DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0080
54
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
is difficult to understand; but his victims believed in this
solemn toy quite as earnestly as he did. The King listened
and approved: indeed his acceptance of the scheme seems
sufficient proof of his simplicity.
Fortunately, he indulged in graver and more practical
plans and, spurred on by his youth and his love of chivalry,
he made himself the Crusader of the Renaissance. As early
as 1517, or T8, he had begun to dream of a new College,
and when he was wounded in the wars of 1521, he vowed
on his sick-bed to build one. It was to hold six thousand
scholars and to stand in the place now occupied by the
Institut. Bude resolved that this first idea should be the
germ, not of a mere College, but of another and a real
University : no stronghold of dogma, no servile shadow of
the Sorbonne, but the beating heart of intellectual life
from which knowledge should circulate throughout the King-
dom of France. This was not an easy undertaking. It
was not that enlightenment had as yet become synonymous
with heresy, political or religious; but to raise such an
institution meant the opposition of the Sorbonne and the
Parlement—of all the Conservative powers which hedged in
royal authority : to make, as it were, a family quarrel, with
disagreeable results. Bude, however, had a strong ally in the
fascinating man of letters, the Cardinal Jean du Bellay, and
both found a willing instrument in the King’s sister, Mar-
garet. This was work to the liking of a princess who spent
a large proportion of her income in endowing poor students
and keeping them at College. She waited for eight years
before her hopes were fulfilled, but she never relaxed her
efforts. At last the moment seemed ripe.
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
is difficult to understand; but his victims believed in this
solemn toy quite as earnestly as he did. The King listened
and approved: indeed his acceptance of the scheme seems
sufficient proof of his simplicity.
Fortunately, he indulged in graver and more practical
plans and, spurred on by his youth and his love of chivalry,
he made himself the Crusader of the Renaissance. As early
as 1517, or T8, he had begun to dream of a new College,
and when he was wounded in the wars of 1521, he vowed
on his sick-bed to build one. It was to hold six thousand
scholars and to stand in the place now occupied by the
Institut. Bude resolved that this first idea should be the
germ, not of a mere College, but of another and a real
University : no stronghold of dogma, no servile shadow of
the Sorbonne, but the beating heart of intellectual life
from which knowledge should circulate throughout the King-
dom of France. This was not an easy undertaking. It
was not that enlightenment had as yet become synonymous
with heresy, political or religious; but to raise such an
institution meant the opposition of the Sorbonne and the
Parlement—of all the Conservative powers which hedged in
royal authority : to make, as it were, a family quarrel, with
disagreeable results. Bude, however, had a strong ally in the
fascinating man of letters, the Cardinal Jean du Bellay, and
both found a willing instrument in the King’s sister, Mar-
garet. This was work to the liking of a princess who spent
a large proportion of her income in endowing poor students
and keeping them at College. She waited for eight years
before her hopes were fulfilled, but she never relaxed her
efforts. At last the moment seemed ripe.