliant lectures of the salaried professors of the royal school, demanded that the latter should submit to an examination before the more ancient body of instructors; but parliament wisely rejected their pretensions. Liberal men throughout the world rejoiced at the defeat of the Sorbonne and its representative, Beda, while Marot, alluding to the quarrel in a poetical epistle to the king, poured out in verse his contempt for the "Theologasters" of Paris:

It would be unfair to French scholarship to omit all notice of the fact that there were not wanting natives of France itself whose sound learning entitled them to rank with the most conscientious of German humanists; such men as Lefèvre d'Étaples, a prodigy of almost universal acquirements; or Louis de Berquin, who furnishes a signal instance of a nobleman of high position that did not shun the toil and danger of a more than ordinarily profound investigation of theological truth. Both will claim our attention again.