DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0073
THE SCHOLARS OF THE RENAISSANCE 47
chands,” the friend of Margaret: her friend and her colleague
in their great educational scheme, the College de France,
from which their two names are inseparable.
II
“It is Philology,” once wrote Bude, “that has so long
been my companion, my associate, my mistress, bound to
me by every tie of close affection.... But I have been
forced to loosen the bonds of a love so devouring....
that I found it destructive to my health.” This passage
might stand for his motto. Impassioned intellect, absorbing
heart and soul, made the sura of the man. It kept him
alive, it consumed him. He sacrificed all he had to it.
But he showed no signs of it in boyhood; his force was
reserved for maturity. Bude was born at Paris in 1467.
His family was good and he had the education of a gentle-
man. He was sent to study Jurisprudence at the University
of Orleans, but he was insufficiently prepared for his train-
ing there and, after three years, he returned—knowing
nothing. He went home to his father’s Chateau and devoted
himself to sport and the distractions of a country-life. He
was in no wise remarkable, unless it were for his keenness.
A few years passed in this way. Then—with no ostensible
cause for it—he underwent a conversion: an intellectual
conversion, no less enduring than it was sudden. He hunted
no more, gave up all pleasure, and shut himself up to study
with an almost violent concentration. His only regret was
the need for eating and sleeping which robbed him of so
much time. He found leisure to marry, however, with his
chands,” the friend of Margaret: her friend and her colleague
in their great educational scheme, the College de France,
from which their two names are inseparable.
II
“It is Philology,” once wrote Bude, “that has so long
been my companion, my associate, my mistress, bound to
me by every tie of close affection.... But I have been
forced to loosen the bonds of a love so devouring....
that I found it destructive to my health.” This passage
might stand for his motto. Impassioned intellect, absorbing
heart and soul, made the sura of the man. It kept him
alive, it consumed him. He sacrificed all he had to it.
But he showed no signs of it in boyhood; his force was
reserved for maturity. Bude was born at Paris in 1467.
His family was good and he had the education of a gentle-
man. He was sent to study Jurisprudence at the University
of Orleans, but he was insufficiently prepared for his train-
ing there and, after three years, he returned—knowing
nothing. He went home to his father’s Chateau and devoted
himself to sport and the distractions of a country-life. He
was in no wise remarkable, unless it were for his keenness.
A few years passed in this way. Then—with no ostensible
cause for it—he underwent a conversion: an intellectual
conversion, no less enduring than it was sudden. He hunted
no more, gave up all pleasure, and shut himself up to study
with an almost violent concentration. His only regret was
the need for eating and sleeping which robbed him of so
much time. He found leisure to marry, however, with his