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 Etienne Dolet : the Martyr of the Renai 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 503 582 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029503582 
 
£tienne dolet 
 
ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 The Martyr of the Renaissance 
 
 1508-1546 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD COPLEY CHRISTIE 
 
 M.A., OXON. ; HON. LL.D., VICT. 
 
 NEW EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED 
 
 EottDon 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1899 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
A -zns^h 
 
 First Edition 1880 
 Second Edition 1899 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Nineteen years have elapsed since the publication of the 
 first edition of this book, which aroused considerable interest 
 in Dolet, and met with a very favourable reception from the 
 leading organs of the Press, not English only, but also 
 American, French, and German. Having profited — I hope 
 — by the friendly criticisms which the book then received, 
 and having in the past nineteen years gathered a certain 
 amount of new matter, I now issue this second edition 
 thoroughly revised and corrected, and embodying such 
 fresh materials as have come to my knowledge. But 
 although I have found in the original edition a considerable 
 number of trifling and verbal errors, some of the press, 
 others of the author, all of which are, I hope, corrected in 
 this new edition, and though I have been able to add 
 important and interesting additional matter, I have not 
 discovered any material error of fact, nor any reason for 
 altering any of the views I expressed in the original volume, 
 as to Dolet, his opinions, writings, or the causes of his 
 misfortunes. 
 
VI 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 The most important of the additions to this volume 
 are, first, the Act of Association, or Partnership between 
 Dolet and Helayn Dulin, as printers, which, besides giving 
 us other information, lets us know how Dolet obtained 
 the capital with which to commence business ; and secondly, 
 the Documents relating to the arrest of Dolet at Troyes 
 in 1543, and his subsequent removal to Paris, which clear 
 up several hitherto obscure points in this period of his 
 life. The Act of Association and these Documents are 
 curious and interesting, and I have accordingly printed 
 them in full, as far as they can be deciphered, in the 
 Appendices to this volume. In 1881, M. O. Douen wrote 
 two articles in the Bulletin de la Societe d'Histoire du 
 Protestantisme, in which he controverted my view of the 
 religious opinions of Dolet, and I have given at some length 
 (pp. 493-95) my reasons for adhering to the view I origin- 
 ally held and expressed on this point. 
 
 The Bibliographical Appendix has been partly re-written, 
 and, I think, considerably improved, although somewhat 
 condensed. I am now able to enumerate eighty-four books 
 as printed by Dolet, having discovered the existence of three 
 since 1880, while on the other hand two volumes which I 
 then attributed to his press I have ascertained were not 
 printed by him. Copies of forty-five of the books are in 
 my own possession, while there are only nine out of the 
 eighty-four of which I am unable to refer to a copy as now 
 or lately existing. I have also discovered several additional 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 reprints of his more popular books, and also one book 
 edited by him for Sebastian Gryphius. Much of the biblio- 
 graphical and descriptive matter which was in the edition of 
 1880 is omitted, but all this, together with considerable 
 corrections and many additions, will be found in the Biblio- 
 graphy prefixed to the French translation of the work by 
 M. Casimir Stryienski, Professor of the University of 
 France, published at Paris by the Librairie Fischbacher in 
 the year 1886. The book in its French dress met with a 
 very cordial reception, and. one result of the attention thus 
 called to Dolet was, that in 1889, a statue of him was 
 erected at the cost of the Municipality of Paris, in the Place 
 Maubert, where he met with his death. 
 
 My thanks are due to M. Stryienski for undertaking 
 the search in the National Archives at Paris, resulting in 
 the discovery of the documents relating to Dolet's arrest 
 at Troyes in 1543, and for obtaining a transcript of them, 
 and revising the proofs of these documents. 1 I have to 
 thank Mr. W. Stebbing for the assistance he has rendered 
 me in reference to some passages of Dolet's Latin com- 
 positions ; but my thanks are especially due to Mr. John 
 Cree, without whose aid it would have been impossible — 
 
 1 M. Stryienski was also so good as to cause the documents comprised 
 in the Proces d' Estienne Dolet, published by M. Taillandier in 1836, 
 to be compared and collated with the originals, with the satisfactory 
 result that the omissions and errors, although fairly numerous, are so 
 unimportant, being almost entirely confined to errors of spelling, that I 
 have made very little use of them. 
 
viii ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 owing to my long and still continuing illness — for the book 
 to have appeared in anything like a correct and satisfactory 
 form. I am indebted to him for many corrections of clerical 
 and printer's errors in the first edition, for the correcting 
 of the proofs of the present edition, for suggestions as to 
 many notes, and for the compilation of the present Index. 
 
 RlBSDEN, WlNDLESHAM, 
 
 August 1899. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION 
 
 In offering to the public the result of the scanty leisure of 
 the past eight years, I am fully sensible of its deficiencies, 
 but the difficulty of the task which I have undertaken may 
 perhaps be admitted as an extenuating circumstance, if it 
 does not altogether relieve me from censure. 
 
 England possesses hardly any materials for writing the 
 life of a French scholar of the first half of the sixteenth 
 century. Rich as the British Museum is in many depart- 
 ments, it is singularly deficient in the French and Franco- 
 Latin books of this period. But if this is generally the 
 case, it is especially so in reference to Etienne Dolet, whose 
 own works are among the rarest writings of the time, and 
 the other contemporary authorities for his life are only one 
 degree less so. 1 Of many of the books cited in this volume, 
 which I have had to refer to, and in some cases to read 
 through, more than once, no copies are to be found in 
 England. Of some, a copy does not even exist in the 
 
 f 1 Since this sentence was written, the British Museum has added 
 largely to its collection of books printed by Dolet. 1 899.] 
 
 b 
 
x ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, and the obstacles in my 
 way have therefore been great, when for the purpose of 
 solving a difficulty, of verifying a reference, or of acquiring 
 a new fact, a journey to Paris, Lyons, or Toulouse has 
 been needful. But I can at least say, without fear of 
 contradiction, that this book adds much to what has been 
 hitherto known about the life and works of Etienne Dolet, 
 that it supplements in many important particulars the lives 
 which have already appeared of him, that it contains a 
 much more nearly complete list than has before been given 
 of the books printed by him, and that it presents for the 
 first time to the English reader any account whatever of 
 the man. 
 
 The name of Etienne Dolet is all but unknown in this 
 country. A meagre and always inaccurate account of him 
 in our general biographical dictionaries, a few notices by 
 Jortin in his Life of Erasmus and in his Tracts, and by 
 Greswell in his View of the Early Parisian Greek Press, two 
 or three references, appreciative though (almost inevitably) 
 not quite correct in the writings of Mr. [Sir] Walter Besant, 
 a page full of inaccuracies in a recent history of French 
 literature, form, with the articles in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine (which I proceed to notice) almost the whole 
 of the references to Dolet in English books. In the 
 Gentleman's Magazine for 179 1, 1792, 1793, and 1794 
 will be found some interesting letters on his life, his 
 writings, and his opinions, arising out of the notice of him 
 in Jortin's tracts, and though they contain no new informa- 
 tion, yet being written with fairness and good feeling, they 
 will be read with interest, an interest which will be extended 
 
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION xi 
 
 to translations, though of no great literary merit, of two 
 odes of Dolet, 1 which will be found in vols. lxii. and lxiv. 
 But I do not know of any reference to Dolet or any account 
 of him in an English book which has not many inaccuracies. 
 
 It cannot be expected that this biography will attract 
 many readers. Its only interest is in its subject-matter, 
 and there are few who will care to wade through a some- 
 what long record of the life of a scholar and printer of the 
 sixteenth century, who was not directly connected with 
 and did not play any important part in the political or 
 religious movements of the time ; but there are probably 
 some whose interest in the history of literature, or whose 
 sympathy with the unhappy fate of a man of learning and 
 talent, will induce to turn, over the pages of this narrative. 
 
 In his native country the name of Dolet is better known. 
 It has been the special subject of two books, of many 
 articles and essays, and of innumerable references, yet all 
 of them wanting in accuracy and leaving much to be desired. 
 The only really original biography which has as yet appeared 
 is that of Maittaire, who has devoted to Dolet more than 
 a hundred pages of the third volume of his Annales 
 Typographici. He has there collected every passage which 
 he could find in the writings of Dolet where the latter 
 speaks of himself, and every other reference known to him 
 in any contemporary author, and his pages have always 
 been and must continue to be the basis of all subsequent 
 biographies of Dolet. But the work of Maittaire is only 
 a collection of extracts and remarks heaped together 
 
 1 One of these odes is on the death of Erasmus (see post, p. 250), the 
 other is addressed to Vida. 
 
xii ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 without any order or arrangement, and being written 
 in Latin has attracted few readers other than professed 
 scholars. In 1779, Nee de la Rochelle printed his Vie 
 de Dolet, a work of merit and interest. It is, how- 
 ever, a very brief and dry narrative, being little more 
 than Maittaire's materials arranged and translated into 
 French, together with an enumeration of a few books 
 printed by Dolet which were before unknown. Nee de 
 la Rochelle admits that he has made great use of the 
 researches of Maittaire ; indeed he says that he has only 
 endeavoured to advance further a labour which the latter 
 had commenced. 
 
 To Maittaire and Nee de la Rochelle I must acknowledge 
 the greatest obligations. Much as I hope to have added 
 to what is contained in their books, I should probably have 
 found it hopeless to attempt a biography of Dolet without 
 the assistance of the great number of facts collected by the 
 one and arranged by the other. But neither of them was 
 able to offer any sufficient explanation, or even to give any 
 accurate information respecting the trials, the sentences, 
 or the death of Dolet ; and it was reserved for M. Tail- 
 landier to discover in the criminal registers of the Parliament 
 of Paris the letters of remission and pardon granted to 
 Dolet by Francis I. in 1543, which throw a flood of light 
 upon these matters, and which with some other pieces were 
 printed by Techener in 1836 under the title of Traces 
 d'Estienne Dolet, with an Avant Propos of much interest by 
 M. Taillandier. 
 
 In 1857, M. Joseph Boulmier (who in 1855 had written 
 an article on the same subject in the Revue de Paris) 
 
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION xiii 
 
 published his Estienne Dolet, sa Vie, ses CEuvres, son Martyre 
 (Paris, Aubry) ; and perhaps some apology is needed for 
 a new biography of Dolet, when one has so recently been 
 written by a Frenchman. Of M. Boulmier and his book 
 I wish to speak with all respect ; I have read and re-read 
 it with much interest, and with much sympathy for the 
 enthusiasm of the writer, who sees in his hero Le Christ de 
 la pensee libre . . . Promethee contre Jupiter ! His book 
 is (as he himself calls it) a dithyramb, displaying on every 
 page an exaggerated admiration for his hero, which renders 
 him entirely blind to his faults. He sees in Dolet a man 
 of the noblest character and the loftiest genius, and avows 
 that he writes as an advocate and that Dolet is his client, 
 and he warns his readers at the outset that they are not to 
 look for an impartial history from him. But M. Boulmier 
 does not seem to me to admit as fully as might have been 
 expected his indebtedness to Nee de la Rochelle, from whose 
 pages much of his work is transcribed. 1 He has added 
 little to the narrative of his predecessor, except what is 
 afforded by the Proces. His list of the books printed 
 by Dolet is certainly the most nearly complete that has 
 hitherto appeared. He has added five (which had, however, 
 previously appeared in Brunet) to those mentioned by Nee 
 de la Rochelle, but, except in one or two instances, he cites 
 no authorities for the existence of the books, but has 
 contented himself with copying the titles from the Vie de 
 Dolet or from Brunet's Manuel. 
 
 1 I am glad to be able to say that in his translations from the writings 
 of Dolet, M. Boulmier seems to me to have been successful. They are 
 sufficiently faithful, and are marked generally by vigour and elegance. 
 
xiv ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 In addition to these books, the account of Dolet and 
 his works contained in the Bibliotheques of Du Verdier and 
 La Croix du Maine, in Niceron, in Goujet, and in Bayle, 
 his life by Didot in the Nouvelle Biographie Generate, those 
 in La France Vrotestante of MM. Haag, and in Les Hommes 
 Illustres de FOrleanais, 1 all furnish important details. Every 
 one of these books is, however, full of inaccuracies, and in 
 no one of them is any attempt made to offer a sufficient or 
 satisfactory explanation of his misfortunes and fate. His 
 own writings must always be the foundation of every 
 narrative of his life. They are full of autobiographical 
 matter, and I believe that a lengthened and repeated study 
 of those of his writings that I have been able to meet with, 
 and of many other " contemporary or nearly contemporary 
 books which will be found cited in this book (and of several 
 of which only a single copy is known), has enabled me to add 
 much hitherto unknown, which seems to me to be of interest, 
 bearing upon Dolet's life, and to explain at least in part 
 what has hitherto appeared inexplicable. But in addition 
 to printed books, I have been fortunate enough to find 
 in the manuscript correspondence and poems of Jean de 
 Boyssone 2 preserved in the public library of Toulouse, a 
 mine of interest and information respecting Dolet and his 
 
 1 The life of Dolet in Les Hommes Illustres de I'Orleanais is based on 
 a MS. life by Dom Gerou, contained in the Orleans Library. The MS. 
 is, however, merely a compilation from printed and well-known sources. 
 
 2 For an account of these, see p. 82. The correspondence includes 
 five letters written by, and four to Dolet, in addition to those which the 
 latter printed in the Qrationes Dua. Many others of the letters either 
 refer directly to Dolet or to persons and things of interest in connection 
 with his life. 
 
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION xv 
 
 friends. Two hasty perusals of these manuscripts and the 
 extracts which I have made have certainly not exhausted 
 all matters of interest, and it has been a source of regret 
 to me that I have been unable to have constantly at hand, 
 or to consult without long journeys, these manuscripts, as 
 well as the unique copies of several books which exist at 
 Lyons, Bordeaux, Orleans, Dole, Roanne, and elsewhere. 
 
 Many books printed and edited, and some entirely 
 written by Dolet, have wholly perished, and no trace of any 
 copy can be found. Of others a single copy exists in some 
 public library in France ; of some . I myself possess the only 
 copy known, while there remain several in the possession of 
 collectors in France, which no opportunity has been afforded 
 me of seeing. In the Bibliographical Appendix to this 
 volume, perhaps the part of the most real value, there is 
 contained at least a more nearly complete and a more 
 accurate list of the books printed by Dolet than has 
 previously appeared. Nee de la Rochelle mentions forty- 
 nine, M. Boulmier fifty-three. In this book the number is 
 brought up to eighty-three, of fifty-one of which I have 
 seen and indicate the locality of copies, and of each of the 
 remaining thirty-two the authorities on which it is inserted 
 in the list are given. 
 
 On two points an explanation, and perhaps an apology, 
 is needed. Of several of the friends and contemporaries 
 of Dolet, notably Jean de Boyssone, Jean de Pins, and 
 Matthieu Gripaldi, I have given what may be thought 
 unnecessarily long accounts, while I have neglected others 
 of far more importance. It would have been easy for me 
 greatly to have increased the size of this book (already too 
 
xvi ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 large) by notices of and digressions on Marot, Rabelais, 
 and other eminent persons, whose lives were to some extent 
 connected with that of Dolet, but while I have endeavoured 
 to neglect nothing which can have any real bearing upon 
 my hero and his history, I have sought to avoid whatever 
 could easily be found elsewhere, and accordingly such notices 
 only are given of those with whom Dolet came in contact 
 as are necessary for the proper understanding of the narrative, 
 except as to persons where the common books of reference 
 supply either no information, or none that is adequate. 
 In these cases I have ventured to insert detailed notices of 
 some length. 
 
 Had I endeavoured, after the fashion of many modern 
 writers of biography, to interweave with the life of Dolet 
 the general history of literature and scholarship in France 
 during the period in question, I might have made a more 
 popular book, but it would have been one with no special 
 raison d'etre, and for writing which I had no special 
 qualifications. 
 
 The other point on which an excuse is needed is that 
 learned men are sometimes spoken of by their French, 
 sometimes by their Latinised names. This has not arisen 
 from carelessness. I should have preferred uniformly to 
 cite them by their native names, and I have generally done 
 so. There are, however, a few persons {e.g. Villanovanus, 
 Scaliger, Zazius, Nizolius) who so usually style themselves 
 by their Latinised names, that any others would seem 
 strange and affected ; and it has sometimes happened that, 
 for the sake of harmony, other writers are with them referred 
 to by their Latinised names. 
 
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION xvii 
 
 To the chronology of the life of Dolet I have given 
 great attention. Every account of him which has hitherto 
 appeared contains errors as to dates, some of which will be 
 found to be specifically noticed and corrected, but in no 
 case has a date been inserted in this book without careful 
 consideration, and wherever it is found to differ from that 
 given by any other writer cited, the change has not been 
 made until after much thought. It would have considerably 
 lengthened the book had I in every case expressed the 
 reasons which had induced me to differ from my predecessors 
 in matters of chronology. Every one acquainted with the 
 history of this period will know the great difficulty in 
 ascertaining the years of events which are dated in January, 
 February, or March. I cannot hope that I have always 
 been successful in arriving at a right conclusion, but if any 
 errors of chronology are found, at least they do not arise 
 from carelessness. The dates given in this book are always, 
 unless otherwise expressed, new style, the year being treated 
 as beginning on the first of January. 
 
 I cannot conclude this preface without acknowledging 
 the obligations I am under to M. Baudrier, President of 
 the Court of Appeal of Lyons. With a kindness and a gener- 
 osity which have made me for ever his debtor, M. Baudrier 
 placed at my disposal the interesting chapter (still unfortu- 
 nately in manuscript) on Dolet which he had written, part of 
 a contemplated work on the Lyonese printers of the sixteenth 
 century, his list of the books printed by Dolet, his copy of 
 Nee de la Rochelle's Vie de Dolet, with the author's 
 manuscript additions and corrections, and he has assisted me 
 in many other ways. I should have been entirely ignorant 
 
xviii ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 of the existence of two b®oks in my Bibliographical list, and 
 should have been unable to see copies of two more, had it 
 not been for his kindness. If M. Baudrier, having devoted 
 many years to the subject of the books printed at Lyons in 
 the sixteenth century, had felt unwilling to offer information 
 collected with much expenditure of time and labour to a 
 stranger, whose use of it would to some extent forestall the 
 President's own work, I could neither have felt surprise nor 
 had cause of complaint. I have from time to time expressed 
 in the notes to this book the specific obligations I am under 
 to M. Baudrier. 1 
 
 There are in existence two woodcuts of the sixteenth century 
 purporting to be portraits of Etienne Dolet. Of these, one is 
 exactly reproduced on the title-page of this volume. It appears in 
 the first edition of La Prosopographie of Du Verdier (Lyon, 1573 2 ) - 
 The book was printed only twenty-seven years after Dolet's death, 
 by Anthony Gryphius (the son of his old friend Sebastian), who 
 as a youth must frequently have seen Dolet ; and at the time it 
 appeared, there must have been many persons living at Lyons who 
 well remembered him. The baldness and the prematurely aged 
 appearance of the face agree with the description given by Odonus 
 hereinafter quoted, written when Dolet was only twenty-seven 
 years of age, but when he was taken by Odonus for near forty. 3 
 
 [ J M. Baudrier died on June 17, 1884. His son, M. Julien Baudrier, 
 is now engaged in giving to the public the valuable collections made 
 by his father relating to Lyonese printers. Three volumes have already 
 appeared, but I am sorry to say they do not include either Dolet or 
 Gryphius. 1899.] 
 
 2 In the edition of 1605, though much augmented in many respects, 
 the portrait and notice of Dolet are omitted. 
 
 3 No indication is given by M. Boulmier of the source of the portrait 
 
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION 
 
 xix 
 
 The other portrait is one engraved by Tobias Stimmer for Reusner's 
 lames (Basileae, 1589), and is certainly a mere fancy sketch, 
 bearing no resemblance to that of Du Verdier. 
 
 At the end of this book will be found the mark of Dolet referred 
 to as within a floriated border. The initial letters of the different 
 chapters are with one exception reproductions of the woodcut 
 initials used by Dolet. A, D, L, O are from his De Officio Legati, 
 G, N, T from his De Imit. Cic. adv. Floridum Sabinum, B and H 
 from the De Ant. Statu Burgundiee of Paradin, I is an initial letter 
 of Seb. Gryphius copied from one in his edition of the Adagia 
 Erasmi (1529, fol.). 
 
 which is prefixed to his Estienne Dolet ; but in the advertisements of the 
 book it was described as grave d'apres V original de la Bibliotheque 
 Imperiale. But no such portrait of Dolet is to be found in the 
 Bibliotheque. M. Boulmier's portrait is more or less a fancy portrait, 
 clearly based on that of Du Verdier, but much altered, especially in the 
 expression, and arranged in a fancy border. Indeed, the late M. Aubry, 
 the publisher of the book, informed me that such was the case, and 
 that he had^ adapted the border from another portrait of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 Darley Dale, 
 
 June 1880. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Orleans and Paris 
 
 II. Padua ... ... 
 
 III. Venice ..... 
 
 IV. Toulouse ..... 
 V. Jean de Caturce and Jean de Boyssone 
 
 VI. The Floral Games 
 VII. The Orator ... 
 
 VIII. GuiLLAUME BuDE AND JaCQUES BoRDING . 
 
 IX. Lyons ....... 
 
 X. The Ciceronians . ... 
 
 XI. The Commentaries 
 XII. The Charge of Plagiarism . 
 
 XIII. Work and Leisure .... 
 
 XIV. A Homicide and its Consequences 
 XV. The Printer 
 
 XVI. The Genethliacum and the Avant Naissance 
 XVII. Grammarian and Translator 
 XVIII. The Historian . ... 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 38 
 
 47 
 74 
 90 
 
 98 
 140 
 165 
 
 195 
 229 
 
 273 
 289 
 306 
 325 
 343 
 353 
 365 
 
XX11 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XIX. Marot and Rabelais 
 
 XX. FORESHADOWINGS OF THE End 
 
 XXI. Nostre Maistre Doribus 
 XXII. The First President 
 
 XXIII. The Second Enfer 
 
 XXIV. The Place Maubert 
 XXV. Opinions and Character 
 
 XXVI. Claude Dolet 
 
 PAGE 
 37° 
 387 
 401 
 
 422 
 438 
 458 
 478 
 502 
 
 APPENDIX A, Documents 
 APPENDIX B, Bibliography 
 INDEX .... 
 
 509 
 
 517 
 555 
 
£'TIENNE dolet 
 
Sit thou a patient looker on ; 
 
 Judge not the play before the play be done. 
 
 Her plot has many changes ; every day 
 
 Speaks a new scene, the last act crowns the play. 
 
 Quarles. 
 
 In a state of society so corrupted as that in which we live, the best 
 companions and instructors are ancient books. — T. L. Peacock. 
 
 So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had 
 gleaned : and it was about an ephah of barley. — Ruth ii. 17. 
 
 And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I 
 desired : but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain 
 unto. — 2 Maccabees xv. 38. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 Orleans and Paris 
 
 ' There are but two events in history : the siege of Troy and the French 
 Revolution.' — Lord Beaconsfield. 
 
 'Le monde est vide depuis les Romains.' — St. Just. 
 
 HE Renaissance was at 
 once the precursor and 
 the parent of the Revolu- 
 tion ; a voice crying in that 
 wilderness which mediaeval 
 Christianity had made of 
 the world, crying against 
 asceticism and against 
 superstition ; pleading for 
 a restoration of the true, 
 the real, the natural ; pro- 
 claiming, though some- 
 times with stammering 
 lips, the divinity of nature ; 
 preparing the way for the Revolution ; and yet, like the 
 Baptist of old, unconscious of what it was the forerunner. 
 But at its commencement the Renaissance looked only for 
 a revival of the spirit of classical antiquity — it may be of 
 paganism — a restoration of the divinity, of the joyousness 
 of nature, discerning little or perhaps nothing of that 
 
 
 
 
 
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2 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 steadfast faith in humanity, that eager aspiration after 
 justice, that recognition of the equality of rights amongst all 
 mankind, which it was reserved for the Revolution first to 
 teach dogmatically. 
 
 Between Poggio or Valla (two of those who gave the 
 greatest impetus to the Renaissance in its earlier stages) 
 and Rabelais, in whom its work was complete, the distance 
 at first seems immense, yet the chasm when bridged over 
 by Erasmus almost disappears from view. But between 
 Rabelais and Voltaire — the father of the Revolution certainly 
 in one, and that not the least beneficial of its aspects — 
 the distance seems, and perhaps really is, much greater. 
 Yet they are united by Montaigne and Moliere, and a close 
 examination shows them to be really at one. Intense love 
 of the human race, intense desire for its social and intel- 
 lectual progress, intense hatred of hypocrisy, bigotry, super- 
 stition and ignorance, are to be found in both. 
 
 The revival of letters had produced a contempt for 
 mediaeval ideas, a disgust for the theological legends and 
 superstitions of the Middle Ages, and at the same time an 
 ardent thirst for that knowledge and culture which the 
 classical writers could alone supply. But as there was little 
 in the actual life, in the actual interests of the times, that 
 was in harmony with the ideas of classical antiquity, utterly 
 opposed as these ideas are to mediaeval Christianity, it was 
 form rather than substance that at first took the highest 
 place. The students of the Renaissance, however, were not 
 exclusively occupied with form. It is indeed sometimes 
 said that the Renaissance gave birth to nothing. But surely 
 this is not so. The Renaissance gave birth to mental 
 freedom. It taught the true mode of looking at things 
 and opinions. It revived the classical as opposed to the 
 mediasval method of thought. It examined things as they 
 are, and opinions according to their absolute truth or false- 
 
i ORLEANS AND PARIS 3 
 
 hood, and not according as they are in accord or discord 
 with authority and orthodoxy. It appealed ab auctoritate 
 ad rem; and a system which was the parent of Erasmus 
 and Rabelais, and a more remote ancestor of Moliere and 
 Voltaire, cannot be called unfruitful or unworthy of attention, 
 whatever be the value at which we appraise its fruits. 
 
 That (except in Sadolet and perhaps in Erasmus) there 
 was not in any of the men of the Renaissance either any 
 recognition of Christianity, or even any consciousness of the 
 need of religion as an element in human happiness or human 
 goodness, was the fault of the times in which they lived and 
 of the institutions which professed to inculcate this religion, 
 and though this may diminish our respect for their doctrines, 
 it ought not to take away from our admiration of the men 
 themselves. To each of them, religion, Christianity, the 
 Catholic Church, represented as it could not but represent, 
 all that was odious, all that was opposed to freedom of 
 thought, to freedom of action, all that in one aspect (the 
 religious) was cruel and brutal, in another (the mundane) all 
 that was degrading and immoral. 
 
 For mediaeval Christianity, for the Catholic Church, and 
 for the See of Rome itself, in the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries, it is impossible not to feel a 
 certain sympathy and admiration, however little their 
 doctrines and practices may commend themselves to our 
 reason ; their aims were lofty and their influence on the 
 whole beneficial. But the Church generally at the era of 
 the Renaissance, and the French Church from that time to 
 the Revolution, present absolutely no points for the approval 
 of those of us who are in harmony with the spirit of the 
 nineteenth century and have no sympathy with the so-called 
 Catholic revival. Admiration for the lofty oratory of the 
 great preachers, for the polemical skill of the leaders of the 
 Gallican party, for the pious mysticism of the persecuted 
 
4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Jansenists, we cannot fail to have, but it seems impossible to 
 conceive of an institution more calculated to bring Christianity 
 into disrepute, on the one hand among thoughtful men, 
 on the other among the still larger class which is neither 
 thoughtful nor reasonable, than the Church of France during 
 the three centuries which preceded the Revolution. 
 
 The fact that during this period France produced an 
 abundant crop of men and women who lived and died in 
 the communion of the Church distinguished by those 
 virtues and graces which Christianity specially claims as 
 its own is not inconsistent with this opinion. Happily all 
 Churches and sects have furnished, and will probably 
 continue to furnish, abundant examples of men who are 
 more and better than their belief. In the worst and most 
 corrupt period of pagan Rome the philosophical historian 
 could say, Non adeo tarn sterile seculum ut non et bona 
 exempla prodiderit. 
 
 But an institution which could sanction and applaud the 
 burning of Berquin and Dolet, the massacre of the Hugue- 
 nots, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the dragonnades 
 of Languedoc, the judicial murders and horrible tortures of 
 Calas and La Barre (not a century and a quarter since), is 
 wholly out of harmony with and antagonistic to Christianity 
 as I understand it. 
 
 Bossuet may be taken as the ablest and the most favour- 
 able representative of the Catholic Church of France. He 
 could melt his audience to tears over Louise de la Valliere 
 taking the veil. He could exalt the selfish and frivolous 
 Henrietta Maria of England into a saint. His eloquent, 
 noble, and harmonious language almost makes us believe, 
 whilst reading it, that Louis XIV. was really the King after 
 God's own heart, and prevents our feeling the absurdity — 
 or the profanity — of the parallel which he draws between 
 the character of the chancellor Le Tellier — who shed tears 
 
i ORLEANS AND PARIS 5 
 
 of joy on sealing with his own hand the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, and then repeated the Nunc Dimittis — and 
 that of Jesus Christ ! But Bossuet has no word of sympathy, 
 apparently no thought, for the wretched and oppressed 
 millions ; in fact, as Vinet has remarked, ' during all that 
 triumphal era the people escape our search.' For them at 
 least the Church had no message. 1 
 
 The paganism of the Renaissance was the natural out- 
 come of the condition of the Catholic Church. When 
 religion was wholly dissevered from morality, and so far 
 from being treated as a rule of life, appeared to have no 
 more connection with it than had the religion of the 
 Romans in the days of the Empire, it is not to be wondered 
 at that the restorers of letters, occupied with the great minds 
 of antiquity, looked back with some fondness and regret to 
 those more human and natural, and therefore, as it seemed 
 to them, less injurious superstitions of paganism. With the 
 Church itself, indeed, the earlier humanists had no quarrel. 
 Devoted purely to the study of classical antiquity they 
 contented themselves with simply ignoring and disbelieving 
 her doctrines, and were well pleased to share in her dignities 
 and revenues and to enjoy her protection. Bishops, 
 cardinals, and even popes took part for some time in the 
 enthusiasm, the triumphs, and the paganism of the Re- 
 naissance. From Nicolas V. to Leo X. the Church was the 
 nursing mother of the new studies ; and still later the pure 
 paganism of Bembo, who would not read the Epistles of St. 
 
 1 Great as was the genius, many as were the virtues of Bossuet, I 
 prefer the Christianity (or non-Christianity) of Voltaire to that of the 
 Eagle of Meaux, nor can I forget that his beak and claws displayed them- 
 selves not only in the flights of his pulpit oratory, or in his admirable 
 denunciation of the variations of the Protestant Churches, but in the 
 active persecution of Fenelon and in the warm approval which he gave 
 to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the dragonnades of 
 Languedoc. 
 
6 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Paul lest they should spoil his style, was no more a bar to 
 his advancement in the Church than was the licentiousness 
 — to use no harsher word — of the Capitolo del Forno to 
 that of La Casa. The pagan revival for the cultivated, 
 with the forms and formulae of the Church for the vulgar, 
 was what best suited the enlightened rulers of the Church in 
 the latter half of the fifteenth and the commencement of the 
 sixteenth century. But, unfortunately for them, this was 
 a state of things which could not continue. In Italy 
 Savonarola, though with strict orthodoxy of doctrine, almost 
 alone had dared to proclaim the uselessness of a faith which 
 had no influence upon life, but with the flames that con- 
 sumed him his influence disappeared. He had besides no 
 sympathy for the classical revival, and it was reserved for 
 the hardier races of the North, where religion had never 
 been so completely dissevered from morality and action, to 
 discover and declare that there was a practical side of 
 humanistic studies. Even before Luther commenced his 
 war against Rome, the scholars of the North, without adopt- 
 ing the classical paganism of Italy, but equally without any 
 conscious hostility to the Church, had begun to question the 
 expediency of the intellectual life and education of the 
 people being given over to ignorant monks, and even to 
 doubt whether the ecclesiastical revenues were always 
 devoted to the best or most useful purposes. The monks 
 were not slow to perceive whither the Renaissance was 
 tending, and long before the Church in Italy had shown 
 any symptoms of opposition to humanistic studies the 
 ecclesiastics of Germany and the Netherlands were in arms. 
 The writings of Erasmus, whilst ostentatiously orthodox as 
 to theological dogmas, pointed to a state of things in- 
 compatible with the existing religious system, and immedi- 
 ately after the publication of the Praise of Folly in 1 5 1 1 
 (if not earlier) that opposition of the Church to intellectual 
 
i • ORLEANS AND' PARIS 7 
 
 progress, at least in Germany, the Low Countries, and 
 France, commenced which has ever since continued. In 
 Italy, indeed, the rulers of the Church, until awakened by 
 the tidings of the preaching of Luther, were blind to the 
 real tendency of the age ; and even when roused so as to 
 recognise and attempt to meet the danger, they must have 
 the credit of still for some time seeking to encourage 
 literature and learning provided no doctrine or practice of 
 the Church was attacked. 
 
 Etienne Dolet, whose life I am about to narrate, was 
 a child of the pure Italian Renaissance, more truly and 
 thoroughly so than any other of the scholars and students 
 whom France produced. Though constantly stated to have 
 been an atheist, and probably condemned and burnt as such, 
 his writings afford no ground for the general belief. He 
 was no doubt a pagan of the school of Bembo and Longolius, 
 and with them thought the religion of Cicero more suited to 
 the man of culture than a system which held out for the 
 worship or adoration of the faithful the wine of the marriage 
 feast of Cana, the comb of the Virgin Mary, and the shield 
 of St. Michael the archangel. Yet there is nothing in any 
 of his writings inconsistent with the doctrines of the Church 
 or disrespectful to her authority. He was no believer in, 
 and indeed had no sort of sympathy with the doctrines of 
 Luther and Calvin, and desired nothing better than to be 
 allowed to pursue in freedom his literary studies relating to 
 this world without troubling himself about the next, but he 
 lived in a time and place especially unfortunate for one of 
 his character. Half a century earlier, before the Church had 
 awaked to the idea that intellectual progress of every kind 
 was altogether subversive of her authority, he would have 
 been hailed as one of the restorers of letters in France, would 
 probably have become an ambassador, and possibly a cardinal. 
 
 He was born at Orleans in the year 1508, on the 3rd of J 
 
8 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 August, the day of the invention of the relics of the saint 
 whose name he bore, the day on which, thirty-eight years 
 later, he was to be added to the number of those men, some 
 eminent for their genius and learning, some for their piety 
 and moral excellence, some known only for their half-crazy 
 yet harmless absurdities, whom religious bigotry, disguising 
 itself under the cloak of Christian and Catholic orthodoxy, 
 has brutally deprived of life. The place and year of his 
 birth, as well as most of the details of the biography of his 
 earlier years, we learn from his own writings. In the preface 
 to his Commentaries on the Latin Tongue, addressed to 
 Bude, and dated the 22nd of April 1536, he tells us that he 
 was then twenty-seven years of age, and that he was sixteen 
 when Francis I. was taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia 
 (24 Feb. 1525). 1 In the same volume of his Commentaries? 
 and in a poetic epistle to the Cardinal de Tournon, 3 as well 
 as in many other places, he refers to Orleans as his birth- 
 place. Of his family and parentage we know nothing with 
 certainty, nor have his admirers been able to discover any- 
 thing which throws light upon them, or to connect him in 
 any way with the very few persons who are known to have 
 
 1 Following M. Boulmier and Dolet's other biographers, in the first 
 edition of this work I gave 1509 as the year of Dolet's birth, but in that 
 case he would have been only fifteen and a half at the date of the battle 
 of Pavia, and thirty-six and a half at the date of the preface to the Com- 
 mentaries. It may be noted that in the pardon of Francis I. {Proces 
 d'Estienne Dolet) dated June, 1543, his age is stated as 'de trente-six a 
 trente-sept ans ou environ.' 
 
 The authority for the actual day of his birth is Le Laboureur, who in 
 the Additions aux M'emoires de Castehau (vol. i. p. 348), after quoting 
 Beza's epitaph on Dolet, appends these words, ' Stephanus Doletus Aurelius 
 Gallus, die Sancto Stephano sacro et natus et vulcano devotus, in Mal- 
 bertina area Lutetias 3 Augusti, 1546.' These words, however, are not 
 in either of the editions of Beza's Juvenilia, in which the ode appears. 
 
 2 Col. 938, and Orationes Dute in Tholosam, p. 105. 
 
 3 Carmina, Book ii. No. lviii. 
 
i ORLEANS AND PARIS 9 
 
 borne the same surname. 1 There seems indeed to have been 
 some mystery about the matter, though we may at once 
 dismiss the absurd story first narrated in print by Amelot de 
 la Houssaye. 2 'It was said at that time,' he writes, 'that 
 Dolet was the natural son of King Francis and an Orleans 
 damsel named Cureau, but that he was not acknowledged on 
 account of a story which was told the king of the lady's 
 intimacy with a certain courtier.' For at the date of Dolet's 
 birth Francis, then Duke of Valois, was not quite fourteen 
 years of age. 3 But while we reject this fable we cannot 
 accept with confidence Dolet's own statement as to his 
 parentage. In his second letter to Bude he says, ' I was 
 born at Orleans, in how honourable and indeed distinguished 
 
 1 Martinus Dolet Parisiensis is the author of a very rare Latin poem, 
 De parta ab invictissimo Gallorum Rege Ludovico duodecimo in Maximilianum 
 Ducem victoria cum dialogo pads . . . apud Joannem Gourmontium (s.a. 
 but about 1 5 10), 4to, 56 pp. Besides the poem and dialogue mentioned 
 in the title there are several short poems, one of which is addressed to the 
 author's brother, ad eruditissimum fratrem suum Matheum Dolet. This 
 Mathieu Dolet appears to have been a clerk in the Criminal Records 
 Office of the Parliament of Paris. He is mentioned by the continuer of 
 the Annates of Nicole Gilles (Paris, Oudin Petit, vol. ii. fol. 128) under 
 the date 17 Feb. 1523 [1524], as having read before the people the 
 pardon granted by Francis I. to Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur de Saint 
 Vallier, who had been condemned to be beheaded. ' Christofle Dolet de 
 Sens transporte a. Jehan Cousin ung jardin 17 Janvier 1533,' La France 
 Protestante, 2eme edit. vol. iv. col. 851. Except these three I have not 
 found any persons bearing the name of Dolet until a later period. These 
 later Dolets are noticed in a subsequent chapter of this book. There 
 was a Guillaume Doulet in 1460, ' auditeur des comptes' to the Duke of 
 Orleans, whose name is signed to a receipt of that date, described in the 
 Catalogue of Bachelin-Deflorenne, 1873-4, No. 4845. 
 
 2 M'emoires historiques politiques et litteraires, vol. ii. p. 33. See also 
 Patiniana, p. 37. 
 
 8 Bayle, Maittaire, and Boulmier all treat this fable as it deserves. 
 M. Boulmier (p. 6) remarks, 'L'histoire s'est deja montree assez liberale 
 envers Francois Ier quand elle a cru devoir le gratifier du surnom de Pere 
 des lettres : il est inutile d'en faire encore le pere des litterateurs.' 
 
'•■J 
 
 10 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 a position among my fellow-citizens I leave those to speak 
 of who place virtue below birth.' And in his second oration 
 in answer to Pinache, who had reproached him with the 
 obscurity of his family and the lowness of his birth, he says, 
 ' I was born of parents who were in no mean or low position, 
 but in an honourable and indeed distinguished station ; the 
 circumstances of my family were flourishing, and if my 
 parents possessed neither antiquity of race, nobility of birth, 
 the dignity of high rank, nor those other advantages which 
 are rather gifts of fortune than such as entitle their possessors 
 to praise, yet they enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity, and 
 passed their lives to the close happily and void of offence. 
 It may indeed be that they neither attained very exalted rank 
 nor became in any other way conspicuous, but they lived as 
 eminent citizens among their fellows, nor were civic honours 
 wanting to them.' 
 
 To what extent this is strictly true we do not know, but 
 certain it is that rumours were current of a very different 
 nature, and knowing as we do the gross exaggeration which 
 Dolet seems to have been unable to avoid in speaking of 
 himself and his own merits, we may not unreasonably hesitate 
 to accept his statement as to his parents as absolutely true. 
 Two odes of Voulte, written it is true after his quarrel with 
 Dolet, speak in very disparaging terms of the latter's father, 
 and certainly imply that he had suffered death at the hands 
 of the public executioner. 
 
 In the one Voulte says it is not strange that Dolet seemed 
 the worst of men, for that he was born of a father like him- 
 self, and that it would be very unusual for the son of a bad 
 father to be himself an excellent man : 1 — 
 
 Quod sis pessimus omnium virorum 
 Res est non nova, nam tuo parenti es 
 
 1 Vulteii Hendecasyllabi (Paris, 1538), fol. 91. 
 
i ORLEANS AND PARIS n 
 
 Natus ipse simillimus : sed esset 
 Certe res nova, si mali parentis 
 Esses filius optimus virorum. 
 Quod vulgi esse frequens in ore suevit 
 Id falsum bonitas tua approbaret : 
 Patrem nee sequeretur ipsa proles. 
 
 In the other, equally clearly intended for Dolet, and 
 addressed ' In quendam ingratum,' J after prophesying for him 
 all kinds of evil and a violent death, he continues, 
 
 Et superstites si 
 Parentes tibi forte qui adfuissent 
 Dum spectacula talia exhiberes, 
 Et jussas lueres miselle pcenas, 
 Exemplo miseri tui parentis 
 Nonne illos oculi tui impudici 
 Vidissent tibi proximos ? crucisque 
 Testes nonne tuae tui fuissent ? 
 
 A violent death in those days, even were it at the hands 
 of the public executioner, does not necessarily imply any 
 great amount of moral turpitude in the accused ; and we 
 can hardly imagine, had there been anything especially 
 disgraceful in the character of his father, that Dolet would 
 have so ostentatiously and constantly called attention to the 
 fact that he was a native of Orleans, and treated himself as a 
 citizen of no mean city. That his parents had died before 
 we find him at Toulouse in 1532 we may infer with tolerable 
 certainty. Whether, however, he owed it to them or to 
 other relations and friends, certain it is that those to whose 
 charge he was committed in early life gave him a liberal 
 education, and allowed his taste for letters to have full play, 
 instead of forcing upon him the sordid cares to which most 
 of their class were necessarily devoted. But at this time 
 substantial inducements to literary pursuits were not wanting. 
 
 1 Vulteii Hendecasyllabi (Paris, 1538), fol. 9. 
 
12 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 During the period of the Renaissance — the Renaissance of 
 which Dolet was the child, the panegyrist, and the martyr — 
 learning was a ladder leading to every kind of advancement. 
 The power of the pen had successfully rivalled that of the 
 sword ; it had raised Tommaseo Parentucelli to the highest 
 place in Christendom ; it had made Aretin feared, caressed, 
 and bribed by all the princes of Europe ; it had given to 
 Erasmus a reputation both in extent and in kind unknown 
 to the world since the Augustan age of Rome. Nor were 
 lesser incitements to the pursuit of letters wanted. The 
 Universities had awaked from the dreams of scholastic 
 philosphy and theology, and were everywhere demanding 
 as professors men who could teach the new learning which 
 the students were so eager to profit by, while the embassies 
 which in the last few years of the fifteenth century had so 
 enormously increased in number and in frequency, furnished 
 another means of employment for the same class of men. 
 We can scarcely find a literary man from the middle of the 
 fifteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century who had not 
 been engaged in some diplomatic negotiations either as 
 ambassador or as secretary. 
 
 The first twelve years of Dolet's life were passed at 
 Orleans, where he received an education which he speaks 
 of more than once in terms of high praise, describing him- 
 self in these years as ' liber aliter e ducat urn.' Yet it is 
 certain that he did not intend by this expression that he 
 advanced far in his studies, for in the words immediately 
 following he tells us that he then went to Paris, where he 
 received the first rudiments of (Latin) literature. 1 
 
 He went to Paris at twelve years of age, and remained 
 for five years ; it is there that for us his life begins. It 
 
 1 ' Gennabi duodecim annos liberaliter educatum excepit Parisiorum 
 Lutetia ubi primarum literarum rudimenta posui.' — Letter to Bude, in 
 Orat. Dua in Thol. p. 105. 
 
i ORLEANS AND PARIS 13 
 
 was there that he imbibed that love of Cicero which was f 
 so marked a feature in his character and his writings, and ! 
 which he shared with so many other scholars of the Re- l 
 naissance. The worship of the Ciceronians for their idol — 
 a worship (as the anti-Ciceronians said) rather of form and 
 style than of matter — seems to us indeed at first sight 
 exaggerated and even absurd. Yet few would be found 
 to deny the advantages that modern literature has derived 
 from the study of Cicero, and especially how much the 
 style of the best French authors is indebted to him. If, 
 however, we consider the matter more closely and impar- 
 tially we shall cease to wonder at and shall sympathise with 
 the Ciceronians, not indeed with any desire to worship at 
 their altars, or with any risk of falling into the absurdities 
 of Nosoponus, but at least with a recognition that among 
 the religions of the past the Ciceronian is one of the least 
 vulgar superstitions, and one which in the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries could hardly avoid commending itself 
 to the enlightened and cultivated man. For in truth it was 
 a real worship, a cultus, not a mere literary opinion. The 
 plenary inspiration of Cicero was held as absolutely by 
 Longolius, by Hortensio Lando, 1 by Dolet, and by the 
 Ciceronians generally as is a similar doctrine applied to 
 other writings in our own day held by men whose learning 
 and virtues entitle their opinions to the highest respect. 
 c What can I better follow,' writes Dolet in explaining a 
 word in his Commentaries, ' than the exposition of it given 
 
 1 In a letter of J. A. Odonus to Gilbert Cousin {Opera G. Cognati, 
 vol. i. p. 3 1 3) he says of Lando : ' Hoc nobis repetebat apophthegma ; alii 
 alios legunt, mini solus Christus et Tullius placet, Christus et Tullius 
 solus satis est ; sed interim Christum nee in manibus habebat nee in libris ; 
 an in corde haberet, Deus scit. Hoc nos ex ejus ore scimus, ilium cum 
 in Galliam confugeret, neque vetus neque novum Testamentum secum 
 tulisse pro itineris ac miseriae solatio, sed familiares Epistolas M. Tullii.' 
 
i 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 by the father of the Latin tongue, Cicero himself? There- 
 fore without any interpretation of mine receive certain ex- 
 amples of our god Cicero which will place the meaning 
 of the word before your eyes.' * Even Erasmus, bitterly 
 as the Ciceronians attacked him for treating their deity 
 and his great disciple Longolius with disrespect, and whose 
 sound common sense kept him from the follies of the more 
 devout adherents of this cultus, recognised the eloquence of 
 Marcus Tullius as being divine rather than human ; 2 and in 
 his Colloquies he says, 3 ' While the first place in point of 
 authority is ever due to the Holy Scriptures, I do sometimes 
 meet with sayings in the writings of the ancient heathens, 
 even in the poets, of so pure and holy and divine a nature 
 that I cannot help feeling that some gracious power was 
 at work in the soul when they wrote them. And it may 
 possibly be that the spirit of Christ was shed forth over a 
 wider space than we generally suppose. Many truly are to 
 be ranked among the saints who do not find a place in our 
 lists of them. I freely acknowledge to my friends my own 
 feeling, which is this. I cannot read the writings of Cicero 
 on Old Age or Friendship, or his works entitled De Officiis 
 and Tusculante Qjaestiones, without sometimes pausing to 
 kiss the page and to think with reverence on that holy soul 
 inspired by a celestial deity.' 
 
 Cicero was one of the first and greatest idols of the men 
 of the Renaissance. Few were able to read, fewer still to 
 appreciate, Greek literature and Greek philosophy. Plautus 
 and Terence, although popular, were looked on as light 
 and frivolous writers. Besides, really to understand them 
 required a greater knowledge of the usages of classical 
 antiquity than was generally possessed. Livy and Cassar 
 
 1 2 Comm. col. 917. The marginal note is, Cicero in lingua Latina 
 deus Doleti. 
 
 2 Epist. 1430. 3 Convivium religiosum. 
 
i ORLEANS AND PARIS 15 
 
 were left to soldiers and statesmen, while Tacitus, lament- 
 ing over the past and looking gloomily to the future, could 
 hardly have been in sympathy with a renascent age. The 
 day of Horace was yet to come ; the calm good sense, 
 the unruffled cheerfulness, the thorough content of the 
 disciple of Aristippus, was altogether opposed to the spirit 
 of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries. 
 The charm of Cicero's style, his general tone of intelligence, . 
 his sensible but shallow and commonplace philosophy, his 
 scholarly contempt for the ignorant, his sometimes acute and 
 always polished sarcasms, his utter disbelief in and disregard 
 (except so far as propriety required) for the superstitions 
 and creeds not only of the vulgar but of the orthodox, and 
 even his ill-concealed vanity, wrapped up but not disguised 
 by the pomp of flowing and well-chosen words, in short, his] 
 defects as well as his merits all contributed to his influence. 
 
 Five years were passed by Dolet in Paris, but of the 
 details of his .life there we know little. The only fact that 
 he has told us, except as to his Ciceronian studies, is that 
 when sixteen years of age he studied rhetoric under Nicolas 
 Berauld, 1 himself a native of Orleans, and reputed one of the 
 g*reatesT masters of eloquence and of Latin scholarship of the j 
 time, and, in the judgment of Erasmus, one of the pearls! 
 and stars of France. Like many others of the scholars of 
 the Renaissance, the man was greater than his books. ' His 
 conversation,' says Erasmus, ' was more than his writings.' 
 ' Etiam nunc,' he continues, ' audire mihi videor linguam 
 illam explanatam ac volubilem suaviterque tinnientem et 
 blande canoram vocem.' His books have indeed passed 
 into utter oblivion, and perhaps have had no influence in 
 the world's history, yet the man himself can never be with- 
 out interest for the student, not only of literature, as the 
 
 1 'Nicolaus Beraldus quo praeceptore annos natus sedecim Rhetorica 
 Lutetise didici.' — Comm. vol. i. col. n 58. 
 
1 6 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 friend and correspondent of Erasmus, but of history, as the 
 tutor of the three great Colignys, the Admiral, the Cardinal, 
 and the General, who sowed in their minds the seeds of 
 those principles which have made their names so illustrious 
 in the annals of the French Protestants. Suspected, and 
 not without reason, of a sympathy with the reformers, 
 Berauld was hated by Beda and the bigots ; but he always 
 acted with such prudence that he afforded no handle for his 
 persecution. In fact, although many eminent French 
 Protestants owed to him their first acquaintance with 
 evangelical truth, like others of his contemporaries who 
 sympathised with the reformed doctrines, he had no objec- 
 tion to the practices or forms of the Church of Rome, and 
 no desire to separate from her, but remained in her com- 
 munion until his death. Like Erasmus he possessed that 
 toleration and breadth which was no less distasteful to 
 Calvin than to Beda. 1 
 
 But though we know little of Dolet's life during these 
 five years, there can be no doubt that the influence of 
 Berauld on his character, his opinions, and his whole future 
 life was great. Berauld was an enthusiastic Latin and 
 Greek student, a devoted Ciceronian, a friend of and 
 sympathiser with every kind of intellectual progress : with 
 him Dolet formed a friendship which lasted for many 
 years, as we find Berauld among the friends who in 1537 
 met to congratulate Dolet on his pardon. During these 
 five years he tells us he assiduously cultivated his intellect 
 
 1 Of Berauld we have no good biography. The best is that contained 
 in Haag's La France Protestante. Several of his letters are printed (for 
 the first time) in the excellent work of A. L. Herminjard, Correspondance 
 des Reformateurs dans les pays de Langue Frangaise. There is no life of 
 him in Les Homntes illustres de I'Orleanais (Orleans, 1852), although the 
 Nouvelle Biographie Generate refers to that work as one of the authorities 
 for its meagre biography of Berauld. 
 
i ORLEANS AND PARIS 17 
 
 and learned to think ; he gave himself up more especially 
 to the study of Cicero, 1 and before he left Paris he had 
 conceived the idea of and begun to plan, and even to 
 collect materials for, his great work, the Commentaries on 
 the Latin Tongue. 
 
 1 Letter to Bude, Or at. Dua in Tholosam, p. 105. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Padua 
 
 Once remotest nations came 
 To adore that sacred flame, 
 When it lit not many a hearth 
 On this cold and gloomy earth. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 OLET was now eighteen 
 years of age, and his 
 thoughts naturally turned 
 to that country which, 
 ever since the close of 
 the Roman Republic, the 
 inhabitants of the rest of 
 Europe have desired to 
 visit, but which was then 
 in a special degree and 
 for special reasons the 
 goal of all students. 
 Art, science, and litera- 
 ture flourished in Italy 
 to an extent which rendered it not unreasonable in the 
 Italians to look on the nations of the North and West as 
 barbarous. There was scarcely a scholar who attained 
 eminence who did not seek to pass some time in one of the 
 
chap, ii PADUA 19 
 
 Universities of Italy. 1 Padua, Bologna, Pavia, were all 
 crowded with French and German students ; but it was at 
 Padua that they were found in the greatest number. The 
 University was then at the height of its popularity ; in 
 literature, philosophy, and medicine no University could 
 compare with it. Founded two hundred years before, its 
 reputation had been gradually rising, though suffering 
 temporary eclipse when the fortune of war and the change 
 of masters had occasioned it to close its lecture-rooms. 
 Early in the fifteenth century it had come into the posses- 
 sion of the Venetians, and under the sheltering aegis of the 
 great republic (not then the close and jealous oligarchy 
 which she afterwards became) the studies of the University 
 were encouraged, liberal stipends were assured to the pro- 
 fessors, and learned men from all parts of Italy, and 
 occasionally even from Greece, Germany, and France, were 
 invited to fill her chairs. From 1509 to 15 17 the war of 
 the League of Cambrai had caused the lecture-rooms of the 
 University to be closed, but with the peace of Noyon they 
 were again opened, and students and teachers flocked from 
 all parts of Europe. The quarter of a century which 
 followed forms the most brilliant chapter of the literary 
 history of Padua. During this period nearly every scholar 
 of mark among the Italian men of letters passed some time 
 there either as a teacher or a student, generally as both. 
 There Romulo Amaseo, then at the height of his fame, for 
 whose possession the Pope, the King of England, the 
 Marquis of Mantua, and the Universities of Bologna and 
 Padua contended, and to whose lectures so great a crowd of 
 students flocked that fights for admission were not in- 
 frequent, lectured for four years upon eloquence. There 
 
 1 We find scholars from the still more barbarous Britain looking on 
 France as the French scholars and students looked on Italy. See 
 Buchanan's poem, Adventus in Galliam. 
 
20 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Longolius, the Ciceronian par excellence, restored the purity 
 of the Latin tongue, and (as his contemporaries and disciples 
 thought) rivalled his master in style if not in matter. It 
 was as a professor at Padua that Lazarus Buonamici (too 
 sensitive or too indolent to commit the results of his studies 
 to the press) acquired by his lectures the reputation of being 
 the first scholar of his day — a reputation which the few 
 poems and letters he left behind certainly do not justify — 
 and that Lampridio lectured on Demosthenes with such 
 vehement eloquence that Aonio Paleario thought him almost 
 the equal of the great Athenian orator himself, and wrote 
 in raptures to his friend Maffei that a single lecture of 
 Lampridio was worth all the magnificence and glory of 
 Rome. 1 At Padua an independence and liberty of thought 
 existed which would have been sought in vain elsewhere. 
 There Pomponatius discussed with learning and freedom the 
 immortality of the soul and other kindred problems, and (at 
 a somewhat later date) Vesalius devoted himself in safety to 
 those anatomical investigations which have been of such 
 signal service to humanity, but which when pursued in the 
 dominions of the King of Spain brought on their student 
 persecution and exile. 
 
 But it was not its professors and lecturers that constituted 
 the sole glory of Padua at this time ; the city was the home 
 of many learned men, who found there freedom, books, and 
 learned society. ' At Padua,' wrote Paleario in 1530, ' dwell 
 poets, orators, and celebrated philosophers. Learning has 
 taken refuge there from choice, and has there found an 
 asylum where Pallas teaches all the arts : in short, there is 
 no place where we can better gratify a taste for reading and 
 learning.' 2 
 
 It was at Padua that Erasmus, probably in company 
 with his pupil the young Archbishop of St. Andrews, 
 1 Palearii Opera (Amsterdam, 1696), p. 431. 2 jj m p> ^ I ^ < 
 
ii PADUA 21 
 
 attended the lectures of Musurus, who was at once the first 
 Greek scholar of the day, an excellent Latinist, and a most 
 indefatigable worker. It was during the five years he passed I 
 at Padua that Reginald Pole laid the foundation of that I 
 reputation to which perhaps his high birth, his gentle' 
 manners, and his amiable disposition contributed more than 
 his learning or talents, and that he acquired the friendship 
 of the other eminent persons (Bembo, Contarini, Sadolet, 
 and Morone) whose elevation to the cardinalate reflects so 
 much honour on Paul III. It was in Pole's house at Padua 
 that Longolius expired, and the Life which is prefixed to 
 the orations of the Ciceronian, though it has been sometimes 
 attributed to Simon Villanovanus, is now generally admitted 
 to be the work of his English pupil. But to no single 
 person did Padua owe so much as to Bembo. After having 
 as a young man studied at that University for two years, he 
 fixed his residence there in December 1 5 2 1 , on the death of 
 Leo X., to whom he had been joint secretary with Sadolet. 
 That Leo should have selected two such men as his 
 secretaries must make us pardon many shortcomings in the 
 father of Christendom. Closely bound together by the ties 
 of friendship, equally able, equally learned, equally ready to 
 assist all poor scholars with their purses and rich ones with 
 their literary help, equally free from bigotry, these cardinals 
 are two of the brightest names in the history of the 
 Renaissance and of the Catholic Church at this period. In 
 one thing only they differed : Sadolet was a Christian, 
 Bembo a Pagan. I know of no one in the fifteenth or 
 sixteenth century in whom the Christian graces and virtues, 
 combined with a firm yet by no means bigoted attachment 
 to Christian doctrine, are more conspicuous than in Sadolet. 
 That his theological writings have passed into so much more 
 complete oblivion than the inferior works of inferior men of 
 his time, is owing partly to their semi -Pelagian common 
 
22 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 sense, which if it brought upon them (to the author's intense 
 chagrin) the censure of the Court of Rome and (to his dis- 
 appointment) the dislike of Calvin and the Reformers, will 
 rather commend them to a generation which, if it sometimes 
 uses the language of Augustine, of Aquinas, and of Calvin, 
 in its actions adopts the conclusions of Pelagius. The voice 
 may still be Augustine's voice, but the hands are the hands 
 of Pelagius. As Sadolet was that rara avis of the sixteenth 
 century, a churchman who both believed in Christianity and 
 was an example of all the Christian virtues and graces, 
 Bembo was an equally illustrious example of what was then 
 of much commoner occurrence, the pure Pagan. To him 
 Christianity presented itself (as, if we did not know of such 
 men as Sadolet, Contarini, and Paleario, we should think it 
 could not have failed to do in Italy at the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century) much as the theology of Greece and Rome 
 must have appeared to Aristotle and Plato, Cicero and 
 Seneca — a system composed of words and ceremonies, useful 
 in many ways, but wholly without foundation in truth or 
 fact, without any relation to morals or actions, without any 
 message of consolation to mankind. Bembo was a Pagan 
 of the Pagans, Epicuri de grege porcus. 
 
 Handsome in person, graceful in manners, successful, 
 wealthy, learned, with a good temper, a good digestion, and 
 consequently good health and good spirits {Mens sana in 
 corpore sano), happy in the affection of his mistress and of 
 the children whom she bore to him, he passed seventy-seven 
 years in such a manner that even Solon would have allowed 
 him the appellation of happy. No thought of religion as 
 a real or living thing, no thought of the unseen or of the 
 future life, ever seems to have crossed his mind. Until 
 Paul III. in 1539 made him (then sixty-nine years of age) 
 a cardinal, not the smallest trace of or taste for theological 
 studies is found in his writings. But the Reformation 
 
ii PADUA 23 
 
 obliged men of letters who were raised to the purple to 
 assume a virtue if they had it not, and Bembo was induced 
 by the rank of a Prince of the Church to conform himself 
 to what was required. He laid aside profane literature, 
 and devoted himself to the study of Scripture and the 
 Fathers. But in that part of his life which is connected 
 with Padua he was still the Pagan. 
 
 In his youth he had passed some years in the most 
 cultivated society in Italy, that which surrounded his relative 
 Catherine Cornaro, the widowed Queen of Cyprus, who 
 for the twenty years following her forced abdication held 
 at Asola a court distinguished above all others in Italy for 
 literary culture, polished manners, and regal magnificence, ' 
 and where, as was fitting to the court of a Queen of Cyprus, 
 the chief cultus was that of the Paphian goddess. Of this 
 court Bembo, though still a youth, was the life and soul, 1 
 and he has dedicated to its memory, and to that of the 
 charming sovereign who presided over it, the most popular 
 and graceful of his works — Gli Asolani. As a young man ■ 
 he had studied philosophy at Padua under Pomponatius, 
 and shortly before the death of Leo X. he revisited the city 
 for the benefit of his health, which was somewhat impaired 
 by devotion to study and to the duties of his office, and for 
 which the air and baths of Padua were recommended. 
 During this visit the death of Leo occurred, and he at once 
 decided to withdraw from Rome, and to spend the rest of 
 his life at Padua in study and in the society of learned men. 
 Two rich commanderies of the Order of St. John of 
 Jerusalem, two deaneries, three abbeys, several canonries, 
 and divers other benefices, assured him an ample income. 
 
 1 ' Nel bel' Asolo, Caterina Cornaro Regina di Cipro tenea tre cord 
 ad un tempo, quella delle muse, quella dell' amore, e quella della 
 magnificenza e dignita regale, e di tutti tre era il Bembo 1' anima e 
 P ornamento.' — Bettinelli, II Risorgimento negli Studi. Bassano, 1775. 
 
24 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 From 1521 to 1539 he passed eighteen years of uninter- 
 rupted happiness at Padua, varied by occasional visits to 
 I Venice and by one journey to Rome. His house is described 
 by his biographers as a temple of the Muses ; he formed 
 there a splendid library, a collection of medals and antiquities 
 unequalled by that of any private person, and a botanical 
 garden filled with all kinds of rare and beautiful plants. 
 His hospitality to all men of letters was unbounded and 
 generous ; at his house were to be met all the learned men 
 who taught or studied at Padua, as well as the strangers and 
 foreigners whom the reputation of the University, or of 
 Bembo himself, brought as occasional visitors. Every 
 stranger sought an introduction to him. The summer and 
 autumn he passed at a delightful villa in the neighbourhood, 
 his paternal inheritance. His library contained among its 
 treasures the most ancient manuscripts of Virgil and of 
 Terence that were known to exist, specimens of early 
 Provencal poetry, and pages written by the hand of Petrarch. 
 It was there that his friends were wont to assemble, there 
 Luigi Cornaro read to them portions of his essay Delia Vita 
 Sobria, there Lampridio recited verses that his hearers 
 thought worthy of Pindar, and there, we cannot doubt, the 
 host himself read or recited some specimens of that polished 
 prose and verse which, if wanting in vigour and substance, 
 leaves nothing to be desired in purity of diction and 
 form, and which for more than a century retained its place 
 ' ut carmen necessarium ' which every educated Italian was 
 expected to know almost by heart. 
 
 The three years which Dolet spent at Padua were to him 
 and to his after-life most important. It was there without 
 doubt that he imbibed those opinions which, nearly twenty 
 years after, were the cause of his death, and which have 
 induced his enemies to brand him with the name of atheist. 
 The University of Padua was at this time, and during 
 
ii PADUA 25 
 
 the whole of the century, the headquarters of a philosophical 
 school altogether opposed to the doctrines of Christianity, 
 but which was divided into two sects — one pantheistic, and 
 the other, if not absolutely materialist, at least nearly 
 approaching to it. Both professed adherence to the doctrines 
 of Aristotle, and in terms acknowledged him as their only 
 master and teacher. But as in the Christian Church we have 
 read of some who followed Paul and others Cephas, so ! 
 among the Aristotelians of Padua there were some who 
 followed the commentaries of Averroes, and others those 
 of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Both disbelieved the immor- 
 tality of the individual soul ; the former on the ground of 
 its absorption. The individual soul of man emanates from 
 and is again absorbed into the soul of the universe. The 
 other sect was in fact, if not in terms, materialist, and 
 absolutely denied the immortality of the soul ; nor could its 
 doctrine, so at least its opponents asserted, be distinguished 
 from pure atheism. 1 Of this latter school Pietro Pomponazzi, 
 better known under the Latin form of Pomponatius, the most 
 distinguished philosopher of the day, was the acknowledged 
 representative. Born in 1462, he studied both medicine 
 and philosophy at Padua, where, being still young, he was 
 appointed one of the professors of philosophy, and dis- 
 tinguished himself by maintaining the pure doctrine of 
 Aristotle {i.e. as he interpreted it, materialism) against his 
 older colleague Achillini, who followed the doctrine and 
 teaching of Averroes. It was in 15 16 that he published his 
 treatise De Immortalitate Anima, in which he maintains 
 that the doctrine of immortality is not to be found in 
 Aristotle, is altogether opposed to reason, and is based only 
 on the authority of revelation and the Church, for both of 
 which, when his work was attacked, he professed unbounded 
 
 1 Ritter, Gesch. der Cb. Phil., 390 et seq. ; Renan, Averroes, 353 ; 
 Tenneman, Manuel, 293. 
 
26 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 reverence. His book was replied to by his pupil Contarini, 
 and was censured by the Inquisition and publicly burnt at 
 Venice. But it met with a defender in Bembo, the constant 
 friend and protector of freedom of thought, and by his 
 influence the book was permitted to be printed, with some 
 corrections and a statement by Pomponatius that he submitted 
 wholly to revelation and the Church, and did not in any 
 manner oppose the doctrine of immortality, but only the 
 philosophical arguments which were generally used in its 
 support. This however, as Hallam remarks, ' is the current 
 language of philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries which must be judged by other presumptions.' 1 
 Pomponatius died in 1525. His celebrity and influence 
 long continued, and were at their height when Etienne Dolet 
 arrived at Padua, where for three years he sat at the feet 
 of the disciples of Pomponatius, drinking in without doubt 
 those materialistic doctrines which, if they did not entirely 
 harmonise with the opinions of his master Cicero, were at 
 least contrary to mediaevalism and superstition, and there- 
 fore congenial to his mind. It is strange that his biographers, 
 
 1 Hist. Lit. i. 315. See as to Pomponatius, in addition to the 
 authorities cited in the last note, Brucker, Hist. Phil. iv. 164; Buhle, 
 Gesch. der neueren Philosophic, vol. ii. ; Pietro Pomponazzi : Studi storici 
 su la scuola Bolognese e Padovana del secolo xvi, per F. Fiorentino, 
 Firenze, 1868 ; Sulla Immortalita dell' anima di Pietro Pomponazzi, per 
 Giacinto Fontana, Siena, 1869 [this work contains several unpublished 
 letters of Pomponatius] ; Quarterly Review, October 1893. Besides two 
 editions of the De Immortalitate in its author's lifetime, it was reprinted 
 at least four times in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 (three times without date or indication of place, the fourth time with the 
 date, obviously fictitious, mdxxxiv.) See Brunei, Manuel ; Maittaire, 
 Ann. Typ. ii. 805 ; and Vogt, Cat. Lib. Rarior. 466. In 1 79 1 Professor 
 Bardili edited the De Immortalitate at Tubingen, with a life of the 
 author ; yet he does not appear to have seen the two original editions. 
 The earlier editions are all among the number of rare books. It is 
 noteworthy that Pomponatius was entirely ignorant of Greek, though he 
 read lectures on Aristotle. 
 
ii PADUA 27 
 
 while discussing what his theological opinions really were, 
 and how he acquired them, have never adverted to the 
 teaching of Padua and the influence of Pomponatius. 
 
 But literature and not philosophy was the mistress of 
 Dolet. Of the latter he seems to have acquired little more 
 than was sufficient to show him how irrational, at least, were 
 the prevalent and orthodox opinions. The master at whose 
 feet he sat, whose affection and whose learning he never lost 
 an occasion of celebrating, whose untimely loss he never 
 ceased to mourn, and who owes such immortality as he has 
 obtained rather to the admiration of his pupil than to the 
 little of his own composition which has come down to us, 
 was, although without doubt a disciple of Pomponatius, 
 above all things a Ciceronian and a humanist. Simon 
 Villanovanus has wanted a sacred bard and a biographer. 
 Even a niche in the biographical dictionaries has been denied 
 him. Yet it is certain that he was a man of great promise, 
 that he was looked upon by many competent judges as a 
 scholar of great learning, industry, and genius, and that his 
 death at the age of thirty-five was lamented as an irreparable 
 loss to the republic of letters by several of the most learned 
 men of the day. Besides Dolet, his most attached scholar, 
 his praises are sounded by Longolius, the chief of the 
 Ciceronians, by Pierre Bunel, by Salmon Macrin, and 
 (probably) by that great man from whom a word of praise 
 is itself sufficient to confer an immortality, at least among 
 all the disciples of the divine Pantagruel — Francois Rabelais. 
 
 Which of the innumerable ' Newtowns ' is the place of 
 his birth we do not know. He is, however, spoken of by 
 Bunel as ' Simon Villanovanus Belga,' from which it may be 
 conjectured that it was Neufville in Hainault. That he 
 was born in 1495, and studied at Pavia from 1515 to 1521, 
 we learn from the letter about to be cited. In the latter 
 year Longolius, writing to Egnatius, recommended Simon 
 
28 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Villanovanus in these terms : ' I know that both age and 
 nationality make a man little fit for philosophical study, but 
 this man's age is in my judgment especially suited for it ; he 
 has reached his twenty-sixth year, and is endowed with such 
 prudence and moderation that old age itself would not 
 increase them. On the other hand, it does not escape me 
 what an evil reputation the French have in Italy, but I do 
 not hesitate to recommend Simon Villanovanus to you as 
 free from both the vices and follies of the French, and as 
 one who is distinguished as well by Italian gravity as by his 
 knowledge of the Latin language, and, what is of great 
 importance, by his correct pronunciation. 1 Nor will you 
 find him wanting either in virtues which are the common 
 subject of praise, sincerity probity and conscientiousness, 
 or in talent judgment studiousness and learning, or, finally, 
 in a remarkable knowledge of the civil law. He has passed 
 the last six years at Pavia in that study, under excellent 
 teachers, and has far surpassed all his fellow-students.' 2 
 
 On the death of Longolius, Villanovanus seems to have 
 succeeded him as the chief professor of Eloquence {i.e. Latin) 
 at Padua, though neither of them held any official position, 
 and their names will be sought in vain in the histories of 
 the University by Tomasini, Riccoboni, Papadopoli, and 
 Facciolati. On Dolet's arrival in 1527 he was certainly 
 enjoying a great reputation as a lecturer and as a master of 
 Latin style. A Ciceronian, the friend, disciple, and successor 
 of Longolius the chief representative if not the founder of 
 the sect, it was no wonder that he received Dolet with open 
 arms, and that the latter fell completely under his influence. 
 ' Simon Villanovanus taught Dolet the purity of Latin 
 style and the art of rhetoric,' he tells us himself in his 
 
 1 See post in the letter of Odonus as to the difference between the 
 French and Italian pronunciation of Latin. 
 
 2 Longolii Epist. lib. iii. epist. 26. 
 
ii PADUA 29 
 
 Commentaries l • and in the second Oration he ascribes to 
 the instructions of Villanovanus his oratorical success. But 
 the epitaph which he wrote on his master, the odes in which 
 he celebrates his memory and laments his untimely death, 
 and the frequent reference to him in his writings, show us 
 how firm a friendship existed between the student and the 
 professor, and how great was the influence which the latter 
 exercised on his pupil's mind. It was in defence of the 
 venerated Longolius (whom Dolet had never personally 
 known 2 ) that he wrote his dialogue De Imitatione Cicero- 
 niana, in which Simon Villanovanus is one of the interlocutors. 
 The single composition of Simon Villanovanus which I 
 have been able to find is a letter in the Efistola Clarorum 
 Virorum, first published by Paulus Manutius in 1556, and 
 reprinted by Bernard Toursaint at Paris the same year. It 
 is written from Padua (without date), and is addressed 
 'Simon Villanovanus Hieronymo Savoniano.' But though 
 Simon Villanovanus left no literary work behind him, it is 
 certain that he impressed all with whom he came in contact 
 with the idea that he was a man of no ordinary abilities and 
 promise. The testimony of Longolius I have already 
 quoted. The admiration of Dolet must have had some 
 solid basis. Pierre Bunel wrote six verses on his death and 
 sent them to Emile Perrot, 3 with this inscription below : 
 'Simoni Villanovano Belgae, Grasce Latineque doctissimo, 
 cum bonis omnibus disciplinis, turn sincerae Philosophise 
 imprimis dedito, ob mirificam scribendi elegantiam et 
 subtilitatem quam etiam suis scriptis, quae a nonnullis 
 premuntur, 4 expressam reliquerat, testimonio Longolii toti 
 
 1 Vol. i. col. 1 178. 
 
 2 Longolius died in 1522 at Padua, in the house of Reginald Pole. 
 
 3 Bunelli et Manutii Epistola: (Paris, 1581), p. 10. 
 
 4 La Monnoye (Menagiana, iii. 491, edit, of 1716) says that the 
 words qua a nonnullis premuntur seem to refer to Dolet, who, being at 
 
30 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Italiae praeclare commendato, Galli, in demortui patriaeque 
 commendationem, placata Italia posuere.' 
 
 Salmon Macrin also placed Simon Villanovanus among 
 the most illustrious men whom France had produced, and did 
 not hesitate, in the following lines addressed to Guillaume du 
 Bellay, to class him with Budasus, Longolius, and Lazarus 
 Bayfius : — 
 
 Ilia (i.e. Gallia) Italorum nam studii aemula 
 
 Te Lazarumque et Longolium tulit, 
 
 Magnumque Budaeum, ac Simonem 
 
 Villa cui nova nomen indidit. 1 
 
 Three years were passed by Dolet in drinking in the 
 lessons, not only of Simon Villanovanus, 2 but, as we cannot 
 
 Padua at the time of the death of Simon Villanovanus, was accused of 
 having appropriated and turned to his own use the writings of his master 
 (see pest). [But the word premuntur which La Monnoye seems to have 
 taken to mean suppressed really means depreciated.] There was certainly 
 something mysterious about the death of Villanovanus. It seems to have 
 been thought, at least by his friends Bunel and Perrot, that he had met 
 with foul play (apparently from an Italian hand) ; but Bunel was after- 
 wards satisfied that he died of the plague. — Letter to Perrot of December, 
 1530, Bunelli Epist. p. 8. 
 
 1 Salmon Macrin, Hymnorum Selectorum, lib. iii. p. 77. Guillaume 
 Sceve call's him and Longolius ' et litterarum et Gallia; ambo lumina.' 
 Ode prefixed to Doleti Orationes Dua. 
 
 2 Except by the very limited number of the students of the Renais- 
 sance who have been interested in all that concerns Dole.t, the name of 
 Simon Villanovanus would have been entirely forgotten if it were not for 
 a sentence of Rabelais, where ' le docte Villanovanus Francois ' is classed 
 with Cleon of Daulia and Thrasymedes among those who never dreamed 
 (Aussi furent Cleon de Daulie, Thrasymedes, et de nostre temps le docte 
 Villanovanus Francois lesquelz oncques ne songerent, book iii. ch. 13). 
 Now, according to Le Duchat, whom many of the commentators have 
 followed, the Villanovanus here spoken of is the celebrated Arnold of 
 Villeneuve, — one of the most learned men of the fourteenth century, — 
 physician, theologian, alchemist, the author of the Schola Salernitana, 
 and other medical and scientific treatises. La Monnoye, however, in the 
 Menagiana, vol. iii. pp. 488-92, has suggested and attempted to prove 
 
ii PADUA 31 
 
 doubt, of the other professors of that most renowned 
 University, yet he has not referred to any of them by 
 name, and all his recollections of Padua seem bound up 
 with his dear master. 
 
 that 'le docte Villanovanus Francois' was not Arnold, but Simon of 
 Villeneuve. He says : ' We are at a loss to know who is le docte Villano- 
 vanus Francois of whom Rabelais speaks as never having dreamed. It 
 cannot be Arnold of Villeneuve, since none of the three circumstances of 
 learned, French, or contemporary of Rabelais suit him. He was not, and 
 could not indeed be learned, in the period of barbarism and ignorance in 
 which he lived, that is to say, in the thirteenth century, and up to the 
 commencement of the fourteenth. There are stronger grounds for 
 believing him a Spaniard than a Frenchman, as Dom Nicolas Antonio 
 has shown in the second volume of his Bibliotheca vetus Hispanite. 
 Lastly, he could not be of the time of Rabelais, having died in 1 3 10, or 
 at latest in 1 3 1 5 ; and even if, as is sometimes erroneously stated, he was 
 living in 1350, he would still have died 150 years before the birth of 
 Rabelais. I am then persuaded that the Villanovanus here designated is 
 no other than Simon of Villeneuve.' After quoting the several testi- 
 monies of the learning of the latter, La Monnoye proceeds : ' It is then 
 with justice that Rabelais has named him le docte Villanovanus, and 
 especially le docte Villanovanus Francois, for fear of his being confounded 
 with the Spaniard Servetus, who in the time of Rabelais published several 
 books under the name of Villanovanus. It only remains for me to reply 
 to a conjecture of the commentator upon Rabelais (Le Duchat) concern- 
 ing Arnold of Villeneuve, " who perhaps," he says, " has in his treatise 
 on dreams declared that he had himself never dreamed." It is easy to 
 find a solution of this doubt at page 637 of the folio edition of the works 
 of Arnold of Villeneuve (Basle, 1585): "Est igitur advertendum quod sub 
 quacunque specie animal aliquod insultum faciens, secundum conditiones 
 et modos insultus, et defensiones utriusque, debet visio judicari. Ita 
 recolo in somno me vidisse lupos quatuor quadam nocte qui ore aperto 
 insultum in me videbantur facere. Ego autem ense evaginato in ipsos 
 irruebam, et majorem eorum eviscerabam ad mortem. Infra triduum in 
 quadam causa vidi me quatuor inimicorum meorum victoriam habuisse." ' 
 (La Monnoye does not give us the name of the treatise of Arnold from 
 which this passage is taken. It is to be found in a tract entitled Exposi- 
 tions Visionum qua fiunt in Somniis.) Two of the reasons given by La 
 Monnoye for rejecting Arnold of Villeneuve appear to me conclusive. 
 He was certainly not a contemporary of Rabelais, and, at least on one 
 
32 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 In the beginning of 1530 the friendship of Dolet and 
 Simon Villanovanus was broken by the untimely death of 
 the latter at the early age of thirty-five. His friend and 
 pupil composed the following not inelegant epitaph upon 
 him, which, as La Monnoye tells us, 1 was engraved upon a 
 tablet of brass : — 
 
 occasion, he dreamed. It is true De l'Aulnaye (a commentator on 
 Rabelais, to whom, notwithstanding his crotchets, the faithful are much 
 indebted), always desirous of displaying his own knowledge at the 
 expense of his master, thinks the passage quoted by La Monnoye shows 
 that Rabelais was in error. But La Monnoye's two other reasons are of 
 no weight. Rabelais, fortunately for us, did not live in the eighteenth 
 century, when only the sciolists of the day were accounted learned, and 
 when the dilettanteism of M. de Menage was considered of more worth 
 than the most profound learning of an age that had known neither the 
 Academy nor the Grand Monarch. To no writer of any age can the 
 epithet 'learned' be given with greater propriety than to Arnold of 
 Villeneuve. Again, that he was a Spaniard is not now generally believed. 
 That Villanueva in Catalonia may have been his birthplace is possible, 
 but the weight of authority is rather in favour of Villeneuve, near 
 Montpellier, while the village of the same name in Provence also claims 
 him as its son. 
 
 When the Pantagruelist fathers and doctors, men who have devoted 
 their lives to the study of the master, are in doubt, it would be pre- 
 sumptuous in me to offer a decided opinion ; but I cannot agree with 
 Messieurs Burgaud des Marets and Rathery, who in one of the most 
 recent, and, in my opinion {pace M. Jannet), the best edition of Rabelais 
 for ordinary readers (Didot, Paris, 1870), consider Simon Villanovanus 
 could not be meant because of the epithet ' Belga ' applied to him by 
 Pierre Bunel, and which, as they think, proves that he was not a French- 
 man. But in a would-be classical writer of the sixteenth century, a 
 native of any part of France north of the Seine, and certainly of Artois, 
 Picardy, or the northern part of Champagne (Ardennes), would be 
 described as ' Belga.' In the letter of Longolius already cited Simon is 
 described as ' Gallus,' a word intended to include a native of any part of 
 the region between the Rhine and the Pyrenees. Messieurs Burgaud 
 des Marets and Rathery forget that Longolius himself — so constantly 
 referred to by the French Latinists of the sixteenth century as the honour 
 of the Gallic name — was a native of Liege. 
 
 1 Menagiana, iii. 491. 
 
ii PADUA 33 
 
 Salve lector, 
 
 Et animam hue paulum adverte. 
 
 Quod miserum mortales ducunt, 
 
 Felicissimum cito mori puto. Quamobrem 
 
 Et mihi mortuo mortem gratulare, 
 
 Et questu abstine, 
 
 Morte enim mortalis esse desii. 
 
 Vale, 
 
 Et mihi quiescenti bene precare. 1 
 
 ' I bid you welcome, reader, and ask your attention for a 
 moment. That fate which mortals consider to be a mis- 
 fortune, namely to die early, I think a most happy lot. 
 Wherefore congratulate me on my death and do not lament 
 me, for by death I cease to be mortal. Farewell, and pray 
 
 1 No epitaph on Simon Villanovanus is given by Tomasini, nor 
 appears to exist at Padua. I cannot agree with the commentary of M. 
 Boulmier , ' On sent dans ces quelques lignes, mornes et glaciales comme 
 le bronze qu'elles couvraient, cet incurable degout du monde, cet amer 
 mepris de la vie, cette sombre et froide aspiration vers le repos du neant 
 qui forme un des traits distinctifs du caractere de ce malheureux Dolet ' 
 (pp. II, 12). I can see nothing in this epitaph, or in the letters of 
 Dolet, or in those other writings where he may be supposed to speak his 
 real sentiments, which shows either a disgust at the world, a contempt 
 for life, or any desire for the repose of annihilation. Under the bitter 
 persecutions of his enemies he no doubt expresses himself as though 
 death was to be desired. He has indeed an ode, Mortem esse Expetendam ; 
 but in the short intervals between his misfortunes he appears of a joyous 
 temperament, and earnestly to desire life, both for the sake of the cultiva- 
 tion of his own mind, and in order to produce works which should live, 
 and so procure for him that fame which he so eagerly longed for. In fact 
 the desire for posthumous fame was almost a disease with him, and this 
 feeling is seldom if ever combined with an ' incurable degout du monde ' 
 or an 'amer mepris de la vie,' although in some of the Cynics, and 
 notably in Peregrinus, the latter feeling may have been assumed, and 
 even carried to the point of a voluntary death, with a view of acquiring 
 that fame and notoriety which, while professing to despise, they so 
 earnestly desired. The constant presence of the idea of death is, how- 
 ever, one of the best-known characteristics of the French writers of the 
 Renaissance. 
 
34 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 for my repose.' Besides this epitaph Dolet celebrated the 
 death of Villanovanus in three Latin odes, written probably 
 about this time, and certainly not long afterwards, as they 
 were all published with the Orations in 1534. The first, in 
 elegiacs, is one of the best of Dolet's poems, both as to 
 language and sentiment, and alone would prove the utter 
 worthlessness of the criticism of Julius Caesar Scaliger, who, 
 himself a verse-writer without the least taste or genius for 
 poetry, 1 finds no language too strong to express his contempt 
 for the poems of Dolet : — 
 
 O mihi quem probitas, quem vitas candor amicum 
 
 Fecerat, o stabili foedere juncte mihi, 
 O mihi quem dederat dulcis fortuna sodalem, 
 
 O mihi crudeli morte perempte comes : 
 Jamne sopor te aaternus habet, tenebraeque profundae 
 
 Tecum ut nunc frustra carmine mcestus agam ? 
 Quod nos cogit amor, surdo tibi forte canemus, 
 
 Sed nimii officii non pudet esse reum. 
 Chare vale, quem plus oculis dileximus unum, 
 
 Et jubet, ut mage te semper amemus, amor. 
 Tranquillae tibi sint noctes, somnusque quietus, 
 
 Perpetuoque sile, perpetuoque vale. 
 Et si umbris quicquam est sensus, ne sperne rogantem, 
 
 Dilige, perpetuo cui quoque charus eris. 2 
 
 O thou whom probity and sincerity made my friend, 
 Thou who wast joined to me in an indissoluble union, 
 Thou whom kind fortune gave to me for a comrade, 
 Thou my companion, now taken from me by cruel death ; 
 Art thou wrapped in eternal sleep and in profound darkness, 
 So that in vain I mournfully address thee in my song ? 
 Yet what love compels me to do I shall sing, though thou may'st 
 be deaf to it. 
 
 1 'Les poesies brutes et informes dont il a deshonore le Parnasse. 
 Un homme d'un tres mauvais gout dans la poesie.' — Huet. 
 
 2 Orat. Dua, p. 207. 
 
ii PADUA 35 
 
 I am not ashamed to be accused of too tender an affection. 
 Farewell, dear friend, the one whom I have loved more than my 
 
 own eyes, 
 And whom love constrains me to love for ever more and more. 
 May thy nights be tranquil and thy sleep quiet, 
 For ever silent, but for ever well. 
 And if in the land of shadows there is any perception, 
 Do not reject my prayer, but love one to whom thou wilt always 
 
 be dear. 
 
 An epitaph in Latin verse and a longer Latin poem have 
 less merit, yet they show the affection of Dolet, and ''his 
 bitter grief for the loss of the friend with whom (as he him- 
 self tells us) he had lived for three years in the closest intimacy. 
 
 Of Dolet's life at Padua we know but little. All we 
 can say with certainty is that Simon Villanovanus was 
 his chief friend and teacher, and that among the fellow- 
 students with whom he formed an acquaintance was Gui de 
 Breslay, afterwards President of the Grand Council, the 
 intimate friend of Simon, and who had been known to and 
 praised by Longolius. None of Breslay's biographers 
 mention the year of his birth, yet he must have been 
 some years older than Dolet, since he commenced his 
 studies at Padua whilst Longolius was still living. In a 
 letter of the latter to Roger de Barma he speaks in terms 
 of high praise of Breslay, referring to him as optima 
 spei adolescentem. 1 That Dolet had no personal acquaintance 
 with Bembo or the other eminent persons whom he must 
 have seen and probably heard lecture seems certain : he 
 would hardly have omitted to tell us of any persons of 
 eminence whom he had known. Either here or at Venice, 
 however, he made the acquaintance of the clever charlatan 
 Giulio Camillo, to whom, though like himself a great ad- 
 mirer of Cicero, he seems to have taken a violent dislike. 
 
 1 Longolii Epist., last letter of Book I. 
 
36 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Of Camillo and his theatre, the idea of which was not yet 
 promulgated, we shall shortly hear again. It seems probable 
 that Dolet also met at this time Hortensio Lando. 
 
 Of student life at Padua, Dolet has left a charming 
 description in the framework of fiction in which his dialogue 
 against Erasmus De Imitatione Ciceroniana is set. The work 
 is an imaginary conversation between Sir Thomas More 
 and Simon Villanovanus. With the substance of the 
 dialogue and its arguments I shall deal hereafter, but the 
 framework — though of course wholly fictitious, for More 
 never visited Italy — no doubt presents a true picture of the 
 manner in which Villanovanus and his pupils passed many 
 pleasant spring days at Padua. 
 
 ' I was myself present at Padua when the dialogue of 
 Erasmus entitled Ciceronianus was given by Thomas More 
 to Simon Villanovanus. I freely noticed his countenance 
 all the while as he turned over its pages and cursorily read 
 it. I was further present at a very long conversation 
 which took place between him and More, and which was 
 most learned and eloquent.' (As Villanovanus is talking 
 to his pupils of Erasmus and his dislike to Longolius, 
 More arrives.) ' As Villanovanus was making these re- 
 marks More was suddenly announced; admitted into the 
 house, he found there a crowd of young men who constantly 
 flocked to Simon Villanovanus on account of the great- 
 ness and celebrity of his learning and eloquence. They 
 salute each other in a friendly manner, as is the wont of 
 educated and cultured men. Then Villanovanus thanks 
 More in a most handsome manner for the gift which he 
 has received from him, and puts aside his own praises. 
 
 ' After thus exchanging civilities a longer conversation is 
 commenced ; they begin to walk about up and down the 
 house : then More remarked, " I do not enjoy this walking 
 up and down, wearied as I am by my journey and by the 
 
ii PADUA 37 
 
 jolting of my horse. Since it is bright weather and the 
 joyous appearance of the earth covered with fresh flowers 
 calls us into the fields, what should prevent us from going 
 out somewhere near the city, where we may lie on the grass 
 under the boughs of an oak and converse pleasantly, taking 
 a pleasure not unworthy of educated men ? " All agreed 
 to this proposal ; they immediately left the town, found 
 a place covered with a thick shade, and sat down leaning 
 upon the trees. Then Villanovanus, who always sought to 
 avoid sloth and idleness, and was excessively fond of every 
 kind of mental exercise, said, " However pleasant this place 
 is, satiety will soon seize upon us, and weariness steal over 
 us (which always puts an end to pleasure), unless some 
 subject of discussion is fixed upon to which we may devote 
 the rest of the day. For the sun has scarcely passed much 
 beyond the meridian, nor will it go down until eight o'clock. 
 Let one or other suggest some subject of discussion, which 
 may prove sufficiently long to occupy the time, and may 
 be wanting neither in pleasure nor profit. It is not suffi- 
 cient to feed the eyes with this pleasant prospect, the 
 mind ought also to be nourished with some fruitful pleasures." 
 All agreed to this most sensible and opportune suggestion, 
 and desired him to propose a subject for discussion.' 
 Villanovanus then addressing More, introduces the subject 
 of Erasmus, and a long conversation ensues between the 
 two, at which the students are listeners only. At the end 
 Villanovanus remarks, ' " Now let us arise and be going, 
 since we have had a profitable holiday and it is now supper- 
 time." More readily agreed to this, as he was considerably 
 fatigued by his journey, and wished to rest in the house. 
 Such was our afternoon exercise.' 
 
 ' When we had returned into the city, by Simon's direction 
 we all accompanied More to his lodging, and then being 
 dismissed by him we returned to our own homes.' 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Venice 
 
 I loved her from my boyhood ; she to me 
 
 Was as a fairy city of the heart, 
 Rising like water-columns from the sea, 
 
 Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart. 
 
 Byron. 
 
 HE death of Simon 
 Villanovanus broke the 
 tie that bound Dolet to 
 Padua, and he contem- 
 plated a speedy return to 
 France, when the per- 
 suasions of Jean de 
 Langeac, Bishop of 
 Limoges, who was then 
 passing through Padua 
 as Ambassador from 
 France to Venice, induced 
 him to forgo his design, 
 and to accompany the 
 
 Ambassador to Venice in the capacity of secretary. 1 
 
 The few tourists who, venturing out of the beaten track, 
 
 have found themselves in the ancient and important city 
 
 1 Letter to Bude, Orat. Dua in Thol. 105. 
 
chap, in VENICE 39 
 
 of Limoges will not have failed to notice with admiration, 
 not unmixed it may be with censure, in the unfinished 
 fragment which has alone been erected of a cathedral 
 designed on an unusually grand scale and with admirable 
 taste and skill, the remains of the magnificent tomb of 
 one of the most eminent as well as most worthy of its 
 bishops, Jean de Langeac, sometimes, owing to a similarity 
 of names, confounded, even by those who ought to have 
 known better, with his more celebrated successor in the see, 
 the learned, liberal, and jovial cardinal Jean du Bellay- 
 Langey, the friend and patron of Rabelais. Jean de 
 Langeac was one of those men who play no unimportant 
 part in public affairs, yet who leave no mark in the history 
 of their time by which their memory is handed down to 
 posterity. Successively Ambassador to Poland, Portugal, 
 Hungary, Switzerland, Scotland, England, and twice to 
 Rome, few men of his time had seen more of the world 
 or had profited more by these extended and varied travels 
 A man of learning and culture himself, he was everywhere 
 the friend and patron of men of letters ; and the fact that 
 he was the first to discern the abilities and promise of the 
 poor and unknown student of Padua, and to afford him 
 that patronage which he so much needed, must entitle him 
 to our respect. 
 
 Sprung from a family which claimed descent from the 
 kings of Sicily, he was born towards the end of the fifteenth 
 century. In 1512 we find him a councillor clerk of the 
 parliament of Toulouse, and for the next twenty-two years 
 he passed his life immersed in public affairs, chiefly of a 
 diplomatic nature. His industry was indefatigable, and the 
 services which he rendered to his country were not without 
 their reward, as the rich benefices conferred upon him by the 
 king testify. At the end of 1532 he received the bishopric 
 of Avranches, but in less than six months, and before he had 
 
4 o ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 taken possession of his see, he was made to exchange it for 
 Limoges, and a few years after this he retired from public 
 life. 
 
 Still mindful of his motto, Marcescit in otio virtus, he 
 was as busily occupied during the latter years of his life in 
 the administration of his diocese and his other benefices, and 
 in planning and superintending his architectural works, as 
 during his earlier years he had been in the performance of 
 his public duties. At the same time with his see, he enjoyed 
 numerous rich abbeys and benefices which he held in com- 
 mendam, and he delighted to employ his great fortune for 
 their benefit and in the encouragement of literature and art. 
 His ruling passion was architecture, and it was to his 
 liberality that Limoges owed its episcopal palace, and the 
 elaborate rood-screen of its cathedral, which, if we cannot 
 admire in it the mixture of Gothic tracery with Renaissance 
 sculpture, must when perfect have been of extraordinary 
 magnificence. He made other considerable additions to the 
 cathedral, which had been in progress since the thirteenth 
 century, but which since his death has remained in the 
 incomplete state in which he left it. 1 
 
 Dolet in 1532 in a letter to the Bishop's brother, Francis 
 de Langeac, writes, ' What can I write to you respecting 
 your brother, except the usual information ? for certainly no 
 one is more addicted to excessive building than he, so that 
 one may say of him, — 
 
 Diruit, aedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis.' 2 
 
 1 Jean de Langeac died in 1 541. His will has been printed in the 
 Bull, de la Soc. Arch, et Hist, de Limoges, vol. vii. p. 135. A brief life of 
 him by the Abbe Marmeisse appeared at Brioude in 1861, entitled Notice 
 Biographique sur Jean de Langeac, Eveque de Limoges, but it contains very 
 little of interest. 
 
 2 Orat. Dua in Thol. 97. 
 
 No one who had read this letter of Dolet, or his treatise De Officio 
 Legati, could possibly have mistaken this great architectural Bishop of 
 
in VENICE 41 
 
 Made secretary to an Ambassador at twenty-one, Dolet 
 would seem to be borne on that tide ' which taken at the 
 flood leads on to fortune.' Yet — except as it afforded him 
 the means of studying for a year at Venice, and ensured for 
 
 Limoges for his successor Jean du Bellay. Nee de la Rochelle, however, 
 suggested that by Joannes Langiacus, Cardinal Jean du Bellay-Langey was 
 intended. He had never heard of Jean de Langeac, and knowing that 
 Cardinal du Bellay was at one time Bishop of Limoges, he assumed that 
 he was the early — as he was the later — friend of Dolet. The error is 
 venial in the worthy bookseller, whose means of knowledge were limited, 
 and who does not profess to do much more than translate from Maittaire. 
 [He afterwards, however, discovered his mistake, and corrected it in the 
 copy of his Life of Dolet with his MS. notes in the late M. Baudrier's 
 possession] ; but it is difficult to understand how M. Boulmier, and the 
 writer of the article on Dolet in La France Protestante who had access at 
 least to the ordinary biographical dictionaries and lists of Bishops of 
 Limoges, should have fallen into the same error. 
 
 Jean de Langeac died Bishop of Limoges in 1 541, and was immedi- 
 ately succeeded by Jean du Bellay-Langey. At the time when Dolet 
 wrote and printed his treatise De Officio Legati, Langeac was still living 
 and Bishop of Limoges ; and in 1535 Dolet had dedicated his dialogue 
 De Imitatione Ciceroniana ' Ad Joannem Langiacum Episcopum Lemovicensem 
 virum eloquentissimum et eloquentium studiosissimum.' The following is Dolet's 
 notice of the Bishop in the Commentaries, vol. ii. col. 1496: 'Among 
 those who have filled the office of Ambassador in our time in France at 
 least, Jean de Langeac holds by far the first place, a man equally dis- 
 tinguished by his ability, his wisdom, and his singular prudence. The 
 Kings of France have availed themselves of his excellence and fidelity in 
 every kind of business ; and what regions, what kingdoms are there, 
 distant or near, into which he has not been sent as Ambassador ? So that 
 indeed we ought to think him worthy, not only of the highest ecclesiastical 
 dignities and the richest benefices, but also indisputably of that honour [a 
 bronze statue] by which the Romans conferred immortality on Sulpicius 
 Severus on account of his performance of duties of a similar kind. By 
 his watchful counsels the interests of France have been cared for and pro- 
 moted in most difficult circumstances. By him the commissions of the 
 Kings of France have been most faithfully set forth and performed. Let 
 me further add that no one in our time has shown himself of a more 
 obliging or liberal disposition towards men of letters, more devoted to all 
 the learned, or more desirous of rendering services to them.' 
 
42 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 him the friendship and subsequent pecuniary assistance of 
 Jean de Langeac — his secretaryship seems to have had no 
 influence on his subsequent fortunes. Of his duties as 
 secretary he tells us nothing, except that he was employed 
 to write letters to the supreme Pontiff* and to the Bishop's 
 other correspondents. 1 We know, however, that ample 
 leisure was afforded him for study, and that he availed him- 
 self of those opportunities which Venice specially offered. 
 
 The Republic had then reached the height of her power, 
 her glory, and her external splendour. The victorious arms 
 of the Turks had indeed robbed her of a part of her Oriental 
 possessions, and her Doge could no longer justly retain the 
 singular yet once accurate title of Lord of three-eighths' of the 
 Roman Empire. The war which followed the League of 
 Cambrai had given a shock to her military power from 
 which she was never to recover, and the discovery of the 
 passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope had for ever 
 deprived her of the position which she had so long held as 
 the centre of the commerce between the East and the West. 
 But nothing of this was as yet apparent : no one knew, 
 probably no one suspected, that the day of her power had 
 passed, that she had entered on a career of decline which was 
 to continue for three centuries, and was not to be stemmed 
 until, after alternations of domestic misgovernment and 
 foreign tyranny, she was again to raise her head, again to 
 enter on a possible course of prosperity as a member of a 
 free and united Italy. 
 
 In 1529 Venice was still Queen of the Adriatic. Besides 
 possessing half of the great plain of Lombardy, she was the 
 sovereign of Istria, Dalmatia, Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, 
 Santa Maura, Cerigo, Cyprus, and Crete, as well as of 
 several towns in the Peloponnesus and in the northern part 
 of continental Greece. She still retained several islands in 
 1 Letter to Bude, Orat. Dua in Thol. 105. 
 
in VENICE 43 
 
 the Mgezn, while the Dukes of Naxos and other insular 
 Christian princes only retained their dominions by relying on 
 her protection and obeying her behests. 
 
 The city itself was, with perhaps one exception, by far 
 the richest and the most magnificent, and, without any 
 exception, the most orderly and best governed in the world. 
 Until its capture by the Turks in 1463 Constantinople had 
 held the first place among European cities. Vastly 
 inferior as the new Rome of the Bosphorus was to the Rome 
 of Augustus and the Antonines, yet there, and there only, 
 were to be found living, or perhaps only galvanised, but 
 still existing realities, the splendours of Roman art, of 
 Roman civilisation. Temples, palaces, statues, pictures, of 
 a late and degraded age indeed, but still far superior to any- 
 thing that was to be seen in western Europe during the early 
 part of the Middle Ages, existed at Constantinople. But 
 this was terminated by its capture by the Turks. The city 
 became a mass of ruins, the graven images were utterly 
 destroyed, nothing of its ancient splendours remained, save 
 what could be converted to Mahommedan purposes, to the 
 worship of Allah or the luxury of his servant the Sultan. 
 
 During the century which followed the loss of Con- 
 stantinople, two cities, both Italian, claim the first place both 
 for wealth and magnificence, Venice and Florence ; and if 
 the latter must carry off the palm in matters of art and 
 literature, if the grace, the beauty, the artistic feeling, the 
 extraordinary combination of grandeur and simplicity which 
 characterises the Duomo of Brunelleschi, entitles it to take 
 precedence of the Church of St. Mark, yet for general 
 magnificence, for richness of external ornament, for wealth 
 acquired by commerce and expended in the decoration of 
 the city, Venice might not unreasonably claim that pre- 
 eminence which, in regard to internal government, to the 
 completeness and efficiency of its police regulations, no city 
 
44 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 could pretend to compete with. Perfect security for life 
 and property, and an entire absence of those insurrections 
 and civil brawls which frequently occurred as well in 
 Florence as in nearly every other city in Italy in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, were the especial characteristics of 
 Venice. 
 
 It was here that Etienne Dolet passed the year which 
 followed his departure from Padua. The great palace of 
 the Doges, with its marble, its columns, its paintings which 
 equalled those of Apelles, especially impressed him, and he 
 has left us in the biographical poem on Jean de Langeac, 
 appended to his treatise De Officio Legati, a long and pictur- 
 esque description of it, and of the reception given to the 
 Ambassador. 
 
 Although Padua was the University of the Republic, 
 yet in Venice itself the means of study were not wanting. 
 Several literary professorships had been founded and 
 endowed by the State, and were filled by men of diplomatic 
 as well as literary eminence. At this time the chair of 
 Eloquence 1 was occupied by Giovanni Battista Egnazio, 
 the pupil of Politian, who, in the opinion of many, most 
 nearly resembled his master. The assistant and friend of 
 Aldus, the editor of the best editions of Caesar, Suetonius, 
 and Ovid which had as yet appeared, he was highly esteemed 
 not only by the senators of Venice, who had employed him 
 in several missions of importance, and who appointed him 
 to his professorship in 1520, but by all men of letters of the 
 day. When only eighteen years of age he had opened a 
 school at Venice, the success and reputation of which had 
 excited the jealousy of Sabellicus, who then held the 
 public professorship of Eloquence ; and when long after- 
 wards Egnazio was appointed to the same office, he delivered 
 lectures which had an extraordinary popularity. More than 
 1 i.e. Latin composition. 
 
in VENICE 45 
 
 five hundred persons, we are told, daily attended his lectures ; 
 not young students only, but persons of all ages, senators of 
 Venice, Papal legates, foreign ambassadors, and strangers 
 from all parts, were to be seen there. We can understand 
 the ardour with which Etienne Dolet seized upon the 
 opportunities which Langeac afforded him of attending the 
 lectures of this eminent man. The young Ciceronian was 
 delighted to find that his favourite author was the subject 
 of one of the courses which Egnazio gave in the year 
 that Langeac spent at Venice. Dolet tells us 1 that the 
 special subject of the lectures of Egnazio during the year that 
 he attended them were Lucretius and Cicero De Officiis, and 
 we cannot doubt that these lectures, especially those on the 
 De Officiis, were of much service to him in preparing the 
 materials for his great work, the Commentaries on the Latin 
 Tongue, the plan of which he had for some time conceived, 
 and the materials for which he was already collecting. 
 
 The name of only one other man of letters has come 
 down to us as connected with Dolet at Venice. Sturm, in 
 the edition which he gave of Dolet's Phrases et Formula 
 Lingua Latina elegantiores in 1576, says, 'Dolet is 
 believed to have been assisted by Navagero, with whom he 
 lived at Venice, and thence to have brought the materials 
 of his Commentaries into his own country.' This statement 
 is clearly unfounded. If Dolet ever knew Navagero, it must 
 have been at Padua, for he (Navagero) died at Blois on the 
 8th of May 1529, a date at which Dolet was certainly still 
 at Padua. But during his residence in that city Navagero 
 could only have been there, if at all, for short visits. There 
 is, however, no trace in any of Dolet's writings of an 
 acquaintance with Navagero. The statement had been made 
 to Sturm (as it elsewhere appears) by some one who desired 
 to deprive Dolet of the merit of the Commentaries. 
 
 1 1 Comm. 1 1 56. 
 
46 ETIENNE DOLET chap, hi 
 
 But bis sojourn at Venice was not exclusively devoted 
 to business or study. He found time and opportunity — as 
 what youth of twenty visiting Venice for the first time would 
 not have done — to fall in love. He was not more fortunate 
 in love than in friendship. Death, which had so lately 
 taken from him his friend, now deprived him of his mistress. 
 He commemorated her death in an epitaph, which is one of 
 the least happy of his poems. Goujet 1 describes it as very 
 profane. It is, however, merely stilted and pretentious, 
 utterly wanting in reality and feeling. The three poems 
 written after her death tell us all we know of this love 
 affair, that is to say, the name of the lady and the fact of 
 her death, and they allow us to believe that Etienne's love 
 had not been very profound nor his heart very severely 
 wounded by the loss of Elena. 
 
 1 Bibliotheque Franfoise, xi. 194. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Tou 
 
 LOUSE 
 
 Tamum religio potuit suadere malorum. 
 
 Lucretius. 
 
 ANGEAC'S mission at 
 Venice lasted for a year, 
 and Dolet then returned 
 with him to France, in- 
 tending to devote himself 
 more ardently than ever 
 to the study of Latin 
 literature and to the pre- 
 paration and collection of 
 materials for his great 
 work — contemplated 
 since he was sixteen years 
 of age — upon the Latir 
 language, with a primary 
 view of proving the superiority in style of Cicero to Sallust 
 Caesar, Terence, and Livy ; a work for which, although 
 only in his twenty-second year, he had already made exten- 
 sive collections, and which — for self-depreciation was never 
 one of his failings — he seems already to have thought 
 himself competent to write. Inordinately desirous of con- 
 temporary and of posthumous fame, he was, however, 
 
48 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 entirely without the desire of that vulgar success which leads 
 to wealth and honours. There is not a trace in any of his 
 correspondence, or indeed in any of his writings, of the least 
 desire for wealth ; provided he had the means of subsistence 
 and of pursuing his studies, he was content. The meanness 
 of his dress, the discomfort and poverty in which he con- 
 tentedly lived, are the subjects of the satire and ridicule of 
 his enemies. During his residence at Toulouse he accepted 
 with manly gratitude the gifts of the good Langeac, and, 
 when necessary, informed him of his wants. 1 But we never 
 find Dolet writing begging and fawning letters asking for 
 money, benefices, and places, such as those which disgust 
 and pain us so much in the men of letters of the day, even 
 the most eminent, even in the great Erasmus himself. 
 Dolet indeed frequently seeks his powerful friends' assistance, 
 but it is to obtain his release from prison, to protect him 
 from his enemies, to obtain permission to peacefully earn his 
 own livelihood as a printer, and to print books that may be 
 of use to his country, that he applies to them. 
 
 On his return from Italy no care for the future seems to 
 have disturbed him ; study and fame were all he desired. 
 But the urgent advice of his friends — and especially of the 
 Bishop of Limoges — was that he should devote himself to 
 the study of the law. It is clear that Langeac charged him- 
 self with his protege's maintenance during the time he was 
 to be occupied in the study of jurisprudence. When these 
 studies were finished the Bishop would have no difficulty 
 in obtaining his appointment to some legal office, which in 
 the eyes of the shrewd diplomatist would be much / better for 
 him than the precarious life of a mere scholar, and which, 
 he would not fail to remind Dolet, would be a stepping-stone 
 to greater successes. The Bishop had himself, when a 
 young man, held the office of Councillor Clerk of the 
 1 See his letters to Langeac, Orat. Duee in Tholosam, 134-137. 
 
iv TOULOUSE 49 
 
 Parliament of Toulouse, and it was to the University of that 
 city that he advised Dolet to betake himself. A new 
 subject to study always had attractions for him. He tells 
 us, 
 
 Mon naturel est d'apprendre toujours ; 
 
 Mais si ce vient que je passe aucuns jours 
 
 Sans rien apprendre en quelque lieu ou place, 
 
 Incontinent il faut que je deplace. 
 
 Accordingly, yielding to his friend's entreaties, he gave 
 up for the present, not without a sigh, his literary labours, 
 and early in 1532 entered as a student the University of 
 Toulouse, the most celebrated school of Law at that time 
 in France, and one which enjoyed so great a reputation 
 beyond that country, that numerous students of other 
 nations, Spaniards, Germans, and English, were to be found 
 there. The two years and upwards which Dolet passed at 
 Toulouse were most memorable in his life. It was there 
 that the foundations of all his future misfortunes were laid, 
 that he aroused those enmities which never rested or ceased 
 until his death in the Place Maubert ; there also he con- 
 tracted many friendships with good men, which he retained 
 until his or their death. These two years of friendships, 
 enmities, and misfortunes are among the most interesting 
 in his history, and we are fortunate in having more detailed 
 information respecting them than respecting any other two 
 years of his life. His Orationes dua in Tholosam, and the 
 three books of epistles to and from his friends which are 
 included in the same volume, are our principal sources of 
 information for this period, though we are able to supple- 
 ment them from the histories of Toulouse, the lives of 
 other men of eminence who were to be found there at this 
 time, and the correspondence of Julius Caesar Scaliger with 
 Arnoul Le Ferron. 
 
 From Padua to Toulouse the moral was even greater 
 
 E 
 
50 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 than the physical distance. The former was the home of 
 freedom of thought, where no limit was placed on the 
 speculations of its scholars, where the highest and deepest 
 intellectual problems were discussed with a freedom and 
 ingenuity which, if leading sometimes to unsound conclu- 
 sions, yet showed abundance of life and vigour, and where 
 literary culture was carried to the highest pitch, and received 
 no less devotion than philosophical speculation. The latter 
 was exclusively devoted to mediaeval jurisprudence and 
 mediaeval theology, each of them studied in the narrowest 
 and most formal manner. The days of Cujas and Coras had 
 not yet come, and though Jean de Boyssone was attempting 
 to introduce some ameliorations into the study of law, and, 
 following the example of Alciat at Bourges and Pavia, was 
 setting forth jurisprudence as in some sort a scientific system 
 and not a mere collection of arbitrary rules, yet his influence 
 was hardly felt, and in the school of law at Toulouse Bartholus 
 and Accursius still reigned supreme. 
 
 For three centuries before this time Toulouse had been 
 the headquarters of ecclesiastical bigotry, tyranny, and 
 superstition. The birthplace, and in France the chief seat 
 of the Inquisition, that institution had so effectually done its 
 work, that the Parliament, the University, the Capitouls, 
 and the mob, vied with each other which could show them- 
 selves its most faithful henchmen, and could give it the most 
 efficient aid in its brutal operations. And for three centuries 
 more the city and its population had the same character. 
 ' Nowhere,' proudly remarks the President de Gramond, 
 writing in the middle of the seventeenth century, ' are the 
 laws against heresy enforced with more severity, and the 
 result of this is that Toulouse alone among the cities of 
 France is free from the stain of heresy, no one being 
 admitted to citizenship whose Catholic faith is suspected.' 1 
 1 Hist. Gallia, lib. xxx. 
 
iv TOULOUSE 51 
 
 But it had not always been so. There had been a time 
 when Toulouse was in the van of civilisation, of culture, 
 and of progress. Under the Romans, and still more under 
 the Visigoths, Toulouse was the most polished city of Gaul. 
 Arts and letters flourished, and instead of a dull level of 
 ecclesiastical orthodoxy, theological speculations were rife, 
 which, however deserving the appellation of heresies, at least 
 showed intellectual life and vigour. 'The Court of the 
 Visigothic kings at Toulouse/ says Augustin Thierry, 1 
 ' the centre of all the policy of the West, the intermediary 
 between the Imperial Court and the Germanic kingdoms, 
 equalled in polish, and perhaps surpassed in dignity, that of 
 Constantinople.' Martial, Ausonius, and Sidonius Apol- 
 linaris describe it as the city of Pallas, and St. Jerome calls 
 it the Rome of the Garonne. Like the Rome of the Tiber, 
 Toulouse had its capitol and its consuls, and in the title of 
 capitouls, or barons of the capitol, which the civic magistrates 
 proudly retained long after that of consul had fallen into 
 disuse, a memory was preserved of the days of imperial or 
 regal Toulouse. Under the early Visigothic kings Arian- 
 ism was the dominant creed, and though, after the conversion 
 of Recared to the orthodox faith, the latter became the 
 religion of the State, yet Arianism continued to prevail widely 
 through the provinces of Narbonne and Aquitaine. Soon 
 after Arianism became extinct a new sect of heretics appeared, 
 the Cathari ; and to them succeeded in the beginning of the 
 twelfth century the Albigenses, whose doctrines were so 
 simple and Christian, whose lives so peaceful and industrious, 
 that they soon spread over a portion of Languedoc, and gave 
 rise to one of the most horrible and brutal persecutions 
 which the history of the world records. The persecutions 
 of the Christians by the Pagan emperors of Rome fade into 
 insignificance before those which resulted from the three 
 1 Lettres sur Vhistoire de France, i. 6. 
 
52 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 crusades preached by the fathers of Christendom against the 
 Albigenses. As Toulouse was the headquarters of the sect, 
 it especially experienced the cruelties which the Catholic 
 Church, through the agency of Simon de Montfort and his 
 infamous colleague Foulques, Bishop of Toulouse, inflicted 
 on thousands of peaceful citizens and peasants, for no other 
 offence than that of refusing to accept doctrines which, 
 whether true or false, it is certain neither the persecuted nor 
 the persecutors could possibly understand. The unfortunate 
 Counts of Toulouse strove in vain to protect their peaceful 
 and loyal subjects ; they were themselves hounded to death 
 for refusing to act as the butchers of those whom it was their 
 first duty to shelter from oppression. But the required 
 result was obtained. There are but few series of events 
 upon which the Church of Rome can look with greater or 
 more unqualified satisfaction, and on the result of which she 
 has better reason to congratulate herself, than the crusades 
 against the Albigenses. Thousands of Christian men, 
 women, and children were murdered in cold blood ; some by 
 the ferocious soldiers of Montfort ; others, less fortunate, 
 perished by the flames which were kindled by saints and 
 bishops ; a still greater number were tortured, wounded, im- 
 prisoned, and deprived of their lands. The most smiling 
 and prosperous part of France was changed into a desert. 
 ' Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.'' The old joyous life 
 of the South was gone. But heresy was successfully crushed. 
 In the country districts, indeed, its embers still smouldered 
 ready to burst into a flame at any moment, but Toulouse, 
 from being the most heretical, became the most orthodox 
 city in France ; and for the six centuries which followed its 
 surrender to Simon de Montfort in 12 14, the Church could 
 point with just pride to at least one city whert>her persecu- 
 tions had been a complete success, where her author! »v was un- 
 questioned, where freedom of thought was never atV^o take 
 
iv TOULOUSE 53 
 
 root, and where superstition and bigotry continued equally 
 to distinguish its rulers and its populace. It was at Toulouse 
 that St. Dominic founded that celebrated Order, which if it 
 has not succeeded in effectually crushing heresy, has shrunk 
 from no cruelty, from no infamy, in its attempts to do so. 
 It was there that shortly after his death the Inquisition was 
 established, and there it continued to have its headquarters 
 in France until its formal and final suppression in 1772. 1 
 It was there that the ' Inquisitor of the whole kingdom of 
 France, specially appointed by the Holy Apostolic See and 
 by the Royal authority ' (such was the title conferred upon 
 the Inquisitor -General by the Parliament), held his court, 
 and where alone his powers were unquestioned. 2 Not only 
 the governors of Languedoc, but even the kings of France 
 themselves could not enter Toulouse until they had taken 
 an oath before the Inquisition to maintain the faith and the 
 Holy Office. After the Place Maubert in Paris, there was 
 no spot of ground in France where during the period of the 
 Reformation so many eminent persons were burned for their 
 religion as in the Place de Safins at Toulouse. In 1532 it 
 
 1 It had ceased to exist as a court of justice more than a century 
 before this. In 1645 the then Archbishop, Charles de Montchal, jealous 
 of a rival authority, obtained a Royal decree depriving the Inquisition of 
 its jurisdiction as a royal court. The title of Inquisitor-General, however, 
 which conferred much prestige and some actual power, continued to exist 
 until 1772, when the Marquis d'Aignan d'Orbessan, President a Mortier 
 in the Parliament of Toulouse, shocked at the idea that the Inquisition 
 should exist in France even in name, obtained a Royal decree for its sup- 
 pression. — Hist, de I' Inquisition en France, par E. L. B. de Lamothe- 
 Langon. 
 
 2 Many as were the attempts made by the Inquisition to do so, it 
 never extended its authority beyond Languedoc and the adjacent districts. 
 It never obtained any recognition by the Parliament of Paris, nor by those 
 of Dijon or Bordeaux, though, as in the case of Dolet himself, the In- 
 quisitor-General occasionally held his courts within the limits of their 
 jurisdiction, — acting, as it would seem, as the Bishop's official or his 
 assessor. 
 
54 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 witnessed the martyrdom of Jean de Caturce, in 1538 that 
 of the Grand Inquisitor himself, Louis Rochette, who, when 
 convinced of the truth of the reformed doctrines which he 
 had passed so many years in persecuting, received those 
 precious balms which the Church affords to her erring 
 children. It was Toulouse that in 1562 anticipated St. 
 Bartholomew by a similar massacre of the Huguenots, which 
 for the time completely freed the city from that pestilent 
 sect. Those that escaped the assassins were put to death 
 judicially by the Parliament, and an annual fete in memory 
 of the happy event was instituted in the city, and subsequently 
 confirmed by a Bull of Pope Pius IV., who granted special 
 indulgences to those who took part in it. 1 We may deplore 
 the blindness of heretics and infidels in face of the clear 
 proofs which orthodoxy offers to them, but they have as yet 
 escaped the reproach of glorying in crimes committed in their 
 names. The Church of Rome alone, which neither changes 
 nor repents, still glories in and applauds these atrocities. 
 
 It was Toulouse that almost alone of the French cities 
 received with joy the news of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 and followed it up, in pursuance of the Royal orders, by the 
 murder of three hundred Huguenots, who were led out of 
 prison one by one and butchered by eight students of the 
 University, who however did not disdain to receive payment 
 for their pious work ; 2 while three suspected councillors of 
 the Parliament were hung in their scarlet robes in the great 
 court of the palace. It was at Toulouse that, seventeen years 
 later, the virtuous president Duranti was dragged from the 
 prison into which the leaguers had thrown him for obeying 
 
 1 Voltaire calls this fSte ' la procession annuelle oil Ton remercie Dieu 
 de quatre mille assassinats.' Only eighteen years have passed since an 
 Archbishop of Toulouse desired to resuscitate it. (Written in 1880.) 
 
 2 The authors of the Histoire de Toulouse prefixed to the Biographie 
 Toulousaine say that the receipts for their payments are still in existence. 
 
iv TOULOUSE 55 
 
 the orders of the King, and brutally murdered by the mob, 
 while the Capitouls moved no hand for his protection, but 
 showed their sympathy with the murderers by confiscating 
 the wrecks of his library and furniture which had escaped 
 the pillage of the populace. 
 
 It was Toulouse, which as we should expect, became the 
 headquarters of the League, which dedicated a solemn 
 religious service to the memory of Jacques Clement, which 
 bitterly opposed and long refused to acknowledge the 
 authority of the Edict of Nantes, and which received with 
 unbounded enthusiasm the news of its revocation. Nor 
 were religious triumphs and glories wanting to Toulouse in 
 the seventeenth or even in the latitudinarian and philo- 
 sophical eighteenth century. In 1619 the audacious, the 
 ingenious, but not always intelligible Vanini was burned 
 alive in the Place St. Etienne. Eight years earlier, however, 
 the Inquisitors of Toulouse attained a distinction in their 
 pious work which raised them to a level with, if indeed it 
 did not elevate them above, their Spanish brethren. If the 
 name of brother Pierre Girardie has not attained the celebrity 
 of that of Torquemada, and if he cannot rival that great 
 man in the number or the rank of those whom he delivered 
 to the secular arm, he has at least one claim to distinction 
 which the Spanish Inquisitor, so far as I know, does not 
 possess. It was he who, as Inquisitor - General in 161 1, 
 tried and condemned to death for sacrilege a boy of nine 
 years of age. The child was burned alive in pursuance of 
 the sentence. 1 In the latter half of the eighteenth century 
 
 1 Histoire de Saint Sernin, par Raymond Dayde, Toulouse, 1 66 1, 
 p. 204. Incredible as the judicial burning alive of a child of nine 
 would seem, the fact not only rests on the authority of Dayde, but, 
 as M. de Lamothe-Langon tells us (Histoire de P Inquisition en France, 
 Paris, 1829, vol. iii. p. 566), is confirmed by the records of the Inquisition, 
 copies of which, made by Pere Hyacinthe Sermet, he (M. de L.-L.) had 
 seen, and by the criminal registers of the Parliament. 
 
56 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 such an event would have been impossible, yet even then 
 Toulouse, alone of the cities of France, distinguished itself 
 by the execution of heretics. 
 
 In February 1762, the last of the martyrs of the French 
 Protestant Church, Francois Rochette, the young pastor of 
 the desert, and the three brothers Grenier, sealed their faith 
 with their blood in the Place du Petit-Salin; and a few 
 weeks later a majority of the two Presidents and eleven 
 Councillors of the Parliament who formed the Chamber of 
 the Tournelle condemned, without a shadow of evidence, 
 and solely because the accused was a Protestant, Jean Calas 
 to be broken on the wheel for the alleged murder of his 
 son. Lastly, it was at Toulouse that the hideous massacre 
 of General Ramel by the Verdets took place in the days of 
 the White Terror, a murder for which the authorities refused 
 to punish or even prosecute the murderers. 1 
 
 Nowhere in the world in the first half of the sixteenth 
 century was such a display of piety to be seen as at Toulouse. 
 A hundred churches were daily filled by the faithful, each 
 having its special ceremonies and its special festivals. ' In 
 the capital of Languedoc, as in the capital of the Christian 
 world,' says an orthodox modern historian of Toulouse, 2 
 * almost every day was marked by one or more pious 
 ceremonies ; there evangelical voices proclaimed without 
 ceasing the eternal verities, and the whole life of an 
 inhabitant of Toulouse was a perpetual confession of the 
 Catholic faith.' Michael Servetus, who had gone there a 
 few years earlier than Dolet, and for the same purpose, the 
 study of the law, must have been amazed at the piety and 
 zeal of the Tolosans. He had seen nothing like it at 
 
 1 All this is happily now matter of history only. Religious bigotry 
 is no longer a characteristic of Toulouse. 
 
 2 Du Mege, Hist, des Institutions de Toulouse, Toulouse, 1 844, i. 
 
 155- 
 
iv TOULOUSE 57 
 
 Saragossa, where he had passed the preceding three years. 
 The whole city seemed to be a temple. He found himself 
 surrounded by crucifixes, holy pictures, relics. It was a 
 veritable tie sonnante. The church bells never ceased. 
 Masses were constantly being said, and all attended by 
 crowds. Processions more numerous than he had ever seen 
 thronged the streets, and each seemed more magnificent than 
 the last. Nowhere could there have been seen so pious a 
 magistracy as that of Messieurs the Capitouls. 1 Punishment 
 swiftly followed any offence against religion, however trivial. 
 At the centre or bolt of the great bridge of St. Michael, 
 finished in 1508, was suspended a great iron cage for 
 ducking heretics and blasphemers until they died. 2 
 
 The populace were in their religious practices such as 
 their spiritual pastors had made them. Where a little later 
 the chief religious festival was in celebration of four thousand 
 assassinations, where in the most sacred part of the cathedral, 
 that in which the body of Christ is offered for the quick 
 and dead, the rulers of the Church placed, and where still 
 may be seen, a carved wooden figure of a pig preaching, 
 with the inscription underneath, ' Calvin pore frechant, 1 
 the common people were given up to grovelling and 
 ridiculous superstitions. If rain was desired, the statues 
 of the saints were removed from their places and carried in 
 procession through the city. If a flood was threatened, 
 prayers were addressed to the river itself, and a cross was 
 placed beneath its waves. 
 
 Yet it might be expected that the University would 
 stand out as an oasis in the desert of superstition and bigotry 
 
 1 Tollin, Toulouser Studentenkben im Anfange des 16. Jahrhunderts. 
 (Riehl's Hist. Taschenbuch, 1874, 79"9 8 
 
 2 Ibid. Tollin quotes the words of the archives of Toulouse in 
 reference to this cage : ' Mise sur Garonne pour tremper les blaspb'emateurs 
 du nom de Dieu.' 
 
58 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 which surrounded it, that there at least would be found some 
 intellectual freedom and some intellectual life. 1 But this 
 expectation would be disappointed. The University of 
 Toulouse was the last upon which the light of the 
 Renaissance shone. 
 
 Founded in 1229, at the same time, by the same persons, 
 and for the same purposes as the Inquisition, it long 
 preserved its original character. The Church desired that 
 in the same place where had been taught the doctrines 
 which she so strongly disapproved, and which she had so 
 bitterly and so successfully persecuted, there should be 
 henceforth taught no other doctrine than hers, no other 
 study permitted than that of orthodox theology. It was 
 therefore one of the conditions imposed upon the unhappy 
 Raymond VIL, that he should establish and maintain an 
 University for the study of the canon law and theology. 2 
 
 It was to this Toulouse — this city of barbarism and 
 bigotry, as he was fond of calling it — that Dolet, full of 
 ardour for study, full of vigour and intellectual life, loving 
 the humanists and the new learning, and already, as it would 
 seem, filled with hatred for the monks and for superstition, 
 and also, as I fear must in truth be added, sharp and 
 irritable in temper, and bitter and even venomous in tongue, 
 came early in the year 1532 for the purpose of studying, 
 
 1 I am not sure that experience warrants this expectation. Oxford has 
 not always been in the van of progress, whether intellectual, religious, or 
 political. The University of Paris, splendid as are its services, was kept 
 closely down to the dead level of the Sorbonne ; while the German 
 Universities, which it has been the fashion for the last half-century to 
 laud to the skies, have been generally, though with some notable excep- 
 tions, found to be the submissive instruments of their princely masters, 
 and only to have pursued those speculations which tend to freedom of 
 thought and freedom of action, in the rare instances where the sovereign 
 encouraged or permitted them to do so. 
 
 2 Sismondi, Hist, des Franqais, vii. 86. 
 
iv TOULOUSE 59 
 
 and, as it would seem, of ultimately practising the law ; 
 and we find him speedily on terms of great intimacy with 
 several persons who either had already made or were 
 afterwards to make a considerable reputation, and who 
 require some notice here. If the maxim ' Noscitur a 
 Sociis ' is to be applied to Dolet, the result would be most 
 favourable to him, for during his two years' residence he 
 seems to have acquired the friendship of all those men who 
 by their virtue or their learning conferred lustre on Toulouse. 
 For barbarous and bigoted as it was, there were not wanting 
 among the members of the Parliament, the professors of 
 the University, and the students, those who sympathised 
 warmly with learning and intellectual progress. Jacques 
 de Minut, to whom Egnazio dedicated his work De 
 Romanorum Principibus, and to whom Dolet subsequently 
 devoted more than one ode, and whose epitaph he wrote, 
 was First President of the Parliament. Jean Bertrandi, 
 afterwards Cardinal and First President of the Parliament 
 of Paris, was Second President, who, if less truly devoted 
 to literature and learning than Minut, still desired to 
 promote them and to protect men of letters if he could do 
 so without injuring his ambitious aims. Jean de Pins, 1 
 Bishop of Rieux, was generally a resident at Toulouse, and 
 probably one of the episcopal members of the Parliament. 
 Jean de Caturce and Jean de Boyssone were lecturing on 
 law and striving to introduce some ameliorations of the 
 barbarism of the University. Jacques Bording, not yet 
 devoted to medicine, was either studying or teaching Latin, 
 or probably doing both. Arnoul Le Ferron, afterwards to 
 attain fame as a historian, a jurist, and a scholar, Claude 
 Cottereau, and Simon Finet, were all contemporary students 
 of Dolet, and with all he soon became on terms of great 
 intimacy. 
 
 1 M. Boulmier erroneously calls him Dupin. 
 
60 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 | The Bishop of Rieux, soon to become the chief friend 
 and protector of Dolet, was confessedly at the head of the 
 men of letters of Toulouse, and was indeed perhaps the 
 only one whose fame at this time extended not only over 
 France, but wherever in Europe literary culture flourished, 
 t Like Dolet's first protector and patron, Langeac, Jean de 
 \ Pins had passed a part of his life in various embassies, and 
 had twice preceded the Bishop of Limoges as French 
 Ambassador to Venice. He descended from an illus- 
 trious family, though of no great influence or wealth, 
 the founder of which, sprung from the Counts of Pinas in 
 Catalonia, had settled in Languedoc at the end of the 
 twelfth century, after fighting by the side of Pedro the 
 Second of Aragon on behalf of Raymond of Toulouse and 
 Bernard of Comminges, in support of the freedom, political 
 and moral, of Languedoc. A century later Odo de Pins 
 received from Bernard VI., Count of Comminges, 1 the lands 
 which were then erected into a seigneury and called by his 
 name, and which his descendants still possess. 
 
 For three centuries the name was closely connected with 
 the civil and military history of Languedoc, and attained 
 still greater distinction in the annals of the Sovereign Order 
 of St. John of Jerusalem. Two Grand-Masters, a Grand- 
 Vicar, and many officers and knights the family of Pins gave 
 to the Order, and the Langue of Provence has had no more 
 honourable members. In 1294 Odo de Pins succeeded 
 John de Villiers as twenty-third Grand-Master of the Order, 
 not then become sovereign, but which had its chief seat 
 among the vines of Limasol in Cyprus, where are still to be 
 seen decayed mansions with the arms of the knights carved 
 in stone, and where the rich commandery wine still preserves 
 their memory. If the powers of Odo -were unequal to the 
 task of ruling the brotherhood, his moderation and charity 
 1 Not Raymond, as the editors of Moreri say. 
 
iv TOULOUSE 6 1 
 
 are celebrated by the historians of the Order. In 131 7 
 Gerard de Pins, who had distinguished himself seven years 
 before at the capture of Rhodes, was named by Clement V. 
 Grand-Vicar, and as such reigned at Rhodes during the 
 dispute between Fouques de Villaret and Maurice de Pagnac, 
 each claiming to be Grand-Master. The death of Pagnac in 
 1 32 1 brought his regency to a close after he had distinguished 
 it by his defence of Rhodes when besieged by Orkhan, son 
 of the Sultan Osman ; and for the remaining twenty-three 
 years of his life he proved, by the services rendered to the 
 Grand-Master and to the Order, that he was no less capable 
 of obeying as a subject than he had been of reigning as a 
 sovereign. In 1355, eleven years after his death, his kins- 
 man Roger de Pins was chosen Grand-Master in succession 
 to Pierre de Corneillan. Though not wanting in military 
 zeal or ability, it was as an administrator, and above all 
 as a benefactor of the sick and needy, that he acquired that 
 reputation which has handed him down to posterity as one 
 of the ablest and best of the Grand-Masters. Devoted from 
 his youth to the Order, its members, and its interests, he 
 was not blind to its faults ; and instead of following the 
 insidious advice and almost commands of its enemy Pope 
 Innocent IV., who wished the Order to quit the island of 
 Rhodes and establish itself in Achaia, where it would be 
 less powerful and more submissive, he set himself to reform 
 the statutes, a work which he successfully accomplished. 
 But he cared no less for the welfare of his Rhodian subjects 
 than for that of his Order, and when the plague and sub- 
 sequent famine ravaged Rhodes he employed the whole of 
 his revenue in relieving the necessities of the Rhodians, and 
 even sold his plate and the furniture of his palace to obtain 
 funds for that purpose. 
 
 But the ancestors of Jean de Pins did not disdain 
 humbler if not less useful duties nearer home, and no more 
 
62 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 honoured name is to be found among the Capitouls of 
 Toulouse than theirs. Odo de Pins was a Capitoul in 1362, 
 and the name again occurs several times in that and the 
 succeeding century, while the elder brother of the Bishop of 
 Rieux held for some years the honourable office of Viguier 
 of Toulouse. 
 
 Jean de Pins was born in 1470. He lost his father 
 Gaillard de Pins while yet a child, but the care and affection 
 of his elder brother, to whose guardianship he was committed, 
 made this loss less heavy than it otherwise might have been. 
 Devoted to literature from boyhood, his brother gave him 
 every opportunity of pursuing his studies, and we find him 
 successively a student at the Universities of Toulouse, 
 Poictiers, Paris, and Bologna. At the latter place he 
 studied under two of the most learned scholars of the day, 
 Filippo Beroaldo the elder, who then filled the chair of 
 Literas Humaniores, and Urceus Codrus, then Professor of 
 Eloquence and Greek, from whom it is possible that Jean de 
 Pins acquired the knowledge, then so rare on this side the 
 Alps, of the Greek language. It is to the lessons of Beroaldo 
 that his biographers have attributed the purity and elegance 
 of his Latin style, but not as I think with probability, for 
 great as was the reading of Beroaldo (Pico de la Mirandola 
 says of him what Eunapius had before said of Longinus, that 
 he was a living library), his Latin style, as Ginguene has 
 remarked, is affected and vicious, and resembles rather 
 Apuleius than Cicero. In 1497 Jean de Pins received holy 
 orders and paid a visit to Toulouse, and then gave up to his 
 elder brother his share in the paternal inheritance. The 
 same year he returned to Italy, and passed the next ten years 
 in study and literary pursuits. In 1500 Urceus Codrus 
 died, and in 1 502 an edition of his works (orations, letters, 
 and poems) was printed at Bologna under the editorship of 
 Filippo Beroaldo the younger, with the assistance of 
 
iv TOULOUSE 6 3 
 
 Bartholomeo Bianchini and Jean de Pins. The book 
 contains several writings of Jean de Pins, namely, a letter in 
 praise of Urceus addressed to Jean Maurolet of Tours, an 
 epigram addressed to Ferric Carondelet, and an epitaph on 
 Urceus. In 1505 Beroaldo the elder died, and Jean de Pins 
 lost no time in writing his life, which he printed at Bologna 
 the same year, together with the life of St. Catherine of 
 Sienna. 1 In 1508, influenced as it seems by the wishes of 
 his family, he returned to Toulouse. Singularly devoid of 
 ambition, either for wealth or honours, he was equally careless 
 of literary glory. He had no other intention or wish than 
 to devote himself to study and to the society of learned 
 men. The first forty years of his life were thus passed, 
 when his appointment to the honourable office of Councillor 
 Clerk to the Parliament of Toulouse altogether altered the 
 current of his existence, and for twelve years caused him 
 to change the contemplative for the practical life. The 
 ability and zeal which he displayed in the performance of 
 the duties of his office brought him under the favourable 
 notice of Du Prat, then First President of the Parliament 
 of Paris, who had formerly held the office of Advocate- 
 General in the Parliament of Toulouse. The First President 
 had occasion to mark his capacity, and when on the accession 
 of Francis I. to the throne the seals were taken from 
 Estienne Poncher and entrusted to Du Prat, one of the first 
 acts of the new Chancellor was to summon Jean de Pins to 
 Paris, where he was brought under the notice of Francis 
 He accompanied the King and the Chancellor — probably 
 as secretary to the latter — to Italy, and followed the French 
 
 1 Jean de Pins' life of Beroaldo was reprinted by Meuschenius in his 
 Vita summorum dignitate et eruditione virorum ex rarissimis monumentis, 
 Coburg, 1735. It is the only one of his works which has been reprinted in 
 modern times. In addition to the books mentioned in the text, he was 
 the author of a tract, De Vita Aulica, Toulouse, s.a. All his works are 
 extremely rare. 
 
64 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 to the victory of Marignan and the triumphal entry into 
 Milan. The establishment of a senate for the government 
 of the duchy followed. It was composed partly of French- 
 men and partly of Italians ; at the head of the former was 
 placed Jean de Pins, and we are told that he gave great 
 satisfaction in his new office. 
 
 Yet he could scarcely have entered on the discharge of 
 his official duties when he was appointed with Bonnivet to 
 arrange the preliminaries of peace between Francis and 
 Leo X. The negotiations took place at Bologna, to which 
 \place Jean de Pins returned with the liveliest satisfaction, and 
 where he was present at the interview of the King and Pope 
 in the month of December 1 5 15. In these negotiations he 
 showed much ability, and gave great assistance to the King 
 and Chancellor in bringing the affair to a successful issue, in 
 concluding the treaty which confirmed to France (so far as a 
 treaty could confirm anything) the duchies of Milan, Parma, 
 and Placentia, and in effecting the concordat which deprived 
 the Gallican Church of the remains of its liberties, and de- 
 livered it over bound hand and foot into the power of the 
 King. 
 
 In 1 5 10 Jean de Pins was appointed Ambassador to 
 Venice, where he continued until 1520, giving equal satis- 
 faction to his own court and to the government of the Re- 
 public, struggling against and defeating the intrigues of the 
 courts of Spain and Austria, — a success which he owed 
 probably as much to the sweetness of his disposition and the 
 goodness of his heart, which made all love him with whom 
 he came in contact, as to his diplomatic ability, which how- 
 ever was considerable. He procured the renewal of the 
 treaty made at Blois in 15 12, and retained for his master the 
 continued support and friendship of the Republic. But his 
 diplomatic duties still left him abundant leisure, and the 
 occupation of this in literary pursuits constituted the happiest 
 
iv TOULOUSE 65 
 
 part of his residence at Venice. In 1 5 1 6 Musurus dedicated 
 to him the editio princeps of the Epistles of Gregory Nazi- 
 anzen. In 1 5 1 8 Marino Sanuto notices him as present at a 
 lecture of Vittorio Fausto. 1 Francis Asulanus dedicated to 
 him the Aldine Horace of 15 19, as well in gratitude for his 
 kindness to the elder Aldus, as in testimony of his own 
 literary eminence. He collected a large number of precious 
 manuscripts, with which the library, then by the King's order 
 being formed at Fontainbleau by Lascaris and Bude, was 
 enriched. He superintended through the press of Bindonis 
 at Venice in 1 5 1 6 a work which he had previously composed 
 for the amusement of the children of his friend and patron 
 Du Prat, entitled Allobrogica Narratio. It is a translation, 
 or rather paraphrase, of the romance of Le tres vaillant 
 Paris et la belle Vienne, and was reprinted in the same year 
 at Paris by Badius Ascensius, at the end of a life of St. Roch, 
 also written by Jean de Pins. In 1520 he received the 
 appointment of Ambassador to the Court of Rome, and was 
 at the same time nominated by the King to the bishopric of 
 Pamiers ; but obstacles, the precise nature of which we are 
 ignorant, prevented him from obtaining possession of this 
 see, which he shortly afterwards exchanged for that of Rieux ; 
 and about the same time he received the Abbey of Moissac. 
 At Rome he justified the high expectation which his Venetian 
 embassy had raised. His letters preserved among the' 
 political manuscripts of the Bibliotheque Nationale show that 
 when in the capital of Christendom he not only unravelled 
 and countermined the intrigues of the Papal Court, but was 
 able to give to his own government much information and 
 assistance respecting the affairs of England, Scotland, Spain, 
 and Naples. The Italians of that day were fond of saying 
 that what the barbarians (meaning the transmontane nations) 
 gained by arms they lost by diplomacy. But Jean de Pins 
 1 Legrand, Bibliographie Hellenique, I. cv. 
 F 
 
66 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 seems in general to have been a match for the wily Italians, 
 and if in the great matter of so much importance to the 
 nation, and upon which the French King and the Chancellor 
 had set their minds — the election to the Papacy of a cardinal 
 of the French faction in the conclave which followed the 
 death of Leo X. — he was unsuccessful, it is not probable that 
 this was owing to any want of skill on the part of the Am- 
 bassador ; and the election of the Cardinal of Utrecht may 
 be attributed either to the weighty influence which Don Juan 
 Manuel, the Imperial Ambassador, was able to bring to bear 
 on several of the cardinals, or, as the cardinals themselves, 
 and particularly the Cardinal de Medici * attributed it, to the 
 direct and immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, or 
 possibly even to those personal intrigues which seem almost 
 invariably to be found in small bodies of men when electing 
 a head (whether of a college or of Christendom), and which 
 not infrequently result in the choice of one who is as dis- 
 tasteful to his supporters as to his opponents. 2 
 
 A year after the election of Adrian VI. the political life 
 of Jean de Pins ceased. In August 1523 he was either re- 
 called or voluntarily retired from his embassy, and shortly 
 after presented to Francis I. at Fontainbleau the rich treasures 
 of books and manuscripts which he had collected during his 
 residence in Italy. He then withdrew to his diocese, and 
 passed the remaining fourteen years of his life either in Rieux 
 or in the neighbouring city of Toulouse. He devoted these 
 fourteen years to the administration of the affairs of his 
 diocese (one of the poorest in France), to works of mercy 
 and charity, to study, and to the society of literary men. 
 
 1 Giulio de Medici, afterwards Clement VII. 
 2 Votis Hadrianus omnium 
 Fit pontifex, sed omnibus 
 (Quis credat ?) invitis. 
 
 Joan. Pierius Valerianus. 
 
iv TOULOUSE 67 
 
 During his residence in Italy he had formed an intimate 
 friendship with the greatest scholars of the day. Bembo, 
 Longolius, and Sadolet were among his friends. Longolius 
 was now dead, but with Sadolet he continued to carry on a 
 constant correspondence, and it is no light meed of praise 
 that to him the Bishop of Carpentras submitted several of his 
 productions for criticism and revision before publishing them. 
 
 The see of Rieux was small in extent, with a slender 
 population, and the duties of its bishop were light. 1 Accord- 
 ingly he passed most of his time at Toulouse, where he had 
 an apartment in the Carmelite convent, and where, as we 
 learn from a manuscript poem of Boyssone, he had also 
 built a large house ; he was thus able to enjoy the society of 
 such men of literary tastes as were to be found there, and 
 who were at least more numerous than in his episcopal city. 
 
 It was not to be expected that such a man should escape | 
 the suspicion of heresy. He received on one occasion a 
 letter from Erasmus requesting the loan of a Greek 
 manuscript of Josephus which had come from the library of 
 Philelphus, and which was almost illegible through age and 
 other injuries. The letter was intercepted. The interceptors 
 could not read it, but the hated name of Erasmus was 
 sufficient evidence of its heretical character. The good 
 Bishop was immediately accused of heresy, and required by 
 his accusers to read the letter to the Parliament. The 
 
 1 Rieux was one of the six new sees created by John XXII. out of 
 the old bishopric of Toulouse in or about 1329, when he at the same 
 time erected Toulouse into an archbishopric, with these six and that of 
 Pamiers as the suffragan sees. His intention ^vas by increasing the epis- 
 copate to rivet more firmly the fetters which he had succeeded in throwing 
 round the weak Philip V., and at the same time to keep up the flames 
 and still more horrible punishments, such as flaying alive and tearing in 
 pieces by four horses, which he delighted to inflict on heretics whose 
 orthodoxy he suspected, or on his personal enemies, e.g. Hugh, Bishop of 
 Cahors, whom he charged with compassing his death by sorcery. 
 
68 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 ' furred law cats ' * prepared to spring upon their prey, and 
 treated the Bishop of Rieux as guilty since he was known 
 to Erasmus. Twice was the letter read before the Parliament ; 
 the second reading being rendered necessary (so at least the 
 humanists maliciously reported) by the barbarians' ignorance 
 of Latin. At length it was clear that Josephus alone was 
 referred to. There was not a single word which smacked 
 of heresy. It was all written in the cautious and prudent 
 manner in which Erasmus knew so well how to write. It 
 was a bitter disappointment to the bigots. To have struck 
 the Bishop of Rieux would have been a triumph far greater 
 than the burning of Jean de Caturce or the recantation of 
 Jean de Boyssone ; but even those who were most anxious 
 to prove him guilty were obliged, however unwillingly, to 
 admit his innocence, and Jean de Pins was able to laugh 
 at the vain attempts of his enemies. 2 He died in 1537, one 
 of his last acts having been, as it seems, to interfere for the 
 second time, and again successfully, on behalf of Dolet. 3 
 Loved even by his bigoted fellow-citizens both for his great 
 
 1 ' Vulturii togati,' Dolet calls them. 
 
 2 Orat. Dute in Tholosam, p. 60. 
 
 3 Erasmus (Ciceronianus) considers that Jean de Pins approaches 
 Cicero in purity of diction, and that his style might have attained 
 perfection had not his important public duties turned his attention from 
 study. Duverdier {Supplementum, Epitom. Bibl. Gesner.) has made two 
 distinct persons of Jean de Pins, distinguishing Joannes Pinus, Bishop of 
 Rieux, from Jo. Pinus, Senator lolosanus, and attributing to the former 
 the Life of St. Catherine and the Libellus de Vita Aulica, and to the 
 latter the Life of St. Roch and the Allobrogica Narratio ; while De Bure 
 {Bibl. Instr. Hist, tome i. p. 442) still more erroneously attributes the 
 two latter works to Bartholomaeus Pinus. See, for the life of Jean de 
 Pins, Biographie Toulousaine (Paris, 1825), vol. ii. p. 183, and Memoires 
 pour servir a Veloge historique de Jean de Pins, avec un recueil de plusieurs 
 de ses lettres, Avignon (Toulouse), 1748. The author of this meagre but 
 excessively scarce book is Pere Etienne Leonard Charron. It is almost 
 entirely devoted to Jean de Pins' public life, and the letters it contains 
 consist mostly of his official despatches when Ambassador. The public 
 
iv TOULOUSE 69 
 
 kindness of heart and his many virtues, he was respected as 
 one who, sprung from among themselves, had attained high 
 distinction in the State, and he was thus able to throw the shield 
 of his protection over men suspected of heresy, and in some 
 degree to moderate the rancorous bigotry of the Tolosans. 
 
 When Dolet arrived at Toulouse (in 1532) the Bishop I 
 of Rieux was sixty-two years of age. Age had not impaired 
 the freshness of his heart or the enthusiasm of his disposition ; 
 and besides being the friend of all that was good among the 
 authorities of the province, the city, and the university, he 
 was adored by all the young students, who sympathised with 
 the new learning, and aspired to be humanists rather than 
 canonists, and with whom the good Bishop rejoiced to 
 associate on those terms of cordiality and friendship which 
 render the society of the old, when men of learning and 
 eminence, so delightful to the young, and which at the 
 same time tend so strongly to preserve in the former the 
 freshness of youth. Nothing gives us so high an opinion 
 of the kindly qualities of the man as his intimacy with 
 Boyssone, Voulte, Bording, and Dolet, and their genuine 
 affection for him. It was to Jacques Bording that Dolet 
 was indebted for his introduction to the Bishop of Rieux. 
 His reputation as a scholar devoted to Cicero, and possessed 
 of oratorical power, had however gone before him ; and 
 the Bishop was only too happy to welcome all such, and 
 to admit them to his intimacy ; and this happiness was only 
 increased if, like Dolet, they were poor and unknown, to 
 whom the purse and the helping hand of Jean de Pins 
 could be useful. 
 
 library of Toulouse is fortunate in possessing an interleaved copy, with 
 many notes and corrections in the handwriting of the late representative 
 of the family, the Marquis de Pins et de Montbrun, who seems to have 
 prepared it for a new edition. Many of the notes are from the 
 archives of Montbrun, but they contain very little of interest. See also 
 Analectabiblion, i. 243. 
 
70 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Jacques Bording was three years younger than Dolet, 
 having been born at Antwerp in 1 5 1 1 . Before coming to 
 Toulouse he studied at Louvain, where he acquired a 
 knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, which he after- 
 wards taught successively at Paris and at Carpentras. He 
 probably came to Toulouse attracted by its reputation as a 
 school of law. But the subject itself, or the mode in which 
 it was studied, seems to have disgusted him, and he soon 
 afterwards turned his attention to medicine, in which he 
 was to acquire a great reputation. From Toulouse he went 
 to Paris, and there running short of money, by the advice 
 and assistance of Sturm, whom he had known at Louvain, 
 he obtained a lectureship in the College of Lisieux, where 
 he remained two years. Then he went to Montpellier to 
 study medicine, and afterwards was appointed by Sadolet, 
 Principal of the College of Carpentras. During his stay 
 there he married Francesca, daughter of Ternio Nigroni 
 of Genoa. He soon acquired the esteem of the Cardinal, 
 and on going to Bologna in 1 540, to complete his medical 
 studies, he was furnished with letters of recommendation 
 from Sadolet to Romulo Amaseo and other learned men. 
 He formally declared himself a Protestant in 1 544. Later 
 in life he attained a considerable reputation as a professor 
 of medicine at Antwerp, Rostock, and Copenhagen, in which 
 latter city he died in 1 5 60, holding the office of physician 
 to King Christian III. 1 At Toulouse the two young men 
 soon formed a friendship, and Dolet had been eight or ten 
 months there and was already talked of as a rising scholar, 
 when he requested his friend to mention him to Jean de 
 
 1 See for Bording, Spithovius, Oratio de Vita et Morte y. Bordingi, 
 Witteburg, 1562; Melch. Adam, Vita Medicorum, Heidelberg, 1620 ; 
 Encyclopedic des sciences medicales {Biographic m'edicale), Paris, 1840. 
 Bording's stay at Toulouse is not mentioned by his biographers, and is 
 only known to us from his correspondence with Dolet. 
 
iv TOULOUSE 71 
 
 Pins ; and as Bording had apparently informed him that the 
 Bishop would be sure to take it in good part, he at the 
 same time wrote to him a letter in that inflated style, full 
 of expressions, complicated constructions, and half sentences 
 culled from Cicero, in which the intention seems to be to 
 say as litde (except compliments and apologies) in as many 
 words and in as pompous a style as possible, which the 
 Ciceronians of that day especially affected. Still it must be 
 admitted to be a not unsuccessful imitation of the class of 
 Cicero's letters in which style and diction seem to be more 
 thought of than substance. He tells the Bishop the great 
 admiration he has for him, how long he has wished to 
 make him acquainted with his sentiments, how earnestly he 
 longs to acquire his friendship. ' I only ask that you will 
 not be offended at me for expressing admiration of that 
 firmly -rooted and widespread reputation which when first 
 budding had Longolius as its witness and panegyrist. There 
 is nothing which I so earnestly wish as that you would be 
 to me what Bembo was to Longolius, the helper of my 
 studies, the defender and furtherer of that reputation which 
 I hope to acquire, but of which I am sensible I am not as 
 yet possessed.' 
 
 The Bishop lost no time in replying to this letter, and 
 at the same time sent a friendly message through Bording, 
 who in a letter to Dolet thus relates the success of his 
 mission : — 
 
 'That which you lately asked of me, namely, that I 
 should salute Jean de Pins in your name and should pro- 
 cure his friendship for you, I took care to perform, but 
 in fact you yourself accomplished this more efficaciously 
 by your letter, which displayed so much talent, learning, and 
 elegance, that it obscured all my praises of you and rendered 
 them useless. However I did what I could, and shall 
 very gladly do as much again. You have acquired favour 
 
72 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 with Jean de Pins, and have coupled with it a great reputa- 
 tion for learning. He both thinks and speaks very highly 
 of you, and is greatly pleased that your goodwill has been 
 secured for me, and you would hardly believe how greatly 
 he desires to see you. He says, " Oh, that I may hear his 
 sonorous declamation ! " So that whenever you come to 
 visit him you will be made welcome, and that great favour 
 and high estimation for learning which in your absence you 
 have acquired, when you are present you will not only 
 confirm, but if it be possible you will increase. Farewell.' 
 
 Dolet's letter was dated the ist of August (1532). The 
 Bishop replied the day following : — 
 
 'Although your letter was very gratifying as showing 
 your great regard for me, yet it was still more agreeable 
 to me because it seemed to be written by a man of great 
 learning, and because it recalled to my recollection two of 
 the most learned men of our age, Bembo and Longolius, 
 whose most pleasant friendship I myself enjoyed, and whom 
 I am always greatly delighted in having recalled to my 
 memory. There was no need for my affairs and occupations 
 to make you fear lest the interruption of your letter should 
 be troublesome or inopportune. Such is the regard and 
 affection I have for my friends, that for their sakes I willingly 
 postpone my serious occupations. Further, as to what you 
 say that you have been hindered by bashfulness from visiting 
 me, and so rather wrote a letter because a letter cannot 
 blush, 1 you ought not to doubt, you who share the same 
 learned pursuits as several of my friends, men of learning, 
 that I should have the same esteem for you that I have for 
 them. I had indeed before heard something of Dolet which 
 tended to his praise, but it diminished rather than added to 
 the reality. From that time, however, I had a great desire 
 both to see you and to read something of your composition. 
 1 There is not a word of this in Dolet's letter as printed. 
 
iv TOULOUSE 73 
 
 So that when I received your letter, from which (as one 
 recognises a lion from his claws) I recognised the acute- 
 ness of your understanding, the dignity of your style, the 
 force of your language, and your profound learning, I became 
 more and more eager to see you, for the reality far exceeded 
 my expectation. All which brings me to this, that if you 
 speedily come to see me you will be most welcome. 
 Farewell.' 1 
 
 We can imagine Dolet's pleasure in receiving this letter 
 from such a man as Jean de Pins. He instantly wrote a 
 reply full of delight and gratitude, and proposing forthwith 
 to visit the Bishop. From this time a cordial friendship was 
 formed between them, which, unlike most of those of our 
 unfortunate hero, was only terminated by the death of Jean 
 de Pins five years later ; five years during which the good 
 offices of the Bishop never ceased, and were, it is pleasant 
 to know, received with constant gratitude by Dolet. 
 
 1 Orationes Dua in Tkolosam, pp. 85, 148, 151. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Jean de Caturce and Jean de Boyssone 
 
 ' Ceux qui se font persecuter pour ces vaines disputes de l'ecole me 
 semblent peu sages ; ceux qui persecutent me paraissent des monstres.' — 
 Voltaire. 
 
 ' Not being overburdened with orthodoxy, that is to say, not being 
 seasoned with more of the salt of the spirit than was necessary to preserve 
 him from excommunication, confiscation, and philoparoptesism, i.e. 
 roasting by a slow fire for the love of God.' — Peacock. 
 
 HE University of Tou- 
 louse had been founded, 
 as has been said, as a 
 means of suppressing 
 heresy. The heads of 
 the University rivalled 
 the Councillors of the 
 Parliament and the 
 Capitouls of the city 
 in ostentatious orthodoxy, 
 and the slightest whisper 
 of heresy was immediately 
 silenced. The canon law 
 reigned supreme. Side 
 by side with it the civil law was also studied in the text- 
 books of Bartholus and Accursius, and to this was added a 
 theology and a philosophy of the strictest mediaeval type. 
 
 
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 a^j-^S^^j? 
 
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 W/SS& 
 
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ch.v J. DE CATURCE AND J. DE BOYSSONE 75 
 
 The barbarism of Toulouse was a favourite theme of the 
 friends of letters ; while the orthodoxy which prevailed in 
 what had once been the capital and focus of the Albigensian 
 heresy, but where alone in France the Inquisition had been 
 afterwards established, was not only a source of satisfaction 
 t6 the opponents of the new learning, but a standing proof 
 of the benefits which the Holy Office had rendered to the 
 cause of religion, — benefits which, as they pointed out, would 
 be extended to the whole of France if only the powers of the 
 Inquisition might have the like extension. Yet though 
 the study of canons and decretals still prevailed at Toulouse 
 to the exclusion of the new learning, — though there, more 
 than in any University in Europe, the spirit of medisevalism 
 was still in the ascendant, — suspicions of heresy were not 
 wanting among both professors and students. Even in the 
 University of Toulouse there were tares among the wheat. 
 Men of learning had come from Italy, and had endeavoured 
 to introduce some literary culture and some literary studies, 
 and to show that these were not necessarily hostile either to 
 law or theology. From the north, again, had come tidings 
 of the heresy of Luther, and the doctrines of the Reformers 
 had been welcomed in many quarters where the old leaven 
 of the Albigensian heresy had never been completely ex- 
 tinguished. The most eminent professors were suspected of 
 heresy, and of the friends and contemporaries of Dolet there, 
 some in after-life actually joined the Reformed Church, and 
 of the rest nearly all were suspected of a leaning towards the 
 new doctrines. Shortly before Dolet arrived at Toulouse, 
 Pierre Bunel, afterwards one of the first Latin scholars of 
 the time, and then a young man of singular promise, had 
 been banished from the city and University on the charge of 
 heresy. A learned Italian named Otho 1 had shared the 
 
 1 Otho (probably the same person with Otho Bosio) is only known to 
 us from the reference to him in Dolet's second oration, and in his Com- 
 
76 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 same fate, whilst, as we have just seen, the Bishop of Rieux 
 himself, the constant support of the cause of letters, did not 
 escape suspicion. Charges of heresy, indeed, began to be 
 rife. Any disregard of an established custom, any tincture 
 of literature, any affection for the new learning, was sufficient 
 to found an accusation upon, whilst the condemnation of the 
 alleged heretic was certain if it could be shown that he had 
 not taken off his hat to a sacred image, that he had not bent 
 the knee when the bell summoned the faithful to repeat the 
 Ave Maria, or that he had eaten a morsel of flesh on a day 
 of abstinence. 1 
 
 But notwithstanding these efforts to check it, the 
 Lutheran heresy, as it was called, certainly began to spread 
 not only among the citizens and the poor descendants of 
 the Albigeois, but even among the students and the professors 
 of the University. Dolet's arrival was very shortly after 
 that of three Augustinian friars, disciples of Luther, who 
 in 1 53 1 boldly preached the reformed doctrines at Toulouse. 
 A vigorous and searching inquiry was made by the Inquisi- 
 tion and the Parliament, and the result was that in the first 
 three months of 1532 a considerable number of suspected 
 Lutherans were arrested. 
 
 \ Jean de Caturce, a native of Limoux and a licentiate of 
 laws of the University of Toulouse, 2 where, as it seems, he 
 either then or had formerly lectured on jurisprudence with 
 great success, and where he had achieved a considerable 
 
 mentaries, vol. i. col. n 57, he implies that his banishment was at the 
 same time as that of Bunel. The date of this latter event we do not 
 know, but it was certainly before the end of 1530 ; for in November in 
 that year we find him at Venice, and it would seem from his letters that 
 he had then been for some time in Italy. 
 
 1 Beza, Hist. Eccl. (Lille, 1841), vol. i. p. 7. 
 
 2 Hist, des Martyrs (Grand Martyrologe), Geneva, 1597, fol. 99 b. 
 The author speaks of him as ' licencie en Loix faisant profession du droit 
 en l'Universite de Toulouse.' 
 
v J. DE CATURCE AND J. DE BOYSSONE 77 
 
 reputation, had for some time been a student of the Holy [ 
 Scriptures. He had found there truths which were wholly 
 neglected by or wholly opposed to the existing state of 
 things, and having obtained a peace and comfort to which 
 he had before been a stranger, he was desirous of preaching 
 the Gospel to others that they might be the sharers of his 
 joy. On All Saints' Day 1531, he had addressed a few off 
 his fellow -townsmen at Limoux. His words touched the 
 hearts of his hearers, but the fact of the meeting and of 
 the address came to the ears of those in authority, and he 
 had hastily to leave Limoux, promising his disciples to return 
 at Christmas and again to deliver to them the Word of 
 life. No doubt the cause of his hasty departure from 
 Limoux would be made known to the officials of the 
 Inquisition at Toulouse, and he would at once become a ^ 
 marked and suspected man, but he seems not to have been 
 immediately molested, but to have been suffered to lecture / 
 for some months. On Twelfth Night, 1532 (le jour des > 
 rots), however, he was present at supper with some friends 
 at Toulouse, when it devolved upon him to give the 
 customary symbol of the feast. Instead of the usual formula 
 ' The king drinks,' he gave ' May Jesus Christ reign in our 
 hearts.' He further suggested that after supper each, 
 instead of the usual profane toasts, should repeat a passage 
 of Scripture ; and this was done. His arrest followed very 
 shortly, and the two principal charges against him were the 
 address at Limoux and his remarks after supper on Twelfth 
 Night. To be arrested for heresy at Toulouse was to be 
 condemned, and condemnation meant one of two things, a 
 public recantation or the stake. Jean de Caturce was a 
 brave man, but he was neither a fanatic nor weary of his 
 life. He expressed his willingness to be convinced (if that 
 could be possible) by books and learned men, and his 
 readiness to discuss the points on which he was alleged to 
 
7 8 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 have erred. Yet the result of the discussion only confirmed 
 him in his heresy. His friends — or his enemies — made 
 one further attempt to save him from the flames. A full 
 and complete pardon was offered to him without any formal 
 abjuration or degradation, if only in the school of law 
 where he was accustomed to lecture he would publicly 
 declare that on three points he had erred. 1 
 
 No wonder that he hesitated for a moment, and thought 
 that on such easy terms it would be best to escape, not 
 death only, but those frightful bodily tortures which the 
 Church thought fit to inflict on men, however virtuous, who 
 could not frame their lips to her shibboleth. But, as the 
 narrator of the tragedy tells us, the Lord strengthened him 
 in such wise that he could not be induced to accept any 
 form of retractation. There could only be one result. He 
 was ordered to be publicly degraded and then delivered 
 over to the secular arm, that is to say, to be burnt at the 
 stake. His sentence was carried into effect in the, month 
 of June 1532. 2 He was taken to the Place de St. Etienne, 
 and was there degraded from the tonsure and from his 
 University degree. This ceremony lasted three hours, and 
 then followed a sermon by the Inquisitor. He took his 
 text from the fourth chapter of the First Epistle to Timothy, 
 ' The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some 
 shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits 
 and doctrines of devils.' ' Continue the words of the 
 Apostle,' cried Caturce; and as the Jacobin remained silent, 
 he himself addressing the people said, ' St. Paul's next words 
 are, ' speaking lies in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry, and 
 
 1 I do not find it anywhere mentioned what these three points were. 
 
 2 According to La Faille and LeDuchat, the 23rd of June. D'Aldeguier, 
 Hist, de Toulouse, gives the date as June 1533. Twenty-one condemned 
 heretics accompanied Caturce to the place of execution, and there made 
 public abjuration of their errors. — Revue de Toulouse, June 1862, p. 4.63. 
 
v J. DE CATURCE AND J. DE BOYSSONE 79 
 
 commanding to abstain from meat." ' After the sermon 
 Caturce was led to the Palace of Justice, and then, after 
 being formally handed over to the secular arm, he received 
 sentence of death. Then he was taken to the Place de 
 Salins and burnt alive. His mind never lost its firmness or 
 constancy. He died praising and glorifying God ; and 
 instead of the horrors of his death deterring others, the 
 piety and innocence of his life and the firmness and constancy 
 of his death produced much fruit, especially among the 
 students who had witnessed his martyrdom. 1 That Dolet 
 was present at this tragedy he lets us know by the imprudent 
 reference he makes to it in his second oration. That his 
 sympathies were all with the martyr and his hatred bitter 
 against the persecutors is what we should imagine, and what 
 he clearly lets us see. Though himself untouched by the 
 doctrine of the Reformers, and possessed of a mind of that 
 nature to which dogmatic distinctions relating to the unseen 
 and unknown are absolutely indifferent and incomprehensible, 
 he regretted the obstinacy in what was to him mere matter 
 of words and names without any substantial reality, which 
 deprived the University of one of its brightest ornaments, 
 and he lamented that Jean de Caturce had not followed the 
 more prudent example of Jean de Boyssone. Though the 
 name of Caturce, like that of Boyssone, is almost forgotten, 
 yet the evangelical martyr no less than the yielding professor 
 has found a niche in the pages of Rabelais, who has not 
 
 1 Hist, des Martyrs, 99 b ; Beza, Hist. Eccl. vol. i. pp. 7 and 8. 
 I have omitted the details of the language of Caturce at his execution 
 given by the jnartyrologist, as it seems hardly probable that such freedom 
 of speech would have been allowed to him. La Faille does not believe 
 that he used this language, but, though a good Catholic, allows that 
 he was a man of learning and virtue, and that he suffered death with 
 constancy and firmness. A contemporary, Bursault, in his journal, 
 formerly preserved among the archives of Toulouse, expressly notices 
 this. La Faille, Hist, de Toulouse. 
 
80 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 hesitated to express his abhorrence at the persecuting flames 
 in which Jean de Caturce was consumed, and which were 
 lighted as he was composing the first book of his Pantagruel. 
 y- From thence Pantagruel came to Toulouse, where he 
 learned to dance very well and to play with the two-handed 
 sword, as the fashion of the scholars of the said University 
 is. But he stayed not long there when he saw that they 
 stuck not to burn their regents alive like red herrings, saying, 
 Now God forbid that I should die this death, for I am by 
 nature dry enough already without being heated any further.' 1 
 It is probable that the evidence taken on the trial of Jean 
 de Caturce let the Inquisition and the Parliament know that 
 heresy was more rife at Toulouse than had been previously 
 supposed, and it was accordingly determined that a blow 
 should be struck of such a nature and with such force as 
 would completely and for ever crush the nascent Lutheranism. 
 On the last day of March (1532) the Parliament ordered the 
 arrest of every person in Toulouse suspected of heresy. The 
 long list included men of all classes and stations — advocates, 
 procureurs, ecclesiastics of all sorts, monks, friars, and cures. 
 Among them was Mathieu Pac, ' a man,' says Dolet in his 
 second oration, ' of the greatest ability and integrity, to whose 
 eminent qualities I cannot here do justice. He was most 
 unjustly and oppressively accused of Lutheranism.' Of those 
 whose arrest was ordered, thirty-two (including Pac) saved 
 themselves by flight, and, not appearing when summoned, 
 were declared contumacious. But amongst those who were 
 arrested was the most learned man and the ablest and most 
 popular professor of the University, soon to become the most 
 intimate friend of Etienne Dolet, Jean de Boyssone. 
 
 The name of Jean de Boyssone, 2 Doctor Regent and Pro- 
 
 ^1 Book ii. c. 5. 
 2 I have adopted the spelling Boyssone on the authority of the MSS. 
 of his letters and poems at Toulouse. In the Latin letters and poems, 
 
v J. DE CATURCE AND J. DE BOYSSONE 81 
 
 fessor of Law in the University of Toulouse, and afterwards 
 Councillor of the Parliament of Chambery, the friend of j 
 Rabelais, of Dolet, of Bunel, and one of the foremost names 
 in the revival of literature in the south of France, has slipped 
 out of the pages of history. Of the contemporary writers 
 who mention him, and who are loud in his praises, the greater 
 part, such as Voulte, Dolet, and Sussanneau, have ceased to 
 be read ; yet there remains one from whom thousands of 
 readers have at least learned his name. It was to Toulouse 
 to study under the very learned and virtuous Doctor Boyssone 
 that Epistemon, as he told Pantagruel, had sent his son. 
 ' Tell me,' replied Pantagruel, ' can I do anything to promote 
 the dignity of Seigneur Boyssone, whom I love and respect 
 for one of the ablest and most sufficient in his way that any- 
 where are extant ? ' * Yet the name of Jean de Boyssone will 
 be sought unsuccessfully in the great biographical collections 
 for which France is famous. He is mentioned neither by 
 Niceron nor by Goujet, neither by Moreri nor by Bayle. 
 Neither La Croix du Maine nor Du Verdier have thought 
 him worthy of notice, and the Biographies Universelle and 
 Generate equally ignore him. He was a man of rare ability 
 and love of letters, a poet, a jurist, and a scholar, but a some- 
 what timid sensitiveness of disposition certainly detracted 
 
 however, he is not always so called, but sometimes Boyssoneus, Boysonnus, 
 or Joannes a Boyssonne. De Thou calls him Boesonnus. M. Guibal 
 {Revue de Toulouse, Juillet, 1864, p. 11) considers that Boysson answers 
 more exactly than any other spelling to the several Latin varieties. In 
 an epigram addressed to Sceve he thus plays upon his own name : — 
 
 Dumus enim a vulgo, patrio sermone vocatur 
 
 Boyssonnus spinis arbor acuta nimis. 
 
 Est igitur gentile, vides mihi nomen acutum. 
 
 On this M. Guibal remarks, 'Le buisson dans notre patois toulousain est 
 appele Bouisson. Traduisons, nous avons Bouysson, Buysson, Boysson.' 
 In the list of Capitouls given by Du Mege {Hist, des Instit. de Toulouse) 
 the name is variously spelled Boychon, Bouisson, Bouysson, and Boysson. 
 1 Book iii. c. xxix. 
 
82 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 I from his other eminent qualities, and seems to have deterred 
 him from printing anything during his life, and at the same 
 time prevented him from acquiring that influence which his 
 abilities would have led us to expect. His Commentaries on 
 a chapter of Ulpian have probably perished, but the public 
 ^library of Toulouse contains three precious manuscript 
 volumes of his composition, of the highest interest and im- 
 portance not only for his own life, but for the literary history 
 '■'of the south of France ; and it is certainly strange how little 
 use has hitherto been made of them, and by how few writers 
 they have been consulted. A volume of Latin letters written 
 to and from Boyssone, commencing about 1532, and extend- 
 ing over more than the twenty years following, contains a 
 portion of his correspondence with Dolet, Alciat, Rabelais, 
 Guillaume Bigot, Guillaume Sceve, Arnoul du Ferrier, and 
 many others more or less distinguished in literature. A 
 < volume of Latin poems in five books, hendecasyllables, 
 J elegiacs, epistles, iambics, and odes, many of them full of 
 I biographical details, and a volume of French poems contain- 
 ing two hundred and fifty-four dixains, are of little less value 
 than the letters for the literary history of the period, whatever 
 may be our opinion of the merits of the poetry. 1 
 
 1 The volume of letters is a small folio containing two hundred and 
 eighty-two pages (erroneously numbered two hundred and ninety-two), or 
 cxxxix folios (the pagination goes by mistake from 169 to 180). The 
 first half is written in an excellent round hand of about the middle of the 
 sixteenth century. The remaining half is in a different hand, much less 
 legible, though varying in this respect towards the end. A considerable 
 number of the letters in the latter half seem to have been copied hurriedly, 
 and are consequently difficult to decipher. The book is entitled, Joannis 
 de Boyssone antecessoris Tolosani et aliorum epistolte mutuie. 
 
 The Latin poems are contained in a small quarto volume of paper, 
 written in an excellent, legible round-hand, the same as the first half of 
 the volume of epistles. They are divided into five books ; the first con- 
 taining the hendecasyllables, the second the elegiacs, the third the epistles, 
 the fourth the iambics, and the fifth the odes. Into the same volume a 
 
 
v J. DE CATURCE AND J. DE BOYSSONE 83 
 
 Sprung from a family distinguished in the annals of 
 Toulouse, where from 1460 downwards we find several of 
 
 later hand has copied Dolet's odes to Boyssone, to Guillaume Sceve, and 
 that against Dampmartin, also four odes of Voulte, and a poem which 
 seems to be by Augier Ferrier. 
 
 The French poems are very elaborately written on parchment in 
 large Gothic letters. They are divided into three centuries or books, 
 each apparently intended to contain a hundred dixains, each dixain 
 occupying one page. The first is headed ' La premiere centurie des dixains 
 de Maistre Jehan de Boyssone, Docteur Regent a Tholose' Each dixain was 
 intended to have an ornamental initial letter and a rubricated title. The 
 rubricator, however, had only reached the seventeenth dixain of the first 
 century. The rest of the first century have no titles or initial letters, 
 while of the second century the titles are only given up to the sixty-seventh 
 dixain, and in the third book only up to the seventh dixain j moreover, 
 the third book only contains fifty-four dixains, though the forty-six ruled 
 leaves which follow show that it was intended to be completed up to one 
 hundred. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that these volumes were prepared under the 
 superintendence of Boyssone himself for the purpose of being given to 
 the press. To the Latin poems are occasionally added verbal corrections, 
 marginal notes, and suggested alterations of words, in another but con- 
 temporary hand, which may not improbably be that of Jean de Boyssone 
 himself. Certainly the notes imply that they are written by the author 
 of the poems. Thus in the margin of the ode against Drusac, on page 
 247, is written, ' C cetera epigrammata in eontumelia Drusaci delenda sunt, 
 hoc retinendum? 
 
 Except for the purpose of quoting the references to Rabelais and 
 Marot, two writers alone, so far as I know, have made use of these manu- 
 scripts ; M. du Mege, in a short Life of Boyssone contained in the Bio- 
 graphic Toulousaine and in his Histoire des Institutions de Toulouse, and M. 
 G. Guibal in a Latin thesis read before the Faculty of Literature at Paris, 
 entitled De Joannis Boyssonnei vita seu de litterarum in Gallia Meridiana 
 restitutione (Toulouse, 1863), and in two articles which he subsequently 
 wrote for the Revue de Toulouse, entitled 'Jean de Boysson, ou la Renais- 
 sance a Toulouse' {Revue de Toulouse, tome 20, July and August 1864). 
 
 These two articles are an amplification of the thesis, and contain a 
 biography of Jean de Boyssone, and notices of many of his contemporaries 
 and friends, principally based upon these manuscript collections, the 
 interest of which, however, they by no means exhaust. 
 
 M. Boulmier appears to have been ignorant of these manuscripts, 
 
8 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the name in the list of Capitouls, he was probably born about 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century. 1 An uncle filled one 
 of the chairs of Jurisprudence in the University, and from an 
 early age his family seem to have devoted him to the study 
 of the law, in the hope, which was afterwards accomplished, 
 of seeing him succeed to the chair of his relation, and which 
 Boyssone himself calls Avita Cathedra. Of his life before 
 the charge of heresy was made against him in 1532, 2 all that 
 we know is that he had pursued his studies with great credit, 
 that he had already achieved a high reputation in the 
 University as a jurist, and was either a licentiate or Doctor 
 of Laws who lectured with success and ability, endeavouring, 
 as Alciat was doing elsewhere, to introduce a more scientific 
 spirit into the study of jurisprudence, to free it from the 
 barbarous trammels of scholasticism, and to return to the 
 study of the Pandects themselves, instead of being confined 
 to the barbarous and arbitrary commentators and epitomists 
 of the Middle Ages. 
 
 which are, nevertheless, of the greatest importance for the life of Dolet. 
 The volume of letters contain, six from Dolet to Boyssone, and four from 
 Boyssone to Dolet, in addition to the correspondence which Dolet had 
 printed in the volume of the Orations. 
 
 As Councillor of the Parliament of Chambery Boyssone is frequently 
 mentioned by de Thou, while his persecution of which I speak in the 
 text is noticed by La Faille and by the other historians of Toulouse and 
 Languedoc. 
 
 1 M. Guibal judges from his correspondence that he was a little older 
 than Arnoul du Ferrier, who was born in 1 508. 
 
 2 Herr Tollin, in the article before quoted on student life at Toulouse 
 in the sixteenth century (Riehl's Taschenbuch, 1874), confuses him with 
 Jean Boysonne, Seigneur de Beauteville, who was three times elected 
 Capitoul, namely in 151 5, 1 519, and 1527, and whom Tollin refers to 
 apparently on the authority of the letters of Servetus (?) as a leading 
 magistrate at the time when Servetus was a student there. The Seigneur 
 de Beauteville was no doubt a near relation of the professor, as also 
 would be Hugues Bouysson, Seigneur de Mirabel, five times Capitoul 
 (the last time in 1517). 
 
v J. DE CATURCE AND J. DE BOYSSONE 85 
 
 Primus in Europa civilia jura latine 
 Boyssonnus docuit potuitque inducere morem 
 Miscendi sacras leges sophiamque perennem. 1 
 
 Alciat wished he could have had him as a colleague at Pavia 
 to aid in repelling the attacks of his barbarous and ignorant 
 opponents. ' Had I only you with me,' he writes, ' I should 
 easily have overcome all my adversaries.' 
 
 Jean de Boyssone had already had as a pupil Antoine 
 de Castelnau, afterwards Bishop of Tarbes. He had either 
 been the fellow-student or, as seems probable, the tutor of 
 Michael de l'Hopital, at this time a professor of law at 
 Padua, afterwards to attain deserved eminence as Chancellor 
 of France. His wealth and the distinguished position of his 
 family, at this time lords of Mirabel, Beauteville, and 
 Montmaur, 2 would naturally add to his influence and to the 
 consideration in which he was held by his fellow-citizens, 
 while his benevolence to the poor, his readiness to aid with 
 his purse needy and deserving scholars, would equally con- 
 tribute to his popularity. He had been the friend and 
 patron of Bunel's youth, and when that distinguished scholar 
 fell under the suspicion of heresy, it was Jean de Boyssone ' 
 who furnished him with the means for making the journey 
 to Italy and for his maintenance there. 3 At the moment 
 when he himself was attacked on the same charge he was the 
 one leading member of the University to whom the friends 
 of learning looked to sustain its cause. 
 
 It was therefore specially important that he should be , - 
 struck down. That he sympathised with the Reformers so | ■ 
 far as they were promoters of letters is clear ; that he was a , 
 constant reader of the New Testament, and especially of the 
 Epistles of St. Paul, and an ardent admirer and student of | 
 
 1 Noguier, Histoire Toulousaine. 
 
 2 Du Mege, Hist, des Institutions de Toulouse, vol. ii. pp. 210, 217, 244. 
 
 3 Boyss. MS. Epist. fol. no. 
 
86 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 St. Augustine, we see from his letters ; and these facts, as 
 M. Guibal justly remarks, ' seem to imply in his religious 
 faith a tendency to approach the Lutheran or Calvinistic 
 dogma of justification by faith.' But he was essentially a 
 jurist and a man of letters, and he is careful throughout his 
 letters and poems to express no opinion upon any of the 
 religious questions which were then agitated. He was by 
 nature timid and prudent, and indisposed to express even to 
 his most intimate friends any opinions on dangerous or 
 controversial subjects. But at this time at Toulouse to be a 
 friend of letters was to be a heretic. He tells us himself 
 that it was only his love of letters and his admiration for 
 and intimacy with literary men that gave rise to the charge 
 of heresy, 1 and Dolet confirms this in his second oration. 2 
 ' What,' he cries, ' was the cause of the calamity which befel 
 Jean de Boyssone, except his learning and the greatness of 
 his fortune? I say positively, not as a mere casual rumour, 
 but what I have frequently heard from persons of the 
 greatest probity, and what from my personal intimacy with 
 him I know to be true, that the cause of his persecution was 
 nothing but his reputation for learning and_Jns_great_wealth. 
 Innocent of the slightest offence against religion, the in- 
 formers plotted against him in order to prey upon his for- 
 tune ; and were aided by some who hated him for that high 
 reputation which he enjoyed and which they were themselves 
 too stupid or too indolent to acquire, and by others to 
 whose interests he had devoted himself, but who had assumed 
 the guise of friendship only to betray their benefactor.' 
 
 Shortly after the arrest of Jean de Caturce, and probably 
 on the last day of March 1532, Boyssone was seized and 
 thrown into prison. The heretical doctrines he was charged 
 with holding were ten in number. They included nearly all 
 the heresies of Luther. The first was that nothing ought to 
 
 1 Boyss. MS. Epist. fol. 26. 2 Orat. Bua in Thol. p. 58. 
 
v J. DE CATURCE AND J. DE BOYSSONE 87 
 
 be required to be held as a matter of faith but what was con- 
 tained in Holy Scripture. The tenth was that we are not 
 justified by good works but solely by faith in Jesus Christ. 
 He was tried and convicted by the Official and the Grand 
 Vicar of the Archbishop of Toulouse, and condemned to 
 make a formal abjuration of these ten errors or to share the 
 fate of Caturce. 
 
 Jean de Boyssone was not of the stuff of which martyrs \ 
 are made. He was in fact a humanist, a man of letters, and 
 not a theologian ; and while there can be no doubt that his 
 sympathies were with the Reformers, whose success, so far as 
 it was not incompatible with the progress of literature, he 
 would have gladly seen, he was not disposed to follow 
 Caturce to the stake. He was willing to abjure the errors 
 he was alleged to hold. A heavy fine was inflicted upon 
 him, and his house and property were confiscated. But the 
 Inquisition was not satisfied even with this heavy punish- 
 ment. The Church could not afford to spare a man of his 
 reputation, of his learning, the great hope of literature in 
 the University, any humiliation which it was in her power 
 to inflict. His reputation as a jurist was much greater than 
 that of Jean de Caturce, and while the latter was offered 
 pardon on the easy terms of merely recanting in a lecture in 
 the School of Law, nothing less than the public penitence 
 and abjuration of Jean de Boyssone would satisfy his perse- 
 cutors. Nor indeed did this satisfy them ; a great number 
 of the most bigoted Catholics complained of the excessive 
 indulgence shown to him. 1 It was determined to surround 
 his abjuration with all the pomp and ceremony possible. A 
 scaffold was erected before the church of Saint Etienne. All 
 the ecclesiastical and civil functionaries were present. The 
 consuls attended in their official robes. Kneeling on the 
 scaffold, the most distinguished professor of the University 
 1 D'Aldeguier, Hist, de Toulouse, 356. 
 
88 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 read in a loud voice and then signed the abjuration of the 
 ten errors of which he had been convicted, then a long and 
 tedious sermon pointing out his crimes was addressed to him 
 and to the assembled multitude by the Inquisitor, after which 
 he was taken to the cathedral and formally absolved by the 
 Grand Vicar. 1 
 
 Though the bigots complained of the excessive indul- 
 gence shown to Boyssone, the voice of the crowd was in his 
 favour. La Faille, who gives a long account of the affair, 
 tells us that many of the witnesses of his humiliation could 
 not contain their emotion. Many tears were shed when the 
 professor, by repute the most learned in the University, but 
 whose goodness of heart and liberality to the poor and to all 
 who were in trouble was well known to his fellow-citizens, 
 was publicly made to undergo so bitter a humiliation. 
 
 Whether banishment was a part of Boyssone's sentence, 
 or whether he thought it expedient to retire for some time 
 from Toulouse, we do not know. Certain it is that im- 
 mediately after his abjuration he left the city and was absent 
 for about a year, spending the time in visiting Italy, which 
 at that time, more liberal than France, opened to him as 
 well as to others a generous asylum. He travelled first to 
 Padua, still, as in the time when Dolet was a student, the 
 place in all Europe where the greatest intellectual freedom 
 was found, and where the most eminent humanists were 
 gathered together. There he found several of his fellow- 
 citizens either as students or teachers. Arnoul du Ferrier, 
 with whom he continued for the whole of his life on terms 
 of the greatest intimacy, and who was afterwards to become 
 one of the most celebrated French jurists of his time, was 
 pursuing at Padua the studies which he had commenced at 
 Toulouse, and which were afterwards to bear such ample 
 fruit. There too was Paul Daffis, also a Tolosan, then and 
 1 La Faille, Hist, de Toulouse; Biographic Toulousaine, art. ' Boyssone.' 
 
v J. DE CATURCE AND J. DE BOYSSONE 89 
 
 afterwards prepared to carry on the Ciceronian tradition 
 which Longolius and Simon Villanovanus had implanted at 
 Padua. There also he made the acquaintance of Lazarus 
 Buonamicus, the friend of Pole, but who, unlike the future 
 cardinal, had not deserted the cause of literature for that of 
 theology. At Venice he formed a friendship with Battista 
 Egnazio, the former teacher of Dolet, and with another old 
 acquaintance of the latter, Giulio Camillo, towards whom, 
 for what cause we know not, whether because he really saw 
 through the visionary charlatan, or from some private 
 grudge, Dolet entertained the most violent dislike. More 
 fortunate than Dolet, Boyssone's travels were not confined 
 to the north of Italy. He was able to visit the capital of 
 Christendom ; but instead of feeling enthusiasm for the 
 remains and recollections of antiquity, or for the artistic and 
 literary culture which surrounded him, he, like Luther, was 
 only shocked at the vice, impiety, and luxury displayed by 
 the Pope, the cardinals, and the bishops, and which from 
 them permeated all classes. 
 
 He would seem to have returned to Toulouse in the 
 spring of the year 1533. 
 
 At what time Dolet's acquaintance with Jean de Boyssone 
 commenced we do not know, but there is little doubt that it 
 would be very soon after the former came to the University ; 
 and although he does not precisely tell us the fact, there can 
 further be little doubt that he was a witness of the humiliat- 
 ing ceremony in which Boyssone had to play the principal 
 part. Immediately upon the latter's return from Italy we 
 find Dolet on terms of the greatest intimacy with him. For 
 some years a close correspondence took place between them, 
 and the violence of Dolet found a counsellor of invariable 
 moderation and good sense in Boyssone, and not only a 
 counsellor, but a friend who desired to serve him, and did 
 serve him in most important emergencies. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Floral Games 
 
 Je prends pour les grands dieux ces doctes senateurs 
 Et cest autre troupeau, qui des poetes vainqueurs 
 L estude et le savoir si sainctement guerdonne 
 Pour ce sacre parquet avec ses quatre fleurs, 
 Le jardin fleurissant aux bords de la Garonne. 
 
 Francois de Clari. 
 
 OOKING back after the 
 lapse of centuries on 
 the two or three leading 
 events of any period, 
 they stand out before 
 us with a prominence 
 out of all proportion to 
 their real importance, 
 and it is not without an 
 effort that we can realise 
 the fact that they con- 
 stituted in truth but an 
 insignificant part of the 
 history of the period. 
 In the midst of wars, persecutions, religious and political 
 agitations and revolutions, the healthy business of life goes 
 on as usual. An enormous majority of the people are wholly 
 
chap, vi THE FLORAL GAMES 91 
 
 unaffected by them, and even of the minority who are so 
 affected, it is but very few whose happiness they either make 
 or mar. Toulouse has been fortunate in her historians. La 
 Faille spared no pains in collecting and digesting with 
 impartiality and good sense all that he found worthy of 
 note relating to his native city, while in the great History 
 of Languedoc of the learned Benedictine Dom Joseph Vais- 
 sette, we have a work not only of local but of general 
 interest, judicious, able, and impartial, excellent both in 
 style and matter, and which justly placed its author in 
 the foremost .ranks of French historians. Nor have 
 worthy successors been wanting to the syndic of Tou- 
 louse and the brother of St. Maur, and in the nineteenth 
 century Toulouse has produced men of learning and 
 ability, who have supplemented, continued, and corrected 
 the labours of their predecessors of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth. 
 
 The persecution of heretics, the retractation and punish- 
 ment of Boyssone, and the martyrdom of Caturce, almost 
 necessarily appear in the pages of the historians to constitute 
 the entire history of Toulouse during the first half of the 
 year 1532, yet between the arrest of the one and the death 
 of the other occurred the floral games — the great annual 
 festival of the city ; and we have no reason to suppose that 
 the sombre events by which this year they were immediately 
 preceded and followed in any way diminished either the 
 enthusiasm of the Tolosans, the number of the competitors, 
 or the complacency of 'the chancellor, judges, and doctors of 
 the college of the gate science.' Unfortunately the records 
 of the college for the fifteen years extending from 1 5 1 9 to 
 1535 are missing, and the only fact we can ascertain as to 
 the games in 1532 or 1533 is that in one of them Etienne 
 Dolet was a candidate for the violet, the eglantine, or the 
 marigold. 
 
92 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 1 It was in 1323 1 that seven troubadours, citizens of 
 J Toulouse, constituted themselves into the ' tres gaie com- 
 pagnie des troubadours,' or the college ' du gai scavoir,' or 
 ' de la gaie science.' Accustomed to meet in the Faubourg 
 ides Augustins, in the month of November 1323 they 
 J addressed a letter in verse to all troubadours, inviting them 
 (to assemble on the 1st of May 1324^0 read or recite their 
 jpoems, offering at the same time a golden violet to him who 
 (should best sing the praises of God, the Virgin, or the Saints. 
 jA numerous company responded to this invitation. The 
 jnrst day was devoted to the recitation of their compositions 
 by the contending poets, the second was occupied by the 
 examination of the verses by the seven troubadours who had 
 instituted the festival, assisted by two of the Capitouls, and 
 pn the third the prize of the golden violet was publicly 
 awarded to Arnaud Vidal of Castelnaudari for the poem 
 which he had recited in honour of the Blessed Virgin. The 
 year following a more formal character was given to the 
 games by the appointment of a chancellor, and soon after- 
 wards two other prizes were added, namely, a silver marigold 
 for the best ballata, and a silver eglantine for the best sirvente 
 or pastourelle. Henceforth the floral games were among the 
 principal festivals, if not the chief of all, of Toulouse and 
 the whole of Languedoc, and their fame extended, not only 
 ! through the south of France, but into Aragon and Catalonia, 
 
 1 The foundation and early history of the Academy of the gay science 
 and the floral games is enveloped in much doubt and confusion. The 
 account given in the text seems to me the most probable. Some writers 
 have endeavoured to make the games mount to a period of fabulous 
 antiquity, and to have come down direct from the times of Roman 
 Aquitaine, whilst others treat Clemence Isaure as their founder in the 
 latter half of the fifteenth century. The Academy or College of the 
 'gai scavoir' must not be confounded, as some writers have done, with 
 the floral games. It is not improbable that the former may have existed 
 for some time before the institution of the latter. 
 
vi THE FLORAL GAMES 93 
 
 where imitations of them were soon after established. In 
 1356 Guillaume Moliniar, for many years chancellor, with 
 the sanction of the seven mainteneurs, gave to the world the 1 
 laws and flowers of the gay science, 1 a work which had 
 occupied him for eight years, and which, besides being an 
 elaborate system of laws and rules for the games, for the 
 award of prizes, and for the degrees of bachelor and doctor, 
 is also a general treatise on poetry and rhetoric, and one of 
 the most important monuments of the langue d'oc and its 
 poetry. A century and a half passed, the games and the 
 Academy had fallen from their original importance, when 
 they were revived, as their historians relate, by her whose 
 name has ever since been associated with them, sometimes as 
 their founder, sometimes as their restorer, Dame Clemence 
 Isaure. Not only were the games restored to their pristine 
 dignity, but a greatly increased importance was conferred 
 upon them by the wealth which she gave to the College, and 
 the additional and valuable prizes which she founded. For 
 three centuries and a half the praises of Clemence Isaure 
 have been celebrated at the floral games of Toulouse. An 
 oration in her honour has certainly, ever since 1525, formed 
 part of the ceremonial ; and most of those who have con- 
 tended for the violet, the marigold, and the eglantine, have 
 devoted at least one of their compositions in Latin, French, 
 or Romance to the patroness and benefactress of the festival. 
 Jean de Boyssone wrote her epitaph, one of Etienne Dolet's 
 happiest compositions was in her honour, and among the 
 three hundred and forty persons who have delivered orations 
 in her praise are seventy-seven names of men who have 
 achieved more or less eminence. Yet the Sappho of 
 Toulouse, herself a distinguished poet, who is said to have 
 endowed the College of the gay science with lands and wealth, 
 which it still enjoys, and to have established rules which are 
 1 Las leys a" amors and Flors del gay saber. 
 
94 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 still in force, to whom the grateful city erected a statue 
 which still receives the respectful homage of all strangers, 
 has in this later and critical age had her very existence called 
 in doubt. 
 
 I shall not attempt to discuss this vexed question, yet 
 the researches of the most recent and most learned writers 
 certainly confirm the doubts, and prove at . least that the 
 verses to Dame Clemence which were formerly adduced as 
 clear proofs of her existence were really addressed to the 
 Blessed Virgin. 1 
 
 Unfortunately for our history, as I have before said, a 
 lacuna exists in the register of the floral games from 1 5 1 9 
 to 1535, a period which includes the whole of Dolet's 
 residence at Toulouse, in which he, and no doubt many 
 of his friends, celebrated the praises of the belle Clemence. 
 Yet of the scanty notices we find during this period several 
 are connected with the names of Boyssone and Dolet. 
 In 1528 Antoine de Vinhalibus pronounced the eloge called 
 the 'sermon de Dame Clemence.' In 1529, and again in 
 1535, Marie Gascons delivered the Latin oration with which 
 the games opened. Two dixains of Boyssone, addressed to 
 Poldo de Albenas, show us that about this time, and probably 
 in 1528, the venerated founder of the Reformed Church at 
 Nimes obtained, though absent, the prize of the violet, and 
 acquired the friendship of Boyssone, whose expressions 
 
 1 So early as 1626, Catel, in the Memoires sur PMstoire de Languedoc, 
 which he left unfinished at his death in that year, had suggested doubts as 
 to the existence of Dame Cle'mence Isaure. Those who may desire to 
 see what has been said on the subject may refer to J. B. Noulet, De 
 Dame Clemence Isaure substitute a Notre Dame la Vierge Marie comme 
 fatronesse des Jeux Litteraires de Toulouse (Toulouse, 1852) ; also his 
 Pretendue Ple'iade Toulousaine (Toulouse, 1853); Biog. Touhusaine, art. 
 'Clemence Isaure.' See also The Athenteum for April 2 and 23, 1898. 
 The touching ballad of Florian is the mere invention of the author, based 
 neither upon history nor tradition. 
 
vi THE FLORAL GAMES 95 
 
 would lead to the supposition that the Professor of Law 
 was himself one of the judges. 1 That Boyssone himself 
 contended at the floral games is certain from the French and 
 Latin verses in honour of Dame Clemence which we find 
 among his poems, and it seems probable from the language 
 he uses elsewhere that he had gained a prize. 2 The dixains 
 with which his French poems commence, addressed ' A 
 notre seigneur Jesus Christ la Glorieuse vierge Marie et aux 
 saints du Paradis,' would seem to be some of those he 
 then composed. It was usual, if not absolutely necessary, 
 that each competitor should furnish at least one poem of 
 a religious character, and in general the religious was the 
 prevailing element. It is, however, the games of 1532 or 
 1533 that especially interest us. In one of these years 
 Etienne Dolet was a competitor, and submitted ten Latin 
 poems to the judges. 3 The first is addressed to the 
 Muses ; i the second to Phoebus, imploring his help in 
 the contest ; the third celebrates the praises of the judges, 
 the fourth those of Clemence Isaure, 5 and the fifth those 
 of the ladies of Toulouse. 6 Then come the praises of 
 
 1 Du Mege, Hist, des Institutions de Toulouse, vol. iv. p. 335. 
 
 2 M. Boulmier, who, however, cites no authority, says that it was in 
 1530 that Boyssone celebrated the institution of the belle Isaure. Vie de 
 Dolet, 6z. 
 
 8 These ten poems all appear in the volume containing the Orations, 
 Epistles, and Odes printed in 1534, and again in the volume of poems 
 printed in 1538, in which they are inserted in consecutive order in the 
 Third Book. In the volume of the Orations seven only are given con- 
 secutively, though in a difFerent order, and of these, five only with the 
 heading that they were recited at the contest. Three (that addressed to 
 the Muses and those which celebrated the praises of Paris and of Dame 
 Clemence) are in different parts of the book, and have no indication that 
 they had any connection with the games. 
 
 4 ' Ad musas ; quo carmine usus est Tholosae in publico literario 
 certamine quum illic versu contenderet.' 
 
 6 ' De muliere quadam qua; ludos literarios Tholosa; constituit.' 
 
 6 'Ad puellas Tholosa; quod in eodem certamine recitatum est.' 
 
96 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Paris ; an invocation of the Muse, recited on the second 
 I day ; two odes in honour of the Virgin ; and, finally, one 
 addressed to the Muses, ' which was the last poem recited 
 by Dolet in the contest.' 
 
 Very little modern Latin verse will bear translation. 
 Much of the best of it, even when characterised by elegance 
 of diction, is wanting in originality of ideas, and sometimes 
 in ideas altogether. Some of those of Dolet are neither 
 incorrect nor inelegant, but they are filled principally with 
 the usual classical commonplaces which go to make up for 
 dearth of ideas — though indeed in addresses to the Muses, 
 Phoebus, and to the judges, it would be difficult to say 
 anything original, or anything in itself worth remembering 
 or even saying. Dolet's verses are not more empty or 
 worthless than most of those which, whether at Toulouse or 
 elsewhere, have been deemed worthy of prizes ; and if there 
 were others as good or better than these, Latin verse-writing 
 was certainly cultivated at Toulouse with much more success 
 than we should otherwise be disposed to think. Whether 
 they gained the prize we have no certain information, but I 
 agree with Maittaire and Boulmier that the strong probability 
 is that they did not. Modesty or self-depreciation was not 
 a characteristic of our hero, and there can be little doubt 
 that, had he been successful, he would not have failed to 
 inform us of his triumph, and would not have described his 
 poems merely as having been recited at the contest. 1 Yet 
 from what we know of Toulouse at this time and of those 
 who were likely to be competitors, it is hardly probable that 
 any Latin verses superior or even nearly equal to those of 
 Dolet would be recited ; and if by the favour or ignorance 
 of the judges inferior verses carried off the prize, if Drusac, 
 
 1 ' Vainqueur, il n'eut pas manque de nous apprendre son triomphe 
 car je dois convenir que la modestie etait son moindre defaut.' — Boul- 
 mier, 68. 
 
vi THE FLORAL GAMES 97 
 
 the Lieutenant of the Seneschalty, or the old pedant Maurus 
 was the successful competitor, this would add to the bitterness 
 of Dolet against Toulouse, and would sharpen the darts of 
 indignation which in his Orations he was shortly to hurl 
 against the barbarians of the city. Two epigrams of Voulte 1 
 let us see that in his opinion the prizes at the floral games 
 were not always accorded to the most deserving candidates, 
 and that on the occasion to which he particularly referred 
 the real victor was not the one who was allowed the prize ; 
 and Maittaire 2 suggests with much probability that these 
 epigrams refer to the ill-success of Dolet. 
 
 It is certain that at this time the long quarrels between 
 the municipal body of Toulouse and the members of the 
 College of the ' gaie science ' had commenced, and that 
 prior to 1532 the Capitouls had obtained the privilege of 
 being joined with the mainteneurs of the College as judges 
 of the poems and awarders of the prizes. It is not im- 
 probable that it was on the occasion of the ill-success of 
 Dolet and the unfairness of the judges that Boyssone com- 
 posed his biting epigram against ' Les capitouls marchands 
 qui jugent des fleurs a To lose.' 
 
 1 Vulteii Epigrammatum libri Hi., Lugd. 1537, p. 164 : — 
 
 De Ludis Tbolosanis. 
 Lege sub hac moriens ludos Clementia fecit, 
 
 Ut tandem partas victor haberet opes. 
 At Clementia, nunc facta inclementia, quaere ? 
 
 De victore suo, qui superatur ovat. 
 
 Ad Clementiam, quae Thalosts ludos literarios instituit. 
 O Clementia te quaenam dementia crepit, 
 Heredem in gr at am constituisse domum? 
 Recta fuit forsan, sed non tua facta voluntas 
 Munera ni demens haec tua nullus habet 
 Ut quondam victa est cseco sub judice Pallas, 
 Sic minor est ludis docta Minerva tuis. 
 
 2 Ann. iii. 73. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Orator 
 
 ' Nuper ventosa et isthaec enormis loquacitas Athenas ex Asia com- 
 migravit, animosque juvenum ad magna surgentes, veluti pestilenti quodam 
 sidere afflavit.' — Petronius. 
 
 HE students of the Uni- 
 versity of Toulouse at 
 this time appear to have 
 been no less turbulent and 
 to have given no less 
 trouble to the authorities 
 than those of other Uni- 
 versities both before and 
 since. If we are to be- 
 lieve Rabelais, the use of 
 the two-handed sword was 
 one of the principal things 
 the scholars of Toulouse 
 learned. There, as else- 
 where, the students of the different nations formed societies, 
 which though laudable enough in their objects, naturally- 
 produced disturbances between the different ' nations ' ; and 
 we cannot wonder that these associations were not viewed 
 with favour by the Parliament or the Capitouls. The French 
 students — i.e. those from France of the Loire as distinguished 
 from the Aquitains or Gascons — were the first to form them- 
 
chap, vii THE ORATOR 
 
 99 
 
 selves into a society, and were soon followed by the Aquitains 
 or Gascons, and later by the Spaniards and the Germans. 
 Once formed, each chose a patron saint and a day on which 
 to celebrate his fete. In other respects they seem to have 
 imitated what they conceived to be the usages of classical 
 antiquity. At the head of each society was an imperator, 
 who convoked and presided over the assembly, and to whom 
 the protection of the members from all injuries was specially 
 intrusted. The Society assembled in ' comitiis centuriatis,' 
 and the pecuniary contributions or subscriptions were 
 collected and managed by quaestors elected by the suffrages 
 of the members. For the day of the fete the most eloquent 
 of the body was chosen orator, whose especial duty it was 
 to deliver a funeral oration over the recently deceased 
 members, but who also, as it would seem, addressed his 
 audience on the events of the preceding year, so far as they 
 affected the Society or the University. 1 We can readily 
 understand how the mutual jealousy of the different nations 
 would be fomented by these orations, and how they would 
 lead to actual quarrels and fights. There seems to have 
 been a standing feud between the French and the Aquitains, 
 the two nations who naturally constituted the majority of the 
 students, and the disorders arising from this feud had induced 
 the Parliament of Toulouse to issue an edict censuring and 
 probably placing restrictions on these associations. 2 
 
 It was apparently in the course of 1533, that this edict 
 
 1 The custom for the students of each nation to choose an orator for 
 the year was not confined to Toulouse, but was common to most 
 Universities. Thus in 1 5 16 Ulric von Hutten was chosen orator by the 
 students of the German nation at Bologna. He seems to have thought 
 he had spoken with moderation, but the podesta was of a different 
 opinion, and required him forthwith to leave Bologna. Strauss, Life of 
 Hutten. 
 
 2 ' Facta a senatu in omnes generatim sodalitates praejudicia.' Simon 
 Finet, In Utramque Doleti Orationem Argumentum, prefixed to the 
 
ioo ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 was issued, and, as was to be expected, it caused great 
 indignation among the students, and especially among the 
 French. If, as some writers tell us, it absolutely forbade the 
 existence of the Societies, it was distinctly disobeyed by the 
 French, who, not content with protesting against it, con- 
 tinued to observe, as before, all their rules and customs, 
 and selected as their orator a student who, by his abilities 
 and his scholarship, was well fitted to do credit to his nation 
 as its representative, but whose irascible temper, violence, 
 and utter want of discretion were never more conspicuous 
 than on this occasion. 
 
 Etienne Dolet was the unanimous choice of the French 
 students, and on the 9th of October 1533, 1 he pronounced 
 the harangue which, as M. Boulmier justly remarks, laid 
 the first faggot of the terrible pile on which thirteen years 
 later he was to be consumed. The oration, at least in the 
 form in which, after being revised and corrected, it was 
 published by Dolet two years later, presents little that is 
 worthy of our attention. It is full of vigour and vivacity, 
 written in sonorous and well-rounded Ciceronian sentences, 
 
 Orationes. But I do not gather from them as is stated by Nee de la 
 Rochelle (who is here as elsewhere followed by Boulmier), that the 
 Parliament had actually at this time forbidden the existence of the 
 associations. Certainly the French association continued to exist, and 
 that publicly ; and the fact of Dolet being chosen its orator without any 
 disapproval of the authorities implies that the Societies had only been 
 censured and their license restrained, and not that they had been 
 
 (absolutely forbidden. But after the delivery of Dolet's second Oration 
 the associations were dissolved by a decree of the Parliament. The 
 historians of Toulouse appear to have been unable to find this edict, 
 since, though they refer to it, it is clear that none of them had ever seen 
 it, or was able to state very precisely its import. 
 
 1 M. Boulmier, following as usual Nee de la Rochelle, states it as the 
 9th of October 1532; but see post, p. 106, note 1. Dolet tells us 
 that it was delivered 'ante diem septimum Idus Octobris.' Orat. Dua, 
 p. 28. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 
 
 IOI 
 
 showing the utmost contempt for and by no means wanting 
 in abuse of the Parliament and magistrates of Toulouse, 
 stuffed with fine -sounding phrases on the advantages of 
 friendship and of social union, and on the tyranny and the 
 barbarity of the magistrates who had forbidden the 
 enlightened and intelligent French students to unite together, 
 and so separate from the barbarians among whom they were 
 thrown. But I find no passage worthy of quotation. As 
 the rhetorical exercise of a young Ciceronian, an ardent 
 student, a good Latin scholar, full of the sentiments and 
 expressions of his master, caring nothing for consequences, 
 reckless who is offended, utterly wanting in judgment, 
 desirous only to display his indignation, and with it his 
 scholarship, it is excellent, but it deals too much in 
 generalities, and is indeed in all respects too much of a 
 rhetorical exercise to detain us. 
 
 The oration appears to have been delivered not merely 
 to the French students, or even to students only, but to a 
 numerous assembly, including many other persons. It 
 excited much irritation among the Tolosans and the Gascons, 
 and was replied to by the orator of the Gascon nation, 
 who, whatever his merits as a scholar, would seem to have 
 displayed in his speech those qualities for which his country- 
 men have always been celebrated, and to have laid himself 
 open to an easy and victorious reply on the part of Dolet. 
 No part of the oration of Pinache 1 — such was the Gascon 
 orator's name — has come down, and all that we know of 
 its substance, except from the references to it in Dolet's 
 second oration, in his letters to Arnoul Le Ferron, and in 
 the correspondence between the latter and Julius Cassar 
 
 1 Pinachius. I do not know that his name, except in the Latin form, 
 occurs in any contemporary book or document, but Dolet's biographers 
 and critics have agreed in styling him Pinache. La Faille, however, gives 
 Prignac as the name of the Gascon orator. 
 
102 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Scaliger, is derived from the contemptuous statement of 
 Simon Finet, ' When the orator (Dolet) had performed his 
 duty, a certain Gascon arose, a grammarian, a popular man, 
 and one held in favour by the students, who that he might 
 use the more impudence, might more petulantly abuse the 
 French, and heap more insults on Dolet, pretended that he 
 had to defend as well the dignity of the Parliament of 
 Toulouse which had been impaired by Dolet, as the cause of 
 the injured Gascons.' 1 
 
 Besides the attacks of Dolet in his second oration, of 
 which I shall speak presently, Pierre Pinache is the subject 
 of two abusive epigrams of Dolet, and is referred to with 
 much bitterness in his letters to Arnoul Le Ferron. Yet 
 Julius Cassar Scaliger speaks of him with great praise, as 
 modest, learned, and eloquent, 2 though it is true this was 
 after Scaliger had taken mortal offence at Dolet's dialogue 
 De Imitatione Ciceroniana. He was at all events a man of 
 sufficient wit and scholarship to make a vigorous reply to 
 the French orator, filled with abuse of the latter, charging 
 him with being not only a worshipper of Cicero, but still 
 f worse, a Lutheran and a heretic, and calling upon the strong 
 arm of the law to punish him for his censure on the 
 Parliament and the magistrates. It might well be .that 
 Dolet should feel bound to answer the charges of his 
 adversary. Yet such a reply as would be suited to the 
 gravity of the situation required preparation. When the 
 second oration was delivered we cannot with certainty decide, 
 except that it was between the 26th of November 1533 and 
 
 1 Preface to the Orat. Dua in Tholosam. 
 
 2 Letter to Arnoul Le Ferron, Schelhorn, Amcenitates Litterarite, viii. 
 584. I am unable to find any further mention of Pinache. The authors 
 of the Biographie Toulousaine have omitted him from their work, as they 
 have done many persons of more note whose names are connected with 
 the city. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 103 
 
 the 26th of January 1534. (It was not delivered at the 
 date of Dolet's letter to Jacques Bording of the 26th of 
 November, and was delivered before the letter of Arnoul 
 Le Ferron of 26th January was written.) It was spoken 
 before a much more numerous assembly than the first, in- 
 cluding Pinache, Arnoul Le Ferron, and probably Jean de 
 Boyssone. It is far more violent, far more indiscreet, and 
 shows far more power and ability than the first. It 
 is also much longer, occupying fifty pages of the printed 
 edition. 
 
 Commencing with abuse and ridicule of his adversary, 
 whom he calls ' ineptissimus homo,' ' imbecillus obtrectatorj 
 ' imperitus rudisque declamatory and descending — as was the 
 manner of disputants of that day — even to such personalities 
 as Pinache's tremulous and thin voice, sunburnt eyes, and 
 rustic countenance, he proceeds with more reason to com- 
 plain, that instead of answering his first oration, Pinache had 
 excited the Parliament against him, and instead of attacking 
 his reputation as an orator, had brought his personal safety 
 into jeopardy. ' Would you deny me,' he cries, ' the right 
 of attacking him who wished not only that my reputation 
 should suffer, but that my personal security should be 
 destroyed, who strove not so much to reply to my oration as 
 to excite and inflame the Parliament against me ? ' He then, 
 after eulogising the Gallic name and race which had been 
 vilified by Pinache, and defending himself from the charge 
 of having attacked Toulouse, — a charge which he suggests 
 his opponent must have been either bribed or drunk to have 
 made, — he continues, ' You have asked concerning me, Who 
 is this that strives to bring into contempt the decrees of 
 the Parliament ? Who will admit that he is the author of 
 such an attempt ? With such language you have attacked 
 me. Then having excited yourself still more furiously, you 
 treat me as a traitor to my country, or as guilty of a 
 
io 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 conspiracy against it, and declare that I ought to be beheaded 
 or thrown headlong from a rock, or tied up in a sack and 
 thrown into the river, or at least, and as the mildest punish- 
 ment, exiled from Toulouse.' 
 
 After defending himself from the charge of being too 
 exclusively devoted to Cicero, he proceeds again to extol the 
 Gallic name and race, and then to answer some of Pinache's 
 personal reproaches on the subject of his poverty and the 
 lowness of his origin ; and he then makes the statement as 
 to his family which I have already quoted. 1 
 
 ' Again,' he continues, ' raging with the desire of vilifying 
 me still more impudently, Pinache flies at me with an 
 extraordinary fury, and attacks me with most violent 
 language. He exclaims that I have learned the art of 
 speaking Latin among the Italians, at the expense of all 
 freedom of expression, and that I can only speak in the 
 manner I have been taught to do. Then he charges me 
 with fickleness, with being a deserter and a fugitive, born 
 in France, educated in Italy, at present sojourning in my 
 native land, but contemplating a speedy return to Italy. 
 He argues that I have become morose and irritable owing 
 to my intimacy from my youth with Simon Villanovanus. 
 For how, he asks, can one who was educated by that man, 
 who was of all others the most bitter and severe, help 
 scowling at, condemning, and finding fault with everything ? 
 So great, O Pinache, is your desire of evil-speaking, that 
 you cannot content yourself with attacking in a most in- 
 famous manner me, who am living, but are not ashamed 
 to calumniate the dead. But Christopher Longolius himself, 
 by the testimony of his letters, has relieved me from the 
 burden of praising or defending my friend. He there 
 speaks in the highest terms as well of the pleasant dis- 
 position as of the greatness of the learning of Villano- 
 
 1 Ante, p. 10. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 
 
 105 
 
 vanus. 1 I admit that I passed a considerable time in a 
 very close intimacy with him, but so far from being 
 ashamed of having done so, I consider it to be greatly to 
 my credit. Whatever success I have attained either in 
 Latin composition or oratory — though I know how slight 
 that is — I freely acknowledge that I must attribute it 
 to him. I also admit that I have derived from him a 
 certain seriousness and gravity, but I altogether deny 
 that I have become morose owing to my association with 
 him.' 
 
 Then, after saying that, according to Pinache's mode of 
 arguing, Demosthenes, Cicero, Horace, and Juvenal would 
 be considered as scurrilous and morose, and, whilst pro- 
 fessing to answer his adversary, again repeating his attack 
 on the barbarism of Toulouse, he proceeds to a long 
 panegyric on France, the French, 2 and Francis I., leading 
 up to a violent attack on the Gascons, which is followed by 
 a defence of Orleans from some attacks of Pinache. The 
 orator then proceeds to defend himself from the charge 
 of having in his former oration attacked Toulouse, and 
 whilst professing great affection for the city, and regret 
 that it should be open to censure on account of its bar- 
 barism, he repeats his former attacks, and far exceeds them 
 in violence. ' What the reputation of Toulouse is for 
 culture, 3 for politeness of manners, for civilisation, the 
 recent sudden departure from the city of the King of 
 France has shown. He came, he saw, he departed. The 
 vulgarity, the rudeness, the barbarism, the fooleries of 
 Toulouse drove from hence the glory of France. It can- 
 
 1 See the letters of Longolius passim, and particularly the twenty- 
 sixth of the third book. In the fourteenth of the same book testimony 
 is borne by Longolius to the ' suavissima consuetudo ' of Villanovanus. 
 
 2 All through the oration he distinguishes between the French (Galli) 
 and the Gascons (Vascones or Aquitani). 3 P. 52. 
 
106 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 not be pretended with any show of truth that the King 
 was suddenly called away by any emergency or pressure 
 of business.' x 
 
 After more of the same sort we reach 2 the most inter- 
 esting, indeed the only really interesting passages of the 
 oration, those which aroused against Dolet all the bigots 
 of Toulouse, and gave his enemies a handle they were not 
 slow to take hold of — those in which he inveighs with true 
 eloquence and force against the ridiculous and childish 
 superstitions which at Toulouse usurped the name of 
 religion, against the bigotry which had committed Jean 
 de Caturce to the flames, which had humiliated and fined 
 Jean de Boyssone, had persecuted Pac and Bunel, and 
 which had aimed a blow, happily unsuccessful, at the Bishop 
 of Rieux himself. 
 
 ' None of you are ignorant that the new doctrines con- 
 cerning the Christian religion which Luther some time 
 since put forward have caused great heartburnings, and 
 that 'they are approved only by certain turbulent and 
 impiously curious persons ; but you also know, when any 
 one shows signs of genius and of an intellectual superiority 
 over his fellows, he is forthwith suspected by men of a 
 bigoted and depraved mind of the Lutheran heresy, and is 
 made to experience all that hatred which this accusation 
 gives rise to. But whenever the Tolosan furies have 
 obtained this handle with which to pour forth their bound- 
 less hatred against the learned and the studious, how many 
 men of illustrious reputation for learning or talent have they 
 not striven to destroy ! Who has ever known them give 
 
 1 Francis I. entered Toulouse on the 1st of August 1533, and stayed 
 only seven days. This passage, which seems to have escaped all the 
 biographers of Dolet, clearly shows that this oration was spoken after 
 1st August 1533, and not — as M. Boulmier and the rest have assumed 
 and stated — at the end of 1532 or the beginning of 1533. 
 
 2 Pp. 54-61. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 107 
 
 their vote for the acquittal of any learned man ? I already 
 seem to hear these calumniators gnashing their teeth at this 
 utterance of mine and wickedly planning my condemnation. 
 I seem to hear them charging even me with being a Lutheran. 
 He who so lately reviled me (Pinache) has, I have no 
 doubt, already determined to be an approver and promoter 
 of this calumny ; but in order that he may not even for a 
 moment enjoy that pleasure or hope to see me convicted on 
 so odious a charge, and in order that no suspicion of heresy 
 may cleave to me or be thrown in my teeth, I most earnestly 
 and vehemently declare, and beg you all to believe, that I 
 am not in any way a follower of that impious and obstinate 
 sect, that nothing is more distasteful to me than their desire 
 of new doctrines and systems, that there is nothing I more 
 strongly condemn. I am one who honours and reveres only 
 that faith, only those religious rites, which have the sanction 
 of antiquity, which have been handed down to us by a 
 succession of pious and holy men, which have been hallowed 
 by the adhesion of our ancestors. I by no means approve 
 a new and unmeaning religious system. Only those doctrines 
 and practices please me which are truly good and Christian, 
 and these I love with all my heart. 
 
 ' But what is the reason (it must be a bad one) that 
 cruelty is the delight of Toulouse? That this city is so 
 imbued with savage tastes as to take no pleasure in any- 
 thing except what is most removed from, nay, most opposed 
 to all semblance of humanity, and which cannot even be 
 reconciled with justice? You have lately seen one, whose 
 name I forbear to mention, burned to death in this city. 
 His body has been destroyed, but his memory is still being 
 consumed by the raging flames of hatred. He may have 
 spoken at times rashly and presumptuously, at other times 
 intemperately ; he may even have acted at one time in such 
 a manner as to deserve the punishment due to heresy. 
 
108 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Yet when inclined to repent, ought the way of salvation for 
 both body and soul to have been closed against him ? Do 
 we not all know that any man may err or for a time fall away 
 from the truth, but that only the utterly bad persevere in 
 their errors ? When once the clouds that overshadowed his 
 mind had been dissipated, was there no possibility that it 
 might again shine forth with a clear light? Why, when 
 he was striving to emerge from the depths and whirlpools 
 in which he had been overwhelmed, and to reach some good 
 and safe haven, did not all with one consent help to throw 
 out a cable so as to afford him the possibility of reaching a 
 safe anchorage? His last words were to appeal from the 
 sentence of the Archbishop and from the decree of the 
 Parliament, and who would deny that such an appeal ought 
 to have been received ? Yet his willingness to return from 
 his wanderings into the right path availed him nothing ; 
 nor was any change of opinion — which is usually allowed 
 as a means of retreat for a penitent — able to preserve his 
 life from the brutality of his enemies. Toulouse, as usual 
 careless of humanity and culture (of which it never was a 
 partaker), satiated its love of cruelty by wounding and 
 destroying him. It filled its mind and feasted its eyes with 
 his tortures and his death. Preposterously and absurdly 
 puffed up by the pretence that it has acted in accordance 
 with duty, and has vigorously maintained the dignity of 
 our religion, it has really acted with the greatest injustice. 
 It has persecuted so severely and cruelly those who have 
 fallen under suspicion for some trifling error, or who have 
 been altogether falsely charged with the crime of heresy, 
 that, they have been impelled by their tortures utterly to 
 deny Christ, instead of being led gently to repentance. In 
 short, every one who rightly considers these things will come 
 to the conclusion that at Toulouse more than anywhere law 
 and right keep silence, while violence, hatred, and the denial 
 
vii THE ORATOR 
 
 109 
 
 of justice prevails. And as the city so ridiculously arrogates 
 to itself a very high reputation for sound and faithful belief, 
 and claims and wishes to be considered as the light and 
 ornament of the Christian religion, let us for a moment 
 consider whether there are any just grounds on which this 
 claim can be supported. ... I appeal to your own 
 personal testimony, and I am certain that you will readily 
 agree with me that Toulouse has not yet acquired even the 
 rudiments of Christianity, but is given over to superstitions 
 worthy only of the Turks ; for what else is that ceremony 
 which takes place every year on the feast of St. George, 
 when horses are introduced into the church of St. Etienne, 
 and made to go round it nine times, at the same that solemn 
 offerings are made with a view of insuring the horses' health ? 
 What else is that ceremony of throwing a cross on a certain 
 day into the Garonne, as if for propitiating Eridanus or 
 Danubius, Nilus or even old father Oceanus himself, and 
 inducing the waters of the river to flow in a calm and 
 smooth course without overflowing its banks and so causing 
 an inundation ? What is it but superstition, in the*drought 
 of summer and when rain is wanted, to cause the rotten 
 trunks of certain statues to be carried about the streets by 
 boys ? Yet this city, so ill instructed in the faith .of Christ, 
 pretends to impose its notions of Christianity upon all men, 
 to regulate all religious matters according to its will, and 
 to insult with the name of heretic every one who follows 
 the commands of Christ with more freedom and according 
 to their spirit, as though he had fallen away from the 
 integrity and soundness of the faith.' 
 
 He then proceeds — in a passage which I have already 
 in part quoted — to refer to Jean de Boyssone, Matthieu 
 Pac, Pierre Bunel, and Otho the Italian scholar, and to tell 
 the story of Jean de Pins and the manuscript of Josephus. 
 The remaining fourteen pages of the oration are in the 
 
no ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 same strain, chiefly passionate invectives against the bar- 
 barism, the cruelty, the folly of Toulouse, abuse and 
 ridicule of Pinache and the speaker's other enemies — among 
 whom Maurus is not obscurely hinted at. He reproaches 
 them with their attempts to have him cast into prison, with 
 exciting the Parliament against him, and with carrying a 
 pig inscribed with his name through the city with a view 
 of turning him into ridicule. 
 
 We cannot feel surprised that the delivery of this speech 
 should have caused great indignation at Toulouse, not only 
 in the minds of Pinache and the other enemies of Dolet, 
 but also among the Capitouls and the members of the 
 Parliament. That a young student of law should use such 
 censures, and even abuse, was certain to excite great dis- 
 pleasure, and we can hardly imagine anything more 
 indiscreet and foolish than the reference to the martyrdom 
 of Jean de Caturce and the persecution of Jean de Boyssone. 
 Had Dolet been the most orthodox of Catholics the 
 reference to Caturce could not but have given occasion to 
 charges of heresy, while his reference to the superstitions 
 of the Tolosans and the ridicule he had cast upon their 
 ceremonies caused him not unreasonably to be suspected, 
 if not of sympathy with the opinions of the heretics, at 
 least of dislike to those of the orthodox. But the delivery 
 of the speech seems to have been followed by disturbances 
 and riots among the students, which may not improbably 
 have been occasioned by the oration, and the enemies of 
 Dolet found little difficulty in bringing against him the 
 charge of heresy, of contempt of the authorities, and of 
 language calculated to produce a breach of the peace. Yet 
 his biographers have assumed that his first imprisonment 
 followed more closely upon the delivery of his second 
 oration than was actually the fact. I have before stated 
 that though I have been unable to ascertain precisely the 
 
vii THE ORATOR 
 
 in 
 
 date of the delivery of the second oration, it certainly must 
 have been some time before the 27th of January 1534, since 
 shortly before that day Arnoul Le Ferron wrote to him 
 complaining of the violence of the second oration, and it 
 was not until the 25 th of March in the same year that he 
 was thrown into prison. 
 
 During this interval there can be no doubt that his 
 enemies were .using all their exertion to have him imprisoned 
 and punished, and to excite against him the displeasure of 
 the members of the Parliament as well as the hatred of the 
 fanatical citizens. Four persons appear to have made them- 
 selves conspicuous by their attacks. Pierre Pinache may be 
 pardoned for feeling sore under the lash of his adversary's 
 speech, and had he done no more than pour his griefs into 
 the sympathetic bosom of the great Julius Ca!sar Scaliger, or 
 even use language to the public as strong and as abusive as 
 that of Dolet, he might easily have been forgiven, but it 
 would seem that, feeling his own powers and scholarship to 
 be insufficient to cope with the vigour and learning of his 
 adversary, he was especially urgent upon the Parliament to 
 imprison or exile Dolet. 
 
 But the young student had made other and more powerful 
 enemies than Pinache. His pen had covered with merciless 
 if just ridicule the most important personage of Toulouse 
 after the First . President of the Parliament, and his verses, 
 though only in manuscript, had been handed about, and had 
 reached the ears if not the eyes of the vain and foolish 
 dignitary against whom they were written. 
 
 After the union of the County of Toulouse with the 
 French Crown, the great powers of the Seneschal fell gradually 
 into the hands of his Lieutenant-General, who, until the 
 establishment of the Parliament, was the most important 
 person in the whole of Languedoc. No longer appointed 
 by the Seneschal — whose office soon became merely honorary 
 
ii2 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 — but directly by the Crown, often styled the King's 
 Lieutenant-General in Languedoc, he was the chief, not only 
 of the civil and criminal judicature of the province, but of 
 the civil government. His administrative equalled his 
 judicial functions in importance, and gave him a position 
 which, until the institution of the Parliament, was both 
 higher in rank and in actual power than that which the 
 First President afterwards held. The final and permanent 
 establishment of the Parliament in 1444 gave a blow to the 
 importance and influence of the Lieutenants of the Seneschalty 
 from which they never recovered, yet the office continued 
 for more than a century to be of great importance. The 
 Lieutenant still had the right to sit in person as judge of 
 first instance in numerous cases, and the appeal from his 
 judgments, as well as from numerous other courts, lay not 
 directly to the Parliament, but to his own official or deputy, 
 the juge-mage or juge des appeaux, who at this time exercised 
 1 both a primary and an appellate jurisdiction. The Lieutenant- 
 general still, as the King's Lieutenant, exercised in Toulouse 
 jail such of the administrative functions as the Capitouls were 
 not entitled to exercise. At the inaugural session of the 
 Parliament of Toulouse on the 14th of June 1444, Tanneguy 
 du Chatel, Lieutenant of the Seneschalty, sat on the right of 
 the First President and before the Archbishop of Toulouse ; 
 and though this precedence was soon lost, yet at the time of 
 which I am speaking the Lieutenant seems to have been 
 entitled to sit in the Parliament among the Presidents a 
 mortier. But he had retained up to this time, though he 
 was soon to lose, what gave him in the eyes of the populace 
 a far higher position than that of the Parliament or its 
 Presidents, the possession, jointly with the Viguier and to 
 the exclusion of the Parliament, of the ancient Palais de 
 Justice, then known as the Chateau Narbonnais or the Palais 
 Royal. The Parliament struggled for one hundred and ten 
 
vii THE ORATOR 113 
 
 years after its foundation to gain a footing in the Chateau, 
 but in vain. It had to be satisfied with such temporary 
 accommodation as it could from time to time obtain. The 
 Lieutenant of the Seneschalty absolutely refused it admission 
 into the Palais. At length in 1555, on the creation of the 
 Chamber of Enquetes, the royal commands forced the 
 Lieutenant to yield and to allow the joint use of the Palais 
 to the Parliament. From this time his importance rapidly 
 declined. The joint occupation continued for a century, 
 after which the Lieutenant of the Seneschalty of Toulouse 
 disappears from history. 1 
 
 In 1533, however, the Lieutenant -General of the 
 Seneschalty was still a considerable personage, and no one of 
 these dignitaries was more tenacious of his position, or more 
 determined to uphold it against the Parliament and to retain \ 
 possession of the Palais de Justice, than Gratien du Pont, 
 Sieur de Drusac, who now held the office. Unfortunately 
 no one could be less fitted for its duties or more likely to 
 bring it into discredit by his folly and vanity. The Sieur 1 
 de Drusac's great ambition was to shine, neither as an | 
 administrator nor as a judge, but as a poet. If we give him 
 that appellation, we must qualify it by saying he was one of 
 those indifferent poets whom neither gods, men, nor columns 
 endure. Embittered against the fair sex, as it would seem 
 owing to the ill-success of his love affairs (we learn from one 
 of Dolet's odes that he had obtained a divorce from his wife) 
 
 1 See, as to the Lieutenants of the Seneschalty and their powers, Les 
 Parkments de France, Essai Historique sur leurs usages, leur organisation, et 
 leur autorit'e, by the Vicomte de Bastard D'Estang, Paris, 1857, 2 vols. 
 8vo. This work, though nominally on the French Parliaments generally, 
 is almost wholly devoted to the Parliament of Toulouse. It is a book of 
 considerable interest, containing much information which would be sought 
 in vain elsewhere. Its main object, however, seems to be to laud the 
 family of Bastard, many members of which filled high offices connected 
 with this Parliament. 
 
ii 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 and to the ridicule of the ladies of Toulouse, he endeavoured 
 to avenge himself by a bitter diatribe in verse against his 
 persecutors, which he published under the title of Contro- 
 verses des sexes masculin et feminin. Conceived in the worst 
 possible taste, and written in the worst possible style, such of 
 the French critics as have noticed it have placed it at the 
 nadir even of the mass of bad poetry which, though with 
 some brilliant exceptions, was produced in the sixteenth 
 century. Yet the author flattered himself that he had 
 composed a treatise which would be a model of style and of 
 every kind of verse to the youth who should desire to learn 
 to compose poetry or to study rhetoric, and which should at 
 the same time be of the greatest moral benefit by displaying 
 wicked women in their true colours, and pointing out the 
 snares which they set for the unwary. The author supposes 
 himself sitting in a wood, when ' sexe masculin ' appears 
 before him, complains of ' sexe feminin,' and entreats him to 
 take up the defence of the outraged and oppressed male sex. 
 He at first hesitates, but at length consents ; and then follows 
 a series of tedious harangues, in which, after commencing by 
 the statement that women were not made in the image of 
 God but in that of the devil, he proceeds to heap together 
 all the ill that he could find said of women by any author, 
 sacred or profane, and to narrate all the stories of wicked 
 women to be found in Scripture, in history, in prose fiction, 
 and in poetry. Mixed up with all this is every kind of verse 
 and rhyme, and all the tedious and pedantic trivialities of 
 which the old French arts of poetry are so full. ' If such 
 puerilities,' justly remarks the Abbe Goujet {Bibl. Franc. 
 vol. xi. p. 187), 'joined to the barbarous style of the author, 
 disgust the reader, the book becomes still more unsupportable 
 by the excess of his satire and by the indecent portraits 
 which he draws ' ; and which, it may be added, have neither 
 wit nor ingenuity to recommend them. Satisfied that 
 
vii THE ORATOR 115 
 
 posterity will interest itself greatly in the book and its 
 author, the latter is careful to tell us the day on which he 
 himself completes his work, — 
 
 L'an mil-cinq cens trente et sixieme 
 
 Du mois de may le jour vingt-et-cinquiesme. 
 
 Yet we have an earlier, though not complete, edition printed 
 by Colomies at Toulouse in 1535, though dated 1534, 1 
 which is the earliest at present known. It is however clear 
 from this edition that the first book had been composed for 
 some years, and it is evident from the letters and poems of 
 Dolet that it had been in circulation for some time when he 
 left Toulouse in the summer of 1534. It is certainly 
 possible that it may have been circulated in manuscript, as 
 was not infrequent at that day. Yet I strongly incline to 
 think that an edition of the first book was printed in or 
 before 1533, and that a copy may possibly yet be found. 2 
 
 1 The date, Jan. 30, 1534, would probably be Jan. 30, 1535, new 
 style. 
 
 2 It was reprinted at Toulouse in 1536, again at Paris in 1537, 1538, 
 1539, 1540, and 1 541. To the editions of and subsequent to 1536 are 
 added the proceedings of the trial before Dame Reason of the complaint 
 of the masculine sex. It is entitled, ' Requeste du sexe masculin contre 
 le sexe feminin. . . . Baillee a Dame raison. Ensemble le plaidoye de 
 partis Et arrest intervenue.' It is needless to say the decree is in favour 
 of the ' sexe masculin.' Besides the Controverses, Drusac was the author 
 of Art et Science de Rhetoricque metriffiee, Tholose, Vielland, 1539, which, 
 like all the editions of the Controverses, is extremely rare. For Drusac 
 and his works see Goujet, Bibl. Franc, xi. pp. 184-192; Biograpbie 
 Toukusaine, 188 (this article is by M. Lamothe-Langon) ; La Croix du 
 Maine (who erroneously calls him Gabriel Dupont), and a note of the 
 President Bouhier in the edition of La Croix du Maine given by Rigoley 
 de Juvigny, vol. i. 253. By far the best notice is that of Goujet, but in 
 his last paragraph he has been led into an error, which I have not seen 
 anywhere corrected or even noticed : 'Je trouve aussi citees (Catalog, de 
 Barre, p. 445) d'autres Controverses des sexes masculin et feminin par 
 Francois Chevallier imprimees en 1536 in 16°. Mais j'ignore le but 
 et la methode de cet ouvrage. La Croix du Maine et Du Verdier ne 
 
n6 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Dolet had undertaken the defence of the fair sex against 
 its detractor, and had thereby acquired some favour with the 
 ladies of Toulouse, but the merciless ridicule which he 
 poured upon both the man and his book accounts for, if it 
 does not justify, the bitter hostility of the Lieutenant- 
 General of the Seneschalty. Six odes of Dolet are directed 
 ' in Drusacum vulgarem foetam Tholosanum qui librum in 
 fceminas scripsit.' In one of his odes Dolet says that 
 Drusac's book would be most useful to the grocers to wrap 
 
 parlent point de cet auteur et je ne le connois que par la citation de son 
 livre et par un rondeau qu'il a fait a la louange des controverses de Gratien 
 Du Pont, qu'on lit a la tete de ce dernier ouvrage, et dans le titre duquel 
 rondeau Francois Chevallier est dit natif de Bourdeaulx et qualifie Coll'egii 
 du College de Foix a Tholose.' The book which is erroneously cited as by- 
 Francois Chevallier is no other than the edition of Drusac's own book 
 printed at Toulouse in 1536, in which the rondeau of Chevallier 
 addressed to Drusac will be found. In 1564 the Controverses were 
 formally answered by Francois Arnault, Seigneur de la Borie, in his Anti 
 Drusac, ou Livret contre Drusac faicte a I honneur des femmes nobles bonnes 
 et honnestes, Tholose, Colomies. This book is erroneously attributed by 
 M. Lamothe-Langon, who quotes Du Verdier as his authority, to another 
 Drusac. Nothing of the kind is, however, to be found in Du Verdier, 
 who gives as the author Francois la Borie de Valois, Docteur es droits 
 natif de Cahors (Valois, according to La Monnoye, is a mistake for 
 Valons, a bourg of Vivarais). Francois la Borie was, according to 
 Goujet, the author of Antiquit'es de Perigord, and the translator of a 
 treatise of Maldonat on Angels and Dasmons, and was Canon of Perigueux, 
 Dean of Carenac, Prior of Lurcy, Grand Archdeacon of St. Andrew of 
 Bordeaux, and Chancellor of the University of that city. He was also 
 the author of a Latin treatise, Anti atheon per rationes aliquot congestum 
 physicas quibus athei tanquam suis baculis seu telis icti refelluntur Deum unum 
 esse aternum omnipotentem plenissimum misericordiee et bonitatis infinites 
 nostrique sollicitum, Tolosae, Guidone Boudevilles, 1 561. (Du Verdier, 
 Supplement to Gesner.) In the notice of Gratien du Pont in the Nouvelle 
 Biographie generate (almost wholly taken from Goujet), after the state- 
 ment that his book was refuted by Arnault de la Borie, we are referred to 
 the article ' La Borie ; ' but, as in so many similar cases in that work, no 
 such article is to be found, nor have I been able to find anywhere any 
 biographical notice of Francois Arnault de la Borie. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 117 
 
 up pepper and such condiments in, and suggests other still 
 more humiliating purposes for which it could be usefully 
 employed ; while in another ode, printed with the orations 
 and written by a friend of Dolet, whose name is not given, 
 Dolet is charged with a too flattering partiality to Drusac 
 in suggesting that any use could be made of such rubbish, 
 and the writer explains with considerable humour, but in 
 language which will hardly bear translation into a modern 
 tongue, why the book of the unfortunate Lieutenant of the 
 Seneschalty was unsuited even to the humiliating purposes 
 to which Dolet had assigned it. The authorship of this 
 ode has hitherto remained unknown, and if there are any of 
 my readers who have already made acquaintance with Jean 
 de Boyssone in the pages of M. Guibal, they will perhaps 
 learn with some little surprise that, as appears from the 
 Toulouse manuscript, the author of the humorous, though 
 certainly coarse and Rabelaisian ode which I give in the 
 note, is the grave, religious, and studiously moderate Jean 
 de Boyssone. 1 
 
 Of the Juge-mage Guillaume Dampmartin we know 
 nothing, except that, as was natural in the official of the 
 Lieuten ant-General, he allied himself with his chief. It was 
 he who shortly afterwards committed Dolet to prison, and 
 
 1 Tergendis natibus tuum libellum 
 Aptum dixerat optimus poeta 
 Blanditus tibi credo tunc poeta. 
 Nam nullus natibus suis Drusace 
 Dignum judicat hunc tuum libellum 
 Insulsum, lacerum, asperum, protervum, 
 Incultum, rigidum, parum pudicum 
 Et duris salebris ineptiorem ; 
 Atque ipsis natibus magis lutosum : 
 Quare tergere podicem volentem, 
 Chartas ut fugiat tuas monemus, 
 Ni vult surgere fcediore culo. 
 
n8 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 to his influence and that of Drusac the final expulsion of 
 Dolet from Toulouse was due. 1 
 
 But besides these two high officials, Dolet had excited 
 the hatred of a certain Le More or Maurus, a grammarian 
 and schoolmaster. Among the poems of Dolet, of Jean 
 Voulte, and of Hubert Sussanneau, are to be found numerous 
 biting epigrams on this man, described as a grammarian 
 and pedagogue, and referred to by the two former as a 
 bitter enemy of Dolet. He appears to have been a man of 
 some learning, at this time a schoolmaster at Toulouse, 
 extremely hostile to the new learning and to the new 
 opinions which were then coming into vogue. An old 
 man with a young wife, it is easy to see what an oppor- 
 tunity he afforded to the epigrammatists. His name will be 
 sought for in vain in the biographical collections, but he 
 may clearly be identified with one Jean Maur 2 of Coutances 
 (jfoannes Maurus Constantianus), called by Duverdier, 
 Jean le More de Constance, who printed at the little town 
 of La Reole in 1517 three short tracts of each of which one 
 copy only is known. From La Reole he seems to have 
 gone to Lectoure and afterwards to Montauban, where he 
 translated into French and Basque the treatise of Grapaldo, 
 De partibus jEdium, printed, but without date, at Montauban 
 by Jean Gilbert. In 1530 we find him at Toulouse, where 
 he published an edition and" commentary on the distiches 
 of Fausto Andrelini, from the dedication of which, ad- 
 dressed ' Mathurino Almandino Angeliaco,' it would seem 
 he had not long left Montauban. This commentary was 
 frequently reprinted between 1530 and 1540 both at Lyons 
 
 1 Dampmartin succeeded Drusac in the office of Lieutenant of the 
 Seneschalty (Du Mege, Instit. de Toulouse, ii. p. 267.) 
 
 2 Since the publication of the first edition of this book, M. A. 
 Claudin has devoted an article to Maurus in La Revue Catholique de 
 Bordeaux reprinted separately under the title Les Origines de L'lm- 
 primerie a La Reole en Guyenne. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 119 
 
 and Paris, and is the only one of Jean Maur's works with 
 which I am personally acquainted. The distiches of An- 
 drelini, like the rest of his poems, are poor and common- 
 place, and deserve attention neither from the style nor 
 matter. ' They want but one thing,' said Erasmus ; ' that 
 which is called vovs in Greek, mens in Latin.' Yet they 
 acquired that popularity which in all times seems to be 
 easily obtained by so-called proverbial philosophy, however 
 foolish or commonplace, when delivered in measured and 
 stilted phrases. A biographer of Fausto Andrelini 1 de- 
 scribes him as * a mere word-monger, poor in thought, cold 
 in poetical feeling and fancy, and selfishly malignant in 
 character ' ; a description which is precisely applicable to his 
 commentator. In stilted and pompous language — hardly 
 a sentence of which is not disfigured by some barbarous 
 pentasyllable unknown even to the writers of the iron age 
 of Latin literature — Maurus amplifies and elaborates the 
 commonplaces of his author, finding a recondite meaning in 
 each sentence and word, much after the same fashion of 
 worthless and dreary verbosity with which preachers and 
 commentators have endeavoured to elaborate theological 
 systems out of the most ordinary and simple texts of Holy 
 Scripture. Only when Andrelini speaks of old age does his 
 commentator (a bachelor far past middle age but con- 
 templating matrimony) wax enthusiastic and natural. On 
 the verse of Andrelini, ' Disticha composui matura digna 
 senecta,' the old pedagogue enthusiastically remarks, ' Matura, 
 id est senili et sapienti ; maturum enim est quod sole jam 
 coctum perfecte temperatum est. Unde per translationem 
 maturus homo dicitur qui omnino astate perfectus est, quo 
 tempore maxime sapiens habendus. Unde matura aetas : id 
 est, senilis et perfecta ac sapiens.' 
 
 1 Professor Spalding, in the Biog. Diet, of the Society for Promoting 
 Useful Knowledge. 
 
120 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 But if the enemies of Dolet were active and virulent, 
 he had acquired and still retained, notwithstanding the 
 intemperate character of his speech, and probably from a 
 secret sympathy for the opinions of which he professed 
 himself, if not the defender, at least the apologist, the 
 esteem of all the friends of learning and progress at Tou- 
 louse. In the volume which contains the two orations are 
 j to be found three books of epistles which passed between 
 j Dolet and his friends. All these appear to have been 
 j written between the latter end of the year 1532 and the 
 ; month of August 1534, when he had arrived at Lyons, and 
 I several of them, and those the most interesting, were written 
 : in the interval between his second oration and his first 
 I imprisonment. Of two of his correspondents, Jean de Pins 
 and Jean de Boyssone, I have already spoken, and their 
 < letters raise very much our opinion of Dolet. With a third 
 correspondent, however, he interchanged several letters which 
 especially illustrate this interval. 
 1 Among those contemporaries who upon Dolet's arrival 
 I at Toulouse were students of law at the University, there 
 was no one who achieved more success in the schools, or 
 ! who gave greater promise of eminence as a jurist, than 
 [Arnoul Le Ferron. Born in 151 5, and thus seven years 
 younger than Dolet, he had at the time of the delivery of 
 the orations nearly completed his course of law, and though 
 only eighteen years of age, was already preparing, as it would 
 seem with the sanction of the authorities, a course of lectures. 
 1 His father, Jean Le Ferron, an Italian by birth, had achieved 
 a high reputation as a lawyer at Verona, and was brought 
 from that city by the Cardinal de Bourbon, who obtained 
 for him the appointment of Councillor to the Parliament of 
 Bordeaux. 1 His young son Arnoul accompanied him to 
 
 1 Boscheron des Fortes, Hist, du Parlement de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 
 
vii THE ORATOR 121 
 
 France (or was born shortly after his arrival). In 1536, 
 when only just twenty-one years of age, Arnoul was ap- 
 pointed by Cardinal Du Prat a Councillor of the Parliament 
 of Bordeaux in succession to his father. The age required 
 for the office to which he was appointed was twenty-five, 
 but he had already given such proofs of his ability that his 
 future colleagues, the President and Councillors of the 
 Parliament, made themselves responsible to the Cardinal for 
 his capacity for the office notwithstanding his youth, and 
 letters of dispensation were accorded him. 1 The expectation 
 of his colleagues was completely justified. His appointment 
 was inaugurated by his great work on the customs of Bor- 
 deaux, which at once gave him a high reputation, and long 
 continued to be the standard authority on the subject. ' His 
 Commentaries on the laws of his native province,' says de 
 Thou, ' are worthy of a good citizen and an excellent juris- 
 consult.' For the remaining twenty-seven years of his life 
 he continued one of the chief ornaments of the Parliament 
 of Bordeaux, though he never received any promotion, but 
 remained to his death a simple councillor. Though his\ 
 genius and literary merits pale by the side of his illustrious I 
 colleagues La Boetie and Montaigne, yet he alone among 1 
 the members of the Parliament of Bordeaux in the sixteenth 
 century achieved any fame as a jurist. But it was not only 
 in this capacity that he obtained a high and deserved reputa- 
 tion, as a judge he was distinguished by his integrity, his 
 impartiality, and his love of justice ; and though in dealing 
 with matters of heresy, and with the charges made against 
 
 1878), vol. i. 117. According to this writer Arnoul was born at Verona, 
 but all other authorities make him a native of Bordeaux. 
 
 1 The same thing occurred a few years later in the case of a still 
 more eminent man. When fitienne de la Boetie was appointed a 
 Councillor of the Parliament of Bordeaux in 1553, he required letters of 
 dispensation on account of his youth (he was then twenty-three) before 
 he could be admitted. {Id. i. 119.) 
 
122 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 men of letters in reference to their opinions, he ever showed 
 himself on the side of toleration and of mercy, he never 
 permitted his personal affections or his personal sympathy to 
 outweigh the claims of justice or of right. There was no 
 one with whom he was on terms of greater intimacy, or 
 whom he regarded with greater admiration, than Julius 
 Caesar Scaliger. It may have been as a native (or the son 
 of a native) of Verona that he first excited the interest of 
 the descendant of Can Grande. And it is not unlikely that 
 between Scaliger and Jean Le Ferron there would have been 
 an early acquaintance. Before Arnoul was twenty-one years 
 of age he had become the Atticus of the Cicero of Agen, 
 and the letters of Scaliger written to his young friend, some 
 of them as early as 1535, show that the great scholar treated 
 him as in every respect his equal, and so far as internal 
 evidence goes, they would make the reader think they were 
 written to a man of great learning, eminent position, and 
 mature age. In 1538 Scaliger was charged with heresy; 
 he had selected as the tutor of his son, Philibert Sarrazin, a 
 notorious heretic ; heretical books were found in his possession, 
 and he was further accused of having said that Lent was 
 neither an institution of Christ nor of the Apostles, and that 
 transubstantiation was only made an article of faith by the 
 Council of Lateran, and of having eaten flesh on a fast day. 
 The Inquisitor-General received a special commission from 
 the King to inquire into cases of heresy at Agen, but 
 fortunately for Scaliger, his case was withdrawn from the 
 Inquisitor, and three councillors of the Parliament of Bor- 
 deaux were specially appointed by the King to inquire into 
 the charges against -him. As yet the King loved literature 
 and learned men, and the selection as the judges of the 
 charge of heresy against Scaliger, of Briand de Vallee the 
 friend of Rabelais, Geoffroy de Chassaigne the most popular 
 of the councillors and an accomplished Latin poet, and Arnoul 
 
vii THE ORATOR 123 
 
 Le Ferron the intimate friend and correspondent of Scaliger, 
 did not indicate a desire to press hardly upon the accused. 
 With such judges the result could hardly be doubtful, and 
 Scaliger was soon set at liberty. 1 But some years later, in a 
 lawsuit before the Parliament to which Scaliger was a party, 
 Le Ferron, notwithstanding the urgent pressure of his friend, 
 refused to place the claims of friendship before those of 
 justice, or to allow his judgment to be warped by his affec- 
 tions, and a decision adverse to Scaliger was pronounced, 
 which drew down upon the judge two or three violent and 
 offensive letters. But it was not only as a jurist and a judge 
 that Le Ferron acquired a high reputation. In literature he 
 attained eminence as a historian and as a scholar. His con- 
 tinuation of the History of Paulus iEmilius, first printed by 
 Vascosan in 1550, was in its day a signal success. 2 Yet 
 though it was frequently reprinted, and translated into 
 French in its author's lifetime, it is a book which is not often 
 referred to, still less read, and seems indeed to be but of 
 slender merit. According to La Monnoye, 3 ' Ferron's 
 History is filled with unreasonable digressions and wearisome 
 harangues, and causes immense trouble to the reader by the 
 extraordinary and absurd manner in which he writes many 
 
 1 De Beze, Hist. Ecclesiastique, book i., and Gaullieur, Hist, du College 
 de Guyenne, 157. 
 
 2 Moreri tells us (and it has often since been repeated) that the re- 
 putation of this and his other works gained for him the name of Atticus. 
 But this is incorrect ; the name of Atticus was given to him by J. C. 
 Scaliger, as we have seen, as early as 1535, before he had published any- 
 thing, and when he was only twenty years of age. See Scaliger's letters 
 given by Schelhorn in the eighth volume of his Amcenitates Literaria?, 
 pp. 554-618. The following verses of Scaliger explain why he gave the 
 name of Atticus to his young friend : — 
 
 Ferromis ille propter eloquentiam 
 
 Puram, suavem, candidam, scitam, gravem. 
 
 Quem ego vocavi jure primus Atticum. 
 
 3 Note to Duverdier, vol. i. p. 155 (edition of Rigoley de Juvigny). 
 
i2 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 names both of persons and places, which render them difficult 
 to identify, and which are not always correctly explained by 
 his translator Jean Regnard.' * On the other hand, Le Gendre 2 
 judges him more favourably, and says, ' If the continuer has 
 not written with as much elegance as the historian (Paulus 
 iEmilius) whom he continues, at least he is more exact and 
 very much better informed. His History is full without 
 being too long, and contains many interesting anecdotes and 
 curious details.' J. C. Scaliger, whose judgments on the 
 works of his contemporaries usually reflected his love or 
 hatred of their persons, and who in many of his letters had 
 lauded Le Ferron up to the skies, having been defeated in 
 his lawsuit about the time of the appearance of the first 
 edition of the work, at the end of one of his angry letters 
 thus speaks of the Historic : — ' Ineptae sunt, pueriles sunt, 
 semibarbaras sunt, ineruditas sunt.' 3 Le Ferron merely burst 
 out laughing on reading this letter, and Scaliger soon after- 
 wards changed his tone into one of greater moderation. 
 Arnoul Le Ferron was also an accomplished Greek scholar, 
 itself a distinction at a time when on this side the Alps a 
 knowledge of Greek was rare. He translated into Latin 
 several tracts of Plutarch, and also the book attributed to 
 Aristotle upon Xenophanes, Zeno, and Gorgias, which he 
 (Le Ferron) appended to an edition which he published of a 
 tract of Bessarion in defence of Xenophanes and an essay by 
 himself, Pro Aristotele adversus Bessarionem. He died in 
 1563, when only forty-eight years of age, to the grief of all 
 who loved letters or who rejoiced to see the judicial bench 
 filled by men of learning and probity. 
 
 In the edition of his Commentarii consuetudinum Bur- 
 degalemium, published in 1565 shortly after his death, we 
 
 1 This is a not uncommon fault in the Latin writers of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries. 2 Hist. France, i. 12. 
 
 3 J. C. Scaligeri Epistola, Hanoviae, 16 1 2, p. 178. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 
 
 125 
 
 find no less than forty-four pieces of verse in his honour, 
 including one by Jean de Boyssone. 1 
 
 Though only in his nineteenth year he was already 
 preparing a course of lectures on some branch of law, not 
 improbably on the customary law of Guyenne. He had for 
 some time been on terms of intimacy with Dolet, and had 
 been deeply and favourably impressed with the abilities and 
 learning of the latter. Though, according to M. Boscheron 
 des Portes, a native of Verona, he had all his affections in 
 Aquitaine, which he considered and spoke of as his native 
 province. Accordingly Dolet's fierce attack on Aquitaine 
 and the Gascons could not fail to be most distasteful to him, 
 and we need no better proof of his admiration and regard 
 
 1 For Arnoul Le Ferron see Taisand, Vies des plus c'elebres Jurisconsultes, 
 Paris, 1737 (a useful book, and very difficult to meet with). Teissier, 
 Eloges des Hommes Savans, Leyden, 17 1 5, vol. ii. p. 106 j y. C. Scaligeri 
 Epistola ; Sainte Marthe, Elogia ; Moreri, Le Grand Diet. Hist.; L. de 
 Lamothe, Notes pour servir a la Biographie des Hommes utiles ou c'elebres de 
 la ville de Bordeaux, Paris, 1863 ; Boscheron des Portes, Hist, du Parlement 
 de Bordeaux, 1878. [This last is a most disappointing work. In the 
 prospectus which invited subscriptions a biographical account of Arnoul 
 Le Ferron and of many other eminent members of the Parliament of 
 Bordeaux were promised, but the notice of Le Ferron (as well as of the 
 rest) is most meagre and unsatisfactory ; the only fact of interest is the 
 statement that Arnoul Le Ferron was born at Verona. The book is 
 written without method, and contains none of the details as to the consti- 
 tution and authority of the Parliament which we naturally look for, and 
 which are most important to enable us to understand the legal procedure.] 
 Duverdier (BibliotAeaue Francoise) confounds Arnoul Le Ferron with Arnoul 
 du Ferrier, a more celebrated contemporary, at this time or shortly after- 
 wards a professor of law in the University of Toulouse, and subsequently 
 President of the Court of Requests in the Parliament of Paris, and 
 attributes to Le Ferron the very scarce French translation by Du Ferrier 
 of Athenagoras, which was printed at Bordeaux by Simon Millanges in 
 1577. Paul Freher in the notice of Doneau (Donellus) in his Theatrum 
 virorum eruditione clarorum (Nuremberg, 1688), p. 294, with a similar 
 confusion names Arnoul du Ferron instead of Arnoul du Ferrier as the 
 professor of law at Toulouse under whom Doneau studied. 
 
126 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 for his friend, than the fact that this attack did not alienate 
 his mind from Dolet, but was only made a subject of a 
 friendly and temperate remonstrance. Between the delivery 
 of the second oration of Dolet and his arrest six long letters 
 passed between the two young men ; interesting as showing 
 their mutual regard and affection, and also as letting us see 
 what was thought and said at Toulouse on the subject of the 
 dispute between Dolet and Pinache. 
 
 From these letters I now proceed to give some extracts, 
 omitting the compliments, the excuses, and the self- 
 depreciation which make so large a part of all the Latin 
 correspondence of the Ciceronians of the Renaissance, and 
 also omitting the greater part of Le Ferron's strictures on 
 Dolet's oration for its attack upon the Gascons, and Dolet's 
 elaborate defence of himself and, under colour of defence, 
 repetition of the attack. The correspondence commences 
 with a letter of Le Ferron written shortly before Jan. 27, 
 
 I534- 
 
 Arnoul Le Ferron to Etienne Dolet 
 
 ' I am on terms of great intimacy with Julius Caesar 
 Scaliger, a most accomplished man devoted to all kinds of 
 liberal culture. We have so many grounds of friendship 
 that you would hardly find any persons more intimate than 
 we are. In reply to a letter in which I made mention of 
 your singular erudition, eloquence, and culture, he wrote 
 most pleasantly and gracefully that he had as great an esteem 
 for you as I had, and that he had already heard of your 
 eloquence ; and although he is a man exceedingly averse to 
 ingratiating himself with others, he specially desired me to 
 salute you in his name. I do this most gladly, as well on 
 account of the message itself, as in order to perform that 
 duty to him which he imposed on me in his letter. I think 
 you will highly esteem his learning, for he is of the number 
 
vii THE ORATOR 127 
 
 of our Ciceronians, and well known to the learned from the 
 oration which he has published in defence of M. Tullius 
 against Erasmus of Rotterdam. At the same time the 
 message is very agreeable to me, since it furnishes me with 
 an excuse for writing to you. For, my Dolet, I could bring 
 many witnesses, and those of high repute, to prove how 
 great account I make and always have made of you. But I 
 am greatly surprised that in the oration you lately delivered 
 against Pinache you should have attacked our Aquitaine. 
 For, so far as I know, the province has never injured you. 
 But you say " I have been provoked by Pinache." You 
 might have answered the man without attacking the pro- 
 vince. You best know what was the motive of your under- 
 taking, and I certainly will not believe that you would have 
 descended to these attacks unless you had been urged and 
 provoked to them. Pinache is said to have no intention of 
 replying to your oration, so that he who is the cause of all 
 this danger and flame now gives no aid in extinguishing it. 
 I wish that before engaging in the conflict he had properly 
 calculated his strength, and considered whether he was able 
 by his own force to silence you when provoked and resisting. 
 Of this tragedy I am a spectator, though I must say a some- 
 what unwilling one. For I fear, my Dolet, lest hurried by 
 your feelings you know not whither, and indulging in great 
 heat and excitement, you may be actually consumed by your 
 anger, whilst he, either wounded or conquered, may attempt 
 some injury to you, and may even prepare snares against 
 your life. Farewell.' 
 
 Etienne Dolet to Arnoul Le Ferron 
 
 ' That you should take the trouble of writing to me is, in 
 the first place, agreeable to me, and I am greatly pleased by 
 your extreme good-will. That Julius Cassar Scaliger has by 
 
128 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 your means become friendly to me is something for which I 
 confess I am greatly indebted to you, and if I do not 
 immediately requite so great kindness I shall yet strive by 
 my gratitude to imitate your friendly disposition. I beg you 
 to be persuaded of this, that you have conferred a favour on 
 one who will remember it, and to understand that I shall 
 spare no pains if there is anything you wish for in which I 
 can be of service to you. . . . 
 
 ' Of my good-will to Cassar Scaliger in return for his to 
 me I shall not write to you at length ; this only I ask of 
 you, first to bear in mind yourself, then to strive to persuade 
 Scaliger that there is no one for whom I have a greater 
 regard or of whom I speak more in praise. You will salute 
 him from me, and will without hesitation offer him my 
 services. 
 
 ' From Toulouse, Jan. 27.' 
 
 Arnoul Le Ferron to Etienne Dolet 
 
 ' I received your letter of the 27 th of January from your 
 servant, who found me troubled with a disorder of the 
 bowels, and besides wearied and lying down in retirement. 
 But your letter so gratified me that it both allayed the disease 
 under which I was labouring and filled my mind with a great 
 amount of pleasure. . . . 
 
 ' You must not think that it was only to Caesar Scaliger 
 that I have praised your excellence. I have also praised it 
 to dear friends of mine at Bordeaux, many of them members 
 of the Parliament, whose friendship I enjoy through my 
 father, who is a councillor of that body. So that if your 
 plans should ever admit of a journey to Bordeaux, you will 
 know that there are some there who are well disposed 
 towards you. I wonder greatly why you so long delay to 
 give to the world a specimen of your rich erudition. . . . 
 
vii THE ORATOR 
 
 129 
 
 ' I now come to that part of your letter in which you 
 deny that you have attacked our Aquitaine. . . . You were 
 vexed that your native Gaul was insulted by Pinache, and, 
 that it might not be done with impunity, you attacked 
 Aquitaine, and retaliated upon it his insults. What is the 
 meaning of all those repetitions of the word " Gascons " in 
 your speech? "Who are assassins? The Gascons. Who 
 are robbers, who are given up to every kind of wickedness ? 
 The Gascons." You know better than I what else you said 
 of the same kind, for the laughter of the French which 
 followed these questions prevented me from hearing what 
 you said next And then as a chorus, after they had 
 abundantly applauded you with laughter, they cried out, as 
 I understand, " How well he paints Aquitaine in its proper 
 colours." I should not write thus to you did I not know 
 that by that part of your oration to which I have referred 
 many of my Gascon fellow-countrymen were offended, and 
 that nothing was listened to with greater pleasure by your 
 Gallic friends. How much better would it have been to 
 have refrained from Aquitaine, and to have poured forth all 
 the force of your eloquence upon your adversary. ... I do 
 not say these things at random, for I know many who before 
 the oration spoke of you with great respect, but who are 
 now altogether hostile to you ; and I doubt not that there 
 are many, even of those who laughed with you, whom if you 
 knew more intimately you would see are not really your 
 friends, since they detract from your reputation by bitter 
 and unjust speeches. How eagerly I have devoted myself 
 to defending your reputation many of the Gascons know, 
 and indeed, I fear when they see my affection for you, they 
 consider me a deserter into your camp. ... In answer to 
 your inquiry about Pinache, unless I deceive myself he will 
 never reply to your oration, unless indeed (for he is of a 
 light and inconstant disposition) he changes his mind. 
 
 K 
 
130 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Believe me, he has laid aside his spear, nor will he hereafter 
 descend into the arena unless when he has a good prospect 
 of success. Let him spread the report if he wishes, that you 
 have answered his oration in a spiritless manner, certainly so 
 long as he keeps silence he confesses that he is overwhelmed 
 by the force of your arguments. Yet there are not wanting 
 those who strongly urge him to continue the strife, and I 
 therefore cannot venture to say positively whether he may 
 not change his mind and venture a reply to you. Farewell, 
 my Dolet, and receive this trifling of mine in good part. . . 
 Eloquence cannot be expected from one who, on account of 
 the burden which his lectures on the civil law entail upon 
 him, is wholly occupied with the works of Accursius, 
 Bartholus, Baldus, and other uncouth interpreters of the 
 law. Finally, there is one thing that I especially require from 
 you, namely, that you should for the present conceal and 
 suppress what 1 have written concerning your contention 
 with the orator of Aquitaine. For it is not right that what 
 I have confided to your breast should be open to those who 
 turn anything into matter for calumny. Pinache has asked 
 me to show him your letter, but I have replied that I shall 
 refer the matter to you, and shall not read the letter to any 
 one without your permission. Farewell, and continue to 
 love me.' 
 
 £tienne Dolet to Arnoul Le Ferron 
 
 ' You must not be surprised that as yet I have published 
 nothing. Know that this proverb (worthy of a prudent 
 man) has governed my determination, Sat cito si sat bene. 
 I shall soon try the public taste with something that has 
 been suppressed until the ninth year, which has grown ripe 
 with age, and is neither crude nor hastily concocted. It 
 will soon go forth carefully finished and polished, but is now 
 
vii THE ORATOR 131 
 
 undergoing that process in obscurity. Since this is the case, 
 endure for the present your longing for my lucubrations, and 
 for your friend's credit suffer them still to be only expected. 
 Those writings are sometimes approved by the vulgar which 
 in the judgment of the learned are rough and unpolished. 
 But that which I have on my hands, begun but at present 
 incomplete, I hope by care and diligence to bring to such 
 perfection that it may not displease the ignorant, and at the 
 same time may be approved by the learned. . . . 
 
 ' You caution me lest our pleasant and friendly corre- 
 spondence should come into the hands of strangers. Do 
 not be afraid on this score. I will if you wish it destroy 
 your letters, or I will so carefully preserve and conceal them 
 that they can never be made known. Farewell. 
 
 'Toulouse, 29th Jan.' 
 
 Arnoul Le Ferron to Etienne Dolet 
 
 ' . . . There have been two causes why I have not sooner 
 replied to your letter. One is that I have been suffering 
 from a very severe and dangerous illness . . . but now that 
 I am recovered I again with great pleasure to myself write 
 to you. . . . 
 
 ' As to what you say that I am not to wonder that you 
 have not yet published anything since you keep back your 
 lucubrations till the ninth year (as the poet says), I entirely 
 approve your plan, and I shall now endure less heavily the 
 longing which I have for your Commentaries, for I see that 
 by delaying their appearance you will gain a greater reputa- 
 tion when you do publish them. Do not change your mind 
 on this point, since I see how ridiculous many make them- 
 selves, who in language picked up here and there, and with 
 patchwork sentences ill-sewn together, put their works 
 before the public forgetful of the proverb, Canis festinans 
 
132 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 cacos parit catulos. Yet I do not the less condemn those 
 who, on the strength of a couple of tracts produced after an 
 immense time and labour, insolently arrogate to themselves 
 the title of most learned. Proceed therefore to polish as 
 much as possible what you have on hand, and apply yourself 
 with all your might to obtain that reputation which you 
 are sure to acquire from the publication of your Commen- 
 taries. 
 
 ' Now as to Aquitaine .... I see that you have aroused 
 the anger of many whom you have admirably and ingeniously 
 described in your last letter, men who in your presence 
 admire your poems, praise your letters, and approve your 
 speeches, but who, when they have left you, paint you in 
 altogether different colours. I feel disposed to name one or 
 two of them (but there is no need to do so, you see clearly 
 to whom I am referring), who show such affection for your 
 adversary, so highly exalt and extol him, that they rouse my 
 indignation ; and even in my presence they sometimes speak 
 of you in so disparaging a manner that I drive them from 
 me with reproaches. . . . But I think you should despise 
 these worthless fellows, and consider their vile language of 
 no more account than Democritus is said to have done in a 
 similar case. He said he considered the slanders of his 
 detractors to be of the same character as the exhalations 
 from the stomach, which have an equally unseemly sound 
 whether they proceed from the upper or lower part of the 
 body. . . . But that I may not excite these men against 
 me, I conjure you to take care, as you have promised, that 
 this our pleasant and friendly correspondence does not fall 
 into other and unfriendly hands. Whether you should 
 destroy my letters is a matter for your own decision. Yet I 
 would rather that you preserved them, so that they might 
 sometimes remind you of your friend. This you may both 
 expect and promise to yourself, that my affection for you 
 
vii THE ORATOR 133 
 
 will only be extinguished by death ; and I may very fairly 
 expect that you will make the like response to my good-will. 
 On account, therefore, of our singular mutual sympathy I 
 shall not hesitate to ask from you a clear proof of friendship. 
 I hear, my Dolet, from men of great learning that your 
 epigrams are much admired on account of their extreme ease 
 of expression (a quality rarely to be found), and their 
 harmonious ring. I could wish you not to forget me in 
 your epigrams, but to make mention of me, so that posterity 
 may understand that Arnoul Le Ferron was one whom the 
 great Dolet did not think unworthy of his friendship. You 
 might do this in some trifling epigram. I lay aside all 
 shame in venturing to ask this of you, yet I beg you to add 
 this to the favours you have already conferred on me. 
 Farewell.' 
 
 Etienne Dolet to Arnoul Le Ferron 
 
 ' I have been much distressed by the bad state of your 
 health, and rejoice to hear that it is restored. ... I am 
 glad that you entirely agree with my opinion that my 
 writings ought to be of such a kind as to afford me 
 an earnest of that fame which you predict for me. At 
 all events my offspring will be produced in due time, 
 and if it does not bring to its parent the credit of fer- 
 tility, it will at least relieve him from the reproach of barren- 
 ness. . . . 
 
 ' I shall not fail to comply with your wishes, and that 
 which you so eagerly desire you will obtain from me 
 without difficulty. I shall do my utmost that posterity 
 may understand that Le Ferron was very closely connected 
 with Dolet, and was bound to him in the most intimate 
 friendship. . . . 
 
 ' I shall therefore hasten to send some verses to you, 
 
134 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 and so comply with your request. 1 Take good care of 
 yourself, and especially attend to your health. Farewell. 
 Toulouse, Feb. 18.' 2 
 
 Dolet now seems to have come to the conclusion that 
 Toulouse was no place for him. He does not appear to 
 have made much if any progress in his legal studies, and 
 he determined, if his patron Bishop de Langeac approved 
 and would provide the means, to leave for Italy in the 
 autumn and proceed to Pavia to study under Alciat, or to 
 return to Padua, the best place, as Boyssone thought, where 
 literary and legal studies could be pursued together. His 
 friend Clausanus, like himself a protege of the Bishop of 
 Limoges, had agreed to accompany him, and on the ist of 
 March he wrote the following letter to Langeac : — 
 
 ' The money which you sent has been paid to me by 
 your brother. As it was of the greatest use to me, so it 
 made your great munificence towards me more clear and 
 evident. Though your good-will towards me does not 
 permit me to require this of you more earnestly, still I beg 
 of you to continue to support and foster my studies, which 
 up to this time you have most kindly and liberally assisted. 
 More on this subject I shall not write, lest I seem to be 
 urging a willing horse, and to be distrustful of your great 
 kindness. This only I will add, that it is my intention to 
 set out for Padua at the beginning of autumn in order there 
 to lay the foundation of my legal studies, and to complete 
 the literary course which I have undertaken. In this as in 
 all things I have need of your assistance, but I shall not ask 
 for it more earnestly until I have learned your opinion of 
 my plan. Since, then, you are the director of my counsels 
 and the promoter of my studies, I depend altogether upon 
 
 1 Dolet seems not to have fulfilled his promise until 1536, when he wrote 
 a short ode, 'De Ferroni commentariis in constitutiones (sic) Burdigalenses.' 
 
 2 For these letters see Orat. Duie in Tholosam, pp. 75-85 and 15Z-162. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 
 
 135 
 
 you, and I desire to hear as speedily as possible what you 
 wish to be done, in order that I may complete my arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 ' The Archbishop 1 has lately arrived at Toulouse, suffer- 
 ing from a disease of such severity as to preclude the hope 
 of a much longer life, upon whom fortune, having been 
 more than sufficiently kind in loading him with the splen- 
 dours of rank and with enormous wealth, has now cast a 
 deadly disease. So the cruel goddess plays with us, and 
 suffers no one to be happy for long or to be in all respects 
 prosperous. But no more on this subject, when I consider 
 to whom I write — a man of the greatest weight, and one who 
 stands most firm in the midst of that ever to be derided 
 helplessness of human affairs. Oh, that upon his decease 
 you might be adorned with his insignia, as you ought by 
 right to be, as well on account of the greatness of your 
 virtues as of the pains you have devoted to the affairs of 
 the King. 2 But God will dispose the matter. In the mean- 
 time I wish you every good wish, and shall pray for your 
 safety and prosperity. Farewell. Toulouse, March 1 . 3 ' 
 
 Dolet's wish to revisit Italy was not to be accomplished. 
 Little more than three weeks after the date of this letter 
 he was arrested and thrown into prison by the orders of the 
 Juge-mage Dampmartin, charged with exciting a riot and 
 with contempt of the Parliament. 
 
 1 This prelate was Cardinal Gabriel de Gramont, so well known in 
 our history as the Bishop of Tarbes, ambassador from Francis I. to Henry 
 VIII. He had been appointed to the archbishopric of Toulouse only five 
 months before the date of this letter, on the death of Jean d'Orleans, 
 Cardinal de Longueville, in Oct. 1533. He occupied the see of Toulouse 
 for less than six months, and died very shortly after the date of this letter 
 of Dolet, namely, on the 26th of March 1534. 
 
 2 Dolet's wish was not accomplished. On the death of Gabriel de 
 Gramont, Odet de Coligny, then only eighteen years of age, but already 
 a cardinal, was appointed to the archbishopric of Toulouse. 
 
 3 Orat. Duee in Tholosam, p. 137. 
 
136 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Nullum me scelus in vincula conjici 
 Poscebat, neque per compita turpiter 
 Duci. 
 
 Thus he begins the bitter ode which he afterwards printed 
 against Dampmartin. 1 It was to him that Dolet owed the 
 ^commencement of that long series of imprisonments which 
 /caused one of his bitterest enemies, Franciscus Floridus 
 Sabinus, to call the prison his native country (patria Doleti), 
 for during the remainder of his short life (thirteen years 
 only) he suffered no less than five imprisonments, occupying 
 in the whole about five years, in addition to this at Toulouse. 
 |This first imprisonment, however, was not of a very serious 
 character, or of very long duration. The heads of the 
 Parliament shared neither the ignorance nor the prejudices 
 of their subordinates. With Jacques de Minut as First 
 President and Jean Bertrandi as Second President it is 
 difficult to understand how Jean de Caturce could have been 
 committed to the flames. But their position, though it did 
 not enable them to save the evangelical martyr from the con- 
 sequences of heresy, yet rendered it easy for them to liberate 
 the young student, whose fault at the most was the use of 
 intemperate language. At this time Dolet was as it seems 
 entirely unknown to either of the Presidents. It was not 
 until some years later that he was introduced by the poet 
 Hugues Salel to Bertrandi, and the letter which he wrote to 
 the First President seems to address him as a stranger. It 
 is probable that Minut's first knowledge of him or his im- 
 prisonment was the letter addressed to the First President 
 on Dolet's behalf by Jean de Pins. The good Bishop was 
 at this time labouring under a severe illness, and his letter 
 is written from his sick-bed. ' If I did not know,' he writes 
 to Minut, ' how favourable you were to liberal studies and 
 to those men who excel in them, I should not write or 
 
 1 Orat. Du<e in Thoksam, p. zoo. 
 
vii THE ORATOR 137 
 
 recommend to you Etienne Dolet, a young man of rare 
 excellence and talent, nor should I ask you to afford him 
 in his danger your great and just patronage, which I am sure 
 you would do if you knew his great intelligence and learning. 
 I know that the singular ingenuity of his genius will delight 
 you not less than myself. He possesses so full and ready a 
 knowledge of the Latin tongue that he seems especially 
 suited to whatever subject he addresses himself. If you take 
 prose composition you would think he had done nothing else 
 the whole of his life. Do you seek for wit and acuteness in 
 speaking or the subtlety and point of an epistle ? You will 
 find that in each of these he approaches to the ancients. But 
 what is still more to be wondered at, he so excels in poetry 
 that you would desire nothing better than his odes, and these 
 he composes in various metres, which is a difficult task. If 
 he attempts elegiacs, you would think they were the work 
 of Ovid or Tibullus. If he writes lyrics, iambics, or hen- 
 decasyllables, you would think Horace or Catullus had com- 
 posed them. And yet with all these accomplishments I ask 
 for nothing more from you than that you would not suffer a 
 guileless and careless young man either to be exposed to the 
 hatred of others or to be crushed and oppressed by the testi- 
 mony of his enemies, but would protect his innocence. There 
 lately arose between him and some Gascon rhetorician certain 
 literary disputes which at first delighted me, since I thought 
 by that means their talents would be exercised and their 
 eloquence increased. . . . But things have turned out very 
 differently from what I expected, for, inflamed by the factious 
 desires of their partisans, they have passed from letters to arms ; 
 but in this, so far as I hear, no injury has yet been received 
 by any one. Dolet has been cast into prison, where he is 
 oppressed with the charges made against- the whole of his 
 party, and he is even accused of a most serious offence, 
 namely, contempt of the Parliament. But I am unwilling to 
 
138 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 say more lest I should be troublesome. Our common friend 
 who takes my letter to you will explain the whole of the 
 matter more fully. Farewell. Written from my sick-bed. 1 ' 
 
 This letter was accompanied by one from the prisoner 
 himself to the First President, protesting his innocence and 
 praying for his speedy release. Dolet's other friends, and 
 particularly Jean de Boyssone, were not wanting in their 
 sympathy and assistance. Immediately on hearing of his 
 imprisonment, Boyssone wrote a letter of sympathy and 
 counsel, assuring the unfortunate prisoner that he should be 
 most careful to do whatever he thought would tend to his 
 deliverance, and desiring to be informed what Dolet might 
 wish him to do or attend to. To this letter Dolet replied 
 from his prison as follows : — 
 
 ' It is the special fate of men of letters to experience 
 more ill-will than falls to the lot of others, and to be unjustly 
 oppressed by vexation. I am paying the penalty of my pen, 
 and, absurdly enough, my injuries are caused by that very 
 thing from which I had hoped to acquire praise. But 
 personally I do not feel any alarm. This bitterness of 
 fortune is common to me with many others, and I am 
 neither greatly astonished nor very much troubled that what 
 I know to be the common fate of men of letters has 
 happened to me. The recollection of this alleviates the 
 grief which my condition occasions me. Moreover, the 
 many marks of friendship which I have received have both 
 refreshed and revived me. For, as before this time many 
 without my knowing it had much regard and good-will 
 towards me, so in this, my saddest time, they have all given 
 no doubtful proof how strongly they wish that Dolet should 
 be preserved safe and sound from all injury. But how much 
 consolation I have had from the consciousness of my own 
 rectitude, and how much alleviation in my misfortunes the 
 1 Orat. Duee in Tholosam, p. 149. 
 
vn THE ORATOR 139 
 
 gentle Muses have afforded me, you will easily be able to 
 understand, though I am silent about it. This one thing I 
 can assert, that if there had been any love of learning, any 
 desire to act with justice in those in whom both these 
 qualities ought to be found in a very high degree, I should 
 not have been molested. 
 
 'I both value and commend your exceeding good-will 
 towards me, and I earnestly beg of you never to change it ; 
 I who was free, am now so bound to you that I am indeed 
 your most loving and devoted friend. My mind is brave 
 and constant and prepared to suffer all misfortunes which 
 may happen to me. Farewell. Toulouse, written in prison.' 1 
 
 The result of the interference of his friends was that 
 Dolet was set at liberty by order of the First President de 
 Minut, after an imprisonment of only three days. He 
 remained two months longer at Toulouse, but his enemies 
 did not discontinue their machinations. Foiled in their 
 first attempt, Drusac, Pinache, and Dampmartin left no stone 
 unturned to obtain his condemnation by the Parliament for 
 using seditious and contemptuous language of that august 
 assembly. 
 
 1 Orat. Dua in Tholosam, p. 90. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 GuiLLAUME BuDe" AND JACQUES BoRDING 
 
 ' Vir ad seculi sui gloriam natus, laudibus literariis abundans magnaque 
 cum propter singularem rerum omnium scientiam hominum admiratione 
 affectus, turn ob id potissimum, quod Graecas literas sua aetate intermortuas 
 exsuscitarit.' — Huet. 
 
 N the meantime neither 
 the persecutions of his 
 enemies nor the constant 
 vexation and anxiety 
 which they occasioned 
 him had either broken 
 the spirit or damped 
 the energies of Etienne 
 Dolet. His conceit, his 
 entire belief in himself, 
 in the goodness of his 
 cause, in his literary 
 abilities, and his deter- 
 mination to achieve 
 literary reputation, prevented him from feeling dismayed by 
 his present misfortunes. At no period of his life is his 
 correspondence more lively, more vigorous, and more 
 hopeful, than during the period between the delivery of his 
 second oration and his banishment from Toulouse. 
 
chap, viii G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 141 
 
 At this time, Guillaume Bude, better known by the 
 Latinised form of his name Budasus, held the first place 
 among French men of letters. His friends indeed, and 
 perhaps the French generally, considered his reputation equal 
 to that of Erasmus, and were indignant with that great 
 scholar for placing him in his Ciceronianus on a level with 
 Josse Bade ; 1 but though Bude certainly in Greek scholar- 
 ship, and possibly in technical knowledge of the Latin 
 language and antiquities, was equal and perhaps superior to 
 Erasmus, he was little more than a scholar, altogether want- 
 ing in the genius and grasp of mind of the author of the 
 Colloquies and the Praise of Folly, who was not only a 
 scholar, but a man of genius, a social, political, and religious 
 reformer, occupied much more with men and things than 
 with words and phrases. 
 
 Bude was now (1533) sixty-six years of age. His Greek 
 epistles could have been written by no other Frenchman 
 of his time ; his annotations on the Pandects had taken rank 
 in France as the standard authority on Roman law ; his 
 treatise De Asse et partibus ejus, first published in 15 14, 
 had already reached more than ten editions, had made its 
 author's name celebrated throughout Europe, and rivalled 
 in popularity as well as in solid learning, if indeed in the 
 latter it did not exceed, the Adages of Erasmus, though 
 wanting altogether in the play of fancy, the happy illustrations, 
 and the political and moral reflections which have enabled 
 the latter work to preserve some remnants of popularity 
 even in the nineteenth century. 
 
 To enjoy the friendship and good opinion of Bude was 
 
 1 Erasmus afterwards explained, what indeed is evident to any one 
 reading the tract, that it is merely in the matter of Latin style that he 
 places Budasus and Badius together ; but it is not improbable that 
 Erasmus took a malicious pleasure in placing, for whatever purpose, his 
 rival on the same level with the meritorious and scholarly printer. 
 
142 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 an object of ambition to every young man of letters in 
 France, and Dolet accordingly, after the manner of those 
 days, although personally unknown to him, addressed him 
 in an elaborate Latin epistle, seeking for his favourable 
 notice ; and at the same time solicited the good offices of 
 ijacques Bording, who was then in Paris and on terms of 
 (friendly intimacy with the great scholar. It will be re- 
 membered that it was to Bording that Dolet was indebted 
 | for his introduction to Jean de Pins ; but soon afterwards 
 a coolness arose between them, which was followed by an 
 entire cessation of intercourse. When Bording left Tou- 
 louse for Paris, he and Dolet agreed to engage in a close and 
 constant correspondence in Latin on literary topics. Some 
 false friend, however, told Dolet that Bording had censured 
 his conduct and sympathised with his enemies. The state- 
 ment so made, which seems to have been entirely false, 
 rankled in the mind of the self-conscious and sensitive 
 Dolet, and after a short correspondence, written in a most 
 unfriendly spirit on the part of the latter, their intercourse 
 ceased for a time. We cannot but feel surprise that Dolet 
 should have allowed this correspondence to be printed, since 
 it is most discreditable to him, while the letters of Bording 
 are written with the utmost good feeling and good sense, 
 and are in marked contrast to the insulting and angry tone 
 of Dolet. The fact that he published the correspondence 
 is an illustration of the much greater attention which the 
 Ciceronians of that day paid to form than to matter. 
 Provided only a composition had the recognised Ciceronian 
 ring it was considered to give its author a claim to admiration, 
 however outrageous in sentiments or deficient in sense. 
 
 The good Bishop of Rieux had been much distressed by 
 the quarrel of his young friends, and urged Dolet to become 
 reconciled to Bording. To what extent the following letter 
 was due to the entreaties of Jean de Pins, or to the fact of 
 
vin G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 143 
 
 Bording's intimacy with Bude, may perhaps be considered 
 uncertain, but on the 26th of November 1533, Dolet wrote 
 to Bording as follows, enclosing the letter which he had 
 written to Bude : — 
 
 ' I understand that you kindly and courteously are very 
 desirous that my mind, which had become somewhat 
 embittered against you, should again be reconciled. Our 
 friend Jean de Pins lately told me that he had received a 
 letter from you written in this spirit, and he strongly urged 
 me that whatever dissension there had been between you and 
 me, if I could not of my own accord lay aside, yet that I 
 should do so for his sake as well as for the sake of litera- 
 ture. ... So let it be. Certain unjust remarks which you 
 made about me at first wounded and grieved me much. 
 . . . But now, since I am disposed either to suspect that 
 these matters were falsely told me, or to be careless about 
 them, my mind, which at first overflowed with anger, has 
 become quiet, and all that enmity which your attack upon 
 me produced has disappeared. Therefore, in order that it 
 may be made manifest to all that I am reconciled to you, and 
 that your friendship is restored to me, I send this letter. 
 . . . But now let us talk familiarly as is the manner of 
 friends. I will tell you what is going on here. 
 
 ' At Toulouse there is the same hatred of letters and the 
 same love of stupidity that there always has been. Not to 
 be tedious, the fools are as numerous and of the same 
 species as ever. But I will make an end of speaking ill, or 
 rather of speaking the truth, lest the truth may be made a 
 charge against him who is uttering it. I devote myself 
 entirely to literature and enjoy excellent health. How 
 satisfactorily and with what increase to my reputation I 
 performed my duties as orator (an office to which you know 
 I was appointed by the French) I would rather you should 
 learn from others than from myself. This much I may say 
 
H4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 to you, that no one ever before at Toulouse spoke his mind 
 more openly than I did. I refuted the decisions of the 
 Parliament against the French fraternity in an oration not 
 less brilliant than severe. This I shall shortly transcribe, 
 and send to you the first opportunity. You may without 
 doubt expect this gift from your friend. This also I should 
 tell you, that my term of office having expired, Thomasinus 
 succeeded me, whose power of writing and speaking is, I 
 think, known to you. To what extent he is likely to excel 
 you will readily guess. Our friend Jean de Pins suffers 
 severely from gout, nor does anything seem to assuage this 
 complaint, so that for the last two days he has been hardly 
 able to breathe or rest. More in my next letter. Now it 
 is your turn to inform me, in as friendly a manner and as 
 often as possible, of all your affairs, and carefully to write to 
 me, to whom you are specially attached, to whose friendship 
 you devote yourself, into whose intimacy you have thrown 
 yourself, how studies are carried on in Paris, to what extent 
 Greek literature is cultivated, whom you suspect, whom you 
 despise, whom you admire, and whom you neglect, who are 
 now in repute for eloquence, and whom you consider to 
 have attained the top of the tree. In fine, if you write all 
 this to me in a friendly letter, it will be very agreeable to me, 
 and I shall be most grateful ; I shall consider myself bound 
 to you for ever for so great a favour. 
 
 ' It is reported here that you are very familiar with Bude. 
 I heartily congratulate you on having acquired the friend- 
 ship of so great a man, and beg most earnestly that you 
 would procure his good-will and favour for me. Farewell. 
 Love me, and bear in mind that you are especially loved 
 by me.' 1 
 
 Bording replied to this letter in the tone and spirit which 
 his previous epistles would lead us to expect. 
 1 Orat. Dua in Tholosam, p. 93. 
 
vin G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 145 
 
 Jacques Bording to Etienne Dolet 
 
 ' I have received your letter and the one you enclosed 
 for Bude. As to your letter to me, in which you intimate 
 that you feel great affection for me, you cannot doubt that 
 it was most agreeable to me to receive. I read what you 
 say about our friendship being restored very gladly, but I 
 could wish, my Dolet, that it had remained undisturbed, and 
 that as you had begun, you would have continued to love 
 me, and would not have believed the words of certain evil- 
 minded persons rather than the testimony of men of virtue 
 who knew my special affection for you. Had you believed 
 them there would have been no need of Jean de Pins to 
 reconcile us, and I should rather submit to his authority in 
 any other matter than in this. But however it happened, 
 we may remember Amantium irte amor is redintegratio est. 
 I rejoice that I have been challenged by your letter into 
 letting you know by my reply what my feelings towards you 
 are. Indeed, my Dolet, from the hour when I first knew 
 you I have both loved you and believed my love returned, 
 and have had that high opinion of you which I shall never 
 repent having had. 
 
 ' It now remains for me to congratulate you on your 
 satisfactory discharge of your duty as orator. I do not 
 doubt that you have obtained all the rewards in the way of 
 praise and glory which are possible in a matter of that kind. 
 I wish I could have been present both to see and hear, yet I 
 shall regret my absence the less if you perform your 
 promise and permit me to read the oration ; remember 
 therefore that I shall anxiously expect the gift which you 
 have promised me, and take care neither to break your word 
 nor to disappoint my expectation. 
 
 'I gave your letter to Bude. He read it with much 
 pleasure, and immediately began to ask where you were, 
 
 L 
 
146 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 what you were doing, and who were your associates. When 
 I asked whether he wished me to give you any message from 
 him, he replied that he would himself answer your letter ; 
 and he repeated this at another interview I had with him. 
 He said however that he was then more occupied than usual, 
 and but little disposed for letter-writing, and he added that 
 there was no necessity for hurry in the matter. I will again 
 remind him and urge him to write to you, so that you may 
 not think you have written in vain. 
 
 ' I will now as you ask me write to you familiarly about 
 my own affairs, about the professors of eloquence and the 
 state of letters. Literature is still not without its revilers. 
 Some there are who accuse it of being the source of all 
 error, so much so as to prevent any good man being also 
 a philosopher, and many of those who are in authority 
 approve of this folly. Beda has lately been restored to his 
 office, but even before this we had felt the commencement 
 of his disturbance. Jean Cop, before his course of lectures 
 was finished, was obliged to fly from the city, otherwise he 
 would have had to make his defence in prison. Then 
 fierce and bitter attempts were made upon men distinguished 
 for their virtue and learning. As yet they are only im- 
 prisoned. No sentence has been publicly pronounced 
 against them, but we expect this to follow now that Beda is 
 in power. 
 
 ' As to the professors of literature I have had the oppor- 
 tunity of hearing but few of them, and it is not easy for me 
 to form an opinion of them individually. A great deal is 
 expected from a certain Italian whom I think you knew in 
 Italy. He lately arrived here for the purpose of instruct- 
 , ing the king. He promises in three months thoroughly 
 to teach an ignorant person Greek and Latin, and the 
 perfect faculty of both speaking and writing on any subject. 
 He is constructing here an amphitheatre for the king, for 
 
vin G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 147 
 
 the purpose of marking out divisions for the memory. He 
 is also engaged in writing a dialogue against his detractors 
 and those who deny that he is able to do all this ; in which, 
 though with a certain covert mystery, he endeavours to 
 prove his system. At Venice, as I have heard from certain 
 Italians, commentaries on the language of Cicero on a plan 
 not unlike his amphitheatre are going through the press, 
 the work of M. Nizolius, who has squeezed into little nests 
 (as it were) the whole system of Latin composition. If you 
 know either the one or the other, write pray in your next 
 letter what you think we may expect from them. 
 
 ' At another time I will write to you more at length. 
 Now I beg of you that you would continue to love me, 
 and would faithfully remember me to Jean de Pins, through 
 whom you have been restored to me, and that you take 
 care he preserves his affection for me. This will be easy 
 for you to do who enjoy such great favour with him. Fare- 
 well. Paris, 26th January.' 1 
 
 The letter which Dolet had written to Bude is one of 
 those polished complimentary letters of which we have so 
 many examples in the Latin correspondence of the men of 
 the Renaissance — full of pompous complimentary phrases, 
 but of absolutely no substance. It appears, however, 
 to have gratified the great man, and drew from him, three 
 weeks after its receipt, 2 the following reply, which was 
 most acceptable to the young scholar of Toulouse, and 
 which was forwarded to him by the friendly Bording a few 
 days after the date of the last letter. 
 
 1 Or at. Dua in Tholosam, p. 164. 
 
 2 It will be remembered that in somewhat similar circumstances Bude 
 was six months before replying to a letter of Rabelais. See the letter of 
 Bude, Budai Opera (Basle, 1557), vol. i. p. 325. 
 
148 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 GuiLLAUME BuDE" TO EtIENNE DoLET 
 
 'I have now for three weeks been disappointing your 
 expectation, as I gather it from your letter which does not 
 conceal the strong wish you had in writing it. And I 
 should show myself deserving of reprehension if I any 
 longer postponed replying to you ; indeed, in that case I 
 might be convicted of deceit by your friend Bording, who 
 delivered your letter to me and who begged me to answer 
 it. But what makes my procrastination still more blame- 
 able is that I had put your letter in a conspicuous place 
 in my study, that it might itself remind me of the duty 
 of writing to you. I have thus kept your letter before me 
 so as to have it as a daily appellant demanding of me the 
 slight labour which you impose upon me. . . . 
 
 ' You must know that no kind of relaxation is more 
 agreeable to me when I am spending my time at home 
 devoted to reading or literary composition than letter- 
 writing. Those therefore who know my habits, and who 
 by writing to me call for letters in return, when they find 
 that I fail altogether in this duty do not on that account 
 remonstrate with me, especially at this time, at my age, 
 and with the heavy official duties I have to perform. 1 
 Even omitting my official duties, how much leisure do you 
 think remains to me which I could devote to this kind of 
 correspondence ? Besides, since letters are in the nature 
 of an amusement, they ought to be written with a youthful 
 sprightliness and liveliness of style. But might I not also 
 add this, that I am not now the same man that I formerly 
 was ? For in order not completely to divorce myself from 
 philology, which has for so long been my companion, my 
 associate, my mistress, bound to me by every tie of in- 
 timate affection, I have been compelled to loosen the 
 1 Bude was a maitre des requetes. 
 
vin G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 149 
 
 chains of so devouring a love, and to relax the bonds of 
 a connection the closeness of which I found to be destruc- 
 tive to my health. 
 
 ' What you so kindly and ingeniously say in your elegant 
 and terse letter of your devotion and regard for me is 
 both pleasant and acceptable, indeed most acceptable, as it 
 ought to be ; and I wish you to believe that I have that 
 disposition towards you that makes me desire to inter- 
 change good offices with you on equal terms, and to 
 show to you the same measure of kindness and good-will 
 which you do to me, and this without any pretence of idle 
 talk. But although from your letter I have been in some 
 measure able to judge of your learning, of your mode of 
 life and your position I really know nothing. Farewell. 
 That which in your letter you have urged upon me so 
 strongly, namely that I should include you in the number 
 of my friends, you may be satisfied on the faith of this 
 letter you have obtained. Paris, 24th January.' * 
 
 Letters of which the following are extracts complete 
 the correspondence : — 
 
 Etienne Dolet to Jacques Bording 
 
 ' I have received your two letters and that from Bude. 
 What great delight the latter afforded me you cannot 
 doubt, since I had written to you before how much I wished 
 to receive a letter from him. . . . 
 
 ' I am amazed and indignant to learn that the monstrous 
 and vicious beast Beda, that execrable pest, has been re- 
 called from exile. There has been a rumour here that he 
 has again attempted some wickedness, and has on that 
 account been cast into prison. I hope this may be true, 
 and that he may receive a punishment worthy of his crimes 
 1 Orat. Dute, p. 167. 
 
ISO ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 and of his wicked disposition. I rejoice as heartily to hear 
 that Jean Cop is restored, as I imprecate upon the head of 
 Beda as upon a malignant tumour and excrescence, all evils 
 and injuries. As to those who are devoted to humane 
 letters in these our unhappy and turbulent times, I wish 
 that they would care more for their own safety and immu- 
 nity than for fame and for a distinction which is destructive to 
 them, and would rather speak cautiously and circumspectly 
 than pour forth all their opinions without distinction so 
 openly as they do. If those who have been especially dis- 
 tinguished by learning had acted with such caution and 
 prudence, they would not have suffered from nor exposed 
 themselves to the ferocity of those fools and idiots, nor (as 
 has usually happened) would they have been cast into prison. 
 ' As to the fellow who promises to give in three months 
 to an uncultivated man ignorant of the rudiments of gram- 
 mar, as by a divining wand, a knowledge either of the 
 Greek or of the Latin tongue, and a perfect capacity of 
 speaking and writing concerning any subject, I recognise 
 that portentous specimen of the Italian character, and the 
 line of Horace comes into my mind — 
 
 Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. 
 
 ' The imposture of the fellow however would be endurable 
 were it not that by its means he is expecting to deceive the 
 king and is meaning to practise among us [in France] all 
 those devices for money-getting which he understands. He 
 really pretends to endow a man without any labour of his 
 own, with an abundance of that oratorical power in which, 
 as the severe judges of this have told us, no age since the 
 memory of man has yet produced any one sufficiently 
 instructed. He may build his amphitheatre for marking off 
 his divisions of memory, he may be assisted by the Com- 
 mentaries on the language of Cicero of M. Nizolius of 
 
vin G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 151 
 
 Venice, and if you ask me what I think of it I bid you again 
 repeat the line of Horace. A commonplace rhetorician 
 will not persuade me that within three months that subject 
 can be completely acquired by an ignorant man, a partial 
 excellence in which scarcely any one in the whole course of 
 his life after assiduous labour and diligence can attain to. 
 As far as we are concerned however he may enjoy his own 
 folly, and may boldly promise that of which he neither 
 knows the difficulty nor can have properly mastered or 
 studied the theory. Yet there is one thing which does vex 
 me much ; it is that our countrymen are so eager after, and 
 so partial to what is barbarous and foreign that they neglect 
 those things which they have at home most worthy of praise, 
 and with a ridiculous folly admire and purchase at a great 
 price whatever is foreign. But what shall I say of this 
 man ? No one will persuade me that he can add anything 
 to the most excellent and never sufficiently to be praised 
 learning of Bude, to the rare and amazing eloquence and 
 flowing language of Berauld, to the purity and elegance 
 of style of Danes and Bunel, to the profound and remark- 
 able erudition of Toussain and Guillaume du Maine, to the 
 poetical grace of Salmon Macrin, or to the pleasant live- 
 liness of Nicolas Bourbon. Yet we see neither Bude nor 
 any of the other Frenchmen who are most accomplished 
 in liberal studies, and who are admitted into the number 
 of classics, enriched by any fortune, while we all keep 
 silence before the windbags and empty triflings of Italians ; 
 and at their mere words, delivered with swelling breasts and 
 puffed-out cheeks, we eagerly hold our breath, we open our 
 purses, and allow that which is truly excellent to be circum- 
 vented and supplanted by that astute and deceitful race. 
 
 ' So much as to these matters. I now relate what has 
 happened since my last letter to you. The association 
 of the Gascons as well as of the French has been dissolved 
 
152 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 by decree of the Parliament. This decree was vehemently 
 complained of by all of us, as both unjust and unusual. 
 But we were not able to attain our object, and the power 
 and authority of the barbarians outweighed our desire of 
 cultivating friendship. An altercation arose between Pinache 
 and myself. I publicly defended myself against his attacks. 
 He was utterly crushed by my oration, and when he found 
 himself intellectually my inferior, he wickedly used fraud, 
 and with a false accusation that in my oration I had not 
 only attacked the Parliament but had violated the honour 
 of the city of Toulouse, he caused me to be thrown into 
 prison, not only participating in doing the injury to me, 
 but even taking the lead in it. For some days I suffered 
 from the general unpopularity of my friends, which how- 
 ever was easily put down by the authority of our friend 
 Jean de Pins and the assistance of the President de Minut. 
 I derived both great advantage and glory from the machina- 
 tions and perfidy of my enemies, since I was convicted of 
 no crime, but was formally acquitted by the Parliament. 
 The oration which I formerly promised you, as well as the 
 one I lately delivered against Pinache, you must not expect ; 
 you will read neither of them until they are printed, 
 together with my collection of poems and epistles, but you 
 must not on this account accuse me of not keeping faith 
 with you. I should have kept my promise had I not been 
 deterred by the too great loss of time which I have found 
 would be occasioned by copying these things ; but as you 
 have waited for them upwards of three months you will 
 easily endure the addition of one or two months more. 
 
 ' I have replied to the letter of Bude, and I beg that you 
 would give my letter to him, and would induce him (at 
 his convenience) to write to me again. Our mutual affection 
 forbids me from suggesting to you, much less asking you, 
 to write to me fully and exactly of your own affairs and 
 
vni G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 153 
 
 of all matters which go on at Paris. Jean de Pins is well 
 and sends you a hearty remembrance. Farewell. From the 
 city of Toulouse, 22nd April.' 1 
 
 Etienne Dolet to Guillaume Bude" 
 
 ' . . . Your letter was most agreeable to me, not only 
 because I found you were not displeased at my writing to 
 you, but because you showed that you responded to my 
 affection. I was indeed triumphant in my delight that I 
 had at length obtained what I so long wished for. I now 
 rejoice to know that you are so well disposed towards me, 
 and I could wish that fortune could so bring it about that 
 you should make as much account of me as I do of you, 
 and should show as much good-will to me as I show re- 
 spect to you. Nor do I despair of arriving at this, know- 
 ing as I do my own singular esteem for you, and relying 
 upon the great affection which you are in the habit of 
 showing to those who are students of eloquence. . . . 
 
 ' I now come to the latter part of your letter, and since 
 you say that you have been able in some measure to judge 
 of my learning, but that you know nothing of my mode 
 of life or position, I will now give you at length both an 
 account of my life and my present position. 
 
 ' I was born at Orleans, a noble city of our Gaul and of 
 much renown, in how honourable and indeed distinguished 
 a position among my fellow-citizens I leave those to speak 
 of who place virtue below birth. Liberally brought up at 
 Orleans, at twelve years of age I went to Paris, where 
 I received the rudiments of my education, and diligently 
 devoted myself to all those subjects by which young men 
 are accustomed to be trained to mental culture. For five 
 years I there cultivated my mind, giving myself up prin- 
 
 1 Orat. Duo; p. 98. 
 
iS4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 cipally to the study of Cicero. Soon, influenced by a desire 
 of cultivating the highest eloquence, I betook myself to 
 Italy ; there I passed three years at Padua in intimate friend- 
 ship and association with Simon Villanovanus, by whose 
 death being deprived of so dear a friend, and one who was 
 so great a help to my studies, I thought of returning 
 forthwith to France. But I was detained for some time 
 longer in Italy, as well at the request as by the authority of 
 Jean de Langeac, who at that time filled the office of 
 ambassador to Venice, and who employed me to write letters 
 both to the Supreme Pontiff and to other correspondents. 
 In this employment another year was added to the three 
 which I had already spent in Italy ; nor, though I wished it, 
 was I able to return, but was compelled to wait until the 
 business of the embassy was finished, and then in the 
 ambassador's company I returned to France less ignorant 
 and more devoted to the study of eloquence than I had left 
 it. Now I think you know the greater part of my history, 
 the rest I will relate in a few words. Now that I am 
 returned to France I resolutely pursue the same course 
 which I began in my earliest youth. I am absorbed in 
 literature ; and as from the first, out of all the number of 
 Latin writers I set Cicero before me as my model, so now I 
 am writing commentaries on the Ciceronian diction, adding 
 also illustrations from the pure language of Sallust, Cassar, 
 Terence, and Livy. This useful work will appear in due 
 time, with my other lucubrations. I thus pass over the 
 second act of my drama and proceed to the last. By the 
 advice of my many patrons and friends who are always 
 helping me with their most loving and friendly counsels, 
 and who wish me to be covered with honours and to aspire 
 to the highest reputation, I have decided to devote myself 
 to the civil law, which I have thought not to be altogether 
 opposed to the course of my studies. For certainly my 
 
viii G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 155 
 
 oratorical power may be very much embellished by legal 
 studies, and may even be considerably assisted by them. In 
 order to devote myself to these subjects as satisfactorily as 
 possible, and to follow the advice of those who say that no 
 art can be properly studied without a teacher and without 
 some practical instruction, and who assert that the civil law 
 especially needs both a teacher and an explanation, I have 
 come to Toulouse, a city of greater celebrity and renown 
 than of real knowledge of the civil law, and the inhabitants 
 of which are more barbarous than the Getas of the Scythians. 
 But be this as it may, no rudeness of this barbarous city 
 withdraws me from my design. I have now devoted to the 
 civil law not much less than two years continuously, and 
 I have so spent my time that I have given some hours 
 each morning or evening to the reading of Cicero. The 
 remainder of the day I give to my principal subject, either 
 in private study or public exercises. Thus I devote myself 
 to the science of law as my friends wish me to do and as 
 I am not ashamed of doing, for certainly a knowledge of 
 law will be a great assistance and recommendation to me in 
 seeking for public employment, and at the same time it will 
 increase my power of expressing myself by giving me an 
 insight into the true and just. It is not however certain that 
 I shall finish my legal studies at Toulouse, as I am think- 
 ing of setting out for Padua or Pavia in order to see Alciat x 
 and the other Italian professors of law utter their sesquipedalia 
 
 1 Alciat at this time enjoyed the highest reputation of any living man 
 as a commentator and lecturer on the civil law. He was now Professor 
 of Jurisprudence at Pavia. He had filled the chair of Civil Law at 
 Bourges from 1528 to the end of 1532, when he returned to Italy, 
 Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, having conferred upon him the appoint- 
 ment of Professor in Pavia, with a salary of 1500 crowns. He continued 
 at Pavia until 1537. Panciroli, who knew him well, thus describes him, 
 * Vir fuit corpulentus, procerse staturae, auri avidus habitus est et cibi 
 avidior' (De darts legum interpret, lib. ii.). 
 
156 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 verba with solemn pomp, or furiously attack Accursius and 
 Bartholus, lest they should seem to know too little. I shall 
 then insinuate myself into some one's intimacy with whom 
 to laugh in a learned and familiar manner at these matters. 
 
 ' I hope before long to make a journey to Paris and to 
 meet you there face to face. If before this happens you 
 write a letter to meet me on the way informing me of your 
 health and telling me what is passing at Paris, I shall believe 
 that you keep me in your memory, and you will gain this 
 advantage, that when I come to see you you will not have 
 to narrate to me what you have already written. Farewell. 
 Toulouse, 22nd April.' 1 
 
 The Italian referred to in the letters of Bording and 
 Dolet was the clever, eccentric, and learned charlatan Giulio 
 Camillo of Forli, surnamed from his father's birthplace 
 Delminio. Philosopher, orator, poet, philologist, mythologist, 
 and astrologer, of great skill in the cabalistic sciences, of 
 much real and of more pretended learning, he had conceived 
 the extraordinary and impracticable idea of a number of 
 categories which should embrace all the divisions and sub- 
 divisions of human knowledge and of human thought. These 
 he proposed arranging in a number of small drawers or 
 niches in a large machine or box in the form of an amphi- 
 theatre, in which the signs of the planets marked off the 
 primary divisions of the mind. Each drawer was labelled 
 with some quality of the mind, and by changing the labels 
 it could be adapted to any science. By the aid of this 
 theatre an ignorant man was to become master of any 
 language or branch of science in an incredibly short time. 
 It was however specially adapted for the study of Latin and 
 Greek, and for enabling a student to attain proficiency in 
 composition and oratory. To the perfecting of this theatre 
 he devoted forty years. He was at this time in Paris in 
 1 Orat. Du&, p. 103. 
 
viii G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 157 
 
 high favour with Francis I., who gave him five hundred 
 ducats to enable him to carry out his idea and build his 
 theatre, a model or portion of which, containing all the 
 principles and rules of oratory as laid down by Cicero, 
 symmetrically arranged, had much interested the king. In 
 Paris he became intimate with Sturm and Calvin. The 
 former believed both in the depth of his learning and the 
 earnestness of his piety. Calvin seems to have had much 
 less respect for him. 1 Dolet had known him at Padua, and 
 had as it appears taken a violent dislike to him, besides 
 having that feeling of contempt which any man of real 
 
 1 Schmidt, Mem. sur Roussel, 219, 220 ; D'Aubigne, Hist. Ref. Temps 
 de Calvin, b. iv. c. 1. In 1537 we find him at Padua, where Paleario 
 knew him, and thus refers to him in one of his letters to Lampridius 
 (Book i. Ep. 17) : — 'Giulio Camillo is building a theatre at great cost. 
 There never was such a conspiracy among the ignorant, who think that 
 without study or labour they will be able to write like Cicero. With a 
 view to this he arranges a number of cards in little boxes. This is a fact, 
 my Lampridius. dvrjp 6 AoyoScuSaAos tov 'Apio-Tiinrov A.a/t/3avet ySAevovs 
 /cat tov MiSov drjpevei ovdypovs. You laugh ! I am not joking ; he has 
 collected a great deal of money from those to whom he promises mastery 
 in eloquence.' Camillo died in 1544 (and not in 1550 as stated in the 
 Biographie Generate), without having completed his theatre or published 
 any account of it. He left, however, in manuscript two not very intel- 
 ligible descriptions or explanations of it, one of which has remained 
 unpublished, and is probably in the Bib. Nat. (an early copy of it is in 
 my possession). The other was edited by L. Domenichi and printed 
 at Florence by Torrentino in 1550, under the title of V idea del 
 Theatro del? excellen. M. Giulio Camillo (4 , 88 pp.). It was reprinted 
 the same year at Venice and reappeared in the editions of the collected 
 works of Camillo given by Giolito of Venice in 1552, 1554, 1567, 1568, 
 1579, 1580, and 1 581. See for Camillo, in addition to the works before 
 cited, his life by Federigo Altan di Salvarolo contained in vol. i. of Nuova 
 raccolta. d' opuscoli scientifici e filologici (Venezia, 1755) edited by Calogiera ; 
 also Tiraboschi, vol. vii. p. 2226 (edit, of 1824) ; Freytag, Adparatus Litt. 
 vol. iii. pp. 128-132; Young's Life of J. Paleario, i. p. 545; Erasmi 
 Epist. ccclxx. p. 1754 ; Gilb. Cognati Opuscula, p. 84, where, in an epistle 
 to Metellus, is an account of the theatre as described to the writer by 
 Sebastian Rosarius. 
 
158 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 learning, or who knew what learning really meant, could 
 hardly fail to have for one who professed by mechanical con- 
 trivances, however ingenious, to enable one wholly ignorant 
 of Latin and Greek to become complete master^ of these 
 languages in three months. 
 
 Two odes directed against Camillo appear amongst 
 Dolet's poems, one of them written about this time and 
 sent in manuscript by Dolet to Francis de Langeac, a brother 
 of the Bishop of Limoges, with the following remarks : 
 ' I send you an ode, the subject of which is as follows. A 
 new master of eloquence has appeared from the shades ; 
 an ignorant, uneducated fellow has rushed down upon us 
 from Italy, ignorant of the Latin language and of all polite 
 letters, and since no other kind of imposture has succeeded 
 with him he has adopted this method of making money, 
 namely, by promising in less than a month to teach the use 
 of the Latin tongue, the faculty of oratory, and the art of 
 making verses — a thing within the memory of man unheard 
 of and worthy only of perpetual laughter : if you wish to 
 remain like yourself, you will treat his system as one for 
 taking pains to be mad by rule. Yet (for the French 
 are easily cheated with words) he has finely choused 1 the 
 king out of his money, having promised him certain com- 
 mentaries by means of which, even against our will or 
 when we are asleep, he can imbue us with all learning. I 
 am half ashamed of being so wanting to myself as to 
 have ridiculed so small a matter at such great length. 
 Yet I am anxious to hear what you say about these things. 
 I know many in France by whose talents and attainments 
 
 1 It is curious to note that here, and in the ode which follows, Dolet 
 uses the same word in reference to Camillo as Alciat in a letter to Fran- 
 ciscus Calvus, printed in Gudii Epistolte curante Burmanno, pt. i. p. 109. 
 Dolet says, ' Regem tamen nummis pulchre emunxit ' ; Alciat's words 
 are, ' (Regem) emunxit sexcentos aureos.' 
 
vni G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 159 
 
 I hope the Italian will be made to understand that eloquence 
 and literary renown (of which his countrymen claim a 
 monopoly for themselves) are also common to the French, 
 and that they will then cease to treat us as dumb children 
 who, having neglected the study of literature, tend beyond 
 others into weakness, and may be deluded into any scheme 
 however mad.' 1 
 
 ' Ardua promittis, solo vel mense disertos 
 
 Cum te nos juras reddere posse viros ; 
 Promissum hoc nihil est, nihil est has fundere nugas, 
 
 Est quoque nil, musas vel superare novem. 
 Id tibi cum multis commune est, Gallia centum, 
 
 Qui facile id praestent Gallia mille dabit. 
 Ast aliud nosti solus, quo Pallada vincis 
 
 Quicquid et Atlantis scit vafer ille nepos. 
 Vis dicam ? nosti Reges emungere nummis : 
 
 Est id, quo doctum vincere quenque potes. 
 Hos nobis astus tua si documents recludent, 
 
 Quis tibi pro tantis artibus astra neget ? 
 Major eris Phoebo, quod si Jovis aula placebit, 
 
 Tu Jove depulso Jupiter altus eris.' 2 
 
 The time' for Dolet's final departure from Toulouse had 
 now arrived. At the end of May or in the first days of 
 June 1534, and whilst suffering from a fever, the result 
 as it would seem of mental anxiety, he had hastily to 
 withdraw from Toulouse to avoid a second arrest. He 
 retired to a friend's house in the country, proposing to 
 remain there in concealment until the storm had passed 
 over, as he at first thought it would do, when he might again 
 return to his studies. Yet he was apparently in some 
 doubts as to his future. His inclinations led him to desire, 
 as we have seen, to pay a second visit to Italy ; and if he 
 was to continue his legal studies, to do so either at Pavia 
 or at Padua. But before leaving France, Dolet was 
 1 Orat. Dute, p. 97. 2 Id. p. 186. 
 
160 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 desirous of committing to the press his two orations, his 
 poems, and some letters which had passed between himself 
 and his friends. It is not probable that Toulouse would 
 have afforded a printer for a book which contained such 
 violent attacks upon the city, its magistrates, and its 
 populace, and it was towards Lyons that he already directed 
 his views. He proposed taking it on his way to Italy, 
 and remaining there so long as might be needed to see his 
 lucubrations through the press. 
 
 On the 8 th of June he wrote to Boyssone a letter 
 full of indignation against his enemies and against Tou- 
 louse, and giving his friend an account of his studies and 
 occupations. ' I devote myself to literature with as much 
 energy as my health allows. I am amplifying and polishing 
 both my speeches, and intend to publish my lucubrations 
 as speedily as possible. The passage in which I have 
 sought to celebrate and exculpate you, you will receive with 
 this letter.' x 
 
 The following is an extract from Boyssone's reply : 
 ' Until I received your letter I did not know where in the 
 world you were. Different reports had reached me about 
 you, some saying that you had started for Lyons, others 
 for Limoges. With such different reports reaching me 
 how could I write to you? But from the time I learned 
 from your letter where you were, I have thought of 
 nothing more constantly than of writing to you. 
 
 ' As to what is going on here, since you wish me to 
 tell you about it, know that you have left behind you much 
 affection among many, and that the number of those who 
 esteem you and grieve that you have departed is not small : 
 among them are the noblest and most honourable matrons 
 of the city, with whom you have acquired great favour on 
 account of your epigrams against Drusac. For my own 
 1 Orat. Dua, p. 120. 
 
vin G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 161 
 
 part, my Dolet, if I took account only of my own wishes, 
 nothing more grievous could have happened to me than 
 your departure; but since your plans required it, I should 
 show myself ignorant of the laws of friendship if I did not 
 cheerfully give up my habit of living in the enjoyment of 
 your society, and did not put in the first place the considera- 
 tion of your interest. Go then where your interest calls you ; 
 fly this ungrateful land, fuge littus avarum. When you 
 reach Lyons salute in my name Sebastian Gryphius, whom 
 I extremely love and hold very dear. Take care of your 
 health ; for while I have been writing your friend Clausanus 
 has told me that you are ill, which I very much grieve to 
 hear, knowing as I do that if you were well in mind you 
 would be well in body. 
 
 ' A certain Omphalius 1 has lately come from Paris, with 
 a great reputation for learning. I have not yet seen him ; 
 when I have done so I will write to you again. Farewell. 
 Toulouse, June 13.' 2 
 
 A week later Dolet thus writes to the same friend : — 
 
 'The severity of the illness which up to this time has 
 racked me has alone prevented me from replying to your 
 letter earlier, and though I have to some extent improved 
 and have got rid of the disease, yet I am not in any way 
 restored to health nor have I recovered my bodily strength. 
 But I am taking care of myself, and I am in good hopes 
 that God will afford me some remedy, so that shortly by the 
 help of nature I may throw off" the remainder of my disease. 
 
 ' You would scarcely believe what great pleasure letters 
 from my friends afford me in this my retreat, and especially 
 the letters of those who, together with the expressions of 
 their love, display no ordinary purity and elegance of style. 
 
 1 See his Dialogus ' Fatum,' at the end of his Nomologia, Colonic, 
 1558. He mentions Minutius, Pinus, Boyssone and Vulteius. 
 
 2 Orat. Dua, p. 174. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 In this you particularly excel, and afford me a certain hope 
 that one day you also will be reckoned among those who are 
 distinguished for eloquence, unless indeed the nonsense of 
 Bartholus and Accursius prevent you from pursuing that 
 kind of reputation. What I very much fear is, that inhabit- 
 ing a city hostile to eloquence you will become less and less 
 disposed to study it, and will be inclined to treat polite 
 literature somewhat too scornfully and disdainfully. 
 
 ' I am very pleased to learn that there is affection felt for 
 me and a pleasant remembrance of me left among the good ; 
 this is a proof that I am hated by the wicked only. I hear 
 that Drusac is continually and with increased bitterness 
 urging the Parliament to issue an edict against me. He is 
 a savage and brutal wild beast, whose unbridled fury not 
 even the flight of his enemy has allayed. 
 
 ' In conclusion, there is one thing of which I wish to 
 assure you, namely, that I feel no less grief at being separated 
 from you than you do at my departure ; but since we cannot 
 longer be together, and my plans call me elsewhere, let us 
 fill up our separation by the frequency of our letters. Of 
 Omphalius I only know the name. If you have ascertained 
 what sort of a man he is or what is the extent of his learning 
 let me know, and let me receive from you, what I greatly 
 desire, a letter about all manner of things. Farewell. 
 Written in the country, 22nd June.' * 
 
 Dolet's withdrawal from Toulouse had not the effect of 
 putting a stop to the attempts of his enemies against him- 
 That the First President used his influence in his favour is 
 certain, and Dolet always referred to him afterwards with grati- 
 tude and esteem. But neither the moderation of the First and 
 ', Second Presidents, nor the friendship of the Bishop of Rieux, 
 I was able to prevail against the bigotry and not improbably 
 the personal dislike of the major part of the Councillors, 
 1 Oral. Dua, p. 121. 
 
vni G. BUDE AND J. BORDING 163 
 
 instigated by the Lieutenant-General of the Seneschalty, and 
 the Juge-mage, and supported by the capitouls. Dolet had 
 just signed the last letter to Boyssone on June 22nd, when 
 he received the news that the Parliament had passed a decree 
 sentencing him to perpetual banishment from the city and 
 from the whole of the district within its jurisdiction. He 
 thereupon added the following postscript : — 
 
 ' Since signing my letter to you I have received news, 
 both by messengers and by letters, that Drusac has obtained 
 an edict forbidding my return to Toulouse. I am in no 
 degree disturbed by the persecution of so worthless a fellow, 
 nor in this season of trouble and wretchedness do I any the 
 less preserve my courage, but, as in tranquil and prosperous 
 times when my affairs go on as I wish I endeavour to show 
 myself firm and steadfast, so now I endeavour bravely to 
 resist misfortunes. Hence my troubles are not increased, 
 but alleviated by the firmness of my mind and the record 
 of a good conscience. I devote myself wholly to literature, 
 and with this occupy all my time ; this takes away my mind 
 from my annoyances and troubles, and brings no slight 
 forgetfulness both of my pain and sickness, and forcibly 
 impresses on me, as a man exposed to all the shafts of 
 fortune, that one ought only to be troubled if one is guilty 
 of some crime or wickedness, and not because of misfortune 
 or of the insults of the wicked. I therefore desire to be 
 judged by my character, not by my fortunes. If you would 
 write to me what you hear or see of this matter you would 
 alleviate my vexations and gratify the desire of your friend. 
 Again farewell.' 
 
 Shortly after the date of this letter Dolet found it 
 needful, although suffering severely from illness, to leave his 
 hiding-place and start for Lyons. He would seem to have 
 performed the journey, about two hundred and fifty miles, 
 on foot, in company with his faithful friend Simon Finet., 
 
1 64 ETIENNE DOLET chap, vm 
 
 The summer was an unusually hot one, the roads deep in 
 dust, and on his arrival at Le Puy en Velay he was again 
 attacked by fever and detained some days. Here, just as he 
 was leaving for Lyons, his heart was gladdened by receiving 
 a letter from his friend Clausanus, to whom at his first halt 
 on the same day he wrote or commenced a reply : ' Your 
 letter delivered to me early this morning filled me with joy, 
 because I found that all with you was as I wished it to be, 
 and also because I found that you had not changed your 
 intention of accompanying me to Italy. This letter, full of 
 dust and hurry, I have written to you on my journey, at 
 three hours' distance from Le Puy, where I had to stay for 
 some days owing to a severe attack of illness. Now I am 
 two days' distance from Lyons, where, unless my health 
 prevents me from making my regular day's march, I shall 
 arrive on the ist of August.' x 
 
 Although he accomplished his design and reached Lyons 
 on the ist of August (1534), he arrived worn out both in 
 mind and body. ' When I reached Lyons,' he afterwards 
 wrote to Boyssone, ' I had no hope of restoration to health 
 and even despaired of my life.' 
 
 1 Orat. Dua, p. 126. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Lyons 
 
 1 C'est un grand cas voir le Mont Pelion, 
 Ou d'avoir veu les ruines de Troye : 
 Mais qui ne voit la ville de Lyon, 
 
 Aucun plaisir a ses yeux il n'octroye.' 
 
 Clement Marot. 
 
 N ancient city known by 
 the name of Lugdunum 
 formerly reared its head 
 in a lofty situation, which, 
 after it had been burnt 
 down, was rebuilt by 
 Plancus, then in command 
 of the Roman armies, at 
 the foot of the mountain 
 looking towards the north. 
 Through its centre the 
 Saone rolls its sluggish 
 waters, and on one side 
 it is girded by the Rhone ; 
 then each of the two streams flowing with a gentle current 
 receives the other into its bosom. Rich, populous, and 
 adorned with splendid buildings, it opens its markets as well 
 to strangers as to its own citizens.' 
 
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1 66 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Such is the description which in one of his poems Dolet 
 gives us of the city which was henceforth to be his home, 
 and which during a considerable part of the sixteenth century- 
 may fairly be considered the intellectual capital of France. 
 It recalled Italy not only in its climate, but in its literary 
 and artistic tastes, and in the intellectual freedom which 
 (compared with the rest of France) it enjoyed. In civilisa- 
 tion, as well as in commerce, it was more Italian than 
 French. Upwards of a century earlier we find the founda- 
 tions laid of that colony of noble and learned Florentine 
 merchants, some brought by political, others by commercial 
 emergencies, which towards the end of the sixteenth century 
 
 1' numbered upwards of fifty-nine families. The Pazzi and 
 the Gondi had settled at Lyons in the fifteenth century, and 
 had shown to the French that in the most civilised nation in 
 the world the pursuit of commerce was not incompatible with 
 nobility of birth, with polished manners, or with literary 
 and artistic culture. Coming from what was the home of 
 literature and art, the Italians brought with them that higher 
 civilisation to which France was generally then a stranger. 
 
 Learned Italians and Greeks who followed introduced on 
 
 this side of the Alps a knowledge of Greek and of a better 
 
 Latin literature. Lyons then, as still, wealthy, turbulent, 
 
 liberal and progressive, had given to the colony a hospitable 
 
 welcome, and had been rewarded, not only by the advances 
 
 made in civilisation and culture, but by the substantial 
 
 advantages which the Italians rendered to the city. Great 
 
 and flourishing as it had been for centuries, it is to the 
 
 Italian colony that Lyons is indebted for the introduction of 
 
 \ that art which subsequently made it the greatest and most 
 
 | flourishing commercial city of France — the manufacture of 
 
 ! silk. It became the headquarters for all the monetary and 
 
 1 commercial transactions between France and Italy. The 
 
 strangers built mansions which rivalled in solidity and dignity 
 
ix LYONS 167 
 
 those of their forefathers at Florence or Lucca. They 
 adorned the churches with a magnificence till then unknown. 
 It was for the Florentine Chapel in the Dominican Church 
 at Lyons (which by a special privilege was declared to be 
 the parish church of the Florentines) that Salviati painted 
 his great masterpiece The Incredulity of St. Thomas. 
 
 Nowhere out of Paris were there to be found during the 
 sixteenth century so many or so distinguished men of letters 
 as at Lyons. The literary natives and regular residents 
 even were great in number, and many of them men of ability 
 and eminence. Symphorien Champier, equally distinguished J 
 in medicine as in literature, occupied now in founding the J 
 College of Medicine, now in deciphering and arranging in 
 order the old chronicles ; Benoit Court, whose delightful 
 commentaries on the Arresta Amorum afford one of the 
 earliest specimens of that spirituelle finesse in which the 
 French writers have since been so proficient ; Maurice Sceve, 
 a poet and an antiquary, whose praises have been sounded by 
 men so different as Marot, Du Bellay, and La Croix du 
 Maine ; his cousin Guillaume Sceve, equally devoted to 
 literature ; Charles de Sainte Marthe, a poet, a theologian, 
 and a reformer ; Guillaume du Choul, whose collection of 
 Roman coins and antiquities was the only one on this side 
 the Alps worthy to be called a collection, and whose work 
 on the castrametation of the Romans continued for two 
 centuries the standard authority on that subject ; Charles 
 Fontaine, whose literary criticisms are always marked with 
 point and sense, if we cannot accord to him the high rank 
 as a poet which his contemporaries considered was his due ; 
 Barthelemi Aneau, whose Mystere de la Nativite is by many 
 regarded as the parent of the French opera ; Sanctes Pagnini, 
 the great Hebraist, who had been a pupil of Savonarola ; 
 all these were at this time living at Lyons, where indeed 
 they passed the greater part of their lives, and they form x 
 
168 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 company of men of letters who could not be equalled in 
 France out of Paris. Yet they were far eclipsed by the men 
 of still greater eminence who resided for longer or shorter 
 periods, and some of whom paid more than one lengthened 
 visit to Lyons. 
 
 Francois Rabelais, Clement Marot, Michael Servetus, 
 Bonaventure Des Periers, Salmon Macrin, Hubert Sussanneau, 
 Nicolas Bourbon of Vandoeuvre, all passed several years of 
 their lives at Lyons between 1530 and 1540, whilst Erasmus, 
 Robert Estienne, Pole, Sadolet, Calvin, Beza, Antoine de 
 Gouvea, Emile Ferret, and Jean Second were no infrequent 
 visitors ; and Bude, the greatest in repute of all, must have 
 visited Lyons at least twice, though I find no detailed 
 accounts of his visits. It may be indeed that the greatest 
 intellects of the time either resided wholly in Paris, or made 
 but a temporary sojourn at Lyons. The Estiennes, Marot, 
 and perhaps Beza, desired never to leave Paris, and only the 
 bitter persecution which they experienced at the hands of the 
 enemies of all learning, of all literature, of all enlightenment, 
 drove them to seek homes in the freer commonwealths of 
 Geneva and Berne, or among the mountains of Piedmont. 
 Yet at Lyons there was far more intellectual freedom than 
 at Paris. The sinister action of the Court and of the 
 Sorbonne was less felt. The Cardinal de Tournon, bigot 
 though he was, seems to have left the capital of the south, 
 of which he was first the governor and afterwards the arch- 
 bishop, more liberty than he allowed the royal city where 
 his hopes and ambitions centred; while his lieutenants, the 
 Trivulces and Jean de Peyrat, had strong sympathies with 
 intellectual progress, and used all their influence (though 
 often in vain) to protect letters and their students from the 
 attacks of ecclesiastical bigotry. And a society that numbered 
 among its members Rabelais, Marot, Des Periers, Dolet, 
 Sceve, Macrin, Champier, and Aneau, must have enjoyed a 
 
ix LYONS 169 
 
 freedom of intellectual intercourse which was wanting in the | 
 great capital so jealously watched over by the Sorbonne and 
 the Parliament, where every word that could tend to religious 
 or intellectual freedom was instantiy pounced upon and 
 brought its utterer under the censure — if not worse — of one 
 of these venerable bodies. 
 
 If we are to believe the Pere de Colonia 1 — and his state- 
 ment has often been repeated — it is to Lyons that the 
 honour belongs of the establishment of the earliest of those 
 literary societies or academies for which France was after- 
 wards to become so famous. The Academy of Fourviere 
 (so called from the venerable mansion on the slopes of 
 the hill of that name, the remains of the palace of the 
 Roman emperors, in which the meetings took place) was 
 founded, as we are told, very early in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury by Humbert de Villeneuve and Hugues Fournier, 
 afterwards successively First Presidents of the Parliament of 
 Burgundy, Humbert Fournier, a brother of the last-named, 
 Symphorien Champier, Benoft Court, Gonsalvo of Toledo, 
 a learned Spanish physician then resident at Lyons, and 
 others. 
 
 It is on a letter from Humbert Fournier to Symphorien 
 Champier in 1507, and on a letter and certain odes of 
 Voulte written in 1536, that the Pere de Colonia has based 
 his account of this Academy. But the letter of Fournier, 
 which is printed at the end of Champier's treatise De 
 Quadruplici Vita, 2 though full of interest, and proving the 
 abundance of intellectual vigour at Lyons at this time, seems 
 only to be an account of the mode in which Fournier and 
 four friends passed their time in a summer visit to the 
 country-house of Fournier, situate on the slopes of Fourviere ; 
 while the letter and odes of Jean Voulte, thirty years after- 
 
 1 Hist. Lit. de Lyon, vol.' ii. pp. 466 et seq. 
 2 Lugduni, 1507. 
 
170 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 wards, certainly refer to nothing more than the casual 
 meetings of his literary friends. 1 
 
 But it was not only by the presence of men of letters 
 and science that Lyons was distinguished in the sixteenth 
 century, but also by the extraordinary activity of its press, 
 which rivalled that of Paris itself. Lyons was the second - 
 city in France where the art of printing was exercised, 
 but it achieved a greater distinction than Paris, inasmuch 
 as from its presses issued the first books printed in France 
 in the French language. Nor is it at all improbable that 
 the first French book printed in France was one, the publi- 
 cation of which in the vulgar tongue has ever been most 
 bitterly objected to by all who have opposed themselves to 
 \ intellectual, political, or social freedom. In 1472 Barthelemy 
 Buyer, a wealthy and eminent citizen of Lyons, caused 
 Guillaume Regis, or Le Roi, a skilful printer, to set up a 
 press in his house, and there, shortly afterwards, under 
 the superintendence of two learned Augustin friars, Julien 
 Macho and Pierre Farget, was printed the New Testament 
 in French, and also an abridgment or paraphrase of the Old 
 Testament. 2 
 
 1 See as to this pretended Academy, Allut, Etude sur Symphorien 
 Champier (Lyon, 1859), PP- 62-67. 
 
 2 If, as seems now to be the generally-received opinion, Le Recueil des 
 Histoires de Troyes, variously attributed to Caxton, to Colard Mansion, 
 and to Ulric Zell, was not printed until 1475 or 1476, the books printed 
 by Barthelemy Buyer at Lyons would be the earliest that were printed 
 in the French language. Of these, La Legende Doree is certainly the 
 earliest with date (1476) ; but several bibliographers of repute, notably 
 M. Pericaud Aine {Bibliographie Lyonnaue du xv. Steele, p. 7) and Berjeau 
 {Bibliophile Illustr'e, ii. p. 14), are of opinion that the New Testament 
 and the Abridgment of the Old given in French by Buyer appeared in 
 1472, or 1473 at the latest. Berjeau is however in error in stating that 
 these books bear date 1472. Two editions, as well of the New Testament 
 as of the Abridgment of the Old. were given by Buyer about the same 
 time, both undated, one of them printed with the same characters as the 
 
ix LYONS 171 
 
 The good work which Buyer commenced, continued and 
 extended itself. More than seventy master printers practised ' 
 their art in Lyons in the fifteenth century ; and in addition 
 to many of these, who continued to print for a considerable 
 part of the following century, one hundred and eighteen 
 additional names are found in the sixteenth century, besides 
 many booksellers who were not themselves printers. 1 The 
 printers of Lyons in the century and a quarter next after 
 the introduction of the art were far more numerous than 
 in the two centuries and three-quarters which have followed, 
 and a prodigious number of books were given by them to 
 the world. Eighty -four complete editions of the Bible 
 (including the New Testament) are enumerated by Masch 2 
 as having issued from the Lyonese press during the first 
 half of the sixteenth century, besides numerous editions of 
 separate parts. 
 
 At the head of the profession when Dolet arrived there 
 in 1534 (for printing was a learned profession, not a manual 
 art) was Sebastian Gryphius, who, in the thirty-three years 
 that he exercised the profession of a printer (from 1524 to 
 
 Lotharius Diaconus of 1473, the first book printed with a date at Lyons. 
 Both the editions are in small folio, but one has long lines, and the other 
 double columns. A copy of the edition of the New Testament with long 
 lines, the property of Lord Spencer, was in the Caxton Exhibition. In 
 the catalogue, 1477 is the suggested date, and this is the date also sug- 
 gested by Madlle. Pellechet (Cat. Gen. des Inclinable*, 1897). The 
 British Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale each possess a copy. 
 Another was bought by the Due D'Aumale at the Solar sale for 1045 
 francs. The Due de la Valliere's copy of the edition in two columns, 
 which sold at the sale of his books in 1783 for 100 francs, was subsequently 
 acquired by M. A. Firmin-Didot, and was sold at his sale (May 1879) for 
 3550 francs. Lord Crawford's copy of the New Testament (also in two 
 columns) sold at his sale in 1887 (No. 367) for £200. See as to the 
 difference in the two editions, Brunet, Manuel, vol. v. 746. 
 
 1 Monfalcon, Manuel du Bibliophile et de V Arch'eologue Lyonnais. 
 
 2 Bibliotbeca Sacra. 
 
172 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 1556), printed upwards of one thousand different editions 
 in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French. His 
 son and successor was almost as prolific. The presses of 
 the Tournes, the Rouilles, the Rigauds, the Frellons, and 
 numerous others were constantly at work ; and if it was 
 not the good fortune of any Lyonese printer to give to the 
 world an editio princeps of a Greek or Latin classic, yet it 
 was to their presses, and particularly to those of the Gryphii, 
 that the numerous small and cheap reprints of Latin texts 
 were due, which were a greater boon to poor students. 
 
 But at the Lyonese presses of the sixteenth century there 
 were also published original works which have placed their 
 authors in the first rank of scholarship and literature. It 
 was at Lyons that Gargantua and Pantagruel first saw the 
 light, that Marot first printed his Enfer and a complete 
 edition of his works, that Sanctes Pagnini gave to the world 
 his great Hebrew Lexicon, which, though now all but 
 forgotten, contributed more than any single book to advance 
 the study of the sacred language. When the study of 
 Hebrew was forbidden at Paris by the Sorbonne, as impious, 
 dangerous, and heretical, at Lyons Sanctes Pagnini could 
 compose, and Gryphius could print without danger, a work 
 which deservedly ranked with Robert Estienne's Latin 
 Thesaurus, and the still greater Greek Thesaurus of his 
 greater son. 
 
 Nor were the printers and correctors of the press un- 
 worthy of the authors. The prefaces and dedications 
 written by Sebastian Gryphius would prove him to have 
 been an excellent Latin scholar, even if this had not been 
 made known to us by the praises given to him by J. C. 
 Scaliger, Gesner, Sadolet, and many others. Rabelais, 
 Sussanneau, and Dolet were readers or correctors of his press. 
 The elder Tournes, for sonlie years his journeyman, rivalled 
 Gryphius in scholarship, and excelled him in typography ; 
 
 \ 
 
ix LYONS 173 
 
 while to Trechsel belongs the distinction, ot having the 
 proofs of his edition of the Canon of Avicenna (printed 
 in 1498) corrected by no less a person than the first Greek 
 scholar in Europe, the French ambassador to Venice, in 
 whose veins ran the blood of three emperors — the celebrated 
 Jean Lascaris. 
 
 Yet one distinction of Lyons in the sixteenth century I 
 remains to be noticed. In no other city of Europe does 
 there seem to have been so many cultivated women. Their ' 
 glories must indeed pale before that of La Marguerite des 
 Marguerites, but the ladies by whom she was surrounded 
 do not seem to have emulated the literary culture of their 
 mistress, and we look in vain in Paris or elsewhere in 
 France for anything to compare, in the matter of cultivated 
 female society, with Lyons. The name of Louise Labe — 
 La Belle Cordiere — is perhaps the only one that is familiar 
 to the English reader, and she alone of the ladies of Lyons 
 has attained the high position of a French classic. She 
 well deserves her pre-eminence. Beautiful, accomplished, 
 and wealthy, the centre of all that was noblest in the 
 society of Lyons in the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 she anticipated the nineteenth in her regrets that the severe 
 laws of men hindered persons of her sex from devoting 
 themselves to study, and she exhorted them as far as 
 possible to raise their minds above their distaffs and spindles, 
 and to show themselves worthy companions and rivals of 
 the other sex in the pursuit of higher things, not indeed 
 for the purpose of ruling, but of showing their capabilities 
 for rule. Perhaps Louise Labe is the only one of the 
 Lyonese ladies whose poems are still read : yet the rhymes 
 of 'the gentle and virtuous dame Pernette du Guillet of 
 Lyons ' have been honoured with no less than five editions, 
 two of them being in the nineteenth century ; and if inferior 
 both in polish and force to those of her younger friend, 
 
174 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 her verses have a simple grace which still interests. Con- 
 temporary with these ladies were the two sisters Claudine 
 and Sibylla Sceve (near relations of Maurice), of a rare 
 talent for poetry as well as prose, to whom Marot has 
 addressed one of his happiest odes ; Jeanne Gaillard, whose 
 response to a rondeau of the same poet has been thought 
 fit to be placed by its side in the subsequent editions of 
 Marot's works ; and Clemence de Bourges, whom Duverdier 
 calls the pearl of the Lyonese ladies of his time, the friend 
 or the rival — possibly both — of Louise Labe, and who 
 excelled in music equally as in poetry. 
 
 It was in the salons of the dame du Perron, the wife of 
 Antoine de Gondi, that all that was most distinguished in 
 the society of Lyons at this time was wont to assemble. 
 There were to be found men of letters, musicians, and 
 artists, together with persons of the highest rank, — ' princes 
 prelates, and kings,' according to the enthusiastic description 
 of the poet and musician Eustorg de Beaulieu, in whose 
 poetical account of the charms of the society which sur- 
 rounded his patroness we may easily pardon a litde 
 exaggeration. 
 
 Dolet arrived at Lyons on the ist of August 1534, 1 
 
 1 It is clear that it was the 1st of August 1534 that Dolet arrived at 
 Lyons, and not the 1st of August 1533, as stated by Nee de la Rochelle, 
 who is of course followed by Boulmier. It was not until the 1st of 
 August 1533 that the King visited Toulouse. Yet this event is referred 
 to in Dolet's second oration, which must have been delivered, and Dolet's 
 imprisonment at Toulouse must have occurred, subsequently to that date. 
 The imprisonment was on the 25th of March, and as we know that he 
 arrived at Lyons on the 1st of August following, this would be 1534. 
 Moreover, in the letter of Jacques Bording dated Paris, Jan. 26, and 
 written before Dolet's first imprisonment, he mentions that Beda had 
 been lately restored to his office {Orat. Dute, p. 166), but this event 
 occurred at the end of 1533. He had been banished on the 26th of 
 May 1533, and was recalled at the end of the same year. (Herminjard, 
 Correspondance des Reformateurs, iii. pp. 53, 162, 272.) The orations, 
 
ix LYONS 175 
 
 and immediately visited the learned printer Sebastian 
 Gryphius, and delivered the message of Boyssone. Born 
 about 1 49 1, at Reutlingen in Suabia, where his father, 
 Michael Greyff or Gryff, exercised the art of printing, 1 
 Gryphius had settled at Lyons certainly as early as 1524, in 
 which year an edition of the Commentary of Nicolas de 
 Tudeschi upon the Decretals appeared with his name. 2 He 
 printed certainly one other book, and probably more, in the 
 next three years. But it was not until 1528 that his press 
 became of importance. Previous to this year his only books 
 had been huge folios of mediaeval jurisprudence. He now 
 set himself to rival the Aldi by publishing a series of Latin 
 books, resembling theirs not only in form and type, but in 
 general utility ; and though he did not aspire to the glory 
 of rivalling their Greek series, and published scarcely any 
 original critical editions of Latin classics, yet, from the 
 immense quantity of excellent books which issued from his 
 
 then, must have been printed between the 13th of August 1534, the date 
 of the prefatory letter of Chrysogonus Hammonius, and the 15 th of 
 October the same year, the day on which Dolet arrived in Paris. 
 
 1 Twelve books are enumerated by Panzer as issuing from his press 
 between i486 and 1496. 
 
 2 According to Breghot du Lut and Pericaud Aine (Biographie 
 Lyonnaise) he printed as early as 1520 the tract of Romanus Aquila, De 
 Nominibus Figurarum, but I have been unable to meet with a copy of 
 this book, or to find any other mention of it and I doubt its existence. 
 There are certainly several errors in the notice of Seb. Gryphius contained 
 in the Biog. Lyon. He is there said to have printed a number of Greek 
 classics. I have been unable to discover more than four Greek books, of 
 which only one {^Esop's Fables) can be considered as a Greek classic. 
 Latin translations, however, of nearly all .the Greek classics were printed 
 by him. He is further said {Biog. Lyon.) to have printed many other 
 works (beaucoup d'autres ouvrages) from 1520 to 1528. I can find no 
 traces of more than three before 1528, the edition referred to in the text, 
 of N. de Tudeschi (Panormitanus) on the Decretals printed in 1524, the 
 Repertorium of Bertachini de Fermo in 1525, and an edition of the works 
 of Bartholus, referred to in the preface to Panormitanus. 
 
176 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 press, Latin classics, Latin translations of Greek classics, 
 reprints of the best recent or contemporary writers, Erasmus, 
 Politian, Bude, he contributed more than any other printer 
 to the popularising of literature and to the cause of intellec- 
 tual progress. A few books in Hebrew, Greek, French and 
 Italian, but the vast majority in Latin, issued from his press 
 between 1528 and his death in 1556, 1 and were rapidly 
 spread through the South of France, the North of Italy, and 
 the adjacent parts of Switzerland and Germany. Many 
 original works also, though not in equal numbers, nor 
 generally (though occasionally) equal in merit, to those 
 which the Manutii or the Estiennes had the good fortune 
 to publish, were printed by Gryphius. But even original 
 works of the highest merit were not wanting, and especially 
 such as the Roman Inquisition and the censorship of the 
 Sorbonne would have either refused to sanction or required 
 some modifications of, in Italy or in Paris. It was through 
 his press that the purest Latin prose writer of the age, the 
 tolerant and excellent Bishop of Carpentras, Cardinal Sadolet, 
 gave most of his works to the world, not seldom with a 
 dedication or other grateful reference to the learned and 
 accurate printer, with whom he was on terms of great 
 intimacy and friendship. 2 It was Gryphius who in 1536 
 first printed that poem on the immortality of the soul by 
 which the then unknown Aonio Paleario was recognised as 
 
 1 I doubt whether any printer in the sixteenth century gave to the 
 public an equal number of books during an equal period. In the same 
 number of years Robert Estienne printed four hundred and sixty-six works. 
 
 2 In 1535 appeared from the press of Gryphius the first edition of 
 Sadolet's Commentary on the Romans, — a work to which the author had 
 given much time and labour, but which, to his infinite mortification, was, 
 very shortly after its appearance, censured and ordered to be suppressed 
 by the Court of Rome on account of a fancied tendency to Pelagianism. 
 Hence very few copies exist. It was reprinted in 1536 and 1537, with 
 important suppressions and corrections. 
 
ix LYONS 177 
 
 the equal of Vida and Sannazar ; a poem modelled in style 
 and manner (though not in its motive) after Lucretius, and 
 which in the judgment of many contemporaries approaches 
 near to that author's excellencies ; a poem which, although 
 it placed the writer in the first rank of the Christian poets of 
 the Renaissance, yet gave to the bloodhounds of the Inquisi- 
 tion the scent of a future prey, and which was followed in 
 1552 by the orations of the same author, also from the 
 press of Gryphius, in which was the fatal sentence describing 
 the Inquisition as a poniard directed against all men of 
 letters (sica districta in omnes script ores 1 ), a sentence not to 
 be forgotten or forgiven until it was expiated by the author 
 on the scaffold nearly twenty years afterwards. 
 
 It was through the press of Gryphius that the elder 
 Scaliger's critical treatises first saw the light ; and the great 
 Julius Caesar even condescended to address and print a 
 complimentary letter to the printer on the occasion of the 
 publication of his treatise, De Causis Lingua Latins, j 
 Sebastian Gryphius was also the printer of the great Hebrew 
 Thesaurus of Sanctes Pagnini, and of the Latin Thesaurus of j 
 Dolet, two works not easily rivalled in their several depart- \ 
 ments of scholarship in the sixteenth century, and which j 
 would have been considered as chefs-d'ceuvre of typography 
 had they not been thrown into the shade by the magnificent 
 Latin Bible — the largest up to that time issued both in size 
 and type — which Sebastian Gryphius printed in 1550. 
 
 Nor were lighter works wanting. Although Gryphius 
 was pre-eminently the learned printer, as Francois Juste and 
 Claude Nourry were the popular printers, of Lyons, yet 
 the two earliest editions of the Arresta Amorum, with the 
 erudite commentaries of Benoit Court, were printed by him : 
 
 1 Orat. pro se ipso ad Senenses. The works of Paleario share with 
 those of Dolet and of most others who have written what is worth reading 
 the honours of the Index Expurgatorius. 
 
 N 
 
178 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 and numerous Latin poets and epigrammatists found in 
 him not merely a publisher, but a valued friend. The Latin 
 ! classics of Gryphius have not preserved their value, and are 
 | but little sought for ; yet they performed a most useful part 
 in their day, and although he was perhaps not the first to 
 use the small and convenient size which is generally known 
 as 1 6mo or 24mo, 1 he first employed it to any large extent 
 in his editions of the classics, and in this form they became 
 the school-books of nearly half Europe. 
 
 Dolet's reception by the learned printer was, as we should 
 expect from the latter's character, most friendly. ' I visited 
 Sebastian Gryphius,' he wrote a few days afterwards to 
 Boyssone, * and saluted him in your name. I found him to 
 be a man full of learning and kindness, and most worthy of 
 the friendship of all learned men. He rejoiced greatly in 
 my news of your prosperity and of your recovery of your 
 position, and wished me to take, up my residence with him ; 
 but whilst I was most grateful for his kindness, I was un- 
 willing to be a burden to him.' 2 
 
 But if from a feeling of independence Dolet declined the 
 worthy printer's hospitality, yet the two soon formed a 
 friendship which, unlike most of the friendships of Dolet, 
 seems to have lasted unbroken to the close of his life. He 
 dedicated to Gryphius the fourth book of his poems in 1538, 
 and addressed him in these words : — 
 
 ' What I more expressly aim at in this the fourth book 
 of my poems, is that those who have been cultivators of 
 virtue in their lifetime should after their deaths receive a 
 
 1 The earliest book with which I am acquainted printed by Gryphius 
 in this form (which is rather smaller than that which he subsequently 
 adopted) is dated 1 532. It is the aphorisms of Hippocrates, with a 
 preface by Rabelais. In the same year Simon de Colines printed a 
 Martial, and Robert Estienne a Terence, of the same size. These appear 
 to be the earliest classics, if not the earliest printed books, in that form. 
 
 2 Orat. Duts in Tholosam, p. 125. 
 
ix LYONS 
 
 179 
 
 testimony to their merits. 1 You contribute to the same 
 object by transmitting to posterity in your beautiful types 
 the books on which the fame as well of the ancient authors 
 as of our own contemporaries rests. I wish then this fourth 
 book to be dedicated to you as an evidence of the laudable 
 efforts of each of us, and as an eternal and perpetual pledge 
 of the friendship which has so long subsisted between us.' 
 
 From this time and for the remaining twelve years of 
 his life Lyons was the home of Dolet. Two visits to Paris 
 of no great length, a flight to Piedmont in 1544, and his 
 two long imprisonments, each of about fifteen months, leave 
 him nearly eight years at Lyons, and eight years of hard 
 incessant literary work. During these eight years, besides 
 for a time correcting for the press of Gryphius and editing 
 certainly three books for other printers, he published at least 
 fifteen distinct original works of his own composition, some 
 of them of considerable extent. He translated into French 
 and printed at least five others. He printed and personally 
 superintended through the press more than fifty other works 
 of different writers in Greek, Latin, and French, to many 
 of which he acted as editor and prefixed an ode or preface 
 of his own composition. 
 
 His original purpose in making his way to Lyons was, 
 as we have seen, to commit to the press his orations, poems, 
 and letters ; but on his arrival at that city, his physical and 
 mental prostration were such, that he gave up for the 
 present his intention. In his letter to Boyssone, written 
 shortly after his arrival, where the passage already quoted 
 occurs in which he says that on reaching Lyons he had no 
 hope of restoration to health, but even despaired of his life, 
 he continues, — 
 
 ' Accordingly I have given up the intention with which I 
 came here, namely, of printing my orations against Toulouse, 
 1 The fourth book of Dolet's Carmina consists entirely of epitaphs. 
 
180 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 and I am determined they shall not see the light until some 
 certain hope of a restoration to health is afforded me ' ; and 
 a few lines further on he speaks of himself as tormented 
 with bodily pain, and feeling very near his last hour. A 
 week later however he writes to Jean de Pins from a country 
 retreat to which the Lyons physicians had sent him, and 
 speaks less despairingly of himself, yet still implying that he 
 was not thinking of immediately publishing his book. 
 
 Etienne Dolet to Jean de Pins 
 
 ' My silence has been occasioned by a severe illness from 
 which I have until now been suffering. Now that I am 
 recovering from my almost hopeless and desperate state, 
 and am hoping in a short time to be free from disease, I 
 return to my former alacrity in letter-writing, and I hope 
 by diligence to fill up the interval of my letters to you. 
 
 ' When owing to the envy of despicable men and the 
 hatred of wicked ones I left Toulouse, by the advice of my 
 friends I concealed myself in the country and fled from the 
 sight of my enemies. I chose a most pleasant spot, and 
 one very convenient for the residence of the studious ; but 
 the happiness which I expected to find there was grudged 
 me by fortune, and the violence of my enemies deprived me 
 of it. I fled thence at the right time, and so prevented my 
 enemies from feasting their eyes on my calamities, and 
 gratifying their infamous cruelty by my arrest. Yet even 
 whilst I stayed there I was unable, owing to my weak health, 
 to enjoy the pleasantness of the place. Then, compelled by 
 the persecution of my enemies to fly, and suffering from a 
 severe disease, I set off for Lyons, with what intention, my 
 orations against Toulouse and my epigrams would have shown, 
 had not the weak state of my health prevented me from 
 publishing them. For, the same diligence which I formerly 
 
ix LYONS 
 
 181 
 
 used in studying I now devote to the recovery of my health. 
 I am now, by the advice of my physicians, 1 spending my 
 time in the country, where they think, on account of the 
 greater coolness of the climate, the remains of my disease 
 may be more easily driven away ; nor do they hope without 
 cause, the fever having left me for eight days. Indeed I 
 am now recovering the flesh which when sick I had lost, 
 and I already perceive myself to be twice the size I lately 
 was. I only need the pleasure of your society, for great as 
 was the delight and profit which I derived from the full 
 enjoyment of it, still greater is the loss which I feel for 
 the want of it. I grieve to a surprising degree that it is 
 not permitted me to look upon, and to tend him, whose 
 defence of my welfare was perpetual, firm, and invincible, 
 than whom no one, however great his services, will ever be 
 more honoured by me, and in speaking of and recalling to 
 mind the many benefits which he has conferred upon me I 
 could willingly pass all my time. You will hardly believe, 
 my friend, how religiously I preserve the remembrance of 
 your kindness. I often think with gratitude and pleasure 
 how affectionately you treated me, how humanely you con- 
 soled me when I was harassed by troubles. Those plans of 
 yours, so sensible and thought out with such wonderful care, 
 by which you provided for my reputation, my position, my 
 welfare, often come into my mind, and I do not forget that 
 I owe everything, even my life, to you. . . . 
 
 ' I will now bring my letter to an end, only adding the 
 rumours which are noised abroad and talked over at Lyons. 
 
 ' It is reported here that Clement the supreme pontiff 
 has been suddenly carried off by poison. Owing to this all 
 
 1 Who would these be ? Rabelais, Fournier, Symphorien Champier, 
 Canappe, Du Castel, and Tolet were all then practising their profession 
 at Lyons, and very soon after this time we find all of them, except 
 Champier, on terms of great intimacy with Dolet. 
 
1 82 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the French cardinals have assembled here in order to proceed 
 together to Rome for the purpose of choosing a God in the 
 room of that God who has proved mortal, and of giving 
 without corruption, and according to their convictions, their 
 votes on the election of a pontiff. Many hope for a French 
 pope ; 1 all talk of war, and have a suspicion that the matter 
 will be the occasion of tumults. 
 
 ' Among many there is an expectation that the king is 
 about to arrive, and this is much talked of. Yet it is a 
 thing rather wished for than expected, and the rumour just 
 now is growing fainter and is almost extinct. These are 
 the matters talked of here. . . . Farewell. Written in the 
 country, Aug. 8.' 2 
 
 In the meantime, strange as it must seem, the orations, 
 the epistles, and the poems were preparing for, if not actually 
 proceeding through, the press of Gryphius, under the editor- 
 ship of Simon Finet, and, as the latter asserts, without the 
 sanction or knowledge of Dolet. The book was rapidly 
 pushed through the press, and was completed and issued 
 isome time between the 14th of August and the end of 
 [September 1534. This, the first work of Dolet, is a small 
 'octavo of two hundred and forty- six numbered and ten 
 unnumbered pages, without date, place, or printer's name. 3 
 It commences with a letter from Simon Finet to Claude 
 Cottereau, which begins as follows : — 
 
 1 Du Prat had hopes of being elected. 
 
 2 Orat. Duee in Tholosam, p. 142. 
 
 3 The title-page is simply as follows : — Stephani Doleti Orationes Dua 
 in Tholosam. Eiusdem Epistolarum libri ii. Eiusdem Carminum libri ii. 
 Ad eundem Epistolarum amicorum liber. Although the words 'Lugduni 
 apud Gryphium ' are given both by Brunet and by Boulmier as being on 
 the title, they are really not so. Boulmier indeed, although giving these 
 words in his Bibliographie Doletienne, yet says correctly elsewhere (p. 73) 
 that the orations appeared without the printer's name or place of 
 publication. But he goes on to say, ' Mais une lettre de Chrysogon 
 
ix LYONS 183 
 
 'Do you think what I have done is to be considered 
 as a crime, or is it not rather a matter for praise ? Here 
 is the fact in a few words ; do you decide upon it v You 
 are not ignorant of the great intimacy between Etienne 
 Dolet and myself. When the violent threats and still more 
 the baleful influence of a certain wicked and abandoned man 
 compelled him to leave Toulouse, he took me as his 
 companion to Lyons, with the intention of publishing both 
 what he had written against Toulouse, and also some 
 letters and very graceful odes which he had addressed 
 to divers persons. In this way he sought by his pen to 
 avenge the injuries which he had received at Toulouse. 
 But no sooner were we come here, than he was again 
 attacked by a serious illness, similar to that from which 
 he had only just recovered, and it was speedily turned into 
 a quartan ague. You who know so well the force and 
 nobleness of his mind, so ready to despise and even to laugh 
 at external misfortunes, will not doubt how manfully he 
 struggled against the effects of disease. At length, how- 
 ever, growing weary of the perpetual conflicts against hostile 
 fate, he has laid aside his intention of publishing his 
 writings, and thinks of nothing but how his health may be 
 restored as speedily as possible. It has, however, been a 
 source of great grief to me that the publication which 
 would so greatly increase the reputation and fame of our 
 friend should be any longer deferred, and especially that 
 this should be caused by his illness, and it has also been 
 a great trouble to me that those who have so infamously 
 
 Hammonius, un des amis de Dolet, nous apprend qu'elles furent imprimees 
 chez Gryphius.' Not a word of this appears in the letter of Hammonius. 
 It is, however, abundantly clear from the typography, and particularly 
 from the woodcut initial letters, that the book was printed by Seb. 
 Gryphius. We learn from the letter of Odonus (post p. 224) that 
 Gryphius was unwilling to print the volume, and perhaps this unwilling- 
 ness was the cause of the absence of his name. 
 
1 84 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 outraged him by their insults, should any longer boast 
 themselves against him with impunity. You now know 
 the course I have taken with a view to promote the 
 reputation of the man whom I love, and it is for you to 
 judge whether I am to be praised or blamed for it. The 
 two orations which he delivered at Toulouse (to a greater 
 crowd of auditors than has within my memory been ad- 
 dressed by any orator), upon no far-fetched or imaginary 
 subject, but upon one which was real and as it were 
 thrust upon him, I have furtively seized. I have increased 
 my theft by two books of epistles, which marvellously 
 harmonise with the arguments of the orations ; and, lastly, 
 grown still more eager by so rich a prey, I have purloined 
 two books of odes, and I now publish these without the 
 sanction, and even without the knowledge of their author. 
 Well ? Now I am awaiting your judgment.' 
 
 The rest of the epistle is occupied with a defence of 
 his own conduct, and with gready exaggerated praise of 
 the genius and attainments of Dolet, which, ridiculous as 
 they are in the original, would appear still more so in 
 English. The writer then concludes : ' Whatever may be 
 your judgment, whilst Dolet by the advice of his physicians 
 is avoiding the heat of the summer and is staying in the 
 country, I shall give my attention to printing the works 
 to which I have referred, but shall not inform the author 
 of the fact until we arrive at Padua. I have already 
 written to you that so soon as the heat is less we think 
 of setting out for thaf city. In the meantime let me hear 
 from you what you are doing, and how diligently you are 
 devoting yourself to literature. Farewell. Lyons (Aug. i P 1 ).' 
 
 This letter is followed by one purporting to be addressed 
 
 1 The date of this letter, ' ad calend. Sext.,' is clearly wrong. It was 
 written some time after Dolet's arrival at Lyons, which was on August i. 
 For ' Sext.' I should read ' Sept.' 
 
ix LYONS 185 
 
 by Chrysogonus Hammonius, an Italian, ' Critoni Archa- 
 gato,' 1 which, after some generalities and laudatory remarks 
 on Dolet, thus proceeds : ' By chance yesterday I was visit- 
 ing the publisher, when whom should I meet but Simon 
 Finet, the most intimate friend of Dolet. Noticing from 
 his countenance that he was somewhat excited and per- 
 turbed, I asked him what his business was with the printer ; 
 he (a man of no small culture) replied, " I am about to 
 make public a treasure," and at the same time he showed 
 me two orations of Dolet, than which I have never read 
 anything more elegant or clever. These, out of regard to 
 his friend's reputation, he had purloined from their author, 
 who, having decided to postpone the publication of a work 
 of such great merit, afforded to Finet a pretext for his 
 theft. . . . But I am not able to express how severely the 
 author will feel this publication of his treatises or how 
 bitter will be his complaints against us. . . . Lyons, 
 Aug. 13.' 
 
 It is difficult to believe that any one could be taken in 
 by these pretences, and the publication certainly reflects 
 as much discredit upon the good faith of Dolet as that 
 of the letters of Swift upon the good faith of Pope. In 
 both the motive was the same, in both great abilities were 
 disfigured by inordinate vanity. The issue of the orations 
 
 1 I am unable to discover who Chrysogonus Hammonius or Crito the 
 Archagatus were. Dolet has an ode on the death of the former in the 
 fourth book of his Carmina. Of Simon Finet we know nothing save that 
 he was the Pylades of our Orestes. MM. Des Marets and Rathery are 
 clearly in error in attempting, in the biography of Rabelais prefixed to 
 their excellent edition of his works, to identify him with a certain 4>i'veTos, 
 a friend and brother cordelier of Rabelais at the abbey of Fontenay, who 
 is~referred to by Bude in his Greek epistles. ^tveros, who was a man and 
 probably a priest when Bude wrote of him, at the latest in 1522, was 
 much senior in age to Simon Finet, the fellow-student of Dolet at 
 Toulouse in 1533. 
 
1 86 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 however — though there is nothing in them to deserve 
 
 publication, and much that could not fail to irritate — was 
 
 merely an indiscretion, and one easily pardonable in the 
 
 vain and clever author, whose head had been turned as 
 
 much by the bitter hostility which his orations had excited 
 
 among the bigots and the ignorant, as by the exaggerated 
 
 praises of his friends. But for the publication of many of 
 
 the letters no excuse can be made. Dolet, indeed, may well 
 
 ; be pardoned for desiring to set before the world the terms 
 
 on which he corresponded with Jean de Pins, with Langeac, 
 
 and with' the great Bude himself, nor is there anything in 
 
 their letters which the writers could object to have printed ; 
 
 but to publish the letters of Boyssone, who had so narrowly 
 
 ) escaped the fate of Jean de Caturce, and whose letters were 
 
 iof so compromising a character that Dolet did not even 
 
 I venture to affix to them the name of the writer (however 
 
 (apparent from internal evidence), of Arnoul Le Ferron, 
 
 I who had expressly requested that his letters might be 
 
 preserved in the strictest secrecy, 1 of Bording, who clearly 
 
 'expressed himself about persons and things with a freedom 
 
 |he would not have used had he supposed his letters would 
 
 jbe given to the world, and the publication of which might 
 
 jhave brought him into most serious danger as long as Beda 
 
 was in power at the Sorbonne and Lizet First President of 
 
 ,the Parliament, was more than an indiscretion, it was an 
 
 I act deserving of severe censure, — a censure which must be 
 
 /' increased when, as we find in the case of Le Ferron's letters, 
 
 that they were not precisely as their author had written them, 
 
 • but that some expressions had been altered, possibly to others 
 
 : more agreeable to the irritable vanity of Dolet. 2 At the 
 
 1 See ante, p. 130. 
 
 2 See letter of J. C. Scaliger to Le Ferron, Schelhorn's Amcenitates, viii. 
 584: 'Quid enim perfidiosius quam amicos inter se committere ? 
 Epistolas ad se abs te datas invertisse ? Aliis alia verba substituisse ? 
 
IX 
 
 LYONS 187 
 
 same time we should, in justice to Dolet, bear in mind that 
 he may in all these cases have omitted what he thought the 
 writers would disapprove of being published, and that in the 
 case of Le Ferron and Boyssone the publication did not 
 interfere with their friendship with our hero — whether it 
 was that they believed or professed to believe the transparent 
 fiction of Finet, or whether their regard for Dolet induced 
 them to overlook an indiscretion which a combination of 
 youthful vanity and youthful talent had perhaps occasioned. 
 
 The letter of Chrysogonus Hammonius is followed by an 
 ode of Guillaume Sceve * to Dolet, in which, after lamenting 
 the untimely deaths in Italy of the two lights of France, 
 Longolius and Simon Villanovanus, the writer says that the 
 hopes and expectations of Gaul are now fixed upon Dolet. 
 
 After the orations come two books of letters from Dolet, 
 from which I have already made many extracts. 2 Then 
 
 delevisse ? induxisse ? ' This letter shows us that both Le Ferron and his 
 friends felt that he had good grounds of complaint against Dolet for 
 printing the correspondence. 
 
 1 G. Sceve seems about this time to have acted as the principal editor, 
 reader, and corrector of the press of Gryphius. 
 
 2 These letters consist of seven letters to Boyssone, six to Bording, 
 five to Breslay, four to Jean de Pins, three to Le Ferron, three to Jean de 
 Langeac, three to Petrus Castellanus, two to Bude, two to Finet, two to 
 Eustace Prevost, two to the President de Minut, one to Francis de Langeac, 
 one to Claude Cottereau, and one to each of the following persons — 
 Thomas Cassander, Jean Maumont, Arnold Fabricius, Joannes Clausanus, 
 Jacobus Calanconius, Jacobus Rostanus, Claudius Barroo, Joannes Lepidus, 
 and Claude Sonnet. Petrus Castellanus cannot be, as I stated in the first 
 edition of this book, Pierre du Chatel (afterwards Bishop of Tulle), and 
 was probably Pierre du Castel who succeeded Rabelais as physician to the 
 Hospital of Lyons in 1535. See W. F. Smith's translation of Rabelais, 
 vol. ii. p. 509. 
 
 Hallam's just remark on the Ciceronians of Italy is equally applicable 
 to many of these letters : ' The praise of writing pure Latin, or the pleasure 
 of reading it, is dearly bought when accompanied by such vacuity of sense 
 as we experience in the elaborate epistles of Paulus Manutius and the 
 Ciceronian school in Italy.' 
 
1 88 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 comes a book of letters from his friends, comprising three 
 from Le Ferron, two from Boyssone (though without his 
 name), one from Jean de Pins to Dolet, and one from the 
 same to Minut in his behalf, five from Bording, two from 
 Breslay, and one from Bude. 
 
 The epistles are followed by two books of Carmina, 
 several of the more noteworthy of which I have already 
 cited or referred to. Of various merit and without ever 
 attaining to the foremost rank of the Latin verse of 
 that period, many of them display much skill in versifica- 
 tion, and some a high degree of poetic feeling and grace. 
 Julius Cassar Scaliger indeed, who joined in hounding the 
 unfortunate author to death and branding him with the 
 name of Atheist, and who brutally rejoiced over the flames 
 which consumed him, calls his poetry 'languida, frigida, 
 insulsa, plenissima vecordias,' and says that its author de- 
 serves the name, not of poet, but of ' poeticum excremen- 
 tum.' 1 But when we recollect that Julius Cassar Scaliger 
 placed Homer far below Virgil, and that his own poems 
 are justly described by Huet as 'les poesies brutes et 
 informes dont il a deshonore le Parnasse,' we shall probably 
 not feel disposed to follow him as our guide in his judg- 
 ment of one whom he hated with so bitter and relentless 
 a hatred. 
 
 On the last page of the book appears for the first time 
 the motto, taken from the Epistles of his master Cicero, 
 which afterwards when a printer he placed at the end of 
 all the Latin and many of the French books printed by 
 him, and which is so applicable to his life, Durior est 
 spectata virtutis quam incognita conditio. 
 
 On his restoration to health Dolet passed about six 
 weeks at Lyons, where he soon became intimate with 
 several of the leading men of letters there, upon whom he 
 1 J. C. Scaliger, Poetices lib. vi. 
 
ix LYONS 189 
 
 would seem to have made a most favourable impression. 
 Hortensio Lando was then at Lyons, superintending through 
 the press of Gryphius his Cicero Relegatus and Cicero 
 Revocatus. It is not improbable that Dolet had known 
 him in Italy. Certainly at this time at Lyons the two men 
 were on terms of intimacy. It was at this period that 
 his friendship commenced with Maurice and Guillaume 
 Sceve, and that he made the acquaintance, soon ripening 
 into intimacy and friendship, of the great man with 
 whom his name has ever since been inseparably connected — 
 the greatest genius of the age — Francois Rabelais. Rabelais 
 had arrived at Lyons from Montpellier early in 1532, 
 but although he had as yet published nothing, his repu- 
 tation as a physician, a scholar, and above all as a humourist, 
 had preceded him ; and he had no sooner arrived at the 
 intellectual capital of the South, than his services were 
 secured by two printers and booksellers, — the learned 
 Sebastian Gryphius, for whom he edited certain apocryphal 
 fragments of Cuspidius which he believed to be genuine, 
 wrote and signed several Latin prefaces, and edited the Greek 
 text with a revised translation of the Aphorisms of Hippo- 
 crates, and Claude Nourry, the printer for the vulgar and in 
 the vulgar tongue, for whom he wrote, though anonymously, 
 comic and satirical almanacs and prognostications 1 and ' the 
 great and inestimable Chronicles of GargantuaJ and through 
 whose press, some time before Dolet's arrival at Lyons, he 
 gave to the world the first book of the divine Vantagruel. 
 For the first time the comedy of human life was faithfully 
 
 1 M. Michelet {Hist, de France au Seizieme Steele) states that Rabelais 
 wrote for Dolet and other booksellers popular publications, such as 
 almanacs and satires. He quotes no authority for this statement, which 
 is certainly, as far as Dolet is concerned, erroneous. Dolet printed no 
 almanac or satire, nor any work of Rabelais except Gargantua and the 
 first book of Pantagruel, his edition of which appeared in 1542. 
 
190 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 represented ; it may be profanely and coarsely, but with a 
 vigour and geniality, a goodness of heart, a kindness and 
 a sympathy for the sufferings and weaknesses of humanity, 
 for the weak against the strong, with a jovial humour, and 
 above all a keenness, yet never bitterness of satire, such as 
 never, either before or since, has been elsewhere seen. 
 
 In Rabelais the genius of the Renaissance appears in 
 its fullest development, and he alone is sufficient to disprove 
 the shallow judgment so often repeated, 'The Renaissance 
 gave birth to nothing.' The Renaissance was not the mere 
 return to the literary forms of antiquity, it was a return to 
 its substance, a return to freedom of thought, and it brought 
 with it a recognition of natural goodness, which the theo- 
 logians of the Middle Ages had refused to allow, and which 
 the Reformers equally with the followers of Rome agreed 
 in declaring to be heresy. 
 
 ' Gens libres, bien nes, bien instruits, conversant en com- 
 pagnies honnetes, ont par nature un instinct et aiguillon qui 
 toujours les pousse a faits vertueux et les retire de vice ; 
 lequel ils nomment l'honneur.' 1 
 
 There is a species of biography which deals largely in 
 imaginary facts, and few temptations are stronger to a 
 biographer of one who, like Rabelais, has so gready in- 
 fluenced all subsequent generations of Frenchmen, than to 
 consider how in his great work he was himself likely to be 
 influenced by his contemporaries and friends, and from that 
 likelihood to infer and state not only the fact of such 
 influence, but to imagine in detail the circumstances attend- 
 
 1 Garg. c. lvii. M. Martin {Hist, de France, lib. 48) remarks on this 
 passage, ' Ce n'est pas seulement l'antipode du monachisme : c'est au 
 moins autant l'antipode du protestantisme, qui part de la corruption totale 
 de la nature, et de l'entiere impuissance de l'homme pour le bien ; c'est 
 l'extreme contraire. . . . L'evangile de Rabelais n'est que celui de la 
 charite et non de la grace et de la redemption.' 
 
ix LYONS 
 
 191 
 
 ing it. That Rabelais and Dolet formed a close intimacy 
 and friendship during the two months that the latter spent 
 at Lyons in the autumn of 1534, and that the friendship 
 so formed continued for several years, until, like most of 
 the friendships of our unfortunate hero, it was terminated 
 in circumstances which, in the opinion of Rabelais, gave him 
 the right of bitter complaint against Dolet, is certain ; but 
 though, from Dolet' s odes to Rabelais, we see that he 
 recognised the genius of the latter, yet of the genial humour 
 and gentle humanity of the great satirist there is no trace 
 in Dolet. 
 
 The Encomium Mori a was the true precursor of Panta- 
 gruel, and the words with which the former concludes form 
 an admirable prologue to the latter, ' Quare valete plaudite 
 vivite bibite Morias celeberrimi mystas.' * Yet the Praise of 
 Folly was not to the taste of Dolet, though whether this 
 arose from an incapacity to appreciate wit and humour, or 
 from his dislike to the anti-Ciceronianism of Erasmus, may 
 be doubtful. This is how he expresses himself in reference 
 to perhaps the wittiest book of the day : 2 ' Most persons 
 vehemently praise the Encomium Moria, many really admire 
 it ; yet if you examine it, the impudence of Erasmus will 
 strike you rather than the real force of his language. He 
 laughs, jokes, makes fun, irritates, inveighs, and raises a 
 smile even at Christ himself These words, which I regret 
 to quote, suggest to us a doubt whether Dolet was or could 
 have been a Pantagruelist, whether he could have looked 
 on life otherwise than most seriously, and whether there 
 could have been really much in common between him and 
 
 1 The remark of Erasmus, the first time he tasted real Burgundy, is 
 worthy of Brother Jean des Entommeures himself : ' O felicem vel hoc 
 nomine Burgundiam planeque dignam, quae mater hominum dicatur, 
 posteaquam tale lac habet in uberibus.' As to the wines of the country, 
 'Digna quae bibantur hereticis.' — Epist. 650, p. 752. 
 
 2 1 Comment. Ling. Lat. 1084. 
 
192 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Rabelais. But here is what one of the best informed, ablest, 
 and most spirituel of the critics and biographers of Rabelais, 
 M. Eugene Noel, says of the intercourse between him and 
 Dolet : ' From Montpellier Rabelais went to Lyons, where 
 with Dolet and several other Pantagruelists conversation 
 went on more vigorously than ever. Dolet was not only 
 an able printer, he was a philosopher and a poet, one of the 
 most elevated and noblest spirits of the age. We have 
 more than twenty works by him in Latin and French, in 
 verse and prose. He translated Cicero and Plato. He 
 was one of the first to print the Gospel in the vulgar tongue. 
 It was he who advised Rabelais no longer to confine himself 
 to translations and commentaries, but to cast into the in- 
 tellectual conflict a work really his own. He wished him to 
 give a summary of the philosophy of the age, to give to the 
 disquieted world a word of new consolation. 
 
 ' Yes, Rabelais would say, but a book really human must 
 address itself to all. The time is come for philosophy to 
 go out of the schools, and shine like the sun on the whole 
 universe. At this time we ought to hold the ignorant as 
 well as the learned at the breast of truth. For my part, if 
 I write a philosophical book, I should wish that it should 
 console and amuse as well the worthy vine-dressers of La 
 Deviniere and the topers of Chinon as the most learned men ; 
 that it should be the universal piot; 1 that princes, kings, 
 emperors, and poor people should come there of their own 
 accord to drink together gaily. The truth — the path to 
 which is sufficiently difficult — should be, no less than the 
 Gospel of God, presented under a living form so human, so 
 gentle, that, being accepted by all, it may rouse the soul of 
 all to a community of thought. What other course is there 
 than, taking one's stand on the eternal conscience, to relate 
 
 1 ' Cette nectarique, delicieuse, precieuse, celeste, joyeuse, deifique 
 liqueur qu'on nomme k piot.' — Pantagruel, ii. c. i. 
 
ix LYONS 193 
 
 to the people the stories which they delight in hearing, and 
 which they themselves have composed ? For example, those 
 chronicles of giants, printed over and over again in our time 
 since the discovery of that divine art which you practise, 
 seem to me extremely suited to my purpose. Through all 
 France I shall recount the astonishing feats of the enormous 
 giant Gargantua. I must seize upon this story, include the 
 whole world in it, and then return it so ennobled to the good 
 people who originated it. Here is the true secret ; learn 
 from the most simple folk their idea, and then ornament it 
 with all that study and philosophy have revealed to us. 
 The rustic and the village thought is the point with which 
 I wish to connect all the hidden treasures, up to this time 
 concealed by the enemies of light. 
 
 'Well, Dolet would say, here are my presses, they are 
 ready for you. Recount the history of Gargantua ; fill it 
 with pantagruelism, make of it our chronicle, our philo- 
 sophical chrism. Courage ; the world is perishing with 
 thirst and with rage, it is for you to quench it. I place 
 myself at your service ; be the invincible propagator of the 
 truth ; with you, if needs be, I shall brave the funeral pile. 
 
 ' Up to what point the preceding is true as to its form 
 I am ignorant, but what is certain is, that Rabelais and 
 Dolet conversed much upon these things, that Dolet urged 
 Rabelais to write his chronicle, and that the Gargantua ap- 
 peared in the month of December in the same year, 1532.' 
 
 Now the reader will be surprised to learn, not only that 
 there is no evidence whatever on which to base M. Noel's 
 statements as to the influence of Dolet upon Rabelais, and 
 as to these conversations and Dolet's suggestions, but that 
 such conversations could not possibly have taken place, nor 
 could such suggestions possibly have been made. 
 
 In sober fact, in December 1532, the latest date which 
 can be ascribed to the first edition of the first book of 
 
194 ETIENNE DOLET chap, ix 
 
 Pantagruel, Dolet was still a student at Toulouse, he was 
 not a printer until six years later, and Rabelais and he 
 had never met. Their acquaintance, which commenced in 
 August 1534, soon ripened into friendship, though in a 
 very few weeks after they first met their opportunities of 
 personal intercourse ceased for a time. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 The Ciceronians 
 
 Ira truces inimicitias et funebre bellum. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 Seraphic Doctor. The Lord have mercy on your position, 
 You wretched, wrangling culler of herbs ! 
 
 Cherubic Doctor. May he send your soul to eternal perdition 
 For your treatise on the irregular verbs ! 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 N the meantime Dolet 
 had given up the idea 
 of practising the law 
 and of returning to 
 Italy to prosecute his 
 studies. In the culti- 
 vated literary society of 
 Lyons he returned to 
 his original intention of 
 devoting his life to 
 letters, an intention which 
 he had only given up 
 out of deference to the 
 advice of Jean de Lan- 
 geac. The latter had now retired from public affairs to the 
 seclusion of his episcopal city of Limoges, and his influence 
 
196 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 was probably but slender. The decree of the Parliament of 
 Toulouse had cut off all hopes which Dolet might have 
 entertained of filling some legal office within its jurisdiction 
 which the influence of Jean de Pins might have obtained 
 for him. Moreover, the publication of the Orations had 
 certainly taken away any locus pcenitentia, if indeed any such 
 had previously been possible. He was now hard at work 
 on his Commentaries on the Latin Tongue, his opus magnum, 
 which he hoped and believed, and not on altogether in- 
 sufficient grounds, would be the most important contribution 
 to Latin scholarship the modern world had as yet seen. As 
 a Trdpepyov he was preparing to break a lance in defence of 
 Cicero and Longolius with the most eminent and popular 
 writer and scholar of the age. 
 
 By the publication (in 1528) of his dialogue Ciceronianus, 
 Erasmus had excited the violent hatred of the Ciceronians. 
 The object of the book was to ridicule those pedants whose 
 admiration for Cicero was so great that they refused to 
 make use of any word or phrase which was not to be found 
 in that writer, and who accordingly, when treating of 
 Christian subjects, were obliged to make use of the most 
 inappropriate names, titles, and expressions, adapted only 
 to the pagan worship. What absurdity could be greater 
 than to call the apostles Patres conscripti, the Virgin Mary 
 Lauretana Virgo, or to substitute for excommunication 
 interdictio aqu<e et ignis ? The three persons of the Trinity 
 were the Dii major es, the saints the Dii minor es. But the 
 Ciceronians regarded Cicero not only as a master of style, 
 but as an infallible guide on every subject on which he had 
 spoken. Erasmus had long treated these foolish pedants 
 as they deserved, being himself perhaps too careless of style 
 and form, and judging of all writings according to the 
 weight and value of the matter. Treating of the subjects 
 which interested his own day he used freely all kinds of 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 197 
 
 expressions, not altogether barbarous, which he found in 
 any Latin writer, whether heathen or Christian. The 
 opinions and practices of Erasmus on this subject had long 
 been well known, and the Italians in particular, who were 
 the chief Ciceronians, could not bear to see themselves 
 eclipsed in reputation by a barbarian, especially one who 
 placed matter above form and style, and while paying all 
 due respect to Cicero, declined to worship him as a god. 
 They accordingly accused him of heresy, they nicknamed 
 him Porrophagus because of his frequent use of the word 
 Porro, they charged him with stealing his translations, and 
 with blundering in his emendations. To revenge himself 
 for these attacks, and to crush once for all the folly of the 
 sect, was the object of the Ciceronianus, which, after the 
 Encomium Morite, is perhaps the most lively and entertaining 
 of his works, written, as Gibbon has remarked, with that 
 exquisite species of humour of which the Lettres Provinciates 
 offer so fine a specimen. It is in the form of a dialogue \ 
 between Nosoponus the Ciceronian, and two others, Bule- 
 phorus and Hypologus, who by pretending to sympathise 
 with him, draw out the full admission of his absurdities, and 
 succeed at last in restoring him to a greater soundness of 
 mind than before. Nosoponus recounts how he has disposed 
 of his library and has devoted himself for seven entire years 
 to reading nothing but Cicero, how he has made an alpha- 
 betical index of all the words used by Cicero, another of all 
 his expressions and forms of speech, a third of the feet of 
 which he has made use at the beginning, at the middle, and 
 at the end of his sentences, how he has noted all the words 
 that Cicero has used merely in the singular or merely in the 
 plural. The true Ciceronian, he says, must not only use no 
 word which is not to be found in Cicero, but no inflection 
 or part of a word : thus if Cicero use Amo, but not Amamus, 
 the former is alone allowable ; when he desires to compose, 
 
198 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 say an epistle to a friend, he must carefully examine the 
 letters of Cicero, must for each sentence first select from 
 them words and parts of speech, expressions must then be 
 added as appropriate ornaments. Thus a night will some- 
 times be spent in the composition of a single sentence, but a 
 sentence which even then will need careful and anxious 
 revision and recasting again and again. The sense is 
 altogether a minor consideration. Bulephorus then proceeds 
 to expose the absurdity of all this, using the Socratic method, 
 and putting his questions in such a form, that Nosoponus is 
 unable to refuse to admit what his opponent requires. He 
 draws from Nosoponus the admission that humour is a part 
 of rhetoric, but that there Cicero was deficient ; that brevity 
 is sometimes required, but that in this Sallust and Brutus are 
 better models ; that some parts of Cicero are lost, and there- 
 fore no one could be a perfect or complete Ciceronian, since 
 he must be ignorant of many words and phrases which 
 Cicero would have used ; that even in his extant writings 
 Cicero is not always equal ; that he himself valued some of 
 his books more than others, and that those who imitated 
 him so exactly are after all but apes, sharing neither in his 
 genius nor in his thoughts, and making but ridiculous 
 imitations of his style. Then Bulephorus proceeds to show 
 how utterly impossible it is to describe Christian mysteries 
 and Christian doctrines by Ciceronian words, and into what 
 absurdities they have fallen who have attempted this. He 
 then passes in review the several Latin writers from the 
 days of Cicero downwards, and shows that not one of these 
 was a Ciceronian according to the views of Nosoponus. It 
 was in this part that Erasmus gave so much offence to the 
 French, by placing Badius and Budasus on a level, perhaps 
 giving the superiority as a writer of Latin to Badius. To 
 Longolius he devotes several pages, and while admitting 
 the elegance, purity, and other merits of his style, the 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 199 
 
 ingenuity of his arguments, and the justness of his senti- 
 ments, he shows the utter emptiness and fatuity of the 
 orations of the vain and formal young Ciceronian, consisting 
 as they did for the most part of words and phrases devoid 
 of any substance, and often utterly absurd, and taking a 
 dozen lines to express what half a line would have been 
 sufficient for. 
 
 Notwithstanding the respectful terms in which Erasmus 
 had spoken of all who then wrote or aimed at writing in 
 the style of Cicero, and especially of the two leading 
 Ciceronians, Bembo and Sadolet, the publication of the 
 Ciceronianus roused much indignation among the servile 
 imitators of the great Roman orator. The French were 
 irritated by the apparent slight on Bude, the Italians 
 professed to think that by Nosoponus, Bembo was intended. 
 The two future cardinals indeed, being not merely Ciceronians, 
 but accomplished men of the world, were in no degree 
 offended by the book, and were probably willing to laugh 
 at the absurdities of their followers. There resided, how- 
 ever, at this time at Agen, a then unknown and obscure 
 Italian possessed of great learning and great abilities, but 
 whose vanity, self-conceit, violence of temper, and virulence 
 of language, certainly equalled if they did not outweigh 
 his real merits. His family was the noblest and most ancient 
 in the world. In his veins flowed the blood of emperors 
 and princes who had excelled all others in bravery, generosity, 
 and magnanimity. He was sixth in descent from the 
 Emperor Lewis the Bavarian. Matthias Corvinus, King of 
 Hungary, the last, the most accomplished, and the most 
 unfortunate of the Hunniadas, was his near kinsman. 
 Every one has heard of the ten daughters of his kinswoman 
 Beatrice Duchess of Milan, all of whom married into the 
 greatest sovereign houses of Europe, one to the King of 
 Sicily, another to Edward, son of the King of England. Yet 
 
^ 
 
 200 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 his own greatness of character far exceeded that of the most 
 distinguished among his ancestors. He united in his own 
 person the characteristics of Masinissa and Xenophon, but 
 the combination affords only an insufficient and feeble idea 
 of the man. Indeed, he must have excelled both of them, as 
 well in bodily as in mental qualities. At sixty-two years of 
 age, when he had almost lost the use of his hands, he lifted 
 into its place an enormous beam which four ordinary men 
 had not been able to move. Many similar feats, in which 
 we are at a loss whether most to admire his strength or 
 his agility, make us think that an excessive modesty only 
 induced him to compare himself with Masinissa. Hercules 
 would have been a more fitting subject for comparison. 
 His military prowess equalled his learning. He had no 
 less distinguished himself by his bravery as a private soldier 
 than by his skill and ability as a general ; and if he had not 
 always been successful, this was owing neither to want of 
 courage nor to want of military skill, but to the shafts 
 of adverse fortune. At the battle of Ravenna he displayed 
 prodigies of valour on the side and under the eyes of the 
 Emperor Maximilian ; he recovered from the French the 
 dead bodies of his father and his brother Titus, and the 
 eagle of which Titus was the bearer, and which he restored 
 to his imperial cousin. Maximilian could do no less than 
 reward the valour of his kinsman with the highest honours 
 of chivalry; with his own hand the Emperor conferred 
 upon him the collar, the spurs, and the eagle of gold, in like 
 manner as the Emperors Henry VII. and Lewis V. had 
 conferred them upon his ancestors Alboin, Can Grande, and 
 Mastino. Yet, were it not for the letter in which these 
 details are related, we should have said that it was proved 
 as clearly as any historical fact could be that Maximilian 
 was not present at the battle of Ravenna, and that his 
 five thousand lansquenets fought by the side of Gaston de 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 201 
 
 Foix and contributed in no small degree to the French 
 victory. But the military powers of the man were eclipsed 
 by his literary genius. There was no branch of literature 
 or science which he had not mastered. At one time he 
 had determined to take holy orders, in the expectation 
 that in due time he would be appointed cardinal, and then 
 elected pope, when he would have wrested from the 
 Venetians his principality of Verona, of which the Republic 
 had despoiled his ancestors. 
 
 That so great a genius should have been contented with 
 the role of physician to the Bishop of Agen — it is in this 
 humble position at the age of forty-two that the light of 
 contemporary history first shines upon Julius Caesar Sca- 
 liger — was not to be expected. Whatever the truth or 
 fable of the first forty-two years of his life, whether he was 
 really of the blood of those to whose memory the noblest ( 
 monuments of the Middle Ages were erected, or whether, 
 as his enemies said, he was the son of Benedetti Bordoni, 
 schoolmaster or illuminator at Verona, it is certain that 
 for his last thirty years he displayed no lack of bodily 
 or mental vigour. Chafing in the obscurity to which fate 
 had condemned him, he seized the opportunity which the 
 Ciceronianus afforded of making himself known and of in- 
 suring for himself — at least from the numerous enemies 
 of Erasmus — a favourable hearing. After preparing the 
 way by certain pompous and violent letters to the Rector 
 of the University and the students of the several colleges of 
 Paris, he wrote in 1529, but did not succeed in printing ' 
 until 1 53 1, his first oration against Erasmus. It was 
 printed under the supervision or editorship of Noel Beda, 
 and with the express permission of the Lieutenant-Criminel, 
 Jean Morin. It consists almost wholly of violent abuse. 
 The following are a few only of the expressions applied to 
 the great scholar : — carnifex, parricida, furia, canicula, 
 
202 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 calumniator. He is accused of folly, arrogance, spite, lying, 
 drunkenness, ' canina impudentia.' Yet in Scaliger's letters 
 to Le Ferron he outdoes even these flowers of rhetoric ; 
 Erasmus is there referred to as ' omnium ordinum labes, 
 omnium studiorum macula, omnium astatum venenum, 
 mendaciorum parens, conviciorum sator, furoris alumnus.' 
 He is ' scelestus, mentiens, insaniens, barbarus, blaterans.' 
 
 The publication of this harangue, if in one respect it 
 satisfied its author's expectation by giving him the notoriety 
 which he had hoped for, was yet the occasion of a most 
 bitter mortification to him. He had expected that 
 Erasmus would at once reply to it, and that he thus 
 might enjoy the honour of a controversy with the greatest 
 scholar of the age. But Erasmus was too accustomed to 
 abuse to pay much attention to it, and he as well as 
 his friends saw that his reputation could in no way be 
 injured by this violent harangue. He accordingly took no 
 public notice of it ; never having before heard the name 
 of the writer, and thinking, not unnaturally, that such vio- 
 lent personal abuse could only arise from violent personal 
 i enmity. Erasmus did not believe that Scaliger was the 
 i real author, but attributed the oration to Aleander, whose 
 istyle he was certain he recognised. He wrote on May 3, 
 1532 : — 'I who know Aleander inside and out, am as sure 
 that it is his as I am of my own existence.' 1 Scaliger 
 waited in vain for a reply to his book. Mortified by the 
 ricontemptuous neglect of Erasmus, he was contemplating 
 I a further harangue on the same subject, when he received 
 i in April 1535 from his friends Merbelius and Laurentius 
 a letter 2 which Erasmus had written to them on the 1 8 th 
 
 1 Erasmi Epistola, No. 1 2 1 8 (Le Clerc's edit.). ' Ego qui de domestico 
 convictu ac lectuli quoque contubernio totum intus et in cute novi, tarn 
 scio esse ovum illius quam scio me vivere.' 
 
 2 Epist. 1278. 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 203 
 
 of the previous month defending himself from the charge 
 of being an enemy of Cicero, and saying that he knew the 
 oration of Scaliger, so full of lies and abuse, was not written 
 by him. We can understand the combination of rage and 
 mortified vanity which filled Scaliger's mind on reading 
 this letter, sent to him without a word of sympathy or 
 even politeness by his good-natured friends. He instantly! 
 applied himself to the composition of a second harangue,! 
 more violent, more abusive, with more self-glorification, 
 but with even less literary merit, than the first. It was 
 completed in the month of September the same year, 
 and immediately sent to Paris to be printed. But delays 
 occurred ; a year elapsed before it appeared ; and when in 
 December 1536 it was given to the world, Erasmus, who 
 had heard that it had been written, but had not seen it, 
 had joined the majority. 1 
 
 Dolet was not less displeased than Scaliger with the j 
 Ciceronianus. It was the attack — so he was pleased to j 
 consider it — upon the cherished master and friend of Simon j 
 Villanovanus, Longolius, the only man from this side of j 
 the Alps who had made a name as a Ciceronian, and whom J 
 Dolet had accustomed himself to consider as the most 
 perfect disciple of the great master, that especially roused 
 his indignation ; a feeling which we must allow to have 
 
 1 Although printed (and published) in November or December 1536, 
 yet in accordance with the vicious practice early introduced amongst 
 publishers, and not yet obsolete, it is dated 1537. The original editions 
 of both harangues are extremely scarce. The first harangue was reprinted 
 at Cologne in 1600, and again, with notes by Melchior Adam, at 
 Heidelberg in 1618. In 1621 the President de Maussac having discovered 
 a copy of each of the harangues, and also some unpublished letters and 
 portions of letters of J. C. Scaliger, which Joseph's pious regard for his 
 father's reputation had induced him to suppress, and which are still more 
 discreditable to Julius Caesar than the harangues, published them at 
 Toulouse, together with the Ciceronianus of Erasmus. 
 
2o 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 sprung from a generous impulse, even though we may 
 not share it. But this was not the only cause of his 
 ( indignation. If there was one living man for whom he 
 had an unfeigned respect, and whom he placed at the 
 head of all living scholars, it was Bude, and he conceived 
 that Erasmus had intended a deliberate insult to this great 
 man by placing him on a level with Josse Bade. 
 
 He left Lyons early in October 1534, and arrived in 
 I [Paris on the 15th of the same month. His principal object 
 in visiting the capital seems to have been to obtain the 
 royal license for the publication of his Commentaries. For 
 ■ some weeks after his arrival he devoted himself partly to 
 >his great work, partly to composing A Dialogue concerning 
 \the imitation of Cicero in defence of Christopher Longolius 
 [against Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. It is dedicated 
 to Bishop de Langeac, and as soon as it was completed 
 he sent it to Guillaume Sceve, accompanied by the following 
 letter : — 
 
 ' On the 1 5 th of October I arrived at Paris without ex- 
 cessive fatigue and without meeting with any misadventure 
 on the way. And as I fancy you will expect me to write 
 to you what I am doing, and how I occupy myself in 
 cultivating and prosecuting my studies, I will in the first 
 place explain this to you, and will then inform you of what 
 is passing here. 
 
 ' My studies, my dear Sceve, become more serious daily. 
 Indeed I can hardly express, and you will with difficulty 
 conceive with what alacrity, inflamed as it were by a new 
 love, I devote myself to literature. I both plan and write 
 many things, as to which however I shall not arouse your 
 expectation until I perceive that I am able to complete 
 / them. I send you a dialogue concerning the imitation 
 of Cicero against Erasmus, which you will hand to 
 \ Gryphius. I shall be under very great obligation to you 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 205 
 
 if you will see that it is printed as carefully as possible. 
 Do not allow your kindness to me, which has never yet 
 failed, to fail in this instance. The trivial crowd of gram- 
 marians who worship Erasmus as a deity, and place him 
 before Cicero, will scarcely refrain from attacks upon me. 
 Moreover I do not doubt that the old man 1 (who is now 
 almost childish with age) will ridicule the young man 
 with his usual and persistent scurrility. But nothing 
 troubles me less than the scurrility of a buffoon, nor do 
 I fear any sharper bite from the toothless old food-for- 
 worms 2 ; while as to those who may accuse me of in- 
 solence, and may cover me with reproaches because I 
 attack Erasmus, let them in the first place consider in 
 what way they can defend Erasmus himself from the 
 charge of insolence and scurrility in venturing to ridicule 
 Cicero and those who strive to imitate him. 
 
 ' I spend my evenings in rewriting my Commentaries 
 on the Latin Language, which I hope to complete by the 
 beginning of January. The remainder of the winter I shall 
 devote to enlarging my orations and epistles for another 
 edition. I should not promise so many things if I had 
 not determined on this, that for once I would show what it 
 was to be eagerly and studiously devoted to letters, and 
 what it was to undergo labour for the sake of immortality, 
 and would also show that I hated idleness worse than 
 death. . . . 
 
 ' Yet however much study, labour, and diligence I devote 
 to literature, I refer whatever I compose to your judgment, 
 so that you may order my writings to be suppressed, or 
 may decide that they shall be published, for I am certain 
 that you will neither desire that I should remain for ever 
 unknown, nor, owing to the premature appearance of the 
 
 1 Erasmus was only sixty-seven years of age. 
 2 ' Silicernium.' 
 
206 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 fruits of my studies, that I should obtain a merely slight 
 reputation rather than one which is firmly fixed. I think 
 it is my duty, whilst my age and the abundance of my 
 leisure allows, to devote myself as vigorously as possible 
 to literature, but only to publish such things as, without 
 flattery, I may understand to be approved as well by the 
 judgment of other learned men as of yourself. 
 
 ' My great devotion to study forbids me from setting 
 foot out of doors, so completely am I bound to literature. 
 It thus happens that I have not yet visited your friend 
 ifEmilius * ; I have, however, taken care to send him your 
 letter. Nor have I as yet paid my respects to Bude, which 
 may indeed be considered as a great omission on my 
 part. I shall visit him the first opportunity, and to this 
 I shall for a short time postpone my work and my present 
 studies. 
 
 'Now you will expect to hear what is doing and what 
 is talked of at Paris. You shall then have all I can tell 
 you. It would be a tedious and difficult task for me to 
 describe the great confusion and excitement in which 
 things are here. In the talk of the vulgar one hears of 
 nothing but the insults offered to Christ by the Lutherans. 
 That foolish sect, led away by a pernicious passion for 
 notoriety, has lately scattered abroad certain reproaches 
 directed against the Christian worship, 2 which have still 
 more vehemently inflamed the hatred under which they 
 had previously been labouring. Many have been cast into 
 prison on suspicion of Lutheran errors, some of them be- 
 longing to the dregs of the people, others to the highest 
 
 1 Probably Emile Perrot, who was at this time a councillor of the 
 Parliament of Paris, and was certainly afterwards known to Dolet. £mile 
 Ferret, whe was also a councillor of the Parliament, may, however, be the 
 person intended. 
 
 2 The well-known affair of the placards occurred in October 1534. 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 207 
 
 rank of merchants. At these tragedies 1 I play the part 
 of a spectator. I grieve over the situation, and pity the 
 misfortunes of some of the accused, while I laugh at the 
 folly of others in putting their lives in danger by their 
 ridiculous self-will and unbearable obstinacy. 
 
 ' Write to me as long and as frequent letters as possible, 
 telling me, in the first place, all about yourself, and in the 
 next what is passing at Lyons. Do not omit to tell me 
 who are favourable and who are hostile to me on account 
 of that edition of my Orations which has lately been 
 published. I hear that the rage of the Tolosans against 
 me is in no degree allayed, and that they are wickedly 
 striving to do me some mischief. Unless, however, they 
 cease from their attacks they will irritate one who at 
 present is quiet, but whose bite when once excited they 
 will hardly be able to bear, and by the severity of my pen 
 I shall make the fools bitterly repent of their folly. 
 
 ' I will, however, say but little" on these matters, lest the 
 recollection of my enemies should excite my indignation 
 at a time when I am unwilling to be so excited. Salute 
 specially from me your friends the Vauzelles, 2 most culti- 
 
 1 It was only the day after this letter was written that the fifth acts 
 of these tragedies were performed. On the ioth of November 1534, as/ 
 we learn from the journal of a ' Bourgeois de Paris,' three heretics were 
 committed to the flames in the Place Maubert, Paris, and from that day 
 to the 5th of May 1535, no less than twenty-two persons were there/ 
 burned for heresy. 
 
 2 ' No one,' says M. Baudrier in his interesting introduction to the 
 Police Subsidiaire of Jean de Vauzelles (privately printed for the learned 
 President of the Court of Appeal by Perrin and Marinet in 1875), 'but 
 he who is completely a stranger to the history of our city, can be ignorant 
 of Mathieu, George, and Jean de Vauzelles, the three illustrious brothers, 
 so styled by their contemporaries, who shone each with a different lustre, 
 the first under the robe of a jurisconsult and the mantle of an echevin, 
 the second by arms, and the third in the church and literature.' Notices 
 of the three Vauzelles will be found in Colonia, Hist. Lit. de Lyon, ii. 
 
208 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 vated of men, and most cordial well-wishers of all men 
 of letters ; also our very kind friend Fournier. 1 All 
 these I especially love and hold dear. Farewell. Paris, 9 
 Nov. 1534.' 
 
 It is impossible to defend and difficult to excuse the 
 scurrility with which Dolet in this eplistle — afterwards 
 printed as a preface to his Dialogue — speaks of the greatest 
 scholar and the foremost man of letters of the age. All 
 
 568-575, in Pernetti, Les Lyonnois dignes de m'emoire, i. 322-328, in two 
 interesting articles by Ludovic de Vauzelles in the Revue du Lyonnais, 
 1870 and 1872, on Mathieu de Vauzelles and Jean de Vauzelles, and in 
 the Vie de Jacques Comte de Vintimille by the same author (Orleans, 
 Herluison, 1865). The three brothers were all men of wealth and 
 literary tastes. George, a commander of the Order of St. John of 
 Jerusalem, was especially a liberal patron of men of letters. Jean, Prior 
 of Montrottier, was distinguished by his practical benevolence ; and in 
 his Police Subsidiaire, ou Assistance donn'ee a la multitude des pauvres, first 
 printed in 1 531, and fortunately rescued from oblivion by the pious care 
 of M. Baudrier, 'we have,' as the editor remarks, 'la premiere idee de la 
 creation de l'Aumone Generale, une des gloires de Lyon, le type des 
 etablissements destines a lutter contre le pauperisme,' and which ' a servi 
 de modele a tous les autres h6pitaux du royaume, m£me a l'h6pital 
 general de Paris.' 
 
 Voulte has the following epigram on the three brothers : — 
 
 Ad tres Vauxellks Fratres. 
 Tres fratre9 celeberrimi optimorum ; 
 Tre8 vita, et genio, et pares amore ; 
 Quibus una domus tribus, fidesque 
 Una est, una eadem tribus voluntas $ 
 Vos sic vivite semper et valete 
 Humanis pariter Diisque grati. 
 
 Epigrammata (Lugd. 1537), p. 258. 
 
 1 The Fourniers were a family of wealth and position at Lyons in the 
 sixteenth century, distinguished by their love of letters. Hugues Fournier, 
 First President of the Parliament of Dijon, died in 1525 ; and I imagine 
 that his more celebrated brother Humbert was dead before this time. 
 Probably Dolet's friend was Claude Fournier, author of a Latin ode on the 
 death of the Dauphin inserted in the collection edited by Dolet in 1536. 
 The second wife of Mathieu de Vauzelles was a Fournier, his first a 
 Sceve. 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 209 
 
 that can be said in extenuation is that scurrility of this kind 
 was a common practice of the literary men of the day in 
 writing of their opponents, that we find it in men distin- 
 guished for their ability, learning, and virtue, and that, 
 violent as the language of Dolet appears to be, it is far less 
 violent, far less scurrilous, and far less unseemly than that 
 which Julius Cassar Scaliger used of the same great man, 
 or that which Luther applied to Henry VIII. and his other 
 opponents, whilst it is absolutely moderate in comparison 
 with the language of Filelfo, of Poggio, and of Valla. 
 Nor must we forget the graceful tribute which Dolet 
 afterwards paid to Erasmus when dead, nor his admission 
 that he had used language towards him of too hostile a 
 nature. 
 
 The publication of the orations seems to have beenl 
 against the judgment of Gryphius, who would not allow 
 his name to appear as the printer, and who was resolute 
 against printing a second edition, although pressed to do 
 so both by Dolet and several of his friends. The Dia- 
 logue, although learned and ingenious, was yet written in 
 so intemperate a style that it could scarcely have been 
 approved by the more prudent among the friends of the 
 author, and Sceve and Gryphius showed themselves in 
 no hurry to publish it. On the 31st of December it was 
 still unprinted, and Dolet, in writing from Paris to Jacques 
 Rostagno, sent a message to Sceve urging the printing 
 of the Dialogue. Whether it actually appeared before 
 its author returned to Lyons we do not know. Certain] 
 it is that Dolet had returned, and that the Dialogue had! | 
 been printed, some time before the middle of 1535. 
 
 The book is in the form of an imaginary conversation 
 between Sir Thomas More and Simon Villanovanus, which 
 is supposed to take place at Padua during Dolet's residence 
 at that University. The introduction and conclusion, 
 
210 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 from which I have already made some extracts, are 
 written with much spirit, and it would be pleasant to 
 think that it might have been possible for Sir Thomas 
 More to have met Dolet and Villanovanus at Padua ; but 
 though we know that Sir Thomas More's desires, like 
 those of all other learned men of the day, tended towards 
 a visit to Italy, the accomplishment of his wish was denied 
 to him. More, as the friend of Erasmus, is his defender ; 
 and nearly all that is put in his mouth is to be found in 
 the writings of the great scholar. It cannot be said that 
 the Dialogue itself is of much worth or interest. Though 
 far less intemperate than the orations of Scaliger, yet, 
 as might be expected from the author, the abuse lavished 
 on Erasmus equals that which all with whom Dolet dif- 
 fered received from his pen. 
 
 The publication of the Dialogue, whilst it could not but 
 shock the friends and admirers of Erasmus, was treated 
 by the latter with the same silent contempt which had 
 so irritated J. C. Scaliger. Curiously enough he attributed 
 this new attack also to Aleander. 1 He more than once 
 refers to the book. In the letter to Merbelius and 
 Laurentius, 2 already mentioned, he says, ' I have heard 
 that a work has just appeared against me at Lyons. The 
 author is Etienne Dolet. ... I have not yet seen it, and 
 when I do see it I have no intention of replying to it.' 3 
 
 1 'Aleander denuo emisit librum furiosum sub nomine Doled : quo 
 et Morum quern apceperat esse in carcere ulciscitur ; et Villanovanum 
 mendicum mortuum facit imperiosum, Morum timide loquentem.' Epist. 
 1288, written to Goclenius, Sept. 2, 1535. Again he writes to the same 
 on June 28, 1536 : 'Suspicor harum molestiarum Ttx vLrr l v esse eum 1 u i 
 Scaligeros, Doletos, Merulas in me subornat. ... In furioso dialogo 
 Doleti Morus vexatur.' Epist. 1299. 
 
 2 March 18, 1535. Epist. 1278. 
 
 3 Nee de la Rochelle, whose language here as elsewhere is borrowed 
 by M. Boulmier, says the Dialogue ' lui (Dolet) valut la haine d'firasme.' 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 211 
 
 Melanchthon, while censuring the attack of Dolet, paid it 
 the compliment (which he had not paid to the harangue 
 of Scaliger) of thinking it ought to be answered, if not by 
 Erasmus, at least by some one. He writes to Camerarius 
 in 1535, 'I have seen Dolet's book, and I am thinking of 
 instructing some one to reply to it. Erasmus indeed is 
 not altogether undeserving of the Nemesis which he has 
 met with, but the impudence of this young man displeases 
 me.' 1 Shortly afterwards, writing to another correspond- 
 ent, he says, ' Have you read that very impudent book 
 of Dolet written against Erasmus ? I have taken care that 
 it should be answered.' 2 
 
 The publication of the Dialogue considerably increased 
 the reputation of its author for scholarship, and indeed 
 may be said to have introduced his name for the first time 
 to the world of letters. The volume containing the ora- 
 tions was not of general interest, and its circulation, probably 
 to some extent surreptitious, would be confined almost 
 entirely to those persons at Lyons and Toulouse who 
 were specially interested in the details of the author's 
 quarrels. The Dialogue obtained a much wider circulation, 
 and whatever its merits or demerits, at least informed men 
 of letters that a new and vigorous aspirant to literary 
 honours had appeared. The subject of the Dialogue was 
 not however at the time of its publication of very absorb- 
 ing interest. Six years had elapsed since the appearance 
 of the Ciceronianus. The popularity of the Ciceronians 
 was on the wane. The men of the new learning rightly 
 looked upon Erasmus as their great leader, as one who 
 
 There is no evidence to support this statement. The only references 
 made by Erasmus to the Dialogue or its author are those which I have 
 quoted. 
 
 1 Epist. Melanchthonis, lib. iv. No. 180, p. 732 (edit, of London, 1642, 
 fol.). 
 
 2 Epistolarum Liber, primus editus (Leyden, 1647), p. 91. 
 
212 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 more than all others had contributed to the promotion, 
 as well of literature generally, as of the study of Greek, 
 and as having by his ridicule and his common-sense greatly 
 contributed to the overthrow of superstition and bigotry ; 
 while the quarrel of the Ciceronians and anti-Ciceronians 
 was one with which the opponents of the new learning 
 troubled themselves but little, as being a matter with 
 which they had no concern. But the publication of the 
 Dialogue, if it did not obtain for its author all the fame 
 which he hoped for, procured for him the bitter and re- 
 lentless hatred of Julius Caesar Scaliger. 
 
 We have already seen that messages of civility had been 
 interchanged between Scaliger and Dolet through the inter- 
 vention of Arnoul Le Ferron, but it seems as if during 
 Dolet's troubled residence at Toulouse the great scholar 
 and critic entertained a somewhat unfriendly feeling to- 
 wards the young student, and that he had taken the part 
 of Pinache in the matter of the orations. But on the 
 subject of the quarrel of the Ciceronians they were on the 
 same side, both ardent supporters of the purity of the 
 language of Cicero, both bitterly prejudiced against Erasmus. 
 But as we have seen, nearly three years before the 
 appearance of the Dialogue, Scaliger had published his 
 Oratio -pro Cicerone contra Erasmum, a production of 
 even less merit than the Dialogue of Dolet, less lively and 
 entertaining, and far more violent in its language. In 
 the opinion of Scaliger, when he had spoken, nothing 
 further was needed, or even allowable. His venom was 
 bitter enough against his adversaries, but what he wrote 
 of them was as it were with a pen dipped in honey com- 
 pared with the language he used against the presumptuous 
 young man who had dared to think that Erasmus was 
 not completely demolished by his oration, and that anything 
 further could possibly be said in favour of the Ciceronians. 
 
x THE CICERONI ANS 213 
 
 The violent abuse which Scaliger lavished upon the poetry 
 of Dolet induced Naude 1 first to suspect that the critic 
 must have had some private enmity to the poet, but it 
 was reserved to Bayle to discover the ground of that 
 enmity, and to call attention to a letter written by Scaliger 
 to Arnoul Le Ferron immediately after the appearance of I 
 the Dialogue, in which Scaliger shows how bitterly wounded ' 
 his self-love was by its publication. 2 ' I suppose,' he says, 
 ' you have seen Dolet's Dialogue against Erasmus, the 
 author of which was not ashamed when my writings were 
 in print, to steal everything from me, by giving my oration 
 another turn and decking it out with his tinsel. 3 There 
 appear the same extravagances as in his orations, a style 
 indeed a little less rough, but for which he is indebted to 
 another, so that his loquacity seems to be supported rather 
 by other people's words collected and raked together than 
 by solid arguments. But you will say he praises Caesar ; 4 
 he does so ; for they say you advised him to consult his 
 reputation by doing so, he having already rashly and 
 
 1 Dial, de Mascurat. p. 8. 
 
 2 The greater portion of this letter, as well as the others in abuse of 
 Erasmus, were suppressed by Joseph Scaliger, and did not appear in the 
 collection of his father's letters published in his lifetime, nor in the 
 subsequent editions based on this. Copies however were discovered at 
 Toulouse by the President de Maussac, who published them in 1621. 
 Schelhorn afterwards found copies in the library of Z. C. von Uffenbach, 
 and printed them in his Amcenitates Liter aria (vols. 6 and 8), not knowing 
 of Maussac's edition. 
 
 3 This is an utterly groundless charge. The oration of Scaliger and 
 the Dialogue of Dolet have really nothing in common, — except abuse of 
 Erasmus ; neither the treatment, style, nor matter of Dolet is borrowed 
 from Scaliger. 
 
 4 Dolet had spoken of Scaliger in the following terms : ' Julium 
 Caesarem Scaligerum tibi hie objicerem, virum Ciceronis lectioni multum 
 deditum, in quo grammatics subsidia non desideres, dicendi facultatem 
 laudes.' 
 
2i 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 foolishly ridiculed the Italian name. You had informed 
 him also that I was preparing a Dialogue wherein I should 
 expose his malicious temper and empty arrogance, his 
 petulance and stupidity, his impropriety and loquacity, his 
 raving expressions and impudence. Having thus soothed 
 me with design to divert me from my purpose, he praised 
 me in such a manner that he seemed unwillingly to 
 follow the judgment of other people rather than express 
 his own. Wherefore I have endeavoured that both he and 
 others may for the future repent of their rage and impu- 
 dence. I hear he is a corrector of the press at Lyons ; 
 and if it be true that he was concerned in correcting the 
 books I bought which were lately printed by Gryphius, 
 our very schoolboys have therein discovered faults for 
 which he deserves a severe whipping. I have reprimanded 
 him in this second oration, not by name indeed, but 
 painted in such colours that he may be known by the very 
 children of Toulouse.' 1 
 
 In this and several other letters, written about the same 
 time to Le Ferron, Scaliger shows himself equally sore and 
 equally violent. We can forgive the great critic for 
 feeling somewhat mortified that a young and unknown 
 man should have thought that his oration needed supple- 
 menting, for, as Bayle remarks, 2 ' There are very few authors 
 who like such a procedure ; it is looked upon as adopted 
 with a design either of surpassing the first champion or 
 of depriving him of the glory of being the only person who 
 breaks a lance. It is even thought that he who interposes 
 
 1 Scaliger must have struck out of his second oration, possibly at Le 
 Ferron's request, the passages here indicated. In the second oration as 
 printed Dolet is only once referred to, and merely as having imitated 
 Scaliger's first oration. Niceron {Mem. xxi. p. 119) is in error in saying 
 of this second oration, ' Dolet qui en faisoit le principal objet, ne fut 
 point epargne.' 
 
 2 Diet. art. Dolet. 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 215 
 
 in the combat judges the cause as not being well defended, 
 and as standing in need of assistance.' But it is impossible 
 to justify either the violence of Scaliger's language, or the 
 undying hatred which he bore to Dolet during the latter's 
 life, and with which he violated his memory after his 
 death. 
 
 The poems of Dolet do not indeed seem to justify the 
 exaggerated admiration which many of his contemporaries, 
 and even those most competent to judge, lavished upon 
 them. The literary men who in the sixteenth century 
 were bound together by the ties of friendship seem to have 
 constituted mutual admiration societies, and whatever was 
 written by one was lauded up to the skies by the rest. 
 But there are certainly some among his poems which, if 
 not equal to the best Latin poetry of the Renaissance, to 
 that of Vida, Sannazar, or Paleario, are devoid neither of 
 beauty of thought nor elegance of language ; and no one 
 will find fault with Gruter for inserting several of them 
 among the Deliti<e -poetarum Gallorum, whilst of those he 
 has omitted, there are not a few which are superior to the 
 poems of several authors who are included in his collection. 
 The ode on the death of Simon Villanovanus is alone 
 sufficient to show how absolutely unfair and unreasoning 
 is the criticism of Scaliger contained in the following 
 passage, written, it pains one to remember, after the flames 
 had consumed the body of Dolet, and when all purely 
 literary enmities should have become extinct. But the 
 violence of Scaliger increases to brutality as he insults the 
 memory and gloats over the fate of the unfortunate poet. 
 ' Dolet may be called the canker or ulcer {carcinoma aut 
 vomica) of the Muses. For besides that in so great a body, 
 as Catullus says, 1 there is not a grain of wit, fool as he is, 
 he sets up for a tyrant in poetry. He has according to his 
 
 1 Nulla in tarn magno est corpore mica salis. — Catullus. 
 
216 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 own fancy set Virgil's pearls in his own resin in such a 
 manner that he would have them pass for his. A wretched 
 prater, who out of scraps of Cicero has patched up certain 
 wild orations as he calls them, but which the learned judge 
 to be latrations. He imagined he had as good a right to 
 make free with the divine works of Virgil. So while he 
 was singing the fate of that good and great king Francis, 
 his name met with its own evil fate, and the Atheist alone 
 suffered the punishment of the flames which both he and 
 his verses deserved. Yet the flames did not purify him, 
 but he rather sullied them. "Why should I speak of the 
 filth which is to be found in the common sink or sewer of 
 his Epigrams ? They are dull, cold, and witless, and full of 
 that arrogant madness which, being armed with the most 
 consummate impudence, would not even confess the being 
 of a God. Wherefore as the greatest of philosophers, Aris- 
 totle, in discoursing of the nature of animals, first describes 
 the several parts of which they are composed, and then 
 takes notice even of their excrements, so let his name be 
 read here, not as that of a poet, but of a poetical excre- 
 ment.' 1 
 
 Scaliger's judgment on the style of the orations as being 
 patched up out of scraps of Cicero is not altogether unjust ; 
 both the orations and epistles are to a great extent made up 
 of expressions and portions of sentences borrowed from 
 Cicero, so as to form a sort of cento. But his criticism 
 upon the odes of Dolet is equally if not more applicable 
 to his own compositions. Whatever defects are to be found 
 in the poems of Dolet are still more conspicuous in those 
 of Scaliger himself; and the judgment of the Bishop of 
 Avranches will be concurred in by every one who has 
 read them. ' With all the merit which he (J. C. Scaliger) 
 really had,' writes Huet, 'and with all that he believed 
 1 Poetices, lib. vi. (Hypercriticus). 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 217 
 
 he had, he has clearly shown in his Hypercriticus, by 
 the false judgments which he has there delivered, that 
 he had no delicacy of taste. . . . He has shown it still 
 better by the brutish and formless poems with which he has 
 dishonoured Parnassus.' 1 'Julius Csesar Scaliger was in 
 truth a man of a vast and elevated spirit, but of the very 
 worst taste in poetry. Even if one had not read his 
 Hypercriticus, so full of false views, so much more occupied 
 in judging the details of single lines and in correcting minute 
 points, even changing them from bad to worse, than in 
 bringing a sound judgment to bear on complete works, could 
 one ever submit oneself to the decision of a man who has 
 given to the world so much bad verse ? ' 2 Maittaire, who 
 quotes this passage, remarks, 3 ' Far from disapproving the 
 criticism of Huet, I think it perfectly just, for how can we 
 believe that he could be a competent judge of literary style 
 who is incapable himself of good writing ? yet no creatures 
 are more commonly met with than critics who, wanting in 
 all decency of manners, full of nothing but pedantry, with 
 the utmost effrontery would submit all writers to their 
 audacious ferule, while they themselves are most notorious 
 for their awkwardness and ruggedness of style.' ' There is 
 hardly a more wretched book,' remarks Menage of the Latin 
 poems of Julius Cassar Scaliger ; ' we can hardly find four or 
 five epigrams which can pass muster.' 4 
 
 But the violence and intemperance of Dolet's Dialogue 
 not only offended the admirers of Erasmus, but were a 
 source of regret to the author's own friends, and to none 
 more than the sensible and moderate Jean de Boyssone, 
 who was now fully restored to his position as a professor of 
 law in the University of Toulouse. In the year 1535 his 
 reputation was greatly increased by a public discussion with 
 
 1 Hue ti ana, c. 5. 2 Ibid. c. 35. 
 
 3 Annates, vol. iii. p. 16. * Menagiana, ii. 275. 
 
 V 
 
218 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Ambrose Catharin, 1 in which he maintained with signal 
 success and ability, that the cultivation of literature was not 
 only no hindrance, but even an assistance to legal studies. 
 In a letter to Dolet, written shortly before the end of August 
 in that year, after giving an account of the discussion, and 
 making some remarks on Dolet's expected Commentaries on 
 the Latin Tongue, he thus proceeds : 2 ' As to what is thought 
 here of your dialogue De Imitatione Ctceroniana, though you 
 will no doubt have heard everything from others before this, 
 yet I must tell you that the bitterness of your style, which 
 you once promised me you would discontinue, has produced 
 a bad effect upon many, because (as they say) you ought not 
 to have attacked so violently an old man who has rendered 
 such great services to literature. The rumour is that the 
 Germans are preparing a vigorous attack upon you in order 
 to avenge the wounded dignity of Erasmus. Whatever 
 happens I trust you will not be disturbed by these matters, 
 but will continue, as is your wont, to show an unshaken 
 firmness of mind. This only I would beg of you, that you 
 would so accommodate yourself to the time as that it should 
 not seem inevitable for you to offend the good and pious. 
 When I ask this of you, you will understand what I mean. 
 But more of this presently when we meet, for I am thinking 
 of going to Lyons if the king should come there. If you 
 wish to know what is going on here I will now tell you. Six 
 French students are in danger of capital punishment ; indeed 
 they would already have been condemned to the gallows, had 
 not Minut, who is the devoted friend not only of the French 
 but of all the really studious, by great prudence prevented it. 
 
 1 See A. Touron, Histoire des Hommes Illustres de Pordre de S. Dominique 
 (6 vols. Paris, 1747), iv. p. 133. 
 
 2 MS. Correspondence of Jean de Boyssone in the Toulouse library, 
 fol. xvii. The interest which the Dialogue excited is further shown by a 
 letter in the same volume, fol. vi. from Castellanus to Boyssone, asking 
 for the loan of the book. 
 
x THE CICERONI ANS 219 
 
 I know not by what evil fate it happens that Toulouse is 
 always persecuting the studious. Yet owing to this very 
 persecution their names are rendered so much the more 
 illustrious. If they should after all be punished with death, 
 I could not bear to see it, but should betake myself some- 
 where or other so as not to be a witness. But enough of 
 these matters, which cause me the deepest grief whenever 
 they recur to my mind. 
 
 ' The Queen of Navarre was at Toulouse lately for some 
 days. It was really wonderful how kindly she received me, 
 although I had never before been personally known to her. 
 She very earnestly pressed me to reside at Bourges, and I 
 have not decided whether I shall not at some time do so. 
 Farewell.' 
 
 Dolet replied to this letter on the 31st of August: 1 
 ' What you designate as the excessive severity of my Dialogue 
 I have determined not to excuse to you at great length. I 
 will excuse it, or rather defend it, with all my might against 
 those who undertake the cause of Erasmus. You will 
 scarcely believe how little account I make of the attack of 
 that young German fellow, 2 an attack which I attribute to 
 
 1 MS. Correspondence of Boyssone in the Toulouse library, fol. i. 
 
 2 I have been unable to discover who the young German was who 
 took up the defence of Erasmus against Dolet. I am acquainted with no 
 book printed before the end of 1536 that refers to the Dialogue. It is 
 curious to observe that Melanchthon's letter, in which he says, 'cogito de 
 aliquo instruendo qui respondeat,' is dated November 1535, whilst this 
 letter of Dolet (though only dated August 31) is clearly written in 1535, 
 and therefore before Melanchthon had carried out his design. M. Guibal 
 indeed, who quotes this letter {Revue de Toulouse, 1864, p. 97), suggests 
 that Latomus (Masson), then a professor at Paris, was the person referred 
 to. But, besides that Latomus was then fifty years of age, and could 
 hardly be called by Dolet 'juvenis Germanus,' he was a professed and 
 bitter enemy of Erasmus. M. Guibal seems to have confused this young 
 German with ' quidam Germanus grammaticus publicus Lutetias praelector' 
 to whom Dolet refers in the second volume of his Commentaries, 636, as 
 having found fault with a passage in the first volume, and who may very 
 
220 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the influence of wine and intoxication, or perhaps indeed to 
 a childish ostentation of German garrulity and a love of 
 chattering. I know what the fellow's strength is, excessive 
 in relation to wine and women, but in respect to other 
 matters weak and feeble. But I would have any one who 
 defends Erasmus against me to know that I shall not write 
 against him, but against Erasmus. I am however about to 
 treat of the whole matter in four orations and two books of 
 iambics. 
 
 ' As to the one thing you specially ask of me, namely, 
 that I should so accommodate myself to the time as that it 
 should not seem inevitable for me to offend the good and 
 pious, this only is wanting, that I should understand what 
 you mean, for I am so far from understanding it, that I 
 have not even anything from which to form a conjecture. 
 But we can talk of this matter hereafter when we meet, as 
 you are thinking of coming to Lyons. 
 
 ' I am extremely grieved at the mischance of the French 
 students, who have fallen into such great danger of their 
 lives at Toulouse. But why does not every sane man fly 
 from such barbarians ? Who unless he is out of his mind 
 would pass his life among them ? If the French students 
 would only take my advice, they would pursue their studies 
 in a French University, and would avoid the barbarism and 
 brutality of Toulouse. 
 
 possibly be Latomus. The Dialogue of Dolet was severely attacked by 
 Menapius in his funeral oration on the death of Erasmus in 1537 (O/. 
 Eras. v. 10), and still more severely and in more detail by Franciscus 
 Floridus Sabinus in his Lectiones Succisiva (Basle, 1540). I know of no 
 other answer to it. Though Melanchthon wrote shortly afterwards 
 Curavi ut respondeatur, it seems probable that the answer never appeared. 
 A certain Joannes Gigas published at Wittenberg, in 1540, a volume of 
 Latin verse containing several bitter epigrams upon Dolet. One of them 
 thus begins : — 
 
 Quid laceras magnum divirram munus Erasmum, 
 
 Quid laceras summos fcsde Dolete viros ? 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 221 
 
 ' But let me pass to more agreeable topics. I am delighted 
 to hear that you have been received by the Queen of Navarre 
 in so gracious and cordial a manner, and since she wishes 
 you to remove to Bourges, I conjure you by that close 
 friendship which exists between us do not show yourself 
 churlish to fortune, who now recalls you to your former 
 dignity and seeks to make reparation for the injuries which 
 she has heretofore inflicted on you ; fly into France, whose 
 cultivated civilisation is known to you, while the barbarism 
 of Toulouse is unknown to no one. I conjure you, my dear 
 Boyssone, if your arrangements will allow of this, listen to 
 the friendly advice of your friend, devote yourself to Gallic 
 culture ; sometime you will become excessively weary of 
 living in anxiety amongst the barbarians, especially when you 
 have finished the Commentary which you are writing on 
 that chapter of Ulpian. Farewell. Lyons, 31st August 
 
 (I535V 
 
 A few weeks later, and after the receipt of a further 
 
 letter from Boyssone, 1 Dolet again writes to him : 2 — 
 
 ' You plead the want of leisure as an excuse for writing 
 to me both less often and more briefly than you otherwise 
 would. But how much leisure do you think I possess, who 
 am the slave both of the public and (as he himself says) 
 of Sceve ? 3 But what is there that I would not neglect for 
 your sake, for to you I am more wholly devoted than 
 either to the public or to Sceve. But what leisure I can 
 snatch from business I had best devote to those matters 
 which you may be desirous of having information about. 
 The rumour, which had almost worn itself out, that the 
 
 1 This letter is not in the MS., but is only referred to in Dolet's letter 
 of October 6. 
 
 2 MS. fol. i. 
 
 3 This seems to refer to his (Dolet's) duties as a corrector or sub- 
 editor for Gryphius under Guillaume Sceve. 
 
222 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 king was coming to Lyons has revived, and it is everywhere 
 and constantly repeated that he is about to come. If this 
 happens we shall, as you lately wrote to me, be able to 
 talk of many things face to face. The book of Ulric 
 Zazius, De Feudist is here offered for sale. A furious 
 partizan of Erasmus 2 has brought it here, and if you have 
 a mind to possess it or any others, I shall not fail to give 
 all diligence so that you may receive them as speedily as 
 possible. From Erasmus himself there has also appeared 
 a short answer to the Roman P. Curtius ; I have sent you 
 both the attack and defence. 3 As yet the old Dutchman 
 
 1 The first edition of the book of Zazius here referred to, Udalrici 
 Zazii, In usus feodorum epitome . . . ejusdem orationes aliquot disertie 
 (Basileae, apud Bebelium, mdxxxv), had only just appeared. The preface 
 is dated '1535, Id. Junii.' 
 
 2 Probably J. A. Odonus. 
 
 3 The two books referred to are Petri Cursii Defensio pro Italia ad 
 Erasmum Roterodamum (Romas, apud Antonium Bladum, mdxxxv) and Des. 
 Erasmi. Rot. Responsio ad Petrii Cursii defensionem (Basileae, in officina 
 Frobeniana, mdxxxv). Erasmus in his Adages, under Myconius Calvus, 
 had said that these words were an ironical expression, as if one should say 
 learned as a Scythian, warlike as an Italian (Italum bellacem). The tract 
 of Cursius is directed against this, and extols the valour of the Italians as 
 far greater than that of the Germans. Erasmus, in his Responsio, says 
 that he used bellacem in a bad sense, not for a man of valour, but for one 
 who had a rage for fighting. The Responsio proves the spuriousness of 
 the letter attributed to Erasmus {Epist. 1276) addressed to Cursius, and 
 accepted as genuine by Bayle {Diet. : Hongrie, Marie, Reine de, Note H), 
 and Heuman {Parerga Critica, p. 56), in which Erasmus is made to say 
 that Italum is an error of the press, that he had written Attalum bellacem, 
 and that in future editions it should be corrected. In this letter occurs 
 the excellent story so often repeated, but which one regrets to be obliged 
 to admit is only ben trovato, of the malicious printer's error. A workman 
 to whom he had omitted to give a present determined to be revenged in 
 the next book of Erasmus, which he printed. ' Cum enim in Vidua mea, 
 quam serenissimas Hungarian reginas dedicaveram ad laudem cujusdam 
 sanctissimas fceminae, inter alia liberalitatem illius in pauperes referrem, 
 haec verba subjunxi : " Atque mente ilia usam earn semper fuisse, qua? 
 talem fceminam deceret." Unde scelestus ille animadvertens sibi vindicta? 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 223 
 
 has attempted nothing against Dolet. I look round about 
 me in good spirits. Whether I am well prepared the 
 issue of the battle will show, when the time comes for 
 us to join hand to hand in fight. Farewell. Lyons, Oct. 
 
 6 (1535)-' 
 
 Among the correspondents of Gilbert Cousin of Nozeray, 
 
 better known by his Latinised name of Cognatus, the secre- 
 tary of Erasmus, 1 is a certain Joannes Angelus Odonus, an 
 
 occasionem oblatam esse, ex mente ilia, mentula fecit. Itaque volumina 
 mille fuere impressa.' Ep. 1276. 
 
 1 I may here note by the way, that M. L. M. A. Dupetit-Thouars, 
 more eminent as a botanist than as a biographer or literary historian, has 
 invented and devoted a short article in the Biographic Universelle to an 
 imaginary Gilbert Cagnati, whom he describes as an Italian author born 
 at Nocera in the kingdom of Naples, who lived about the middle of the 
 sixteenth century, and was the author of the treatise De Hortorum laudibus 
 (Basle, 1 546), afterwards printed and inserted by Joachim Camerarius II. 
 in his collection of treatises De re rustica. In fact however the treatise 
 De Hortorum laudibus is one of the works of Gilbert Cousin. At the 
 end of the book of Camerarius, Opuscula quadam de re rustica partim collecta 
 partim composita a Joachim Camerario (Noribergas, 1 596), is a list of authors 
 and treatises de re rustica, among which is Gilberti Cognati Nozareni De 
 Hortorum laudibus, Basileae apud Oporinum, 1546. The work itself how- 
 ever is not inserted in the Opuscula of Camerarius. M. Dupetit- 
 Thouars clearly knew nothing of the book or its author, but having 
 copied the title from the book of Camerarius, and never having heard 
 either of Gilbert Cognatus or of Nozeray in Burgundy, and knowing 
 there was a town of the name of Nocera in Naples, he made an un- 
 successful guess, and then amplified an imaginary fact into a detailed 
 biography. Of course Dr. Hoefer in the Nouvelle Biographic Generale, as was 
 his wont in the case of the less important names, simply pitchforked M. 
 Dupetit-Thouars' article into his work, adding however (as was also his 
 wont, in order to suggest independent research) imaginary authorities to the 
 imaginary biography. The authorities cited in the Biog. Gen. for the 
 notice of Gilbert Cagnati are not the Biog. Universelle, but Biographie 
 Medicale and Eloy, Diet, de Medicine, neither of which works contains any 
 mention of Gilbert Cagnati, or indeed of Gilbert Cousin or Cognatus. 
 
 On the subject of the Biographie Universelle and the Biographie 
 Generale, see an article in the Quarterly Review for January, 1884. 
 

 224 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Italian settled at Strasburg, where he would seem to have 
 held some office in the University, a devout worshipper of 
 Erasmus, from whom, as he tells his correspondent with 
 much pride, he had on one occasion received a letter signed 
 with the great scholar's own hand. I have been unable to 
 find any notice of him or to obtain any other information 
 than is to be found in his letters to Cousin. 1 Possibly he 
 may have been of the same family as Caterina Odoni, the 
 wife of Paulo Manuzio. The longest, and the most inter- 
 esting in every respect, of his letters is one on the subject of 
 Dolet and his attack on Erasmus ; and, although marked 
 by a spirit of the bitterest dislike and the greatest unfairness 
 to our hero, it yet gives us the only description which we 
 have of his personal appearance and manners, written (as 
 Odonus happily does not aim at Ciceronian elegance) in 
 a most racy and graphic manner. 2 
 
 'Joannes Angelus Odonus to Gilbertus Cognatus, 
 his friend and very dear brother 
 
 ' I have just heard that it has been written from hence 
 that the friends of Erasmus here wish that he should briefly 
 reply to the rage and fury of that very mad fellow (Dolet), 
 which those who have heard so great a croaking think is 
 
 1 Erasmus refers to him in a letter to G. Cousin (No. 1296, p. 1 5 19) : 
 ' Epistolam Odoni ac Philenii cupide legi, ad te quidem scriptam sed de 
 me totam.' 
 
 2 M. Boulmier, who tells us in his Preface that we are not to look 
 for an impartial history from him, and who either omits or slurs over 
 whatever is unfavourable to the client, of whom he admits himself 
 to be the advocate, has only referred to the letter of Odonus to quote a 
 remark on the age of Dolet and to describe the letter as unfriendly to 
 him. Following as usual Nee de la Rochelle, he says this letter has been 
 preserved to us by Niceron. This letter is to be found in Opera G. Cognati, 
 Basle, 1562, vol. i. p. 313, but is quoted, neither quite fully nor quite 
 accurately, by Niceron, vol. xxi. p. 114. 
 
x THE CICERONI ANS 225 
 
 the roaring of some great animal (as the fable of the Lion 
 and the Frog has it). But I who when at Lyons both saw 
 the man (or rather the mindless thing in human form) and 
 talked with him, know him to be a worthless beast. He 
 somewhere calls himself a young man, but he is nearer to 
 his fortieth than to his thirty-eighth year. He is bald to the 
 middle of his senseless head. He wore a short Spanish 
 jacket, coarse and much worn, scarcely covering his 
 buttocks. His countenance is of such a funereal and black 
 pallor,, and has such a wretched air, that you would fancy 
 an avenging fury had fastened on his breast and was dragging 
 him to the punishment of the wheel. You will ask who 
 introduced me to this portentous spectacle. It was that 
 other precious Ciceronian, 1 that despiser of the Greek 
 language and studies, who has published those dialogues 
 Cicero Revocatus and Cicero Relegatus. He indeed is 
 banished from, but is not yet recalled to, Italy ; where 
 (though his native country) not only did he fear to be 
 recognised, but was so conscious of his own deserts that 
 he even suppressed his name on the title-page. I was 
 however on terms of great intimacy with him at Bologna. 
 At Lyons he repeated this saying to me, " Let others choose 
 other masters, I approve only of Christ and of Tully ; 
 Christ and Tully are sufficient for me." I saw nothing of 
 Christ however in his hands or in his books ; God knows 
 whether he had anything in his heart. This however I 
 know from his own mouth, that when he fled into France 
 he brought with him as a consolation in the wretchedness 
 of his journey neither the Old nor the New Testament, 
 but only the Familiar Epistles of Cicero. Both the circum- 
 stances of this fellow, which are worthy of his life (yet the 
 Phrygian has not yet undergone the stripes of God calling 
 
 1 Hortensio Lando. 
 Q 
 
226 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 him to repentance ; 1 oh, that he might at length feel them), 
 and his levity, his effeminacy, and his irreligious conduct, 
 I should have briefly described to you were it not that we 
 know that all these apes of Cicero are characterised by the 
 same depravity and impudence. This fellow took me to 
 the bird of ill -omen. Outside his chamber there was a 
 good deal of noise and untidiness, caused, as I suppose, by 
 boys learning the rudiments of grammar. (By this means 
 as you know banished tyrants are accustomed to earn their 
 living.) Inside, I do not remember what books the exile 
 had. In the course of conversation he referred to a passage 
 in his orations where he speaks of Erasmus, and as it seemed 
 not so bitterly. And this passage he wished to be recited 
 by Hortensio, lest I should be shocked with his (Dolet's) 
 Gallic pronunciation ; nor was there any mention made 
 of the rabid dialogue which he was about to publish. 
 He earnestly begged Lando however to write a preface to 
 his orations, and offered to dedicate them to whomsoever he 
 (Lando) wished ; but the latter declined the proposal. Nor 
 did Gryphius appear willing to undertake the publication 
 of them ; indeed he complained to me of the vehement and 
 unreasonable pressure which certain persons had put upon 
 him to induce him to print them. Then as we were going 
 away he offered me the poisonous trash of Carvaialus 2 and 
 Scaliger, which I had not seen in Italy. No doubt with 
 books of this kind the wretch consoles himself for his 
 
 1 ' Utrum igitur nostrum est, an vestrum, hoc proverbium Pirygem 
 plagis fieri so/ere meliorem.' Cicero, Pro Flacco, 27. 
 
 2 Ludovicus Carvaialus (Caravajal), a Minorite, wrote against Erasmus* 
 in defence of the monks, Apologia monastics professions, Antwerp, mdxxix- 
 Reprinted at Basle the same year. Erasmus replied to him by his 
 Responsio adversus Febricitantis cujusdem Libellum, Basle, 1529. This 
 produced a rejoinder from Carvaialus, entitled Dukoratio amarulentiarum 
 Erasmica responsionis ad apologiam fratris Ludovici Carvaiali, Paris,, 
 Colinseus, 1530. 
 
x THE CICERONIANS 227 
 
 banishment from Toulouse, and again inflames his mind, 
 worn out as it must be by his quarrels. The next day I 
 returned both books to him with certain pages turned down, 
 and we had some conversation concerning the king and the 
 theatre of Giulio Camillo. 
 
 ' Now, my dear Gilbert, I see no reason why this fool 
 should be answered according to his folly. Perhaps I am in 
 error ; but, as Alciat writes, he is still more in error who has 
 so mean an opinion of the majesty of the name of Erasmus 
 and of the veneration which men of letters have for him 
 as to think he could ever be cast down from that citadel of 
 learning and virtue, where he has for so long been estab- 
 lished, by the calumnies and insolence of a fellow of this 
 kind. He is no jester, to amuse one with his writings while 
 making a great profession of piety, like Amsdorf ; he has 
 not the title of knight or count or monk ; he is indeed 
 scarcely human in his appearance. Moreover we do not 
 know whether the University and Parliament of Paris have 
 not taken care that he shall be capitally punished by law at 
 Paris. For as it often happens to these atheists, when they 
 are specially rejoicing and saying (as it is written in the 
 epistle), Peace, peace, let us eat and drink, then suddenly 
 they are overwhelmed with a deserved destruction. 
 
 ' Perhaps, however, friends from Paris may have sent you 
 a more full account of the wickedness of this hornet or 
 chameleon, who bawls out to the very breaking of his jaws, 
 and, for the sake of a slight breath of applause, is rushing to 
 certain destruction both of body and soul. Yet who could 
 ever carve in stone or paint in colours a better representation 
 of a foolish, senseless, insane, furious, rabid, boastful, insolent, 
 scurrilous, petulant, vain, lying, impudent, arrogant, impious 1 
 fellow, without God, without faith, without religion, than 
 
 1 ' Stulti, vecordis, insani, furiosi, rabiosi, gloriosi, procacis, maledici, 
 petulantis, vani, mendacis, impudentis, arrogantis, impii.' 
 
228 ETIENNE DOLET chap, x 
 
 this man has by his own words shown and expressed himself 
 to be? To me he seems to be of the number of those 
 whom St. Augustine and Erasmus himself order us to laugh 
 at when they weep, and to weep over when they laugh, both 
 which I certainly did when I read his book. It has indeed 
 been a matter of great grief to me that a man should be 
 found so well versed and baptized (so to speak) in polite 
 letters, and yet of such brutality and impiety. God is my 
 witness, my dear Gilbert, that not forwardness but affection 
 has induced me to write these things to you. 
 
 ' And now let me stop in the middle of my course, lest 
 if I say more I may seem to wish to be wise overmuch. 
 For even on this matter I do not profess to see all sides. 
 Therefore whether Erasmus thinks fit to reply to Dolet, or 
 thinks it not worth his while to do so, I shall be satisfied. 
 For whatever he thinks right I doubt not will really be so. 
 So now I will conclude, commending both you and Erasmus 
 to God. Strasburg, 29th Oct. 1535.' 
 
 Notwithstanding the unfriendly tone of this letter it 
 enables us to see Dolet as he really was, worn with study 
 and hardship, so that, though he was only twenty-seven years 
 of age, Odonus judged him to be near forty. Mean and 
 squalid in his dress, unattractive in his countenance, full of 
 enthusiasm for learning, and above all for Cicero, filled at 
 the same time with vanity and conceit, and believing that 
 his worthless orations were really deserving the attention of 
 the world, caring only for study and literary fame ; such is 
 the impression which the letter of Odonus makes upon us. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The 'Commentaries' 
 
 'Liber est lumen cordis, speculum corporis, virtutum magister, 
 vitiorum depulsor, corona prudentium, diadema sapientium, gloria honorum, 
 decus eruditorum, comes itineris, domesticus amicus, collocutor et con- 
 gerro tacentis, collega et consiliarius prassidentis, vas plenum sapiential, 
 myrothecium eloquentias, hortus plenus fructibus, pratum floribus dis- 
 tinctum, memoriae penus, vita recordationis.' — Lucas de Penna. 
 
 HE principal object of 
 Dolet's journey to Paris 
 at the end of the year 
 1534 was to obtain the 
 royal sanction for the 
 publication of his Com- 
 mentaries, which had now, 
 after ten years of labour, 
 approached at least a 
 partial completion. But 
 the moment was unfavour- 
 able for obtaining permis- 
 sion to print any original 
 work, even one merely 
 devoted to Latin literature. The father of letters, as the 
 French are fond of styling Francis I., although he had un- 
 questionably a genuine love for literature and literary men, 
 and though the influence of his beloved sister, La Marguerite 
 des Marguerites, induced him at times to lend a not un- 
 
230 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 willing ear to the teaching of the religious reformers, yet, 
 alternating between fits of vicious indulgence and of religious ^ 
 
 remorse, allowed himself to be the tool and prey of the 
 bigots who surrounded him, and who persuaded him that » 
 the salvation of his own soul required the destruction of the o ^ 
 bodies of those whom, had he followed his own tastes, he ? ^ 
 would have especially desired to protect and encourage, j Y 
 a \ Really caring at all times in his heart for literature and by v N , 
 y I intellectual Droeress. and sometimes even for a reformation ,'>' 
 
 J intellectual progress, and sometimes even for a reformation 
 in religion, yet, as M. Henri Martin has remarked, 1 he 
 allowed the Reformation to be burned in the person of 
 
 in religion, yet, as M. Henri Martin has remarked, 1 he ^>" ^ 
 Berquin, and the Renaissance in that of Dolet. Physically ^ 
 
 brave, he was yet morally a coward, and dared not call his ^ 
 soul his own in the presence of the priests. He was at this 
 time in one of those fits of piety in which he sought to make 
 amends for his vices by the persecution of heretics and the 
 suppression of literature. At the moment when Dolet 
 arrived in Paris the Doctors of the Sorbonne were urging 
 him to suppress absolutely, so far as an edict could do so, 
 the art of printing, to forbid the printing, not only of 
 heretical books, but of any books whatever, and, incredible 
 as it may appear, they actually accomplished their purpose. 
 
 : It was as early as the 7th of June 1533 that the Sorbonne, 
 
 j then under the influence of Beda, presented to the King at 
 Lyons a memorial against heretical books, in which it was 
 
 j formally urged that if the King wished to preserve the 
 Catholic faith, which was already shaken at its base and 
 attacked on all parts, he must abolish once and for ever by a 
 severe edict the art of printing, which every day gave birth 
 to dangerous books. For some time the influence of Bude, 
 
 1 and Jean du Bellay then Bishop of Paris, succeeded in induc- 
 ing the King to refuse to grant this petition ; but in October 
 
 j 1534 the indiscretions of some members of the Reform 
 1 Hist, de France, vol. viii. p. 343. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 231 
 
 party in affixing on the walls of the streets of Paris, and even 
 on the gates of the royal palace, placards violently and 
 indecently attacking the mass and the clergy, gave their 
 enemies a handle, of which the latter were not slow to avail 
 themselves. The affair of the placards gave rise to just I 
 indignation among the Catholics, and to a more severe! 
 persecution of heresy and heretics than Paris had as yet J 
 witnessed. Dolet refers to it in the letter to G. Sceve 
 already quoted. From the 1 oth of November 1534 to the 
 5 th of May 1535 twenty -two persons were burned for 
 heresy in the Place Maubert, and if we believe that Sleidan 
 is in error in stating that the King and his Court were 
 present at the most horrible of these spectacles, where six 
 persons were committed to the flames, and where the 
 strappado x seems to have been employed for the first time, 
 the fact remains that not only were these burnings with his 
 sanction, but that the same sanction must have been given 
 to the frightful tortures which accompanied them, and which, 
 had they not been the invention of Christian priests, we should 
 have thought only fiends could have invented or applied. 
 
 1 The strappado was a kind of see-saw, with a heretic at one end 
 suspended above a fire. He was allowed to descend and burn for a short 
 time, and was then drawn out again, and so on from time to time. By 
 this means the burning lasted much longer, the torment was much more 
 exquisite to the heretic, and the spectacle much more grateful to the 
 pious spectators. Though Sleidan and Beza state positively that the 
 King was present and lighted the fire on this occasion, and though the 
 fact of his presence has been gloried in by orthodox historians, yet M. 
 Martin has pointed out (Hist, de France, vol. viii.) that the Bourgeois de 
 Paris, who was present, and who notes the details of all the executions 
 most precisely, says nothing of the King's presence, which he would hardly 
 have failed to notice had Francis really attended and lighted the fire. Pere 
 Daniel, writing so late as the eighteenth century (Hist, de France), exults 
 in the King's display of piety in being present and lighting the fire on 
 this occasion. ' Francis,' he says, ' in order to draw down the blessing of 
 Heaven on his arms, wished to give this signal proof of his piety and zeal 
 against the new doctrine.' 
 
232 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 It might perhaps have been expected that the Sorbonne, 
 now that Beda had fallen into disgrace, would have been 
 under better influence, and would no longer have desired 
 the destruction of that art of which it ought to have been 
 the protector and promoter ; but this was not the case : it 
 was again urged upon the King that printing was the source 
 of all heresy, and on the 13th of January 1535 letters 
 patent were issued by which the King prohibited and forbad 
 under pain of death any person from thenceforth printing 
 any book or books in France, and at the same time ordered 
 all booksellers' shops to be closed under the same penalty. 
 
 The Parliament, notwithstanding that it was presided 
 over by Pierre Lizet, protested against this edict, and refused, 
 unless absolutely compelled, to ratify or register it. Its 
 remonstrances, supported by those of Bude and Du Bellay, 
 were successful, and on the 24th of February in the same 
 year new letters patent were issued by the King suspending 
 the operation of the former, and directing the Parliament to 
 choose twenty-four well-qualified and prudent persons, out 
 of whom the King should select twelve, to whom alone per- 
 mission was to be given to print in Paris editions of needful 
 and approved books, but forbidding even the twelve to print 
 any new composition under pain of death. It would seem 
 that the Parliament again remonstrated, and that these 
 letters patent were never formally ratified. They were how- 
 ever inscribed in the register entitled Conseil, from whence 
 they have been for the first time disinterred during the 
 present century. 1 That such an edict had been threatened, 
 
 1 We only know of the letters of January 1 3 by a recital of them 
 in those of February 24. These latter were first discovered by M. 
 Taillandier, and afterwards printed by him in the Memoires de la Soci'et'e 
 des Antiquaires, torn. xiii. They had before appeared in Crapelet's fitudes 
 sur la Typographic, 34, a copy having been communicated by M. 
 Taillandier to M. Crapelet. They will also be found in A. F. Didot's 
 Essai sur la Typographic, 760 ; and in Werdet's Histoire du Livre, ii. 75. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 233 
 
 though mentioned by Dolet himself in his Commentaries, 
 had previously received but little notice. ' I cannot,' he 
 says, ' pass over in silence the wickedness of those wretches 
 who, planning destruction as well to literature as to men of 
 letters, thought in our time of destroying and putting an 
 end to the exercise of the art of printing. Thought, do I 
 say ? Who actually used all their influence with the King 
 of France, Francis of Valois himself, the guardian, the 
 supporter, the most loving promoter of literature and of 
 men of letters, to obtain a decree for its suppression. They 
 used this pretext, that literature was the means of propagating 
 the Lutheran heresy, and that to this, typography was made 
 subservient. Ridiculous race of fools ! As if arms were by 
 themselves evil or destructive, and as if, because wounds and 
 even death are inflicted by them, the use of those arms by 
 which the good defend both themselves and their country 
 from attacks ought to be suppressed ; it is only the wicked 
 who use them for unjust purposes. So if there are those 
 who foolishly over-curious or factious, disseminate some error 
 or other by means of the press, who is there who by reason 
 of their fault, would say that printing ought to be suppressed ; 
 printing, which is of itself not in the least pernicious, and is 
 more essential than anything else for celebrating the glory 
 and reputation of men ? 
 
 ' This most abominable and wicked plot of the sophists 
 and topers of the Sorbonne was brought to nought by the 
 wisdom and prudence of Guillaume Bude, the light of his 
 age, and Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, a man equally 
 distinguished by his rank and by his worth.' 1 
 
 Dolet, however, as well as all other writers, was ignorant 
 that such an edict had actually been issued by ' the guardian, 
 the supporter, the most loving protector of literature,' an 
 edict which jusdy entitles Francis I., as M. Crapelet says, to 
 
 1 Com. i. 266. 
 
234 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the name of proscriber rather than of promoter of literature. 
 But although neither of these edicts was ever actually en- 
 forced, no permission could be obtained at this time for 
 printing the Commentaries. Dolet was not indeed without 
 influential friends to urge his suit. From Bude he would 
 receive, we are sure, every assistance and support ; Breslay 
 held high office in the great Council, and, as well as Nicolas 
 Berauld, Dolet's old master, would also give his assistance ; 
 but it was for the present of no avail, persecution, not 
 promotion of literature, was now the order of the day. 
 Dolet was already suspected, as the letters of Odonus and of 
 Scaliger show us, of being, if not a heretic, what was almost 
 as bad — an atheist. He was known to be the friend and 
 favourer of suspected heretics, and the imprudent and abusive 
 language as to Beda contained in his printed letters could not 
 have been other than offensive, and justly offensive, to the 
 Doctors of the Sorbonne. Besides, as the letter of Odonus 
 seems to imply, Dolet's enemies at Toulouse were at this 
 very time urging the registration by the Parliament of Paris 
 of the decree of banishment issued by that of Toulouse ; and 
 if they were not successful in this, at least they carried the 
 day so far as to cause the permission for the printing of the 
 Commentaries to be refused. 
 
 ' No one,' wrote Jean Voulte a few months later in a 
 dedication of his Epigrams to the Cardinal of Lorraine, 1 ' (to 
 declare my opinion ingenuously), is so great an enemy to the 
 French name as a Frenchman. This has been experienced 
 by many, and lately by Etienne Dolet of Orleans, who has 
 done great service to the Latin tongue (to say no more) 
 even in his youth ; and what may not be expected in the 
 future part of his life from a person born with so excellent 
 a genius, of such unwearied diligence and application, and 
 aspiring with such alacrity of mind to immortal fame ? This 
 
 1 Printed by Gryphius in 1536. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 235 
 
 person, I say, who is the ornament of the age, and will be 
 the eternal glory of France, has experienced the severest 
 strokes of envy, for when he designed to publish his Com- 
 mentaries on the Latin Tongue (a work of immense labour 
 and exact judgment, and hardly to be expected from so 
 young a man), for the public use of all lovers of that 
 language, he found none to oppose him more violently than 
 those from whom he had just reason to expect the most 
 grateful return for his labour. But may such pests of the 
 republic of letters continue to nourish, for when they en- 
 deavour to prejudice the rising glory of learned men, they 
 really contribute most effectually to establish it.' 
 
 Dolet returned to Lyons early in 1535, probably before 
 the publication of the Dialogue, which it would be his first 
 business to see through the press. The two years which 
 followed (1535 and 1536) were two of the most peaceful 
 and presumably happiest of his life. It was not in his nature 
 to live without wrangling and disputes, and the abuse which 
 he received for his Ciceronian Dialogue would hardly do 
 more than add zest to his life. His time was passed in 
 revising and superintending through the press the first 
 volume of his great work, in private study, in editing and 
 correcting for the press of Gryphius, 1 and, as would seem 
 
 1 After examining in vain about eighty volumes, mostly editions of 
 Latin classics, printed by Sebastian Gryphius, 1535-38, in hopes of de- 
 tecting the hand of Dolet as the editor, I at length met with an edition of 
 the Orations of Cicero bearing date 1536, in the dedication or preface of 
 which, addressed to Cardinal du Bellay, and purporting to be by Gryphius, 
 I at once recognised the style of Dolet. A long passage I found to be 
 identical with one in his Commentaries (i. 266), and this is followed by a 
 Latin ode ad eundem which afterwards appeared in the Carmina of Dolet, 
 addressed to Francis I. (The dedication is dated January 1536, which 
 would probably be 1537 new style.) Nee de la Rochelle {Fie de Dolet, 
 p. 33) denies that Dolet was ever employed by Gryphius as a corrector of 
 the press. He considers that he corrected the edition of the works of 
 Marot given by Gryphius in 1538, merely out of friendship for the 
 
236 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 from the letter of Odonus (which I take to refer to the 
 period immediately following Dolet's return to Lyons), in 
 teaching. Besides the letter of Odonus we are fortunate in 
 having a contemporary notice of him at this time from 
 Hubert Sussanneau, who, like himself, was at this time 
 editing and correcting for Gryphius, and who at a later 
 period became hostile to Dolet. In the prefatory letter 
 which precedes his Dictionarium Ciceronianum (Paris, 
 Colinasus, 1536), he thus writes: 'On my way to Italy I 
 stayed for some time at Lyons, where Sebastian Gryphius 
 persuaded me to superintend the correction of some works 
 of Cicero, Horace, and St. Cyprian. Dolet was then living 
 with that printer. All that I can say of the ability and the 
 learning of that young man is, that in him nature surpasses 
 art ; and that though still very young, he is, if I may venture 
 to say so, borne on a triumphal car in the midst of the 
 applause of all. Attached from infancy to the reading of 
 Cicero, he was then composing his Commentaries on the Latin 
 Tongue, which, by the admiration they have caused me, have 
 almost made me abandon my own work.' 
 
 The completion of the first volume of the Commentaries 
 
 author. The passage from Sussanneau quoted in the text is relied on by 
 Nde de la Rochelle as evidence that Dolet was not so employed. He 
 says, ' Would Gryphius, living with Dolet, have charged Sussanneau with 
 the correction of the works of Cicero, whilst he had at hand a friend so 
 well versed in that author?' To my mind Sussanneau's words are a 
 strong confirmation of the statement of Scaliger in the letter to Le Ferron 
 {ante, p. 214). Guillaume Sceve seems to have acted at this time as the 
 literary manager or editor of the press of Gryphius. The language of 
 Dolet's letter to Boyssone (ante, p. 221), 'I, who am the slave both of the 
 public and of Sceve,' is at once explained, if we believe the writer to 
 have been at that time correcting for the press or editing under the 
 superintendence of Sceve. But Voulte's ode, Ad Libellum, is still more 
 conclusive qn the point : — 
 
 I, fuge Lugdunum sine me liber, i, fuge in urbem, 
 
 Excipiet prompta Gryphius ille manu. 
 Te castigandum docto dabit itide DoUto. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 237 
 
 was his first care. In transcribing and correcting this he 
 received considerable assistance from one of the greatest 
 names in the French literature of the sixteenth century, one 
 of the few contemporaries of Dolet whose works are still 
 read with pleasure — the author of the Cymbalum Mundi, 
 Jean Bonaventure Desperiers. Known, or at least suspected, 
 as a friend of intellectual progress and freedom of thought, 
 the influence of Marguerite de Valois, to whom he held the 
 office of valet de chambre, was able to protect him so long as 
 he did not compromise himself by any overt act. But the 
 publication of the Cymbalum Mundi in 1537-8 gave the 
 Sor bonne and the Parliament (or rather the First President) 
 a weapon of attack of which they were not loth to avail 
 themselves. In these lively and satirical dialogues, professing 
 only to deal with the pagan deities, it was not difficult to 
 discover the undercurrent of sarcasm intended for the 
 Christian theology. The Sorbonne declared the book to be 
 filled with blasphemies and impieties. The Parliament, at 
 the instigation of the First President, Pierre Lizet, im- 
 prisoned Jean Morin the printer, and caused all the copies of 
 the book which could be found to be burned, an auto-da-fe 
 which was so successfully performed that only a single copy 
 of the original edition is known to exist. 1 
 
 So soon as the first volume of the Commentaries was 
 completed and transcribed, Dolet began to print it in order 
 that it might be ready to appear whenever the royal 
 licence should be granted. A large folio volume containing 
 seventeen hundred and eight columns of closely -printed 
 matter could not be passed through the press in a few 
 
 1 This copy is now in the Public Library of Versailles. It was sold 
 at the Gaignat sale in 1769 (No. 2528) for 350 francs, the purchaser 
 being the Due de la Valliere, at whose sale in 1783 (No. 4408) it only 
 realised 120 francs. A second edition appeared at Lyons in 1538. It is 
 also excessively rare. 
 
238 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 days or weeks, and as there were frequent rumours of an 
 approaching royal visit to Lyons, the author no doubt 
 hoped that this would prove a favourable opportunity for 
 obtaining the licence by means of his influential Lyonese 
 friends. For nearly thirty years the government of Lyons 
 had been successively entrusted to the members of a 
 Milanese family, equally distinguished as military com- 
 manders and as civil administrators, but yet more eminent 
 by their attachment to literature, and by the uniform 
 protection and assistance which they afforded to men 
 of letters. Gian Jacopo di Trivulzi, known in French 
 history as Le Grand Trivulce, Marquis de Vigevano and 
 Marshal of France, was the first of his family who held 
 the important office of Governor of Lyons. It was now 
 held by Pompone de Trivulce, who followed the example 
 of his uncle and immediate predecessor Theodore in pro- 
 tecting and fostering literature, and especially in favouring 
 and encouraging the art of printing and those who exer- 
 cised it. I have before said that the press of Lyons was 
 more free than elsewhere in France ; books which would 
 not have been permitted to see the light in Paris, or which 
 would have subjected their authors and printers to condign 
 punishment, appeared at Lyons, though not with the direct 
 sanction of the Governor, yet with the certainty that he 
 would do all in his power to protect their authors and 
 printers from molestation. At the very time when the 
 King and the Doctors of the Sorbonne were conspiring 
 to destroy ' this divine art ' (as Dolet justly calls it), the 
 printers of Lyons were combining to show their gratitude 
 to Pompone de Trivulce for his favour and protection. 
 The first of May was the fete-day of the printers at Lyons, 
 and it was their custom to plant a fir-tree called the May 
 of the Printers {le Mai des Imprimeurs) before the door 
 of some person of distinction to whom they especially 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 
 
 239 
 
 desired to show respect. In 1529 the May was erected 
 before the door of Theodore de Trivulce, inscribed with 
 a poetical address by no less a hand than that of Clement 
 Marot. 1 In 1535 it was Pompone de Trivulce whom the 
 printers determined to honour, and it was the pen of 
 Etienne Dolet that supplied the inscription. The May 
 was planted before the house of the Governor, inscribed 
 with a Latin ode, of which the Pere de Colonia remarks, 2 
 ' The noble simplicity, the antique flavour, and the pure 
 Latinity remind us of the Augustan age.' 3 
 
 Ad Pomponium Trivulsium Lugdunt Rectorem, 
 Typographi Lugdunenses. 
 
 Fuerit Tityro ille Deus, ei qui permisit, 
 Quae vellet, agresti calamo ludere, et agnos, 
 Bovesque ducere libere per florentes 
 Campos. Eris nobis Deus, qui permittis 
 Solita nos frui lastitia, et libertate. 
 Ob id, viridem tibi pinum consecratam 
 Accipe vultu, atque animo, quo consecrata est. 
 
 With such a governor there was every chance that the I 
 licence would in time be granted. By the middle of 1535 I 
 the printing had commenced, and a month later a proof- ' 
 
 1 Epigram 144. 
 
 2 Histoire Litt'eraire de Lyon, ii. 497. A less learned schoolboy than 
 Macaulay's will not have much difficulty in tracing the origin of the first 
 half of this ode. 
 
 3 According to M. Pericaud (Notes et Documents pour servir a I' Histoire 
 ae Lyon, 148 3-1546, p. 52), Louis Tolozan, Prevot des Marchands and 
 Commandant of the city of Lyons, was the last magistrate in whose 
 honour a May was planted in 1786. M. Pericaud attributed this ode of 
 Dolet to the year 1529, and considers it to have been in honour of 
 Theodore de Trivulce. In his Carmina, however, Dolet himself addresses 
 it (as in the text) to Pompone de Trivulce, and it is clear that 1535 was 
 the only year of the latter's government in which Dolet could have been 
 in Lyons on or about the 1st of May. Pompone de Trivulce was 
 superseded at the end of that year by the Cardinal de Tournon. 
 
2 4 o ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 1 sheet was ready to be sent to Jean de Boyssone. The 
 'latter — as well as many others — was eagerly expecting the 
 appearance of the Commentaries, and in a letter before 
 referred to 1 he thus speaks of them : — 
 
 ' As to your Commentaries on the Latin Tongue we have 
 no information here (Toulouse) whether you have yet 
 finished them. I cannot put into words the eagerness 
 with which we expect their appearance, yet persons are 
 not wanting, even among those who wish you well, who 
 affirm that you purloined the Commentaries from Simon 
 Villanovanus, a report which, although it does not seem 
 to me in any way probable, will not in any respect hinder 
 the success of your book, for your calumniators do not bear 
 in mind that to the book itself it would be no small merit 
 to have had as its authors Villanovanus and Dolet.' 
 
 To this Dolet replied on Aug. 31 : 2 'As regards my 
 Commentaries on the Latin Tongue, I laugh at the lies of 
 the envious, and I am really in that state of mind con- 
 cerning them which you say I ought to be. No calumnies 
 have as yet broken my spirit, and their attempts to crush 
 me in the future will be still less successful, as I become 
 daily more and more hardened against the absurdities of 
 mankind. Let these brutish Tolosans at least wait until 
 my book is published, and then if they have any judgment 
 let them judge with certainty. Are they able, do you think, 
 now to decide matters against me, the nature of which they 
 have as yet neither read nor seen ? In order that you may 
 judge more truly and justly, I have sent you as a specimen a 
 proof-sheet of the work, the printing of which has begun.' 
 
 In the meantime the political projects and mundane 
 ambitions of the King had brought about an interval of 
 respite and hope to the party of reform. Charles V. was 
 
 1 Ante, p. z 1 8. Toulouse MS. fol. xvii. 
 2 Id. fol. i. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 241 
 
 engaged on his expedition against the pirates of Tunis,] 
 and to declare war against him while occupied in this pious/ 
 and Christian work would have been to excite the horror 
 of civilised Europe. Francis counted on this expedition 
 being unsuccessful ; he expected to see his rival defeated 
 and weakened, and he determined to be ready to declare 
 war immediately on the Emperor's return ; but it was neces- 
 sary in the meantime to look out for allies. The Lutheran 
 princes of Germany had been alienated and irritated by 
 the persecution which followed the affair of the placards. 
 The ' magnificent lords of Berne ' were even more interested 
 than the German princes in the toleration of the Reformers. 
 Their influence was so widely extended over the territories 
 on the east of France, from Geneva to Basle, that their 
 alliance was far more important to Francis than the com- 
 paratively insignificant extent of their dominions would 
 lead us to expect. It was the urgent pressure of the lords 
 of Berne, that effected what in other similar cases even the 
 powerful influence of Marguerite of Navarre had been unable 
 to effect, and rescued the great citizen of Geneva, Baudichon 
 de la Maison Neuve, from the stake, after he had been con- 
 demned by the Inquisitor-General and the officials of the 
 Archbishop of Lyons as a heretic, and delivered over to the 
 secular arm. But the friendship of my lords of Berne for 
 Francis had received a rude shock from the persecutions of 
 the winter of 1534-5. To conciliate the German and Swiss \ 
 reformers, an edict was issued on the 16 th of July 1535 by* 
 which the King ordered the prosecutions of Protestants to 
 cease, and liberated those who were in prison for the cause 
 of religion. The severe restrictions on the press were about 
 the same time loosened, and although the victorious return 
 of Charles from Tunis had falsified the hopes of Francis, 
 war was commenced, and for nearly three years, that is to 
 say until the peace of June 1538, the Reformers were 
 
 R 
 
242 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 allowed an interval of rest and toleration. Charles was at 
 this moment sincerely desirous of peace, and immediately 
 commenced negotiations in the hope of satisfying the King's 
 claims on the Duchy of Milan, but his efforts were un- 
 successful. The campaign began in earnest ; and in order 
 to be near the seat of war and personally to direct the 
 campaign, Francis paid his long-expected visit to Lyons, 
 t arriving on the 7th of February 1536. He remained in 
 , the south-east of France the greater part of the year, paying 
 (frequent visits to Lyons ; and on the 21st of March Dolet 
 
 Ihad the satisfaction of obtaining, or seeing obtained by 
 Gryphius, the long-wished-for permission to print the Com- 
 mentaries. It is dated at Cremieu, a small town about 
 eighteen miles from Lyons, where the King was then hold- 
 ing his court, and is addressed to the Provost of Paris, the 
 Bailiff of Macon, the Seneschal of Lyons, and all other 
 justiciaries, officers, and their lieutenants. It then continues, 
 ' Our dear and well -beloved Master Sebastian Gryphius, 
 printer in ordinary to our town of Lyons, has made known 
 to us that he is desirous of printing at great expense, to the 
 profit and promotion of Latin letters, a book entitled Comment- 
 aries on the Latin Tongue, by Estienne Dolet.' It then grants 
 to him the exclusive right to print the same for a period 
 of four years, and forbids all other printers from doing the 
 like under penalty of fines and confiscation of their books. 
 
 The Commentaries on the Latin Tongue is the work on 
 which Dolet's reputation as a Latin scholar must principally 
 rest. It had been in preparation for twelve years, for, as 
 he tells us, it was before he went to Padua that he had 
 determined to compose this work, the compilation of which 
 seems from that time to have been the first object of his 
 care. The first volume appeared in 1536, in or soon after 
 the month of May ; and though now of no living interest 
 to the scholar, it is certainly one of the most important 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 243 
 
 contributions to Latin scholarship which the sixteenth! 
 century produced. It is a work of immense labour, the 
 result of a profound and lengthened study of Cicero, as 
 well as of many other Latin authors ; and it will be admitted I 
 by all who have examined it, that no work had up to that 
 time appeared, which was calculated to be so useful to the ' 
 student of Latin literature. At the same time I cannot 
 agree with those who have placed it above all other con- 
 temporary works in Latin scholarship. Neither here nor 
 elsewhere does Dolet show much critical power or skill, 
 and as between the Commentaries of Dolet and the Latin 
 Thesaurus of Robert Estienne, pre-eminence in scholarship 
 must be awarded to the latter. Yet the Commentaries were 
 certainly an important contribution to Latin scholarship. 
 The publication of the (second edition of the) Thesaurus of 
 Estienne is considered by Hallam to mark an epoch in the 
 department of Latin philology. 1 He should have said the 
 almost simultaneous publication of the Commentaries of 
 Dolet and the second edition of the Thesaurus, and one of 
 the remarks which he makes on the latter is equally appli- 
 cable to the former : ' The preceding dictionaries of Calepin 
 and other compilers had been limited to an interpretation of 
 single words, sometimes with references to passages in the 
 authors who had employed them. This produced on the 
 one hand perpetual barbarisms and deviations from purity 
 of idiom, while it gave rise in some to a fastidious hyper- 
 
 1 Hallam speaks of the publication of his (Estienne's) Thesaurus in 
 1535, augmented in a subsequent edition of 1543. The first edition of 
 the Thesaurus was in October 1532, in a single volume, which had cost 
 the author two years of hard and incessant labour, and which, though a 
 great advance on any dictionary then extant, would not have deserved the 
 praise which Hallam gives to the author had not a second edition 
 appeared in December 1536 (there was no edition in 1535), so much 
 augmented as to be almost a new work. This was followed in 1 54-3 by 
 a third edition, still more enlarged, and for which the author had the 
 advantage of consulting the Commentaries of Dolet. 
 
244 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 criticism, of which Valla had given an example. Stephens 
 first endeavoured to exhibit the proper use of words, not 
 only in all the anomalies of idiom, but in every delicate 
 variation of sense to which the pure taste and subtle discern- 
 ment of the best writers had given an example.' The aims 
 and scope of the two scholars were however as different as 
 the methods they employed, and while those of Robert 
 Estienne were more conducive to the practical utility of his 
 work, those of Dolet were certainly more scientific and 
 critical. The work of Robert Estienne was a dictionary and 
 nothing more, in which the alphabetical order was followed, 
 and in which each word was explained by itself and without 
 regard to its relationship to others. 1 Dolet, on the contrary, 
 
 1 The alphabetical method seems to us, from habit, so natural that 
 we find a difficulty in conceiving the possibility of any other. Yet it 
 may be doubted whether that of Dolet was not the true order, and 
 whether, had not his misfortunes and untimely death on the charge of 
 atheism caused his work to drop out of the memory and use of man, his 
 system might not have come into general use. It was the success and 
 popularity of the Dictionary of R. Estienne (which has continued to be 
 the basis of all subsequent Latin Dictionaries) which fixed the alpha- 
 betical method, convenient as it is, so firmly that it is impossible to 
 change it ; yet J. M. Gesner, in his Dissertatio de Pracipuis Lexicis Latinis 
 prefixed to his Novus Linguae et Eruditionis Romans Thesaurus (Lips., 1749), 
 considers that the popularity of R. Estienne's alphabetical order has been 
 a misfortune to Latin scholarship. It will be remembered that a non- 
 alphabetic method analogous to, though not the same as that of Dolet, 
 was adopted in the first edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy 
 as the true and scientific one, and it was only changed to the alphabetical 
 method in the second edition because the latter had become too rooted in 
 the popular mind to be changed. ' II y a deux manieres de ranger les mots 
 dans un dictionnaire ; l'une de les mettre tous, de quelque nature qu'ils 
 soient, dans leur ordre alphabetique ; l'autre de les disposer par racines, 
 c'est k dire, de n'observer l'ordre de l'alphabet que pour les mots primitifs. 
 . . . Or, de ces deux me'thodes la derniere est veritablement la plus savante, 
 la plus propre a instruire un lecteur studieux. . . . Mais cette methode 
 n'accommodoit pas l'impatience du Francois ; ainsi l'Academie apres 
 l'avoir employee dans la premiere edition de son dictionnaire, a cru devoir 
 l'abandonner dans la seconde.' Olivet, Hist, de P Academie Franfaise. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 245 
 
 arranged his words according to their connection with each 
 other, or rather with the ideas which they expressed. The 
 commentary upon one word is followed by a commentary 
 upon the words of a like character, and then upon those 
 which are contrary or dissimilar. Thus to amare, with which 
 the Commentaries commence, follow in order adamare, reda- 
 mare, amator, amabilis, diligere, observare, colere, amplecti, 
 complecti, amicitia, amor, charitas, pietas, benevolentia, 
 animus, voluntas, and so on, until the author has completely 
 exhausted the words expressing or having relation to this idea. 
 The words are thus classed, not according to their sound 
 or orthography, but according to their signification. The 
 object of Robert Estienne was merely to explain the meaning 
 of words ; that of Dolet was to do this, but at the same 
 time to group together and show the relations between all 
 words capable of expressing the same or a similar or a 
 contrary idea. Dolet thus explains the method of his Com- 
 mentaries in a brief introduction to the first volume : — 
 
 ' That the method of these my Commentaries may be I 
 more clearly seen and more easily understood, I wish to] 
 explain the arrangement I make use of. In the first place 
 I give the meaning of each word, both its primary and its 
 secondary or tralatitious meaning. Then I distinguish the 
 different uses of the words. Lastly I adduce examples, but 
 of each kind separately, so that instances are given of the 
 words used in their original signification, and again in their 
 secondary. But in setting forth the different uses of a word, 
 I have so separated the examples, that immediately after 
 showing as accurately as possible the primary signification of a 
 word and the tralatitious one (if it has a tralatitious meaning), 
 I adduce simple examples of the different uses. I call them 
 simple because they are set forth with no special grace or 
 elegance of construction. Having done this, I illustrate by 
 separate examples the various uses and forms of construction 
 
246 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 of the word. When I have shown both in my own language 
 and by examples drawn from Cicero, the primary and 
 secondary meanings of the word in question, I then subjoin 
 other words of a cognate meaning, and so continue in a 
 connected series as long as it seems possible to do so. But 
 as it is not possible to connect all the words together in an 
 infinite series, when I have exhausted a series of congruent 
 words I naturally proceed to their contraries, and with them 
 I use as far as possible the same plan. . . . For example, 
 after the words conciliare, conjungere, on the next page are 
 opposed the words alienare, abalienare. So to consentire, 
 convenire, congruere, concordare, coire, conspirare, conjurare, 
 succeed dissentire, dissidere, discordare, discrepare, like op- 
 posing standards brought together for hostile encounter. 
 But I must pursue my course in my own stupid way. I 
 directly join opposites to opposites, so only that the series 
 of words is not interrupted, and thus when the forms of 
 similar and dissimilar words are extended somewhat more at 
 length, my system becomes plain. In the meantime, as to 
 those who are indolent, and who impudently and recklessly 
 devote their ill-employed leisure to calumniating the labours 
 of the studious, they certainly do not know the matter which 
 they talk about ; they morosely blame, as they do every- 
 thing, the multitude of examples I make use of. Once for 
 all let this be said to them, you may both explain the 
 meaning of words, and may inculcate the principles of 
 rhetoric, so as much more clearly to enunciate them and lay 
 them open, by the abundance and copiousness of examples 
 and expressions, than by any verbose explanation of a 
 grammarian, or any system of a rhetorician. Let them 
 cease to speak malevolently, and let them suffer the ignorant 
 youths, for whom I have prepared this exercise of my earlier 
 manhood (for why should I prepare it for the learned, whose 
 minds are filled with erudition of all kinds, and by whom an 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 247 
 
 abundance of examples is not needed ?), to be allured to or 
 prepared for the reading of Cicero by the happy abundance 
 of Ciceronian examples. But of what use is it to complain 
 of the perverse loquacity of my detractors ? I have hoped 
 that by the multitude of examples I might be more easily 
 able to explain to those who are ignorant, the use of words. 
 I have therefore desired to abound in examples, so that the 
 student may saturate himself with them, and thus be led as 
 far as possible to a knowledge and to a comparison of the 
 use of expressions. And if my work has by this accumula- 
 tion of examples increased to an immense size, this will be 
 considered as so much gain ; nor will it be treated as a 
 matter of regret to be able to acquire at so small an expense, 
 so great wealth in Latin oratory. I hope to complete the 
 whole of my Commentaries in three volumes. The first, in 
 which I treat of the use of nouns and verbs, is now finished ; 
 in the second I shall continue and complete the same subject, 
 and shall afterwards treat of indeclinable particles ; in the 
 third I shall set forth certain rare and specially elegant 
 modes of expression, culled and collected from Latin writers, 
 and in a brief essay shall touch upon Latin style and prose- 
 rhythm. Of these matters I do not wish you to be ignorant, 
 and I also wish you to understand the system and arrange- 
 ment of my Commentaries? 
 
 It would appear, from several passages in the second 
 volume, that his method had not been entirely understood, 
 and had been unfavourably criticised, and accordingly he more 
 than once explains it, and claims it as his own invention, of 
 which he was not unreasonably proud. 1 ' In these Com- 
 mentaries? he says in a prefatory note, ' my first intention 
 was to originate a new method of compiling dictionaries 
 which no other Greek or Latin scholar could claim for 
 himself. This arrangement (as you will already have 
 1 See cols. 763, 913, 1034, I0 %5> an d 1583 of vol. ii. 
 
248 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 gathered from a perusal of my work) is, that I do not follow 
 the alphabetical order as is done by the common herd of 
 grammarians, but join things to things, and connect together 
 expressions of a cognate meaning.' And in a long disserta- 
 tion near the end of the second volume, 1 after stating that 
 he has endeavoured to explain, not merely the meanings of 
 words, but the nature of the things specified, so as to have 
 as it were complete treatises on many matters, such as res 
 bellies, navales, rustics, aelestes, he thus continues : 'I have 
 only sought to explain the leading and as it were distinguished 
 words. The Dictionary of M. Nizolius, or the Thesaurus 
 of Robert Estienne, or Calepin (an edition of whose work 
 has lately been published by certain learned men, with the 
 assistance and at the expense of Sebastian Gryphius), will 
 supply the common crowd of words.' 
 
 Passing from the method to the substance of the Com- 
 mentaries, it is certainly to be regretted that Dolet confined 
 himself to examples taken from so few writers. Those 
 from Cicero are many times more numerous than the 
 I examples from all the other Latin authors put together, 
 j though he often cites, especially in his second volume, 
 j Terence, Plautus, Caesar, Sallust, and Livy, and, very rarely, 
 j Pliny, Virgil, Quintus Curtius, Columella, and Horace. 
 i The first volume is litde more than a commentary on the 
 'Ciceronian use of the words treated of, with occasional 
 j illustrations from Terence and Plautus. The second volume 
 has a much wider range, yet here also Cicero reigns supreme. 
 Considering however that the author was only twenty-seven 
 years of age when the first volume appeared, he certainly 
 displays a remarkably thorough knowledge of Cicero, 
 Terence and Plautus, and of the Latin language as used by 
 them, an admirable and elegant Latin style, and a great 
 facility in the use of it. 
 
 1 Col. 1583. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 249 
 
 But the interest and value of the work from the point of 
 view of Latin scholarship is, like that of the early editions of 
 the Dictionary of Robert Estienne, historical merely. Its 
 present and living interest is to be found in the numerous 
 parenthetical disquisitions and notes in which the author 
 indulges. These are often autobiographical, often relating 
 to contemporary scholars whom the author loved or hated, ( 
 but are always full of a lively interest. Dolet was not one 
 of those writers who ever forgot or allowed his readers to 
 forget his own individuality. Whatever he wrote, whether 
 history, poetry, or criticism, his self-consciousness never 
 deserted him, and his subject matter is a mirror in which are 
 displayed his vanity, his desire for literary fame, his quarrels, 
 his loves, his hatreds. The consequence of this is that all 
 his books, however imperfect as works of art, contain much 
 entertaining matter, and one is never sure what may be 
 found in them. Thus, as an example of the word tangere he 
 gives, 1 ' Genabum prseclarum Galliae oppidum (in quo et 
 natus et ad duodecimum annum adolescens educatus sum) 
 Ligerim fluvium tangit : id est, juxta Ligerim est conditum.' 
 He panegyrises Longolius, Budasus, and Simon Villanovanus, 
 he laments the cruel death of Thomas More, and (in his 
 first volume) attacks Erasmus with a virulence which here, 
 as in his Dialogue, brings out into painfully sharp relief the 
 worst side of his own character. Yet in his second volume 
 the pen was in his hand at the word pacisci, 2 when the news 
 of the death of the great scholar reached him. He at once 
 laid aside his hatred, for, as he says in another place, he 
 warred not with the dead, and stopped to pay a warm and 
 generous tribute to the merits of the author of the Ciceroni- 
 anus, in an ode which is not one of the least happy of his 
 productions. ' Whilst I was writing,' he says, ' the news of 
 the death of Erasmus reached Lyons. Why should I say 
 
 1 1 Com. 938. 2 Col. 151. 
 
250 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 anything more here respecting my quarrel with him ? I 
 only wish posterity to know that as when he was living, I 
 frequently showed myself hostile and bitter against him, so 
 now that he is dead, I desire to be both just and friendly to 
 him, and treat him with a moderation which he himself did 
 not show to others. The following ode is a proof of my 
 good. feeling towards him.' 
 
 Then follows an ode in which he tells us he warred with 
 Erasmus when living, as an enemy of Cicero and the French ; 
 but now that he is dead, he feels that Germany and literature 
 have lost one of their greatest ornaments. 1 
 
 1 Quondam bella ferocia 
 
 Cum inter se atque duces Romulidae atque Afri 
 Ducebant animosius : 
 
 Turn, donee validus, vivus, et integer, 
 Frendensque, atque minans erat 
 
 Hostis, cui, gladio cominus aggredi, 
 Et telo appetere undique, 
 
 Non laudabile, non egregium fuit ? 
 Ergo, dum fuit integer, 
 
 Et pugnae cupidus, spicula senserit 
 Nostra hostis Ciceronis, et 
 
 Galli (quae rabies !) nominis insolens. 
 Jam jam parcere mortuo 
 
 Mens est, nee tacitam carpere postea 
 Larvam vulnifico stylo. 
 
 Defunctum mentis sic modo laudibus, 
 O Musas, meritum senem 
 
 Ornemus. Rapuit mors nimium rapax 
 Germans; patriae decus, 
 
 Doctorumque decus, quoslibet Itala 
 Tellus, Gallaque proferat 
 
 (Te Budase tamen, te quoque Longoli ?) 
 Germanse patriae decus, 
 
 Doctorumque decus mors rapuit rapax. 
 
 This ode has been translated into English verse neither very accurately 
 nor very poetically, in the 62nd volume of the Gentleman's Magazine, 
 p. 1037 (Nov. 1792). 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 251 
 
 In both volumes numerous dissertations are to be found, 
 though in the second they are both more numerous and more 
 interesting than in the first. In each volume the author 
 loses no opportunity, or rather makes numerous opportunities 
 of glorifying himself, his studies, his writings, and his friends, 
 and complaining of his enemies and detractors. In this, as 
 in so many of his other writings, he seems to show that he 
 had a presentiment and foreshadowing of his terrible fate. 
 In one place x he prays that his life may never depend on the 
 sentence of a judge ; in another 2 he confesses that he has no 
 desire to die before his time, yet that he accompanies his 
 devotion to letters with a constant meditation on and re- 
 collection of death. Besides the passages devoted generally 
 to the scholars and poets of the time, Clement Marot, 
 Bonaventure Des Periers, Maurice Sceve, Jean de Langeac, 
 Guillaume du Choul, and others are in the second volume 
 honoured with special paragraphs. 
 
 The form in which the Commentaries appeared was well 
 worthy of their merits. The two folios which contain them 
 are, with one exception, 3 the most splendid monument of the 
 typographical art of Gryphius, as well as, without exception, 
 the most important original work which issued from his 
 prolific press. In the 1708 closely-printed columns which 
 form the text of the first volume, the author only noted 
 eight errata, which are corrected at the end ; and though he 
 does not assert, nor is it the fact, that there are no others, 
 yet they are certainly very few in number. The border of 
 the title-page of each volume is a most elaborate specimen of 
 wood engraving, displaying the merits and the defects of the 
 
 1 2 Com. 1328. 
 
 2 Id. 1 163. 
 
 8 The exception here referred to is the magnificent Latin Bible 
 printed by S. Gryphius in 1550 in two volumes folio, with a larger type 
 than up to that time had been used for any edition of the Bible. 
 
252 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 contemporary German school ; and if wanting in delicacy 
 and taste, yet it possesses the force and vigour which show 
 the hand of a master. At the top in the centre is King 
 Solomon, with Aristotle and Plato on one side, and Socrates 
 and Pythagoras on the other ; on each side of the page are 
 portraits of twenty of the poets, orators, and historians of 
 Greece and Rome, and at the foot, extending the width of 
 the whole title-page, Homer crowned by the Muses. 1 
 
 The work commences with a dedication to Francis I. 
 Then after an ode, also addressed to the King, comes a 
 further prefatory letter addressed to Bude. 
 
 ' Having now,' he says, ' arrived at the twenty-seventh 
 year of my age, I know that the works I have hitherto 
 published are rather copious than weighty or marked by 
 great abilities. It was the disgraceful insults of certain most 
 
 1 These woodcut borders were not designed specially for the Com- 
 mentaries. M. A. F. Didot {Essai sur I'histoire de la gravure sur bois, 
 p. 230) writes, 'Je remarque que le grand encadrement in-f°- du titre 
 des Commentaria de Dolet imprimes en 1536 par Sebastien Gryphe est le 
 mSme que celui dont le beau et savant dessin ne saurait etre attribue qu'a 
 Holbein et dont Froben s'est servi pour son edition des Adagia d'Erasme, 
 Bale, 1520. A c6te de la figure representant Aristote, on voit me'me les 
 deux lettres I. F. (Jean Froben), marque qui se retrouve sur plusieurs 
 planches gravees pour lui d'apres Holbein. On ne saurait douter que ce 
 ne soient les memes gravures sur bois ou plutot sur cuivre en relief qui 
 aient servi aux editions de Bale et de Lyon. Ce meme encadrement, 
 compose de quatre pieces, avait d'abord paru a Bale en 1520, sur le titre 
 des Erasmi Adagia imprimis par Froben, puis en tete du Strabon in-f°. 
 chez Valentin Curio en 1523, et en 1526 chez Andre Cratander, en tete 
 de l'Hippocrate, d'ou il revint a Lyon pour orner l'edition de Dolet en 
 1536, puis le Lexique de Calepinus imprime par Sebastien Gryphe en 
 1 540.' I can supplement this note with six other volumes in which I 
 have found the same woodcut borders on the title. Five of these are 
 from the press of Gryphius, namely, editions of the Adagia of Erasmus of 
 1529 and 1530, the De verborum signification of Alciat, the Thesaurus of 
 Sanctes Pagnini, 1529, and the De perenni philosophia of Aug. Steuchus, 
 1540 ; the other volume is Divi Clementis recognitionum Libri X . . . 
 Rufino Torino interprete, printed by Bebelius at Basle in 1526. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 253 
 
 cruel men (whose names I suppress) which compelled me to 
 perform the task of addressing the public prematurely. But 
 you certainly do not doubt, and indeed all who know my 
 gendeness will be certain, that if I have written anything 
 against them too harshly, the anger which, owing to the 
 unbearable insults I had received, I had manifested, was 
 growing less sharp, when it was again excited beyond ex- 
 pectation. I perhaps allowed myself to seem too warm, and 
 showed the appearance of a somewhat too angry spirit 
 (which my enemies foolishly cast in my teeth), but which 
 really my great forbearance, wounded and violated as it was, 
 had inflamed.' After going on in this strain for some time, 
 and then proceeding to abuse of Erasmus (which he knew 
 would be agreeable to Bude), he thus continues : — 
 
 ' I have now endeavoured to obey the rule of life which 
 has been afforded to us by nature, namely to devise some- 
 thing which would be useful, and would promote the interests 
 of as many as possible. But I have thought that I ought to 
 have regard not only to my dear countrymen, that is to say 
 the French, but to all those who cherish an affection for the 
 Latin tongue. I have not however undertaken my work 
 with the idea of injuring the reputation of the many learned 
 men who before me have commented upon the Latin language 
 with both ingenuity and learning. I have neither the wish 
 nor the power to do this. What I have endeavoured to do 
 is to make more complete, more copious, and to digest in a 
 more convenient order for the benefit of the studious youth, 
 that which has been rather attempted than accomplished by 
 others. In these my Commentaries I do not break off the 
 handle for others who may come after me ; I have only 
 thought that the way by which I have myself slowly arrived 
 at my own familiarity with the Latin tongue, and the 
 method of study by which the hope has come to me that I 
 might be able to attain both to copiousness of words and 
 
254 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 clearness of expression, ought not to be concealed, but that 
 the opportunity ought to be afforded to all, of studying in like 
 manner and of applying this method to their own studies. 
 It is this method that I have been especially desirous of 
 making known. Accordingly when I was sixteen years 
 of age (at the time when the French King succumbed by 
 treachery on the field of Pavia), having mastered the 
 rudiments of the Latin language, I gave myself up almost 
 entirely to the reading of Cicero, and attentively noticing 
 his forms of expressions, I began to compile these Com- 
 mentaries, not indeed then with a view to their publication, 
 but merely for my own personal benefit. As my age 
 increased and my studies progressed, so did my Com- 
 mentaries. But when I began to lay the foundation of 
 my Latin style, and to devote myself to the study of 
 grammatical forms, I grew somewhat wearied of my Com- 
 mentaries, and in my desire to attain a good Latin style, 
 they ceased for a long time to make progress. But what 
 I have found to be of so great service to myself, and have 
 hoped would not be useless to others, I have thought I 
 ought to endeavour to lay open to all. I have therefore 
 decided on publishing this work, begun indeed in my 
 youth, but now entirely re-written and completed with 
 all the care, diligence and judgment which I could bring 
 to bear upon it. But besides the desire which I have 
 had for some time of promoting the interests of youthful 
 students, my greatest inducement for an earlier publication 
 than I should otherwise have wished has been the considera- 
 tion that, if I postponed the matter and afterwards gave 
 myself up to more important matters of study, I should 
 be indisposed to return to more humble ones. For I am 
 planning a more serious undertaking ; I have for some 
 time contemplated, after completing the labour which 
 these Commentaries have imposed upon me, devoting my- 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 255 
 
 self to writing the history of our own time. This (if one 
 may venture to predict anything as to one's own work) the 
 youth who loves literature shall sometime receive from me. 
 My native country shall not complain that I have wasted 
 my leisure and the fruits of my studies in feeble or useless 
 writings. As then I have passed my youth and manhood 
 in a most honourable and praiseworthy kind of study, so 
 it is my wish to pass my old age, unless I should be taken 
 away by a premature death. I shall thus most abundantly 
 satisfy my great desire of contributing something to the 
 common weal.' 
 
 Then follow some just criticisms on the mode of writing 
 history (and other things) then in vogue, and Dolet con- 
 trasts this mode with that of Bude, of whose works he 
 says, 'Will the time ever come when your writings will 
 be neglected by the learned ? Will they ever at any time 
 become wearisome ? They will live for all time, as will 
 those which like them possess that great learning which 
 will procure for them immortality.' He then announces 
 that his Commentaries are to be in three volumes, of which 
 this is the first. 
 
 Three pieces of Latin verse follow, addressed to his 
 book, one of which I shall venture to quote : — 
 
 Doleti ad Commentaries. 
 
 Prima meae monimenta artis, monimenta juventae 
 
 Prima meae, tandem auspiciis exite secundis : 
 
 Ac longae pertaesa moras, nimiumque retenta 
 
 Vos desiderium capiat jam lucis : in auras 
 
 Surgite : nee maledica hominum vel lingua, vel asper 
 
 Sermo metum injiciat : studio quin luminis ite, 
 
 Ite (imbecilles animos timor arguit) ite 
 
 Prima meae monimenta artis, monimenta juventae 
 
 Prima meae tandem auspiciis exite secundis. 
 
256 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Of the digressions and dissertations contained in the 
 
 first volume, I pass over those which are devoted to his 
 
 own glorification, to the attacks of his enemies (real and 
 
 imaginary), to the exaltation of Villanovanus and Longolius, 
 
 and to the depreciation of Erasmus, 1 and shall here quote 
 
 only the longest but certainly the most interesting digression, 
 
 ' in which, though in too rhetorical a style, he reviews the 
 
 i state of literature from the commencement of its revival, 
 
 J and enumerates those who have most contributed to it 2 : — 
 
 ' Having explained the words which relate to motion and 
 
 rest, I now pass on to another thing which proceeds from 
 
 I rest or leisure, namely, Litera. Certainly literary pursuits 
 
 1 spring from leisure, and cannot exist without it ; but yet 
 
 before I explain the words relating to this matter, and 
 
 show their uses, let me express the delight which I feel at 
 
 the dignified position of literature, which in our time 
 
 flourishes so remarkably. 
 
 ' Literary studies are cultivated everywhere with so much 
 
 i vigour that, in order to attain to the glory of the ancients, 
 
 ; nothing is wanting save the ancient intellectual freedom 
 
 and the prospect of acquiring distinction by the cultivation 
 
 I of the liberal arts. What the learned miss, is the affection, 
 
 the liberality, the courtesy of the powerful ; the patronage of 
 
 > a Maecenas is needed as a stimulant to their talents and an 
 
 encouragement to their labours. Further, there is wanting 
 
 to us an opportunity for the display of eloquence, a Roman 
 
 senate, a republic in which honour and a due meed of 
 
 ' praise would be awarded to it, so as to arouse even the 
 
 most sluggish natures, and to inflame to the highest pitch 
 
 1 In a long dissertation on eloquence and on the imitation of Cicero 
 (col. 1235) he compares Erasmus and Longolius. Every possible un- 
 favourable epithet is applied to the style of Erasmus, while that of 
 Longolius is lauded to the skies. 
 
 2 Col. 1 1 56. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 257 
 
 those who are naturally well endowed with oratorical talent. 
 Instead of these inducements to the study of the liberal 
 arts, there is among many a contempt for literary culture. 
 Ridicule is awarded to those who are devoted to intellectual! 
 pursuits ; literary labour has to be pursued without any | 
 hope or prospect of reward ; the life of the student is 
 passed without honour ; the contempt of the multitude has 
 to be endured ; the tyranny and insolence of the powerful 
 have to be borne ; and danger to life itself is often the result 
 of intellectual pursuits. Yet the vices of the times have 
 not so completely driven intellectual excellence beyond the 
 boundaries of Europe, as that we do not see everywhere 
 some who are burning with love for it. And although 
 in the incessant and bitter struggle with barbarism and 
 ignorance, which has now continued for a century, the 
 victory, owing to the too great strength and power of the 
 barbarians, has often been doubtful, yet the result has at 
 length been the success of the party of progress. 
 
 ' Laurentius Valla, assisted by noble contemporaries, was 
 one of the first to lead the way and to break the line of 
 battle of the enemy. Yet this seemed but a skirmish of 
 light-armed troops fighting at a distance, not in a close 
 hand-to-hand combat. For though a breach was made in 
 the enemies' line, the wings of the barbarian army were not 
 even conscious of it. But when the efforts of Valla and his 
 contemporaries were almost crushed by the leaders of the 
 barbarians, Angelus Politianus, Hermolaiis Barbarus, Picus 
 of Mirandola, Volaterranus, Ccelius Rhodiginus, Sabellicus, 
 Crinitus, Philelphus, Marsilius Ficinus, and all that illus- 
 trious generation came to their help, and well armed with 
 eloquence bore down with vigour and boldness upon the 
 army of the barbarians, which had collected its scattered 
 forces and was regaining its strength. But though their 
 efforts led to their own destruction, they certainly over- 
 
 s 
 
258 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 threw the hosts of the barbarians, though unable completely 
 to destroy their forces. The right wing of the barbarian 
 army remained intact after the battle, only the left was 
 cut to pieces. Suddenly from Italy, Germany, Britain, 
 Spain, and France, the thunderbolts of letters are hurled 
 upon barbarism, which was still standing erect and rearing 
 its crest aloft ; it is made to yield itself up and is led away 
 in triumph. 
 
 ' Italy, which has ever been the metropolis of eloquence, 
 and never destitute of men of genius, furnished the chief 
 leaders, men of the greatest reputation in the pursuit of 
 eloquence, and who had achieved the highest literary success, 
 Bembo, Sadolet, Baptista Egnatius (whose lectures on the 
 Offices of Cicero and on Lucretius I myself attended at 
 Venice), Andreas Navagerus, Romulus Amaseus, Nicolas 
 Leoniceni, Lampridius, Lazarus Buonamicus. It added as 
 poets, Jovianus Pontanus, Hieronymus Vida, Actius Syncerus 
 Sannazarius. What men are these ! What praise do they 
 not deserve ! What glory have they not achieved ! Next 
 after these, and fighting vigorously against the barbaric 
 horde, come Cardinal Adrian, Bartholomasus Riccius, 
 Marius Nizolius, Hortensius Appianus, and with them the 
 celebrated physician Joannes Manardus. At the same 
 time Andreas Alciatus, in his youth a fugitive from the 
 camp of the legists, but in no ordinary degree imbued with 
 literary culture, and ever of most high repute amongst the 
 most learned, attacks the barbarians ; nor is he alone, but 
 is accompanied and encouraged to the fight by iEmilius 
 Ferret and Otho Bosio. Such is the noble cohort, and 
 such the illustrious leaders which Italy has sent to 
 the combat. As to the rank and file, the fighting 
 soldiers, I do not name them ; but their names, as yet 
 obscure, will in due time shine as brilliantly as those of 
 their leaders. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 
 
 259 
 
 ' Germany in its turn, excited by and emulous of the 
 studies of Italy, gave the signal to its troops to charge the 
 enemy. At their country's command, Johan Reuchlin and) 
 Rudolf Agricola take up arms, and associate with theml 
 their disciple Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, a writer' 1 
 indeed rather verbose and sarcastic than eloquent and 
 graceful, yet by his great pile of volumes an unwearied 
 assistant in promoting the interests of literature. They 
 are immediately followed by Philip Melanchthon, first in 
 eminence among the Germans. Rapidly following them 
 come on Ulrich Hutten, Beatus Rhenanus, Symon Grynasus, 
 Henricus Glareanus, Martin Dorpius, Conrad Goclenius, 
 Eobanus Hesse, Jacobus Mycillus, Johannes Oporinus, 
 Jacobus Omphalius, Ulrich Zazius, Viglius Zuichemus, 
 Carolus Sucquet, Cop of Basle, and Leonard Fuchsius, all 
 desiring freedom from the barbaric yoke, some for eloquence, 
 some for poetry, some for jurisprudence, and some for 
 medicine. 
 
 ' In Britain there have arisen against barbarism, Cuthbert 
 Tonstal, Thomas Linacre, and Thomas More, the latter as 
 happily gifted with literary talent, as he was unhappy in 
 his unjust and unfortunate fate. From Spain came forth 
 Ludovicus Vives and Antonius Nebrissensis, the latter 
 showing more courage than skill. Codes Ninivita 1 (whom 
 I had almost passed over) follows, and is one of the first 
 to attack barbarism and to provoke it to battle. 
 
 'France, which I have reserved to the last that I may 
 not be charged with giving undue precedence to my own 
 country, is not absent, and gives with her forces no slight 
 assistance to those of Italy, Germany, Britain, and Spain. 
 Bude as their chief captain heads them, a man as dis- 
 tinguished in Greek as in Latin literature. Closely behind 
 
 1 Jean Despautere, the grammarian, surnamed Ninivita from his 
 birthplace, Ninove in Brabant, and Codes as being blind of one eye. 
 
260 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 him follows Lefevre d'Etaples, defended by the shield of 
 philosophy. To Christopher Longolius (it does not matter 
 that when a young man, owing to the injuries of his fellow- 
 citizens, he renounced his country, for Longolius was really 
 a Frenchman 1 ) and Simon Villanovanus the duty is 
 assigned of extending the frontiers of the Latin tongue ; 
 to this they devote their energies, and having gained a 
 victory over barbarism, they restore eloquence to its ancient 
 dignity. As soon as the desire of our country to aid the 
 cause of letters is made known, Jean de Pins, Nicolas 
 Berauld (under whom when sixteen years of age I studied 
 rhetoric at Paris), Germain Brice, Lazarus Baif, Pierre 
 Danes, Jacques Toussain, Salmon Macrin, Nicolas Bourbon, 
 Guillaume Mayne, Jean Voulte, Oronce Fine of Dauphine, 
 Pierre Gilles, join themselves as companions in arms to 
 Bude,Lefevre, Longolius, and Villanovanus. Eminent jurists 
 ally themselves with these against barbarism — Pyrrhus 
 Angleberme of Orleans, Pierre de l'Estoile, a native of the 
 same place, Gui de Breslay, Jean de Boyssone of Toulouse, 
 Guillaume Sceve of Lyons, Claude Chansonette, Emile 
 Perrot, and Michel de l'Hopital. From the medical 
 schools there rush to the conflict Symphorien Champier, 
 Jacques du Bois, Jean Ruel, Jean Cop, Francois Rabelais, 
 Carolus Paludanus. 2 
 
 ' This corps of learned men, collected from every quarter, 
 has made such havoc with the camp of barbarism, that there 
 is no place left for it on which to take up its position. It 
 has fled from Italy, it has left Germany, it has escaped from 
 
 1 Longolius was born at Liege, and Villanovanus was, strictly speaking, 
 a Fleming, yet Dolet, like other writers of the time, treated them as of 
 the Gallic nation. 
 
 2 Of Carolus Paludanus I know nothing except a complimentary 
 epigram of Gilbert Ducher, Epigrammata (Lugd. 1 538), p. 148. He 
 seems to have been a physician of Lyons. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 261 
 
 England, it has rushed forth from Spain, it has been expelled 
 and cast out from France, not a city in Europe but is 
 free from the horrible monster. Everywhere letters are 
 cultivated to the highest pitch, all liberal studies flourish, 
 and by the aid of literary culture, men are led to the 
 knowledge, long neglected, of the true and the just. Men 
 are at length learning to know themselves ; their eyes, 
 formerly shut up in the darkness of a miserable blindness, 
 are at length opened to universal light. They are at length 
 seen to differ from the brutes by minds capable of culture, 
 and by language (the chief point of distinction between us 
 and the lower animals) which is now accurately studied and 
 brought to perfection. Have I not then reason to con- 
 gratulate letters on their triumph, since they have recovered 
 their ancient glory, and (which is their special privilege) 
 gladden the life of man with so many enjoyments ? Only let 
 that hatred of literature and of learned men, which is dis- 
 played by many who have been educated barbarously and 
 without culture, be extinguished, let those human pests be 
 got rid of, and what would be wanting to complete the 
 happiness of these our times? The authority of these 
 wretched men is however on the wane, and the youth of 
 our day will grow up rightly and liberally educated, and, 
 conscious of the dignity of letters, will hurl down the 
 enemies of culture from their seats, will discharge public 
 duties, will assist in the councils of kings, will preside over 
 and wisely administer public affairs. Moreover, that to 
 which they themselves have owed so much, namely literary 
 culture, they will wish to see spread abroad among all. It is 
 this which teaches us to avoid vice, which generates the love 
 of virtue, which commands kings to seek out those who are 
 lovers and cultivators of virtue justice and equity, to call 
 them to their side and to retain them as their counsellors, 
 which teaches them to avoid and drive from them as a 
 
262 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 poison those vicious men, those flatterers, those parasites, 
 those ministers of their pleasures, with which kings' palaces 
 swarm. When all this is accomplished, what more would 
 Plato desire for the happiness of his Republic ? He would 
 have none but wise and learned princes there, or at least 
 such as are lovers of the wise and learned and as desire to be 
 guided by their counsels. No one will then have to com- 
 ! plain of the want of wisdom in princes, since it will be clear 
 that none are so highly esteemed or so agreeable to them as 
 the wise and learned. All this will be achieved by literary 
 culture, by the study of letters, and by that discipline, which 
 now with such general approval, has permeated the minds 
 of all.' 
 
 Between the appearance of the first and second volumes 
 of the Commentaries upwards of a year and a half elapsed. 
 The latter did not see the light until the month of February 
 1538. This long delay was caused by the troubles of the 
 author, arising from the death of Compaing, by the attack 
 of Charles Estienne, and Dolet's reply to it, matters which 
 are treated of in subsequent chapters of this book. 
 
 The second, like the first volume, has two dedications, 
 to Francis I. and Guillaume Bude. The former is full of 
 the usual commonplaces, the latter thus commences : — 
 
 ' At last the second volume of my Commentaries on the 
 Latin Tongue appears, after long delays caused by the many 
 injuries which have been inflicted on me both by fortune 
 and by men ; yet, owing to my resolute conduct, it has been 
 so constantly pressed forwards, that notwithstanding all the 
 hostility of men and of fortune, it at length comes before the 
 public' 
 
 The remainder relates chiefly to the author's misfortunes, 
 the malice of his enemies, and his design of writing the 
 history of his own times. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 263 
 
 The plan pursued in the second is the same as in the I 
 first volume. The author completes the commentaries upon ' 
 nouns and verbs, which occupy eight hundred out of the 
 eight hundred and fifty-eight pages of the volume, and the 
 remainder is devoted to adverbs, conjunctions, preposi- 
 tions, and interjections. It has the advantage over the 
 first volume in the much wider range of Latin authors 
 quoted, while the increased number, variety, and interest 
 of the digressions, autobiographical, historical, critical, and 
 philosophical, render it much more entertaining to the 
 modern reader. The author's self-consciousness is as con- 
 spicuous as in the former volume, but the tone is more 
 moderate, and the criticisms more judicious, and though 
 still tinged by personal feelings of love and hatred, not 
 entirely based on these. 
 
 Clement Marot, Maurice Sceve, Guillaume du Choul, 
 and Jean de Langeac receive a due meed of praise. Charles 
 Estienne and Lazarus Baif, notwithstanding the attack upon 
 Dolet, made by the former in the interest of the latter, are 
 treated with the utmost fairness and their merits fully 
 recognised. Menapius indeed, who in his funeral oration 
 upon Erasmus had censured Dolet, — though not more 
 severely than he deserved, — is not spared, and is classed 
 among the obtrectatores Dokti ; and the Paris professor, 
 who had found fault with the explanation of conficere in the 
 first volume, is referred to as stultus reprehensor. The 
 nature of the soul, death, and immortality are discussed with 
 freedom and ingenuity, and even with true eloquence, so as 
 to make us specially regret the loss of the book De Opinione 
 which, Dolet tells us, 1 he had composed concerning 'the 
 mortality or immortality of the soul, the various judgments 
 of men concerning religion, and their difFerent doctrines in 
 reference to the worship of God.' 
 
 1 Com. vol. ii. col. 414. 
 
264 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Francis I., Marguerite of Navarre, Charles V., the 
 Constable de Bourbon, Odet de Foix Seigneur de Lautrec, 
 all come under notice. Upon the military and naval affairs 
 of the Romans there are complete treatises, and in no other 
 work is there so exhaustive a treatise upon Vinum and all 
 that relates to it, including an interesting enumeration of the 
 various French wines then in vogue. Nor in this volume is 
 Dolet open to the charge either of censuring or ignoring the 
 works of his predecessors in the field of lexicography. 
 Robert and Charles Estienne, Lazarus Baif, Nizolius, and 
 Riccius are all referred to and their merits fully admitted. 
 
 The third volume, which was to have been a complete 
 treatise upon Latin style both prose and verse, and to which 
 as he tells us he proposed to devote his utmost ability, 
 learning, labour, and judgment, was never written ; his 
 misfortunes and his varied literary labours left him no leisure 
 — perhaps no desire- — to complete the work. 
 
 The publication of the first volume of the Commentaries, 
 whilst it at once placed Dolet in the first rank among the 
 Latin scholars of the day and gave him a very high reputation 
 among the French, 1 yet was not received by men of letters 
 generally with the enthusiasm which we might have expected, 
 and indeed drew down upon its author charges which we 
 shall perhaps think more prejudicial to his memory than 
 those for which he was sentenced to death. He had already 
 offended some of the most eminent scholars and several 
 influential schools of thought (or want of thought) of the 
 day, and the dissertations in this volume only repeated his 
 former offences, and added new and more powerful enemies 
 to those who already existed. The Doctors of the Sorbonne, 
 who — as far at least as Latin literature was concerned — 
 
 1 The book, like the other works of Dolet, seems, for reasons which 
 are indicated in the text, to have circulated but little out of France. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 265 
 
 assumed and exercised some of those functions which a 
 century later were undertaken in reference to French literature 
 by the Academy, and were revered by the orthodox and the 
 conservative as the highest authorities in matters of learning 
 and taste as well as in matters of opinion and faith, could 
 receive with no favour, even if they were not prepared 
 formally to censure the work of the audacious young man 
 who styled them sophista and combibones, 1 and held them up 
 to the scorn and hatred of the world for their attempted 
 suppression of the art of printing, an attempt which, since 
 it proved wholly ineffectual, they would gladly have seen 
 forgotten. The monks, the bigots, and the whole party of 
 reaction on whose support the Doctors of the Sorbonne 
 relied, had already, from the orations, letters, and poems, 
 seen in the person of Dolet their bitter and irreconcilable 
 enemy, who had thrown himself heart and soul into the ranks 
 of the party of progress, who had devoted himself to the two 
 things they utterly abhorred, letters and freedom of thought, 
 who had so unsparingly ridiculed the superstitions of the 
 Tolosans, and who, in expressing with uncalled-for emphasis 
 and boldness his sympathy with Jean de Boyssone and Jean 
 de Caturce, had already decided them not to rest till he 
 should meet with the latter's fate. On the other hand, his 
 ostentatious ridicule of Luther and his followers in the 
 dialogue De Imitatione Ciceroniana, and the levity and care- 
 lessness with which he treated theological subjects, made the 
 Reformers feel that they had nothing to hope from him, that 
 the matters which were to them so all-important, justification 
 by faith, the communion in both kinds, the precise nature of 
 the sacrament of the altar, were to him but as idle dreams, 
 of less import than a sentence of Cicero or a verse of 
 Terence. His classical paganism, which might have obtained 
 for him a cardinal's hat, or made him a pontifical secretary 
 1 Com. vol. i. col. 266. 
 
266 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 under Julius or Leo, was as distasteful to the Reformers as it 
 had now become to the Church ; 1 and a little later Calvin 
 and the Inquisitor-General Orry were in as complete agree- 
 ment in reference to the atheism of Dolet, as they were in 
 reference to the heresy of Servetus. It might at least have 
 been expected that among scholars and men of letters the 
 merits of the Commentaries would have been at once fully 
 recognised, and that to those learned men who were not 
 wholly occupied with another world, but who thought the 
 intellectual progress of the present not altogether unworthy 
 of the attention of those who dwelt in it, so important a 
 contribution to Latin scholarship would have been hailed 
 with delight. But unfortunately the violence of Dolet's 
 attack upon Erasmus had disgusted, as it could not fail to 
 do, all except the personal friends of its author or the 
 personal enemies of Erasmus, and as the latter were with few 
 exceptions the enemies of literature generally, the Dialogue 
 had not obtained for its author their favour, much as they 
 rejoiced at the attack upon the learned Dutchman. But 
 Dolet went out of the way to make enemies. We have seen 
 (how fiercely in the Orations he had attacked the Gascons, 
 because Pinache was of that province. In the Commentaries 
 I he sneers at the Germans and their Emperor, he heaps up 
 'epithets of abuse on the Spaniards, and he hardly conceals 
 Shis contempt for the Italians. Even among the Ciceronians 
 
 1 It is true that Bembo was not made a cardinal until 1538, but his 
 concubine (Morosina) was then dead, his children grown up, and at sixty 
 years of age he had already renounced his mundane life and his pagan 
 opinions and habits, and had begun to devote himself to the study of 
 Hebrew and the fathers, with a view to the hat which Clement VII. had 
 already wished to confer upon him, and had only been deterred from 
 conferring by the remonstrances of those to whom [the life, the tastes, 
 and the opinions, of Bembo, appeared equally scandalous. It was upon 
 the Christian convert, not the pagan scoffer, that Paul III. conferred 
 the hat. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 267 
 
 themselves he had made enemies where we should have 
 expected him to have found friends, and though he had 
 done nothing to deserve the anger of Julius Caesar Scaliger, 
 yet, as we have seen, that learned person chose to vituperate 
 him with all the force which an unlimited use of the most 
 foul and violent language could display, and in the use of 
 which the fere Duchesne himself might have sat as an humble 
 disciple, at the feet of the descendant of the princes of 
 Verona. 
 
 Besides, the first volume of the Commentaries was full of 
 offences against good taste and sound criticism. Erasmus is 
 treated with hardly more decency than in the Dialogue ; and 
 a scholar who saw his Apophthegmata characterised as a work 
 ' unworthy of an old man, and more fit for a schoolboy 
 studying grammar than for a learned man,' his epistles styled 
 ' a farrago,' his delightful Colloquies described in language 
 more suited to the correspondents of Ortuinus Gratius than 
 to a disciple of Longolius, might well be pardoned for 
 concluding (though in this case erroneously) that so unsound 
 and unappreciative a critic could have nothing worth saying 
 to the world. Nor would this conclusion be lessened by the 
 tone of arrogant contempt for all who differed from him, 
 which is here as elsewhere displayed. Hence it was that 
 except the few men of letters with whom Dolet came into 
 personal contact — and who without a single exception 
 recognised his great abilities and remarkable promise — the 
 Commentaries received less attention and excited less admira- 
 tion than we should have expected. That they were most 
 cordially received and highly appreciated by the head of 
 literature in France, Bude, is evident ; but Bude was seventy 
 years of age, in failing health, and never very enthusiastic in 
 promoting or cultivating the success of others. That they 
 would delight the hearts of the good Bishops of Rieux and 
 Limoges we may be sure ; but they were both elderly men 
 
268 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 retired from the world, and wholly devoid of influence. It 
 was hardly a work for Jean du Bellay, or Rabelais, or Marot 
 to care about, and the rest of Dolet's friends were not in a 
 position to be of much service to him in promoting the 
 reputation of his book. But the work was by no means 
 without its admirers ; it commended itself to all scholars 
 who looked at it with unprejudiced eyes. Sturm, than 
 whom there could be no more competent judge, speaks of 
 the Commentaries in terms of the highest praise, and laments 
 that they had never been completed. 1 I have already quoted 
 the remarks of Sussanneau and of Voulte. Omphalius was 
 not less emphatic in his admiration. 2 Nor have modern 
 critics spoken of it with less favour. Facciolati, 8 while 
 criticising with some severity Dolet's Latin style, and ex- 
 pressing the opinion that he showed both by his style, and 
 by accepting as a genuine work of Cicero the Rhetorica ad 
 Herennium, that he was not so thoroughly versed in the 
 writings of Cicero as he professed to be, yet adds, ' Nolim 
 tanti viri famam imminuere, quam sibi apud posteritatem 
 jure peperit ' ; he describes him as ' doctum et eruditum,' 
 and he admits that his Commentaries could only have been 
 composed by a man of genius and industry. 
 
 But perhaps the most signal proof of the merits of the 
 book and its author is to be found in the fate of a thin folio, 
 which Dolet printed shortly after the appearance of the 
 
 1 Preface to Sturm's edition of Dolet's Phrases et Formula, Argen- 
 torati, 1576. 
 
 2 ' Scripsit et in earn sententiam nuper multa Stephanus Doletus, 
 praecipuum laborantis eloquentiae subsidium.' Omphalius, De Elocutionis 
 Imitatione (Paris, Colinaeus, 1537); P- 61. Omphalius and Dolet were 
 now on terms of intimacy. A letter addressed to Dolet appears among 
 the Epistola ad familiares of Omphalius, which his son Bernard appended 
 to the edition he gave of the De Elocutionis Imitatione (Colonias, 1572, 
 reprinted 1602). 
 
 3 Preface to his edition of the Phrases et Formula. 
 
xi THE 'COMMENTARIES' 269 
 
 second volume of the Commentaries, under the title of 
 Formula Latinarum locutionum illustriorum, 1 and which has 
 been sometimes erroneously referred to as intended to be the 
 first part of the third volume of the Commentaries. It is 
 however a collection of phrases and idioms extracted for the 
 most part from the Commentaries, but with some additions, 
 arranged alphabetically. Dolet tells us in his preface that he 
 had received numerous letters, asking him to prepare a work 
 such as this, taken from his Commentaries, for the use of 
 young students, and he accordingly had complied with the 
 request. 
 
 It consists of a series of substantives (and a few adjectives 
 used as substantives), with brief explanations and occasional 
 illustrations, followed in each case by a list of the verbs 
 and sometimes the adjectives or other parts of speech used 
 (principally by Cicero) in conjunction with them. That the 
 book had any immediate success is not probable ; it is not 
 referred to by any writer, so far as I know, for a quarter of 
 a century after its appearance. A very small number of 
 copies were printed, and no new edition was called for in the 
 author's lifetime. In 1576 however Sturm reprinted it 
 under the title of Phrases et Formula Lingua Latina ele- 
 gantiores Stephano Doleto autore nunc denuo recognita (Stras- 
 burg, Rihel). Coming with Sturm's recommendation it had 
 a great success, and acquired a popularity which it retained 
 up to the nineteenth century. New editions appeared in 
 1580, 1585, 1596, and 1610. A certain Barezzi, 2 struck 
 
 1 Folio, Lugd., apud Doletum, 1539. The title-page announces 
 three parts. Prima pars conflatas ex nomine et verba locutiones habet. 
 Secunda significationem et constructionem verborum profert. Tertia, usum 
 
 particularum indeclinabilium demonstrat. The volume however only 
 contains the first part. The second and third never appeared. 
 
 2 In the e ditto Baretiana of the Lexicon Ciceronianum [or Thesaurus 
 Ciceronianus~\ of Nizolius. (Venice, 1606.) 
 
270 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 with the merits of the book, in order to increase the reputa- 
 tion of Nizolius and his Lexicon Ciceronianum, impudently 
 passed off the Phrases et Formula as part of the original 
 work of Nizolius. It was reserved for Facciolati in his 
 edition of the Lexicon given in 1734 to restore the work of 
 Dolet to its true author. As revised and corrected by him 
 it is appended to his edition, and fills the same place in the 
 only subsequent edition which I know, that of London, 
 1820. 1 
 
 Only a year after the publication of the first volume of 
 the Commentaries an epitome of it was printed at Basle (at 
 the press of Lasius and Platter, but without their names), 
 composed by a scholar under the nom de flume of Jonas 
 Philomusus. 2 He speaks of Dolet as 'vir nostra quidem 
 
 1 In 1753, and again in 1764, Father Alessandro Bandiera printed the 
 Phrases et Formulae Lingua Latina of Dolet at the end of his volume, 
 Osservazioni su le epistole di Marco Tullio Cicerone a familiari (Venezia, 
 Bettinelli), which forms a supplement to his Italian translation of the 
 Epistola Familiares. By an error (apparently of the printer) in the 
 edition of 1764 (that of 1753 I have not seen) the observations of the 
 learned Father are also headed * Formula Lingua Latina elegantiores 
 Stephani Doled,' and this is the running title throughout. In the edition 
 of the same translation of 1783, the Formula of Dolet are mentioned in 
 the title as included, but in fact the observations of Bandiera are alone 
 given at the end of the third volume as the Formula Doled, while Dolet's 
 actual treatise is omitted. (According to Ne'e de la Rochelle, Vie de 
 Dolet,, p. 105, the running title of the edition of 1753 attributes the 
 Formula of Dolet to Bandiera.) 
 
 2 Barbier (Anonymes, 20060 and 20366, and Les Supercheries Litte- 
 raires, 2nd edition, vol. ii. 417) comes to the conclusion that the scholar 
 who under the nom de plume of Jonas Philomusus composed the epitome 
 of the first volume of the Commentaries of Dolet was no other than J. 
 Gonthier of Andernach. Nee de la Rochelle had before suggested from 
 the similarity of the names that Jonas Philomusus was probably the same 
 with Jonas Philologus, who about the same time pryited at Basle at the 
 press of Winter an epitome of Quintilian. L. T. Herissant having con- 
 jectured, on very slight grounds, that Jonas Philologus was Gonthier of 
 Andernach, Barbier then adopts the two conjectures and adds that there 
 
xi THE < COMMENTARIES ' 271 
 
 aetate citra controversiam doctissimus et de re Latina non 
 male meritus.' He tells us that he has undertaken the work 
 as an assistance to the memory of students, that he has 
 inserted nothing of his own, but has only taken as it were a 
 faggot from the forest of the author, a small coin from his 
 heap of wealth. The epitomist has arranged his abridgment 
 in alphabetical order, as more convenient for students than 
 that adopted by Dolet, whose arrangement however is 
 preserved in a second part, which simply gives the words 
 employed, in the order in which they appear in the Com- 
 mentaries. 
 
 Soon after the second volume of the Commentaries was 
 published, an epitome of it appeared (in 1539) at Basle, but 
 from the press of Westheim, and clearly the work of another 
 hand. It preserves strictly the arrangement and order of 
 Dolet, and was shortly followed by an epitome of the first 
 
 was a natural relation between the epitome of Quintilian and the epitome 
 of Dolet, and that a young professor as zealous as Gonthier might well 
 occupy himself with these two abridgments. Any one however, who is 
 acquainted with the life and writings of Gonthier, will consider it highly 
 improbable that he should have composed the epitome of the first volume 
 of the Commentaries of Dolet. In 1537 the 'young professor' was fifty 
 years old, and wholly immersed in medical studies. Of the thirty-one 
 printed works and two manuscripts which are enumerated in La France 
 Protestante as having been written by him, all with the exception of the 
 first, which was printed in 1527, are medical; and the single ground 
 upon which Herissant and Barbier conceive him to have been the 
 Jonas Philologus who abridged Quintilian is that to the second edition 
 of his translation of some writings of Galen printed at Basle in 1537 
 is added Definitiones Medicinales interprete Joanne Philologo. In 1 540 
 there was printed at Paris at the press of Colines, Jones Philologi 
 Dialog i aliquot lepidi ac festivi in studiosa juventutis informationem (of which 
 I possess the copy of Girardot de Prefond), and this, if the conjectures 
 were well founded, would probably have to be added to the works of 
 Gonthier. It is however difficult to see any reason why Gonthier 
 if he had composed these books should have printed them under a 
 pseudonym. 
 
272 ETIENNE DOLET chap, xi 
 
 volume, arranged on the same principle, and by the same 
 author as that of the second. 1 
 
 1 Not a single writer who has noticed the epitomes of the Com- 
 mentaries printed in 1537, 1539, and 1540 has taken the trouble to look 
 beyond the title-pages, or has noticed that the epitome of the first volume 
 printed in 1540 is an entirely different work from the epitome of the 
 same volume printed in 1537. The erroneous description of Gesner has 
 been copied by his successors, and Maittaire, Nee de la Rochelle, Barbier, 
 Brunet, and Boulmier have all treated the epitome of 1540 as a reprint 
 of the volume of 1537. „ 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Charge of Plagiarism 
 
 Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant, 
 Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta. 
 
 Lucretius. 
 
 Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid ha;ret. 
 
 Bacon. 
 
 F the Commentaries I did 
 not meet with that en- 
 thusiastic reception which 
 their author expected, 
 and which their real 
 merits certainly deserved 
 — at least in an age 
 which worshipped, how- 
 ever ignorantly, Latin 
 scholarship, yet produced 
 so few books really cal- 
 culated to promote it 
 intelligently — they drew 
 upon their author a 
 serious charge, that of plagiarism, which has ever since clung 
 to him, and has tarnished, though I think unjustly, his 
 reputation. Scarcely any of the many critics, biographers, 
 and bibliographers who have noticed the Commentaries have 
 
274 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 omitted to state that their author was reported to have 
 borrowed very much without acknowledgment from Robert 
 Estienne, Nizolius, Lazarus Baif, and others. This charge 
 is generally given on the authority of Thomasius, who, in 
 his treatise De Plagio Literario, 1 collected the charges of 
 plagiarism made against Dolet. But they are not his own, 
 and are merely taken by him from other writers. 
 i Even before the Commentaries had appeared, and whilst 
 j Dolet was known to be engaged upon them, a report was, 
 as we have seen, circulated by his enemies that he had stolen 
 j'the papers of Simon Villanovanus and had based his Com- 
 Imentaries upon them. 2 Whether there was any foundation 
 for this report we do not know. It may indeed be that 
 some of the papers of Villanovanus, an enthusiastic Ciceronian, 
 had fallen into the hands of Dolet ; but the charge of theft 
 appears to have been mere rumour, and had certainly not 
 come to the ears of Charles Estienne or Floridus Sabinus, 
 from whom the really important charges came, and who 
 would not have failed to notice this report had they heard 
 it ; yet it was known to Rabelais, who repeated it in an 
 epistle written in 1542 (hereafter quoted at length). He 
 says, 'L' esprit de Villanovanus se indigne destre de ses 
 labeurs frustre.' 
 
 On the 1 st of November 1536, as Dolet was occupied in 
 j superintending the publication of the second volume of 
 i his Commentaries, he received from Christopher Richer of 
 
 1 Suobaci, 1692. 
 
 2 See ante, p. 240. One of G. Ducher's Epigrammata (Lugd., 1538) 
 directed against Dolet, whom he styles, as in several other bitter epigrams, 
 Durus, ends thus : — 
 
 Ut vero folium modo Sibyllae 
 Narrem, docti animam arbitrantur ilium 
 Nostri Villanovani habere : cujus 
 Defuncti sibi scripta vendicavit, 
 Fur nequam, plagiariusque summus. 
 
xii THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM 275 
 
 Thorigny, 1 the common friend of himself and Lazarus Baif, 
 a copy of the latter's work De re Navali, which, with other 
 tracts of the same author, had just issued from the press of 
 Robert Estienne, under the editorship of his brother Charles. 
 It so happened that the sheets of the Commentaries containing 
 the words relating to naval affairs were just then printed, 
 and Dolet was engaged on their correction. He sent these 
 sheets to Richer, at the same time thanking him for the work 
 of Baif. Richer forwarded them to Baif himself. Charles 
 Estienne, who was then or soon after became the tutor of 
 Lazarus Baif 's more celebrated son 2 Jean Antoine, was on 
 terms of the greatest intimacy with Lazarus, of whose 
 treatises De Vasculis and De re Vestiaria he had already 
 published abridgments. Whether he was already preparing 
 an abridgment of the work De re Navali, or whether he 
 was incited thereto by the sheets of the Commentaries, is 
 uncertain. What is certain is that very shortly afterwards, 
 early in the year 1537, there appeared from the press of 
 Francis Estienne an abridgment of Baif's treatise written by 
 Charles Estienne. 3 In this book he distinctly charges Dolet 
 with having stolen without acknowledgment considerable 
 
 1 Christopher Richer was valet-de-chambre to Francis I. and author 
 of a treatise De rebus Turcorum, Paris, R. Estienne, 1540. About the 
 same time he translated into French and printed at the same press the 
 second book of his treatise, under the title of Des Coustumes et Maniere de 
 Vivre des Turcs. See La Croix du Maine and Brunet's Manuel. 
 
 2 Nee de la Rochelle (followed as usual by Boulmier) erroneously 
 speaks of Lazarus Baif, the author of De re Navali, as the pupil of Charles 
 Estienne. 
 
 3 De re Navali libellus in adolescentulorum bonorum favorem, ex Bayfii 
 vigiliis excerptus et in brevem summulam facilitatis gratia redactus. Addita 
 ubique fuerorum causa vulgari vocabulorum significatione. Parisiis, apud 
 Franciscum Stephanum, mdxxxvii. This, like the abridgments of the De 
 re Vestiaria and De Vasculis, immediately became very popular, and was 
 frequently reprinted by R. Estienne, S. Gryphius, and others, in the 
 following twenty years. 
 
276 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 portions of the treatise of Baif, only altering here and there 
 a word so that the theft might not be so easily discovered, 
 and he further attempts to show that where Dolet had not 
 closely followed the language of Baif he had displayed great 
 ignorance and had fallen into absurd blunders. 
 
 No specific passages are cited by Charles Estienne in 
 support of the charge of plagiarism. Of the ignorance and 
 errors of Dolet he gives six instances, alleging that he has 
 taken cornua for parts of the mast, that he has ascribed to 
 Cassar a passage of which Hirtius is the author, that he 
 erroneously explains remulcus as a small boat, that he gives 
 a non-existing word, remeculum, as a kind of boat used by 
 the Lemnians, that he uses embata instead of epibata and 
 attributes to Pliny a passage where the word occurs, which is. 
 really from Ulpian, and lastly, that he has quoted a line 
 from the iEneid as — 
 
 ' Quot prius seratEe steterant in littore prorts,' 1 
 
 while, as Estienne contends, the true reading of the last word 
 is puppes. 
 
 The misfortunes of Dolet caused as we have seen the 
 second volume of the Commentaries to be long delayed, and 
 the book of Charles Estienne appeared while the Commentaries 
 were still incomplete. Dolet lost no time in replying to his 
 opponent. He immediately printed in a separate volume 
 the whole of the sheets of the Commentaries relating to 
 naval affairs, under the title of Stephani Doleti de re Navali 
 liber ad Lazarum Bayfium. 2 This was prefaced by a letter 
 to Baif containing an elaborate and tolerably successful 
 defence, in which he complains most bitterly, and with all 
 that violence of language which he was accustomed to use, 
 of the conduct of Charles Estienne, whose ability however in 
 the early part of the preface he fully recognises, but upon 
 
 1 uEneid, ix. 121. 2 Lugduni, apud Seb. Gryphium, 1537. 
 
xii THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM 277 
 
 whom he pours all the vials of his wrath, professing or 
 desiring to believe that the attack had been made without 
 the suggestion of Baif. 
 
 FVTIENNE DOLET TO LaZARUS BaIF 
 
 ' It grieves me extremely that you, to whom I have always 
 both shown and felt the utmost respect, should suddenly 
 and without any cause be so incensed against me as to wish 
 hostilely to set in motion (should I rather say to encourage 
 or impel ?) another to attack my reputation. It also grieves 
 me very greatly that, instead of attacking me openly in your 
 own name, you should have chosen as your champion one of 
 whom I had the highest opinion, and of whom I have been 
 accustomed everywhere to speak in the most respectful 
 terms. But yet I would not believe anything against you 
 rashly, and I would rather persuade myself that he of his 
 own accord sought an opportunity of attacking me, and that 
 you were neither the encourager nor the instigator of such 
 bitter calumnies. I have a better opinion as well of your 
 prudence, as of your gravity, your moderation, and your 
 equity, than to suspect you of any ill-will or evil disposition 
 towards me. I therefore exonerate you from the suspicion 
 of hatred or malevolence, and am willing that the matter 
 be left to your own decision. Do you therefore sit as judge, 
 and I will proceed to a statement of the facts, in order that, 
 when you have heard the cause, you may most clearly and 
 certainly, either pronounce judgment in my favour or may 
 decide for my opponent. The matter is so clear that it may 
 soon be told without any pretence of oratorical art, or any 
 too great nicety of language. 
 
 ' In the year from the pregnancy of the Virgin, or (not 
 to give a handle for the calumny of the calumniator) from 
 the crucifixion of Christ 1536, on the 1st of November, as I 
 
278 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 was at Lyons devoting all my time and attention to the 
 publication of the second volume of my Commentaries, your 
 book De re Navali was sent to me by Christopher Richer, a 
 most learned man, and one full of kindness and courtesy. 
 It so happened that the sheets of my Commentaries containing 
 the words relating to naval affairs were just then being 
 printed. This specially induced me to read your book 
 through with more than ordinary diligence and care. I 
 made myself master of it. (I use this expression to indicate 
 the attention I paid to it.) In reading it attentively I did 
 not notice anything in which you and I either treated of or 
 explained the same things, except the different species of 
 ships and their several names. Then that I might show my 
 gratitude to Richer, I straightway sent him the third and 
 fourth folios of the sheets then being printed, which, though 
 I did not ask him to do, he told me he would send to you 
 the first opportunity. I said there was no reason why he 
 should not do so. The folios were as I know sent to you 
 not long afterwards. Here then would be the occasion for 
 me to fancy, first that you felt indignant that I should have 
 ventured to write on the same subject which you had treated, 
 then that your champion, who has so unworthily attacked 
 me with such bitter words, arose at your command (just as 
 one wholly devoted to your will would do), ordered by you 
 to find as many faults as possible in Dolet, a young man of 
 too great boldness (addressing you as a judge whom I hope 
 to find both just and favourable, I do not venture to say 
 also of very great hope and promise), so as to lessen his 
 rising reputation. Here then I say is the- favourable oppor- 
 tunity for me to say these things with an air of probability, 
 but I have forbidden myself the use of such prejudicial 
 statements by the opinion I have before expressed of your 
 integrity and moderation. Wherefore I will only say what 
 I suspect and what I am satisfied to believe. 
 
xii THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM 279 
 
 ' This champion, who is not so powerful as he is insolent, 
 visited you on a certain day ; sitting in your library and 
 chatting familiarly with you (I cannot do the man more 
 honour than by representing him as being on such familiar 
 terms with you), he secretly lays hold of and carries off with 
 him the pages of my book, having previously conceived 
 some ill-will towards me. What follows? He is then 
 preparing, either by your direction or with your sanction, his 
 epitome of your treatise De re Navali. Burning with ill- 
 will towards me (for how else can I account for the wicked 
 attacks of the fellow, who had not been excited by any 
 injury done by me ?), he marked in the proof-sheet of my 
 work whatever seemed to him to afford an opportunity of 
 reviling me. Now, I pray, give me your attention, and if 
 you are disposed to do so, act fairly towards me as to the 
 matter animadverted upon by him which he puts forward 
 against me so angrily. Was this done courteously or 
 honourably ? Was it worthy of a man of probity and 
 culture, so inconsiderately, so insolently even, to attack what 
 had been courteously sent by a friend to you, and was not 
 even published ? Even now I am superintending the publica- 
 tion of the volume. Here I might as easily attack the 
 wickedness of your champion (but I am forgetting that you 
 have laid aside your suspicions ; I ought to say your 
 epitomist) as laugh at his folly. But must I not treat as an 
 imprudent fool one who, rushing headlong with a rash and 
 inconsiderate mind, did not see that as my book was not yet 
 published it Would be possible for me to change all that he 
 blamed, and to take the benefit of his criticisms, and so 
 procure for him the reputation of a false and lying critic ? ' 
 
 After complaining bitterly of the attack made upon his 
 book before it had actually appeared, he proceeds seriatim to 
 discuss the several charges made by Charles Estienne, 
 printing in full the references made to him and to his book 
 
280 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 in that of his adversary. So far as the charge of plagiarism 
 goes, he denies that any similarity will be found between the 
 two works, except in the case of a few interpretations of the 
 names of ships, and their different parts. He asserts the 
 entire independence of his own work, but says reasonably 
 enough, that in writing such works as Dictionaries, it is 
 inevitable that the labours of those who have gone before 
 should be made use of, and if a charge of theft is to be made 
 against his Commentaries, the same charge must be made 
 against Bude, Erasmus, Politian, Rhodiginus, Volaterranus, 
 Sypontimis, and many others. He then proceeds in detail 
 to notice and defend himself from the several charges of 
 error made against him. He defends remeculum as a word 
 used by Aulus Gellius, and given both by Robert Estienne 
 in his Thesaurus, and by Sypontinus (Nicolas Perottus) in 
 his Cornucopia. He cites the editions of Virgil printed by 
 Aldus, Colines, Robert Estienne, and Sebastian Gryphius, as 
 reading pror<e and not puppes. He has followed Bude in 
 writing embata, and the words attributed by him to Pliny 
 had been ascribed to this author by Robert Estienne. He 
 alleges the practice of referring to Caesar the writings of 
 Hirtius. As to remulcus, if his defence is not successful on 
 the merits, he at least shows that Robert Estienne gives the 
 same meaning. 
 
 His defence from the charge of plagiarism as made by 
 Charles Estienne is I think complete and satisfactory. No 
 one can compare Dolet's work De re Navali (or the pages 
 of the Commentary, of which it is merely a reprint) with the 
 work of Baif bearing the same tide, without being satisfied 
 that they are two entirely independent works, with no more 
 similarity than would necessarily occur in two books on the 
 same subject, and that it is altogether unfair to charge Dolet 
 with pillaging or plagiarising Baif. In fact, Dolet showed 
 his own bona fides by printing in their entirety in the preface 
 
xii THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM 281 
 
 to his own book every passage of that of Charles Estienne 
 which refers to him. 1 
 
 It is pleasant to know that on this occasion Dolet did 
 not allow his indignation against Charles Estienne to prevent 
 him from doing justice to his literary merits. In the second 
 volume of the Commentaries, under the word ' Hortus,' he 
 thus expresses himself : ' In treating of matters relating to 
 gardens and trees I shall make much use of the singular and 
 praiseworthy diligence and erudition of that most learned 
 man Charles Estienne. He has lately printed two short 
 treatises of which he may justly be proud, one upon gardens, 
 the other upon trees. In these you will easily discern, as 
 well the sagacious zeal of the author, as his intense desire of 
 contributing something to the common utility, and to the 
 instruction of youth.' 2 
 
 Dolet's treatise De re Navali was printed in May 1537- \ 
 In 1540, after the publication of the second volume of the i 
 Commentaries, a new and more formidable accuser appeared \ 
 in the person of Franciscus Floridus Sabinus. Born at \ 
 Donadeo in the Sabine territory about the year 1500, he ' 
 assumed his surname from his native district. After study- 
 ing at the University of Bologna, he remained there for 
 some years as a professor or teacher, visiting Venice occasion- 
 ally, where he not improbably assisted in editing or correcting 
 for the press of Paul Manutius. For six years, two at 
 Rome and four at Paris, he lived with Albertus Pius, Prince 
 of Carpi, as his private secretary. Strongly attached to his 
 
 1 Except a few words referring to his use of the word cornua, which 
 he seems to have overlooked. 
 
 2 2 Com. 242. This sheet may possibly have been printed before 
 Dolet heard of the attack of C. Estienne ; but it was not published until 
 a year later, and it is to Dolet's credit that he allowed the passage to 
 remain, and that nowhere in the book (of which the greater part was 
 certainly not printed) is there a word in disparagement of Charles 
 Estienne. 
 
282 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 master, he warmly resented what he considered the unjust 
 attack of Erasmus on the Prince. Yet his affection for his 
 friend did not blind him to the merits of the great scholar, 
 and it was with much indignation that he read Dolet's attack 
 upon him in the dialogue De Imitatione Ciceroniana. His 
 first work however was directed against the calumniators of 
 Plautus and the Latin tongue. 1 In this book, printed it will 
 be observed after the publication of the first volume of the 
 Commentaries, and in which he enumerates most of his 
 contemporaries whose writings have in his judgment con- 
 tributed to the knowledge of the Latin tongue, the name of 
 Dolet is conspicuous by its absence. Whether he had any 
 personal acquaintance or personal quarrel with Dolet we do 
 not know. Certain it is, that he was on intimate terms with 
 Giulio Camillo, to whom he more than once refers in his 
 writings as ' doctissimus vir,' and whom in his Lectiones 
 Succisivte he warmly defends from the attacks of Dolet. 
 
 In 1540 he published his Lectiones Succis^va, a collection 
 
 ; of literary and critical remarks on a variety of subjects and 
 
 lauthors, after the manner of the Nodes Attica of Aulus 
 
 •Gellius. It is the work of a man of extensive reading and 
 
 of considerable scholarship, both Greek and Latin, and is 
 
 full of judicious and sometimes acute criticisms. It was 
 
 thought worthy of being reprinted by Gruter in his Lampas 
 
 sive Fax Artium Liberalium (7 vols., Francfort, 1 602-1 634). 
 
 j* Nearly the whole of chapters ii. and iii. of the first book and 
 
 a part of chapter iv. of the third book (about a tenth part of 
 
 I the entire work) are directed against Dolet, and are written 
 
 ' with a bitterness and violence of tone and an injustice which 
 
 1 Francisci Floridi Sabini Apologia in Marci Actii Plauti aliorumque 
 Poetarum et lingua latinte calumniatores, Ejusdem libellus de legum com- 
 ment atoribus. Lugduni, Seb. Gryphium, 1537, 4-to. This was afterwards 
 much enlarged and reprinted in the collected edition of the author's 
 works printed at Basle in 1540. 
 
xii THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM 283 
 
 are altogether wanting in the author's censures of other 
 writers, and which certainly induce one to think that some 
 personal motive operated with Floridus. Dolet is charged with 
 plagiarism, ignorance, irreligion, immorality and gluttony. 
 
 The greatest part of the attack is directed against the 
 dialogue De Imitatione Ciceroniana, and refers to the manner 
 in which Dolet had treated Erasmus ; and here I do not 
 know that we ought to consider the censure as too severe. 
 In reference to the Commentaries, however, he repeats and] 
 amplifies the charge of plagiarism which Charles Estienne j 
 had started ; but the only specific instances which he adduces 
 are the explanation of the word remulcus and the erroneous 
 citation from Pliny (instead of Ulpian), both of which Dolet 
 seems to have taken from the Thesaurus of Robert Estienne, 
 not only without acknowledgment, but without verifying 
 Estienne's references. He asserts that the Commentaries are 
 compiled, but without any acknowledgment, from the works 
 of Nizolius, Robert Estienne, Riccius, and Calepinus, and he 
 starts the calumny — often since repeated — that those who 
 had seen the Commentaries in manuscript before the appear- 
 ance of the Thesaurus of Robert Estienne and the Observations 
 on Cicero of Nizolius had informed him that they would not 
 have made a volume larger than the Elegantia of Laurentius 
 Valla, a very thin folio. Yet Floridus adduces no proofs of 
 this alleged compilation ; he confines himself both for in- 
 stances of plagiarism and of ignorance to the passages cited 
 either by Charles Estienne, or by Dolet in his reply ; and 
 though he had certainly seen the Commentaries, as he quotes 
 for the purpose of generally vilifying Dolet one or two other 
 passages of the first volume, he had as certainly not studied 
 them. The charges of Charles Estienne however he amplifies 
 at length, and no doubt proves clearly enough that as to the 
 meaning of remulcus Dolet was entirely wrong, and that in 
 at least two instances he had borrowed quotations of Latin 
 
284 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 authors from Baif or from Robert Estienne without ac- 
 knowledgment, and without verifying the references. 
 
 But a more serious charge than that of plagiarism and 
 ignorance was for the first time formulated in print, though 
 not then for the first time made against Dolet, by Floridus, 
 i that of impiety, and disbelief in the immortality of the soul, 
 I which in those days was called Atheism. The correspond- 
 ence of Jean de Boyssone leaves us in little doubt that reports 
 to this effect had circulated at Toulouse, and the letter of 
 Odonus lets us know that the same rumours were current at 
 Lyons, but they appeared in print for the first time in the 
 Lectiones Succisivte. ' This fellow,' says Franciscus Floridus, 
 ' asserts the soul to be mortal, and the highest good to consist 
 in bodily pleasure.' But he cites no passage of any of Dolet's 
 writings, nor any other authority for this assertion. 
 
 More than thirty years afterwards a new charge against 
 Dolet of plagiarism from Navagero is reported by Sturm, on 
 whose authority we do not know. The utter groundlessness 
 of this charge I have shown : J but with the remark of Sturm 
 which accompanies it I think all will agree. ' To me,' he says, 
 * it is a matter of no importance whence Dolet derived his 
 Commentaries ; they have been of great use to those who 
 cultivate Latin composition and love good literature, and I 
 can only wish, that either Dolet or Navagero or any one else 
 had been able to complete them ; in that case we should have 
 had a complete and exhaustive treatise on the Latin tongue 
 most skilfully composed and arranged.' 2 
 
 Dolet was not the man to sit down quietly under an 
 attack such as that of Floridus. He replied to it in 1540 
 by his book De Imitatione Ciceroniana adversus Floridum 
 
 1 See ante, p. 45. 
 
 2 Sturm's preface to his edition of the Phrases et Formula Doleti, 
 Argentorati, 1576. A large part of this preface is quoted by Maittaire, 
 Annales Typ. iii. 78. 
 
xii THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM 285 
 
 Sabinum. 1 It is a quarto of fifty-six pages, dedicated to 
 Guillaume Bigot, and contains two distinct treatises, the 
 first and much the shorter being the tract De Imitatione 
 Ciceroniana : the second (occupying pp. 21-55) beiig entitled 
 Responsio ad convitia Floridi Sabini. The first, with the 
 exception of a page at the beginning and another at the end, 
 is simply a series of extracts from his Dialogue on the 
 same subject containing his argument concerning imitation. 
 Here, as in his De re Navali, he desired his readers to be 
 put fully in possession of what he had really written, in order 
 that they might judge how far the attack of his opponent 
 was justified. The second tract (the Responsio ad convitia) 
 cannot be better summed up than in the words of Nee de la 
 Rochelle : 2 ' In the second treatise, which he has divided into 
 two parts, he discusses in the first part the style of his ad- 
 versary, his own, that of Erasmus, Longolius, and the Ger- 
 mans ; he cites Bude, Bembo, and Sadolet, and sharply repels 
 all the calumnies and abominable charges of Sabinus : then 
 he employs the second part of the same tract in defending 
 himself from the charge of plagiarism, and he terminates the 
 volume by a series of epigrams against his antagonist, char- 
 acterised, as Maittaire has remarked, rather by their rancour 
 than by their elegance.' With the exception of the abuse of 
 Floridus, with which of course the book is stuffed full, there 
 is very little original matter in it. Dolet defends himself, 
 and successfully, from the charges made by his opponent of 
 being irreligious and a gourmand, and of having discouraged 
 the study of Terence and Virgil. The book is however 
 chiefly composed of extracts from his other works. The 
 
 1 Brunet {Manuel, art. Sabinus) erroneously says that this book is an 
 answer to the Apologia in M. A. Plauti calumniatores of Sabinus. It is an 
 answer to the Lectiones Succisivee. The Apologia contains no mention of 
 or reference to Dolet. 
 
 2 Vie de Dolet, p. 41. 
 
286 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 abuse is of the usual violent kind, and only deserves notice 
 as to one point. Endeavouring to turn the tables on his 
 adversary, Dolet charges him with having appropriated a 
 work of the Prince of Carpi, De C. Julii desaris prastantia, 
 and having published it under his own name. 1 
 
 Floridus lost no time in defending himself and replying 
 to the attack of Dolet. The book of the latter had appeared 
 in October or November 1540. By the first of February 
 1 54 1, Floridus had finished his reply, which appeared at 
 Rome from the press of Bladus in the month of May in the 
 same year, ilts title is Francisci Floridi Sabini adversus 
 Stephani Doled Aurelii calumnias. 2 
 
 It is dedicated to Cardinal Alexander Farnese, and consists 
 to a great extent of a repetition of the charges contained in 
 the Lectiones Succisiva. The unfortunate explanation of 
 ' remulcus ' is again held up to ridicule, and adduced as a 
 proof of the crass ignorance of Dolet. His Commentaries 
 are declared to have owed whatever slight success they had 
 met with to the fact of their having been printed by ' that 
 most respected man Sebastian Gryphius.' The charges of 
 impiety are repeated ; the homicide, of which I shall here- 
 after speak, is made out to be a murder of peculiar atrocity, 
 and, as was to be expected, Floridus takes considerable pains 
 to defend himself from the charge of having appropriated 
 the work of the Prince of Carpi. 3 
 
 Dolet's religious opinions, and the charges made against 
 
 1 Dolet, De Imit. Cic. adv. F. Sabinum, p. 53. 
 
 2 The book is of great rarity. There is a copy however in the 
 Bibliotheque Nationale. Two copies were in the Sunderland sale, one 
 of which is now in my possession. 
 
 3 Franciscus Floridus Sabinus died in 1547. Besides being a scholar 
 he seems to have been a bibliophile of taste. Books from his library are 
 occasionally to be met with, bound in contemporary Italian morocco 
 tooled and stamped with the title of the book in gold on the upper side 
 and the name of F. Floridus on the under side. I possess five of such 
 
xii THE CHARGE OF PLAGIARISM 287 
 
 him in reference to them, will form the subject of a sub- 
 sequent chapter, it is only with the charge of plagiarism that 
 we have here to do. None of those who since the days of 
 Floridus have repeated the charge, and none of Dolet's de- 
 fenders, seem to have taken the trouble to ascertain, by 
 comparing the Commentaries with the works from which it 
 is alleged they are taken, whether to any, and if so to what 
 extent, the charge is true. I have myself undertaken, not 
 indeed an exhaustive comparison, but a comparison of a large 
 number of pages of the Commentaries taken at random, with 
 the articles of R. Estienne, Nizolius, Riccius, and Calepinus, 
 treating of the same words, and I have arrived at the con- 
 clusion that the charge is not justified, and that although it 
 is evident that Dolet was well acquainted with the works of 
 these writers, yet that he has only rarely borrowed anything 
 from any of them, that he has not made more use of them 
 than (as he himself says) is inevitable for a writer of such 
 books as Dictionaries and Commentaries to make of the 
 labours of his predecessors, that the Commentaries is a sub- 
 stantially independent and original work, and that the author 
 is no more open to the charge of borrowing from others than 
 are Robert Estienne, Nizolius, and Calepinus. The only 
 edition of the Thesaurus of Robert Estienne which had ap- 
 peared before the first volume of the Commentaries was that 
 of 1532, a thin folio containing less than half the quantity of 
 matter contained in Dolet's volume, and it seems probable 
 that Floridus or his informants believed (erroneously) that 
 the second edition of the Thesaurus had been published some 
 time before the first volume of the Commentaries. In fact 
 the first volume of Dolet's work appeared six months before 
 the second edition of the Thesaurus of Estienne. 
 
 volumes — the Greek Grammar of Theodore Gaza (In asd. Aldi, 1525), 
 Josephi Opera, 3 vols. (S. Gryphius, 1 5 39), and Gelosia del Sole 01 
 Britonio di Sicignano (Sessa, 1531). 
 
288 ETIENNE DOLET chap, xii 
 
 In one respect however we cannot entirely exonerate 
 Dolet. A considerable number of the passages cited in the 
 Commentaries are the same as those cited in the books of 
 Estienne, Riccius, and Nizolius ; a few are certainly bor- 
 rowed from them, without the references being verified, 
 leading to the belief that others may also have been so, and 
 certainly some of the explanations are clearly based on those 
 of the Thesaurus and the Observationes. 1 But in the first 
 volume there is no word of acknowledgment of these learned 
 men, nor anything to intimate that Dolet had profited to any 
 extent by their works. Robert Estienne is only mentioned 
 as an accurate printer, and Riccius and Nizolius are only re- 
 ferred to in the passage before quoted. A single acknowledg- 
 ment of the benefit he had derived from a perusal of these 
 and other works would have sufficed ; but this his vainglorious 
 nature did not allow him to give, and he has thus laid him- 
 self open to a charge which is substantially groundless. In 
 his second volume, having learned wisdom by experience, he 
 is less grudging in his praise of other scholars, and at least 
 makes mention of the Dictionaries of Robert Estienne, 
 Nizolius, and Calepinus. 
 
 1 I have not noticed any explanation taken from Riccius. An edition 
 of his work Apparatus Latince locutionis was given by Gryphius in 1534, 
 and may possibly have been seen through the press by Dolet. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Work and Leisure 
 
 Many a green isle needs must be 
 In the deep wide sea of misery. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 O qui complexus et gaudia quanta fuerunt ! 
 Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 HE publication of the Com- 
 mentaries and the attacks 
 and quarrels to which they 
 gave rise have led us on 
 to the year 1541 ; we 
 must now return to 1536. 
 The eight months which 
 followed the appearance of 
 the first volume passed 
 almost without incident, 
 yet they were certainly 
 months of hard and in- 
 cessant work. Dolet oc- 
 cupied himself chiefly, as 
 we have seen, in completing and printing the second volume, 
 but it is certain that at the same time he was a diligent 
 student, and was then preparing some of the numerous books 
 
290 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 which he was shortly afterwards to produce and print ; and 
 at least one book published during this period, probably 
 edited and certainly partly composed by Dolet, must not be 
 passed over in silence, especially as it has hitherto escaped 
 the notice of all his biographers. On the ioth of August 
 1536 the young Dauphin died at Tournon, from the effects 
 as it seems of a glass of iced water, which he had imprudently 
 drunk at Lyons four days before. His death as was usual 
 was attributed to poison, and Sebastian Montecuculi was 
 executed for the imaginary crime. A small volume of poems 
 (in Latin and French), entitled Recueil de vers Latins et vul- 
 gaires de plusieurs poe'tes Francoys composes sur le trespas de 
 feu Monsieur le Daulphin (and which includes epitaphs 
 by Marot, St. Gelais, and Macrin), was published three 
 months afterwards at Lyons by Francois Juste, under the 
 editorship, as I conjecture, of Dolet. The prefatory note is 
 written in his style, and the first ode in the book, addressed 
 by him to the poets of France, is in fact a poetical preface 
 to the entire work. The book also contains three other 
 pieces by him. 1 
 
 It is probable indeed that Dolet at this time was work- 
 ing for Francois Juste, as well as for Gryphius. His duties 
 to the two printers would in no way clash. Juste was pre- 
 
 1 The greater part of this volume is made up of the compositions of 
 Dolet and his friends. Among the contributors were Voulte, the two 
 Sceves (Maurice and Guillaume), Marot, N. Bourbon, Jean des Gouttes 
 (Janus Guttanus), Pierre Duchatel, Claude Fournier, J. Canappe, and A. du 
 Moulin. Their compositions with those of Dolet occupy twenty-one out of 
 the thirty-six pages of which the book consists, the remainder being taken up 
 by odes of S. Macrin, Mellin de St. Gelais, Gilbert Ducher, Guillaume 
 Mellier, H. Appianus, P. Piochetus, J. Gagnius, Lateranus, and C. 
 Elvamus. The four last named are wholly unknown to me, and I ici^w 
 nothing of Appianus except Dolet's reference to him in the first volume 
 of the Commentaries (col. 11 57). Macrin was certainly a friend of Dolet 
 at a later period, but I am not certain whether they were at this time 
 personally known to each other. 
 
xin WORK AND LEISURE 
 
 291 
 
 eminently the printer of French books, while Gryphius con- 
 fined himself almost entirely to Latin. That the learned 
 printer looked down, if not with contempt, at least as from 
 a lofty eminence, with a consciousness of superiority upon the 
 Justes, the Nourrys, and the Arnollets, who printed in the 
 vernacular the light and popular literature of the day, is 
 certain, and there could be no feeling of rivalry between him 
 and them. The only French book which Gryphius had as 
 yet condescended to print (except perhaps the first book of 
 Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Clement Marot) l — the 
 Arrets a" Amour of Martial de Paris — was accompanied by an 
 elaborate Latin Commentary of Benoit Court, which probably 
 alone commended it to the learned printer. The Pere de 
 Colonia 2 tells us that Benoit Court wrote three works, the 
 first a Latin Commentary on the Arrets d 1 Amour, ' a frivolous 
 work if ever there was one, which certainly did not de- 
 serve to have had for its printer the celebrated Sebastian 
 Gryphius ' ; and Pernetti 3 speaks of it in almost the same 
 terms as ' a frivolous work, the greatest merit of which has 
 been to have for its printer the celebrated Sebastian Gryphius.' 
 On the other hand, both writers agree that ' the third work 
 of Benoit Court would alone have sufficed to immortalise its 
 author.' It is the natural history of trees and gardens. But 
 the whirligig of time brings its revenges. The Latin classics 
 of S. Gryphius have long since descended into the limbo of 
 ' old books,' and will be sought for in vain in the catalogues 
 of Fontaine, Bachelin-Deflorenne, or Cjuaritch, but the few 
 
 1 An edition of the first book of the Metamorphose a" '0 vide translate 
 en franc ais, by Marot, was printed by Gryphius without date, and is cited 
 by Brunet as 'vers 1533.' But M. GuifFrey, (Euvres de C. Marot, ii. 261, 
 262, makes no mention of it, and states that he knows no impression of 
 the first book of the Metamorphose earlier than the edition given by Roffet 
 in 1534. That of Gryphius probably appeared soon afterwards. 
 
 2 Hist. Lit. de Lyon, ii. 475. 
 
 8 Les Lyonnais dignes de Memoire, i. 329. 
 
292 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 French books printed by him are still eagerly sought for, 
 and his three editions of the Arrets tT Amour, with the Com- 
 mentaries of Benoit Court, are among the few publications of 
 his press which always find purchasers, and not unfrequently 
 readers. The immortality conferred on Benoit Court by the 
 natural history of trees has proved but short-lived ; the 
 Commentaries on the Arrets d' Amour are admired by jurists 
 for their learning and research, by men of letters for their 
 entertaining though possibly unintentional badinage, and have 
 been reprinted at least eight times. 
 
 Nor is the contrast less striking between the books of 
 Gryphius on the one hand, and those of Juste or Nourry on 
 the other. The learned Latin works printed by the former 
 can now hardly find purchasers, while a French romance or 
 poem with the name of Juste or Nourry on the title-page 
 never fails to find eager competitors for its possession at 
 ioo, iooo, or even 2000 francs. 1 For Francois Juste, Dolet 
 in 1538 undertook to revise and edit a French translation of 
 one of the most popular books of the day — the Cortegiano of 
 Baldasar Castiglione. Few books were more to the taste of 
 the sixteenth century. First printed by Aldus in 1528, no 
 less than thirteen editions of it appeared in Italy in the next 
 twenty years. Shortly after its first publication it was trans- 
 lated into French by Jacques Colin, and printed at Paris, 
 But according to Dolet, this translation is full of faults which 
 he and Mellin de St. Gelais noted and corrected, and, so re- 
 vised, the translation was printed by Frangois Juste in 1538, 
 with a preface by Dolet addressed to St. Gelais, in which he 
 claims for the book the benefit of the privilege which had 
 just been granted to him by the King. At the end there is 
 a dedication from Francois Juste to ' Monseigneur Monsieur 
 Du Peirat, Lieutenant General pour le Roy a Lyon,' written 
 
 1 The Adolescence Clementine, Juste, 1534, sold for 1800 francs, and 
 Ogier le Danoys, Nourry, 1525, for 2200 francs at the Yemeniz sale. 
 
xin WORK AND LEISURE 293 
 
 in Dolet's style, and commenting on the badness of the 
 edition printed at Paris, ' by the Fault of the printer as it is 
 easy to see.' In this edition he says he has made use of the 
 labours of ' Monsieur maistre Estienne Dolet pour certain en 
 literature, eloquence, et scavoir une des principales lumieres 
 de France.' I have however carefully compared this edition 
 of Juste with that printed by Longis and Harsy with- 
 out date but probably in 1537 or earlier, and I find this 
 latter much better printed both as to type and paper than that 
 of Juste, which is very slightly altered from it. 1 
 
 A third printer for whom we find Dolet working at this 
 time was Scipio de Gabiano, for whom in 1538 he edited 
 Le Guydon des Practiciens, a book of legal practice, which 
 soon became very popular among the notaries and advocates 
 of the day. A short preface addressed by him to the reader 
 is in his usual manner. It is ' his affection and good-will 
 to the common weal that has induced him to give to the 
 world a work which he has found to be useful and profitable.' 
 The labour of seeing through the press a book of nearly nine 
 hundred closely printed pages of Gothic type must have been 
 considerable, but Dolet's editorial labours seem confined to 
 the short preface and the correction of the press. 
 
 But though Dolet ' scorned delights and lived laborious 
 days,' he was by no means an anchorite or an ascetic. No 
 man more thoroughly enjoyed the society of literary men, 
 nor was he averse in moderation to the pleasures of the table. 
 He was poor, not because he saw any merit in poverty, but 
 because he loved learning better than wealth. He despised 
 all the ascetic virtues, even while to a certain extent he fol- 
 lowed some of them. Poverty, chastity, humility, obedience, 
 indolent solitude, self-inflicted pain, were in themselves no 
 virtues to him, any more than they were to Aristotle, Plato, 
 
 1 See as to this edition of Juste, M. Yemeniz's note in the catalogue 
 of his books, No. 553. 
 
294 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 or Cicero, any more than they were to Luther or Erasmus, 
 to Bembo or Rabelais. But there was one thing he more 
 especially enjoyed, and which shows him to us in an unex- 
 pected light. He was devotedly fond of music. ' Music 
 and harmony,' he tells us, 1 * are my sole enjoyments. What 
 is there more suited either for exciting or soothing the mind, 
 what more fitted for allaying or extinguishing, or even for 
 rousing indignation? What is there more efficacious for 
 refreshing the jaded spirits of men of letters? I care nothing 
 for the pleasures of the table, of wine, of gaming, of love, — 
 at least I use them all in great moderation. But not so as 
 regards music, which alone of all pleasures takes me captive, 
 retains me, and dissolves me in ecstasy. To it I owe my life 
 itself ; to it I owe all the success of my literary efforts. Be 
 assured of this, that I could never have supported the inces- 
 sant, immense, endless labour of compiling these Commentaries 
 unless by the power of music I had sometimes been soothed, 
 sometimes incited to fresh efforts, sometimes recalled from 
 that weariness which has made me for a time lay aside my 
 Commentaries' 
 
 Another source of great enjoyment to him at this time 
 was bathing and swimming. He tells us of his proficiency 
 in the latter art, and that his favourite place for indulging in 
 it was near the church of St. Laurence, at the junction of the 
 Rhone and the Saone. 2 
 
 But his studies and pleasures did not render him un- 
 mindful of the duties of friendship. He continued to corre- 
 spond with Jean de Boyssone, and was able to repay some of 
 the services which he had received from the professor of law. 
 Dolet's banishment from Toulouse had not had the effect of 
 allaying the disputes between the students (especially those 
 of the French nation) and the authorities of the city. The 
 Parliament indeed, by a prudent concession, had to some 
 1 2 Com. 1294. 2 2 Com. 170. 
 
xiii WORK AND LEISURE 295 
 
 extent calmed the excited feelings caused by the decree 
 against which Dolet's orations had been directed ; but the 
 disputes between the capitouls and the students continued, 
 and were aggravated by an injudicious and illegal attempt on 
 the part of the former to impose upon the professors and the 
 members of the University a heavy tax, thus not only in- 
 fringing on their privileges in a most important particular, 
 but injuriously affecting every member. The citizens gener- 
 ally approved the action of the magistrates ; the graduates 
 protested against the invasion of their privileges ; the scholars, 
 always ready for a disturbance, assembled with arms in their 
 hands ; a town and gown row of a serious character ensued, 
 the authorities were insulted, a capitoul was even pushed off 
 his mule. The city guard was ordered to seize the ringleaders, 
 and accompanied by a rabble penetrated into the School of 
 Law, where a professor, Jean de Boyssone as it would seem, 
 was lecturing. Blood followed : six of the French students 
 were arrested, and would have been executed, had they not 
 been saved by the intervention of Jacques de Minut. The 
 students fled from Toulouse ; the lecture-rooms were closed, 
 and the professors and regents appealed to the Parliament. 
 
 It seems that Boyssone and Voulte, if not the chief pro- 
 moters, took an active part in the appeal. What view was 
 taken by the Parliament we do not know ; ultimately the 
 proceedings before that tribunal were stayed, and the matter 
 brought before the Grand Council. Matthew Pac pleaded 
 the cause of the University, but as I imagine unsuccessfully, 
 for no decree was pronounced. But the affair did not end 
 here : the graduates pressed their grievance, and Gui de 
 Breslay, one of the leading members of the Grand Council, 
 was sent down to Toulouse to inquire into the matter. 
 Again we are left in doubt as to the result, but it seems 
 probable that the members of the University were successful, 
 as we find Boyssone again lecturing, and we are certain that 
 
296 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Breslay would be as favourable to the cause of letters as the 
 nature of the case would admit. 1 But Boyssone had hardly 
 recommenced his lectures, when we find him engaged in a 
 new process of more personal importance to him, yet as it 
 appears arising either out of the disputes between the capitouls 
 and the University, or out of the hatred which he had incurred 
 by his zealous championship of the latter, or by his general 
 promotion of the cause of literature and progress. All that 
 we know certainly of the nature of the suit is from his own 
 statement that his life was endangered by it, and his com- 
 parison of himself to Cicero pleading for his house. 2 His 
 hopes rested on the president Minut, but the influence of the 
 latter could not prevail against the narrow bigotry of his 
 colleagues. Boyssone was condemned, and forthwith appealed 
 to the Grand Council. 
 
 We have already learned from his letters his anxiety to 
 know if the King was coming to Lyons. If he did come he 
 would be accompanied by the Grand Council, which would 
 sit at Lyons during his stay in the south of France. Francis 
 arrived on the 1 7th of February, accompanied or immediately 
 followed by the Grand Council. On the summons of Dolet, 
 Boyssone lost no time in coming to Lyons, for the purpose 
 of pleading his own cause. 
 
 Gui de Breslay fortunately was, if not the acting president 
 of the Council during the sitting at Lyons, at least one of 
 
 1 These matters are referred to by La Faille, ii. 90 ; but our chief 
 source of information respecting them is the MS. correspondence and 
 poems of Boyssone and the epigrams of Voulte. A narrative based on 
 these sources will be found in M. Guibal's article in the Revue de Toulouse, 
 1864, pp. 83-85. But here, as elsewhere, M. Guibal's chronology is a 
 little hazy. See also Boyssone's letter of Aug. 1535 {ante, p. 218). 
 
 2 M. Guibal suggests that this suit was in fact in reference to Boyssone's 
 house, which, as before mentioned, had been confiscated by the sentence 
 passed on him on his condemnation for heresy. De Boyssonnei Vita, p. 49, 
 note 2. 
 
xin WORK AND LEISURE 297 
 
 the most influential members. Dolet, Gryphius, and Maurice 
 Sceve were all on terms of friendly intimacy with him, and 
 they were all eager to recommend the cause of Boyssone. 
 Breslay's sympathies had already been roused in favour of 
 the one professor of Toulouse who desired to promote the 
 scientific study of the law, and to harmonise the studies of 
 the University with the requirements of literature. Jean de 
 Boyssone personally made a most favourable impression on 
 him, and even on the other judges. Breslay used all his 
 influence, both publicly in the court and privately with his 
 colleagues, to save this excellent man from further persecu- 
 tions. He was completely successful : Boyssone had to 
 return to Toulouse before judgment was given, but a few 
 days after his arrival there, Guillaume Sceve had the satisfac- 
 tion of writing to him that the decision was in his favour. 
 ' You owe much,' he wrote, ' to Breslay, much to your own 
 literary talents ; the high opinion which the judges had 
 formed of them has been of great assistance to you.' 1 
 
 The process detained Boyssone the whole summer at 
 Lyons. His law school was closed, and this, and the un- 
 certainty as to the result of the suit, caused him much anxiety, 
 yet did not prevent him from greatly enjoying his personal 
 intercourse with Dolet and the other old and new friends 
 whom he found in the city. Besides the usual and permanent 
 residents, the presence of the Court had brought many persons 
 of distinction, and had given Lyons the appearance of a 
 capital. To Dolet as well as to Boyssone the opportunity 
 was afforded of making the acquaintance of persons of in- 
 fluence. Marguerite of Navarre accompanied her brother. 
 Boyssone was already known to her, and, as we have seen, 
 only a year before she had urged him to settle at Bourges, 
 where her court was usually held. A few months later we 
 find her rendering a great service to Dolet, and it is probable 
 1 Boysson. MS. Epist. fol. xix. 
 
298 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 that it was on the occasion of her visit to Lyons that he was 
 presented to her. For him the summer seems to have passed 
 most pleasantly ; not only was Boyssone at Lyons, but Dolet's 
 heart was gladdened by the presence there of a friend who 
 was even more devotedly attached to him, Jean Voulte. 
 
 Jean Faciot, who according to the fashion of the day 
 translated his name into Latin as Vulteius, which the bio- 
 graphers have retranslated back again into French sometimes 
 as Vautier, sometimes as Vouet, but more commonly as 
 Voulte, 1 a young poet and scholar full of enthusiasm for 
 literature and affection for his friends, was born about the 
 year 1510, at Vandy-sur-Aisne, near Rheims, and on this 
 account styled himself in his poetry Remensis. After having 
 studied at Paris, at the College Sainte Barbe, we find him, on 
 the 17th of December 1533, engaged under the name of 
 Jean Visagier, Maitre-es-Arts, by Tartas, then Principal of 
 the College of Guyenne, as one of the regents or public 
 lecturers whom the jurats of Bordeaux had authorised the 
 Principal to appoint. His salary was forty livres tournois 
 per annum, a higher stipend than that of any other of the 
 lecturers, from which we should infer that he was possessed 
 of some special qualification — possibly a knowledge of Greek. 2 
 
 1 Although, in accordance with the custom of modern French writers, 
 I have referred to him throughout as Voulte, I do not find that he called 
 himself by that name, or was so called by his contemporaries. The only 
 French name by which he called himself was Visagier. 
 
 2 Gaullieur, Hist, du Coll. de Guyenne, Paris, 1874, p. 57. Although 
 M. Gaullieur suggests the possibility of Jean Visagier being the same 
 person with Jean Voulte, he does not seem to think this probable, much 
 less certain, and he suggests (p. 69) that Voulte only succeeded Gentian 
 Hervet as a professor at Bordeaux when the latter gave up his appointment 
 shortly before the nth of April 1534 ; this, however, is mere conjecture. 
 He certainly held office under Jean de Tartas, who resigned the post of 
 Principal of the College on or about the nth of April 1534. Voulte was 
 one of those professors who had the most violent dislike to Tartas, against 
 whom he wrote and afterwards published several bitter epigrams ; but 
 
xin WORK AND LEISURE 299 
 
 We find him at Toulouse in the autumn of 1534, and in 1535 
 and 1536 studying law with a view of being admitted as an 
 advocate, and at the same time lecturing, probably on Greek. 
 I believe that it was during a visit he paid to Lyons early in 
 October 1535 that he made the acquaintance of Dolet. In 
 October in that year, Robert Britannus, who had then left 
 Bordeaux, writes to Dolet from Toulouse a letter introducing 
 to him one of his late colleagues, who, he says, taught Greek 
 at the College of Guyenne at the same time that he (Britannus) 
 taught Latin. 1 This I conjecture to have been Voulte, as it 
 was certainly about the time that his intimacy with Dolet 
 commenced. (It may however have been Hervet, or Charles 
 de Sainte Marthe.) A warm friendship sprung up between 
 them, as well as between Voulte and Boyssone. In the 
 volume of epigrams by Voulte, printed in 1536, he not only 
 devotes sixteen to the praises of Dolet, but in the dedication 
 to the Cardinal of Lorraine he speaks of him in terms of the 
 highest admiration. For several years Dolet, Voulte and 
 Boyssone continued to be united by the closest ties of friend- 
 ship, and if we cannot ascribe to Voulte any very high merits 
 as a poet, we can give him our unqualified praise as a friend 
 ready to do all, and more than all, that could be required of 
 him in the service of friendship. 
 
 Although a Master of Arts he was still at Toulouse 
 studying law, and at the same time lecturing or teaching, 
 when the disturbances of which I have lately spoken 
 caused the doors of the lecture -rooms to be closed, and 
 
 although the engagement and appointment of all the other lecturers during 
 the reign of Tartas as well as that of his successor Gouvea is formally re- 
 corded, that of Jean Voulte would be altogether unknown, and no mention 
 of it would be found in the records of the College, unless he was the Jean 
 Visagier appointed by Tartas in December 1533, while, unless Visagier is 
 the same person with Voulte, the former absolutely disappears, and no 
 trace of him is to be found within a very short time of his appointment. 
 1 Britanni Orationes, Tolosae, 1536, p. 70. 
 
300 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 dispersed the professors as well as the students. By the 
 advice of Jacques de Minut and Jean de Pins he decided to 
 give up the law and devote himself exclusively to literature, 1 
 which, as in the case of Dolet, had been his first mistress. 
 He accordingly followed Dolet to Lyons (probably accom- 
 panying Jean de Boyssone), and seems to have passed the 
 summer of 1536 there. We find from a letter of Matthew 
 Pac to Boyssone, written from Toulouse on the 1 3th of July 
 in that year, that they were all three then at Lyons. 2 
 Voulte had already composed two books of epigrams, 
 but he tells us that he had not intended printing them, 
 had he not been persuaded to do so by Pierre Duchatel 
 and Guillaume Sceve, both of whom were then at Lyons. 
 They were printed by Gryphius in 1536. The first book 
 is dedicated to the Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom he sounds 
 the praises of Dolet in the letter before quoted ; the second 
 is preceded by a letter to Jean de Boyssone, containing the 
 details just stated. Both dedications are written from Lyons, 
 and are dated in the latter half of July 1536. Of the six 
 hundred and thirty-one (so-called) epigrams of which the 
 volume consists, and of which the major part are addressed 
 to or are in reference to his contemporaries, no less than 
 twenty-five are devoted to Dolet, — some addressed to him, 
 some concerning his Commentaries and his place among 
 poets and scholars, some addressed to others in his praise, 
 and some in ridicule of Maurus and others of his enemies. 
 All are full of affection and enthusiastic admiration for his 
 friend. If we cannot give a higher place to Voulte for his 
 criticism than for his poetry, his epigrams are yet most 
 valuable for the biographical details which they contain 
 relating to Dolet, Jean de Pins, Boyssone, and Minut. 
 
 1 Epist. to Jean de Boyssone, prefixed to the second book of the 
 Epigrams of Voulte, first edit. p. 98. 
 
 2 Boyss. MS. Epist. fol. viii. p. 13. 
 
xni WORK AND LEISURE 301 
 
 Duchatel, G. Sceve, Marot, Macrin, Briconnet, and Roussel 
 are also the subjects of numerous epigrams. For the dis- 
 turbances in the University of Toulouse the book is invalu- 
 able, and it is to be regretted that La Faille and other 
 historians of Toulouse have not made more use of it in their 
 histories. He returned to Toulouse about the same time as 
 Boyssone, apparently with a view of continuing his legal 
 studies and lectures, as the lecture-rooms of the University 
 were once more opened, and the students and professors had 
 returned. 
 
 It was during his stay at Lyons that the city sustained 
 an irreparable loss by the death of Sanctes Pagnini, which 
 occurred in August 1536. His funeral was celebrated with 
 no ordinary pomp, and his loss caused the deepest grief. 
 The clergy lamented the most learned theologian and the 
 most popular preacher of Lyons, one whose influence had been 
 most efficacious in preventing the progress of the Lutheran 
 heresy. Men of letters had to mourn the greatest Hebrew 
 scholar of the age. And the poor wept for one who was even 
 more devoted to works of charity and benevolence than to 
 learning and theology. It was at his instance that the 
 wealthy banker Thomas de Gadagne had founded a hospital 
 for the reception of persons suffering from the plague. 1 
 Voulte was probably at his funeral, and wrote an epitaph 
 upon him in elegiacs, which is however no very favourable 
 specimen of his pen. 
 
 Both Boyssone and Voulte returned to Toulouse in 
 August or September 1 536, and towards the end of the month 
 the correspondence between Boyssone and Dolet recommenced. 
 
 1 Pere de Colonia has shown conclusively {Hist. Lit. de Lyon, ii. 595- 
 601) that the death of Sanctes Pagnini took place in August 1536, and 
 not in 1 541, according to the inscription then in existence in the church 
 of the Jacobins, and as is stated by several of his biographers. See also. 
 Pericaud, Notes et Documents pour servir a I'histoire de Lyon, 1483-1546, 
 P- 57- 
 
302 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Jean de Boyssone to Etienne Dolet ' 
 
 ' It happened, my Dolet, that shortly after I had returned 
 from the Court, and whilst I was diligently occupied in 
 restoring my school, which had been closed the whole 
 summer owing to my absence, as I was wandering up and 
 down through the city spending my whole time seeking for 
 lecturers, I was attacked by a very serious illness which 
 caused me terrible suffering for some days. However, by 
 the goodness of God being not only greatly relieved, but 
 now completely recovered from illness, I write to you. As 
 to what has happened since my return here it is not 
 necessary for me to write, since Voulte has sent to you most 
 copious letters concerning all these things. I know no one 
 who writes to his friends more frequently and at greater length 
 than he does. I have had no intention in writing to you to 
 distract you from those studies in which you are so com- 
 pletely wrapped up.' [Toulouse. Sept. 1536. 1 ] 
 
 Etienne Dolet to Jean de Boyssone 
 
 ' I am as well as possible in health, and pursue my studies 
 with very great ardour. If you can give me the same good 
 account of yourself, with what pleasure shall I not be filled ? 
 I am too much occupied with my Commentaries to be able 
 to write more at length to you. Wherefore now farewell, 
 and continue to love me as you do at present. Farewell. 
 Lyons, Oct. 13, 1536. I beg you to salute in my name our 
 most learned and dear friend Mopha.' 
 
 The person referred to in the postscript of this letter was 
 the learned jurist Matthieu Gripaldi, lately appointed to a 
 professorship of law at Toulouse, who sometimes styled 
 1 Boyss. MS. Epist. fol. xviii. 
 
xni WORK AND LEISURE 303 
 
 himself, for a reason unknown to us, Mopha. A native of! 
 Chiere in Piedmont, where he was born about the commence- I 
 ment of the century, he had applied himself to the study of) 
 jurisprudence with much success, and had taught at Pisa, ! 
 Perugia, and Pavia before he received the appointment at I 
 Toulouse. He soon became intimate with Boyssone and" 
 Voulte, as well as with Dolet, to whom he was probably 
 introduced by the other two on the occasion of a visit to 
 Lyons. With Boyssone he carried on a close correspondence 
 for some years. Like so many other scholars and professors 
 of the time he never rested long in one place, but wandered 
 from one University to another, at once a student and a 
 professor. Yet wherever he went he obtained a high 
 reputation ; a friend of freedom of thought and freedom of 
 inquiry, the dogmatism of Luther and Calvin was no less dis- 
 tasteful to him than that of the Catholic Church. Toulouse 
 was certainly no place for him, but as long as Boyssone, 
 Minut, and Voulte were there, there he also remained. 
 
 Subsequently he became a professor at Cahors, and 
 shortly after at Valence. In 1548 his reputation had become 1 
 so great that he was invited to Padua, and appointed one of 
 the two ordinary professors of the civil law, at a salary of 
 eight hundred florins. He gave so great satisfaction to the 
 University and the Sovereign Republic, that his salary was 
 twice raised; to nine hundred florins in 1550, and eleven 
 hundred in 1552. His popularity as a lecturer was so great 
 that Papadopoli tells us the great hall of the University was 
 insufficient to hold the crowd of students who desired to 
 hear him. Soon afterwards, however, fearing lest he should 
 have to leave Padua on account of his opinions, which were 
 beginning to be known or suspected, 1 he determined to 
 provide himself with a retreat, and purchased the estate of 
 
 1 See Theological Review, xvi. pp. 302, 314. (Art. 'The Sozzini and 
 their School,' by the Rev. A. Gordon.) 
 
3o 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Farges near Geneva, in the territory of Berne. 1 There he 
 had hoped to breathe a freer air, but the process against 
 Servetus, which took place during one of his visits to Geneva, 
 showed him to his bitter disappointment that (as Grotius 
 has remarked) ' Antichrist had appeared not by Tiber only 
 but also by Lake Leman.' Gripaldi in the presence of the 
 stake boldly ventured to remonstrate with Calvin, and even 
 to protest against the sentence on Servetus ; but Calvin re- 
 fused him an interview which he sought. Opposition to the 
 will of the reformer was a crime never to be forgotten or 
 [forgiven, and the only result of the remonstrance was that 
 I some time afterwards Gripaldi was himself invited to confer 
 with Calvin and other ministers as to his own offences. 
 Calvin refused his hand, and Gripaldi, justly inferring from 
 this that his cause was already prejudged, hastily withdrew 
 from the conference. He was instantly summoned before 
 i the Council, and charged by Calvin not only with sharing 
 the errors of Servetus, but (a greater crime) with having 
 refused to discuss his opinions. Calvin, Beza tells us, refuted 
 his errors, and he was banished from Geneva. The charge 
 was not altogether groundless. Whether his opinions on 
 the subject of the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity were 
 more or less intelligible than those of Servetus — or than 
 those of Calvin himself — I do not know. They were 
 certainly not orthodox. When they became known at Padua, 
 he was obliged to quit his professorship. Vergerio invited 
 him to Tubingen, where for some time he filled a chair of 
 law. But the arm of his persecutor was long. The Duke 
 of Wurtemberg was warned that his University was sheltering 
 a heretic, and he was expelled from Tubingen. Then he 
 returned to Farges, where he exercised a generous hospitality 
 to those who could frame their lips neither to the shibboleth 
 
 1 In the district of Gex, then subject to Berne. Beza in his Life of 
 Calvin calls him ' le seigneur de Farges.' 
 
xin WORK AND LEISURE 305 
 
 of Rome, nor to that of Geneva. It was in his house that 
 the unfortunate physician Valentine Gentilis found a refuge 
 after his escape from Geneva. The patience of Calvin was 
 exhausted ; he delivered Gripaldi to the authorities of Berne. 
 He was charged with heresy, and abjured his antitrinitarian 
 errors, but relapsing into his former opinions, 'he would,' 
 as Bayle remarks, ' sooner or later have suffered the penalty 
 of death, had not the plague, which carried him off in the I 
 month of September 1564, guaranteed him against any! 
 further trial for heresy.' I 
 
 Whatever may have been his speculative opinions, the 
 little that we know of his life induces us to give him both 
 our respect and esteem, feelings which will be strengthened 
 by a perusal of his correspondence with Boyssone, and by 
 our knowledge of the affection which that excellent man, as 
 well as Dolet and Voulte, had for him. His numerous 
 works on jurisprudence (a list of which is given by Niceron) 
 were much esteemed. 1 
 
 1 See for Gripaldi, Bayle (who calls him Gribaud) ; Niceron, xli. 
 235-241 ; Bock, Historia Antitrinitariorum, vol. ii. pp. 456-464 (the 
 longest and best accounts we have of him and his works) ; Papadopoli, 
 Hist. Gymn. Patavini, i. 252 ; Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. vol. vii. pt. ii.; 
 Rossotti, Syllabus Scriptorum Pedemontii ; Sandius, Bibl. Anti-Trinitariorum, 
 p. 1 7 ; Beza, Vie de Calvin. There is a good notice of him in the 
 Biographie Universelle, where he is called Gribaldi. That of the Biog. 
 Generate is disfigured by several erroneous references to and misquotations 
 from Beza. One of his works was translated into English shortly after 
 its appearance. A notable and marvailous epistle of Doctor Mathew Gribald, 
 Professor of the Law in the University of Padua, concerning the terrible 
 judgment of God upon him that for fear of men denyeth Christ and the knowen 
 veritie ; with a Preface of Doctor Calvin; translated by E [dward] A[glionby]. 
 Imprinted the XX day of April 1550, by Jhon Oswen. It was several times 
 reprinted. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A Homicide and its Consequences 
 
 Petit me perfidus hostis, 
 Ac infert ensem jugulo : hosti obsisto minanti, 
 Et neco, qui conabatur me absumere ferro. 
 
 DOLET. 
 
 N the 31st of December 
 1536 a new misfortune 
 happened to Dolet. He 
 was, as he tells us, at- 
 tacked in the streets of 
 Lyons by a painter named 
 Compaing, 1 to whom he 
 sometimes refers as a 
 private enemy, at others 
 implies that he was a hired 
 bravo. It appears that] 
 he attempted to assassin-i 
 ate Dolet, and that the 
 latter in defending him- 
 self killed his adversary. ' It happened to him,' as it is ex- 
 
 1 In the official documents printed by M. Taillandier (Proch 
 £ Estienne Dolet) he is sometimes called Henry Guillot dit Compaing, 
 sometimes Guillaume Compaing. Dolet always refers to him as sicarius y 
 and in one place speaks of him as actuated by inveteratum odium. 
 
V 
 
 xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 307 
 
 pressed in one of the documents relating to his sentence 
 some years afterwards, ' to have the misfortune to commit 
 homicide on the person of this painter.' 1 It would seem as 
 though the latter was accompanied by a band of ruffians, 
 who on the death of Compaing attempted at once to seize 
 Dolet for the purpose of giving him into custody on a charge 
 of murder, and who excited the crowd by making this ac- 
 cusation against him. It is certain that he had already made 
 himself obnoxious to some at least of those who were in 
 authority at Lyons, and that had he been arrested and tried 
 there, however complete his innocence, he would have had 
 but little chance of an acquittal. By the assistance of his 
 friends he escaped before daylight from the city, intending to 
 make his way to Paris in the hope of obtaining there the 
 royal pardon. He has himself given us a narrative of his 
 
 1 I am not sure that Dolet's account of this affair is altogether to be 
 relied on. If in simply defending himself against the unprovoked attack 
 of an assassin he killed his assailant, we can hardly see why there should 
 have been any difficulty made by the Court of Lyons in registering his 
 letters of pardon. Voulte indeed assures Jean de Pins, in the letter pre- 
 fixed to the third book of his epigrams, that he had satisfied himself that 
 the homicide was committed by Dolet in self-defence, and we may I 
 think be satisfied by this testimony that Dolet was substantially in the 
 right in the matter ; but it seems probable that the affair was rather a 
 quarrel between the two men than an unprovoked attack made upon 
 Dolet by Compaing with the intention of murdering him. Compaing 
 was a member of a respectable family at Lyons, and although I do not 
 attach any weight to the precise charge against Dolet implied in the 
 words used respecting the matter by Floridus Sabinus, yet he would 
 hardly have so spoken had not Dolet and Compaing at one time been on 
 terms of intimacy. Floridus thus addresses Dolet : 'Atque inde fieri 
 compertum habeo ut qui nihil unquam laudabile in vita feceris quod de 
 deo animaque sentis caute omnibus palam non facias, ne scilicet in crucem 
 continuo rapiaris : a qua non admodum abfuisti dum perjurus sicarius 
 juvenem pictorem cum quo lenonia fide in gratiam redieras, etiam jacentem 
 animamque inter tuas nefarias manus exhalantem Koa-KLvrjSbv pugione 
 confodisti vel unico illo exemplo innatam tibi immanitatem pulchre 
 ostendens.' Adversus Doleti calumnias. 
 
308 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 journey in a Latin poem, in which he related his adven- 
 tures : — 
 
 c When Janus with his double face was contemplating at 
 the same time two years, one hastening to its close, the other 
 on the point of commencing, a perfidious enemy attacked 
 me, and placed his sword at my throat : I resisted the would- 
 be murderer, and slew him who was endeavouring to take 
 my life. 
 
 ' I was at the time wholly occupied with literary study, 
 and was devoting to it all my time and labour, with a view 
 of producing works which I hoped would be immortal and 
 would do credit to France. . . . 
 
 ' It was in this celebrated city (Lyons) that I was passing 
 my life, when this cruel attack compelled me to use force in 
 return, and unwillingly to preserve my own life by taking 
 that of another. Immediately an armed band of ruffians 
 pursued me, in order to cast me, innocent as I was, into 
 prison. But it is not difficult to avoid the fury and escape 
 the snares of a cowardly crowd. Protected by a body of 
 friends, I departed from the city before daylight. I first 
 bent my steps towards Auvergne, notwithstanding the severe 
 frost and bitter winds which then prevailed. Soon I saw the 
 mountain ashes on the lofty hills covered with snow. 
 Through the narrow valley a mountain of water as it seemed 
 rushed headlong with a sound like that of a tempest, and 
 shaking the earth as with a hailstorm, inundated the fields. 
 
 ' Then as I wandered through the forests of Auvergne 
 the surging Allier unfolded itself before me. I determined 
 to hasten my journey, by sailing down the stream. I em- 
 barked ; the boat aided by the oars flew more swiftly than 
 the wind. Lands and towns receded, while the swift bark 
 left its mark for a long distance in the water. But the 
 severity of the winter delayed our course : from the bed of 
 the river to the surface all was frozen, the ice was impervious 
 
xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 309 
 
 to the oars, and after our bounding vessel had received 
 severe blows from the ice, it was brought to a standstill. 
 Like a Parthian arrow, shot from a well-bent bow, which at 
 first cleaves the surrounding air by its great force, but which 
 if it enters the foliage of a thicket soon spends its force 
 among the branches and falls to the ground, so our boat, 
 which just before had been swift as the waves themselves, 
 was stopped in its course. At length the boatman, urged 
 on by my words, forced open a passage. The ice gave way 
 to the repeated blows of the oar, and all at once we glided 
 into the wide-spreading Loire, and were borne on its bosom 
 to a city celebrated in history, Orleans, in which I recognise 
 the cradle of my childhood, and I affectionately greet my 
 native shores. 
 
 'Then, having dismissed my boat, I crossed the level 
 plains on horseback. To reach the King was my only 
 thought. I therefore directed my steps to the great and 
 populous city of Paris, where I was told I should find King 
 Francis, the King of France ; than whom is there in the 
 world which you look upon, O sun, anything more august, 
 more excellent, or more clement ? ' * 
 
 The news of his offence and of his flight from Lyons 
 aroused the sympathy and the exertions of his friends. No 
 sooner had his misfortune come to the knowledge of Voulte, 
 who was then at Toulouse, and who had already achieved a 
 reputation by the publication of the first two books of his 
 epigrams, than he instantly started for Lyons, where as it 
 would seem he expected to find his friend in prison. He 
 was desirous of placing himself, his influence, and his purse 
 at Dolet's disposal, willing to share his friend's prison if that 
 should be necessary, and if, as he seems to have expected, he 
 should be condemned to banishment, ready, in pursuance of 
 a promise formerly made, to accompany him into exile. On 
 1 Dokti Carmina, p. 59. 
 
310 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 arriving at Lyons he learned to his great joy that his friend 
 had safely reached Paris, and that by the intervention of 
 powerful friends he was expected to obtain the royal pardon. 
 
 A letter written by Voulte to Jean de Pins, dated the 
 1 2th of March 1537, and printed in the volume of his 
 epigrams, tells us of the anxiety which he felt on his friend's 
 account, and shows him, as we have every reason to believe 
 he really was, a most devoted and affectionate friend, ready 
 to sacrifice himself in any way that would be useful to Dolet. 
 He seems to consider at this time that Dolet's pardon was 
 pretty well assured, and there can be little doubt that he had 
 himself used what influence he possessed in order to compass 
 this result, and so long as he remained at Lyons he continued 
 his exertions. 'Voulte,' writes Jean de Boyssone from 
 Toulouse, ' has now been absent from us about two months. 
 He has gone to Lyons for the purpose of assisting Dolet. 
 Oh that he may be as successful as I wish him to be ! ' 1 
 
 Were we to believe the statements of Dolet himself we 
 should suppose that in this misfortune no assistance whatever 
 was given to him by his friends. Always vainglorious, and 
 never too desirous of acknowledging the aid he received 
 from others, on this occasion, knowing as we do the zeal and 
 energy manifested by his friends on his behalf, he portrays 
 himself in most unfavourable colours. In the dedication of 
 the second volume of his Commentaries to Bude he writes : 
 ' After that most serious and bitter mischance which as you 
 are aware fell upon me in the defence of my life, with what 
 open and clandestine enemies have I not been attacked ? 
 Those who falsely persuaded themselves that they had been 
 somewhat injured by me were triumphant with joy that at 
 length the time was come for satisfying their hatred. Those 
 who were eaten up with envy on account of the celebrity 
 and literary glory I had acquired, thought the occasion at 
 1 Boyss. MS. Epist. fol. xiv. 
 
 \ 
 
xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 311 
 
 length arrived for pouring this forth, and, rejoicing greatly 
 that I was deprived of peace and safety, tore me in pieces as 
 it were by their maledictions. All those who before in my 
 prosperity had made much of me, in that my calamitous 
 season deserted me. So being at once in the greatest danger 
 from my enemies, and perfidiously deserted by my friends, I 
 was not only in a state of grief and wretchedness (which 
 might indeed be borne), but, as every one saw, I was in the 
 greatest danger of my life, a situation which is able to cast 
 down and break the spirit even of the most steadfast of men. 
 Yet I did not give myself up to grief, nor did I suffer myself 
 in an unmanly manner to be overthrown by the waves of my 
 cares and anxieties, but boldly using the counsel of my ready 
 mind I gradually emerged from my sea of troubles, and 
 brought it to pass that, contrary to the wicked designs of 
 my enemies, and without the assistance of any of those who 
 as far as name goes are my friends (but from whom in truth 
 I expected nothing), after a most raging tempest, and a 
 storm of a most terrible character, I at length came safely 
 into port without any very serious loss.' 
 
 This can hardly have been acceptable to Bude himself, 
 and certainly still less so to those other friends to whom 
 Dolet was really indebted for the king's pardon. From this 
 dedication and from his poems he would lead us to suppose 
 that immediately on his arrival in Paris, and without the 
 intervention of any of his friends, he obtained access to the 
 royal presence, told his story, and received the king's pardon. 
 But the letters of Voulte and Boyssone let us know of the 
 great exertions which were used by the accused's friends both 
 in Lyons and Paris, and even in the royal court, to obtain 
 this fortunate result. 
 
 Dolet himself in another place admits that his pardon a 
 was specially owing to Marguerite of Navarre, 1 and from; 
 
 1 2 Com. 830. 
 
312 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the poems which he addressed to Franciscus Pocrseus and 
 Antonius Arlerius (names altogether unknown to me), we 
 find that they also had exerted their influence in his behalf, 
 and had greatly contributed to the result. Nor can we 
 doubt that Pierre Duchatel, now in high favour with the 
 king, was most useful. Indeed an ode of Voulte's clearly 
 implies that this was so. Voulte himself, after staying a 
 short time at Lyons, appears to have felt that the interests 
 of his friend required his personal presence in Paris, and 
 accordingly we find him there before Dolet left the capital. 
 The efforts of the friends of letters had however already 
 been successful, and the royal pardon had actually been 
 granted on the 1 9th of February, 1 before the date of Voulte's 
 letter, and Voulte could only have arrived in Paris on the 
 eve of his friend's departure, and just in time for the banquet 
 given in Dolet's honour by his literary friends, of which he 
 has left us a most interesting account, and which, bringing 
 together as it did so many men of the highest literary 
 distinction, is not only of interest in itself, but affords us an 
 important biographical fact in the lives of these celebrated 
 men. It is one of the best known of Dolet's writings, 
 having been frequently quoted by the biographers of Rabelais 
 and of Marot. 
 
 ' Soon the time arrived for the banquet which a learned 
 body of friends had prepared for me. There met together 
 those whom we justly call the luminaries of France : Bude, 
 the greatest in reputation for learning of every kind ; 
 Berauld, equally happy in his natural genius as in his skill in 
 Latin composition ; Danes, distinguished in culture of all 
 kinds ; Toussain, who is honourably celebrated as a speaking 
 library ; Macrin, to whom Apollo has given a genius for 
 every kind of poetry ; Bourbon, also rich in poetic talent ; 
 Dampierre ; Voulte, who affords to the learned high ex- 
 1 Proch d' Estienne Dolet, p. 27. 
 
xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 313 
 
 pectations of future distinctions ; Marot, that Gallic Virgil, 
 who displays a divine vigour in his verses ; Francois Rabelais, 
 that honour and glory of the healing art, who is able to 
 recall and restore to life those who have reached the very 
 threshold of Pluto. 
 
 ' Among them there was no lack of conversation. We 
 passed in review the learned writers of foreign countries : 
 Erasmus, Melanchthon, Bembo, Sadolet, Vida, Sannazar, 
 were all in turn discussed and praised. 
 
 'At the early dawn of the following day I left Paris, 
 and proceeded as rapidly as possible to Lyons. My route 
 was by the plains which the Seine washes, where the armour 
 of Caesar so often shone upon his invincible troops. At 
 length I arrived where Saone divides Lyons into two 
 parts.' * 
 
 Besides this banquet we know of only one incident of 
 Dolet's visit to Paris, but that a very agreeable one. Going 
 one day into the shop of Robert Estienne he saw a book of 
 Latin poems by Salmon Macrin, just printed, and turning 
 over the pages he found an ode to the Gallic poets of the 
 day, in which he was classed with Dampierre, Brice, N. 
 Bourbon, and Voulte, as one of the five leading Latin poets 
 of France. This justly caused him no slight gratification, 
 for Macrin was esteemed (and rightly so) as the first Latin 
 poet of France, and the French Horace must be admitted to 
 stand on an altogether different and much higher level than 
 any of his contemporaries. Dolet repaid his praise by a 
 Latin poem which he subsequently addressed to him. 2 
 
 Upon returning to Lyons with the royal pardon in his 
 pocket, Dolet found that it would not afford him the pro- 
 tection which he expected. Whether his friends or protectors 
 had through ignorance neglected to apply for its ratification 
 by the Parliament, or whether the Parliament had for some 
 
 1 Carmina, p. 62. 2 lb. p. 70. 
 
3H ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 reason rejected the application, we do not know. Certain it 
 is that it was not ratified or registered until more than six 
 years afterwards, and then not until after two rescripts under 
 the king's hand and seal ordering this to be done. Wanting 
 in this formality the authorities of Lyons — already hostile to 
 the accused — thought themselves justified in paying no atten- 
 tion to the pardon, and Dolet had no sooner returned than, 
 either at the instigation of his own enemies or of the friends 
 of Compaing, he was thrown into prison by the Seneschal of 
 Lyons. He remained there until the 21st of April 1537, 
 when by the influence of Jean de Peyrat, 1 the Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Lyons under the Cardinal de Tournon, he was 
 provisionally set at liberty, on giving security to appear for 
 [judgment when called upon. He avenged himself upon the 
 Seneschal by a bitter ode in the volume of poems which he 
 published in the following year. 
 
 The vainglorious boast of Dolet that in this painful 
 episode of his life it was his own energy and vigour alone 
 that had obtained for him the royal pardon, and that he was 
 perfidiously deserted by his friends, cannot I think but have 
 been one of the causes of the estrangement which shortly 
 afterwards arose between himself and Voulte. We have 
 already seen the affectionate zeal which the latter showed in 
 his friend's defence. In the two additional books of epigrams 
 inserted in the volume which he published at Lyons about 
 the middle of the year 1537 Dolet is the subject of eight 
 epigrams, and is referred to with the highest praise (though 
 I could fancy with a shade less of that cordial and enthusiastic 
 affection which is so conspicuous in the first two books), and 
 equally so in the letter to Jean de Pins which forms the 
 preface to the third book. But in the two small volumes 
 which he printed at the end of 1538 at Paris at the press of 
 
 1 The constant friend and protector of men of letters. Dolet, Voulte, 
 Ducher, Rousselet, and Bourbon have all odes in his honour. 
 
xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 315 
 
 Simon de Colines, 1 both of which are collections of short 
 poems, addressed to or written upon a large number of French 
 poets and literary men, friends and enemies of the author, the 
 name of Dolet nowhere appears. But though his name is 
 absent, it is unfortunately too clear that he is referred to in 
 several bitter and reproachful epigrams. In several he is 
 transparently hidden under the name of Ledotus ; in others, 
 headed ' In IngratumJ he is no less certainly intended. The 
 poet complains bitterly of the ingratitude which he and 
 others, notably Duchatel, had experienced from a friend, to 
 whom when in circumstances of great peril they had rendered 
 assistance and had succeeded in saving from death. He 
 expresses surprise that Guillaume Sceve is willing still to 
 retain this ungrateful man among his friends. He complains 
 that one who had formerly spoken of him as his best, his 
 dearest friend, now cared nothing for his affection, and that 
 he had inserted in his books poems addressed to Bourbon 
 which he had originally addressed to Voulte ; and last, 
 though perhaps not least, that he had ridiculed the latter's 
 poems. The following is a specimen : — 
 
 In quendam Ingratum. 
 
 Debes qui propriam tuis amicis 
 Vitam, cur tibi neminem fuisse 
 Talem, qualis amicus esse amico 
 Debet temporibus malis, ab iisque 
 Dicis omnibus in tuo relictum 
 Casu ? die mihi per caput redemptum, 
 Per nuper tibi redditam salutem, 
 Sic amicitise, O scelus, tuorum 
 Respondes ? satis esse nonne credis 
 Hoc factum modo singulari amori ? 
 
 1 Joan. Vulteii Rhemi Inscriptionum Libri duo, and Jo. Vulteii Rhemensis 
 Hendecasyllaborum Libri quatuor. 
 
316 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Hascne est gratia, quam referre par est ? 
 Hocne munere munus ipse pensas 
 Acceptum ? tibi nemo si vaganti 
 Incerto pede et anxio adfuisset, 
 Die O die ubi nunc miser jaceres ? 
 
 Vivis ipse tamen, quid ? immo regnas, 
 Horum munere quos negas amicos, 
 Et narras tibi defuisse in ipso 
 Casu, qui tibi reddidere vitam. 
 Illos quid potes amplius rogare ? 
 Illos quid meliusque chariusque 
 Ingrato dare turn tibi salute 
 Optasses ? tibi quid dedisse amicos 
 Narro ? decipior, nihil dederunt : 
 Litteris etenim hanc dedere vitam. 1 
 
 In another ode, headed In Ledotum, Voulte says: 'You 
 not only wish to injure those who have injured you, but you 
 even attack in your writings your very few friends, those 
 through whom your life has been preserved to you. You 
 are now trying to acquire new friends, yet these you will 
 shortly again lose, for you do not possess a single friend of 
 long standing.' 2 
 
 I fear there can be little doubt that Dolet had shown 
 himself ungrateful as well to Voulte as to others, and the 
 publication of the second volume of the Commentaries which 
 appeared in February 1538, containing the passage already 
 quoted, could not fail to give the deepest pain to those who, 
 like Voulte, had done everything, and more than everything, 
 that could have been required by their friend. 
 
 Henceforth the name of Voulte disappears from our 
 history. Dolet indeed addressed an ode to him in the 
 
 1 Hendecasyllabi, fol. 9. 
 
 2 fol. 96. I imagine Voulte is here referring to the passage in the 
 dedication of the second volume of the Commentaries (already quoted), in 
 which Dolet attacks his friends for their desertion of him in his misfortunes. 
 
xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 317 
 
 volume of poems which appeared in 1538, but he is not 
 mentioned in any of his subsequent writings. But the open 
 rupture between the two men did not take place until some 
 time after Dolet's return to Lyons. During the remainder 
 of 1537 the old friendly and familiar relations continued to 
 exist. In the latter part of that year Boyssone writes to 
 Gripaldi that he has heard from Sceve, who tells him of 
 Dolet's excellent health, and Voulte's admission as an 
 advocate. 1 
 
 About the same time with the estrangement from Voulte, 
 and probably arising from the same causes, Dolet lost the 
 friendship of Hubert Sussanneau, whom the reader will 
 remember was at Lyons editing and correcting for Gryphius 
 in 1535. I have before spoken of the laudatory terms in 
 which Sussanneau wrote of Dolet, in a book printed in 1536. 
 In 1538 he, like Voulte, had changed his tone. In his 
 Ludorum libri, printed by Colines in that year, are three 
 epigrams In Medimnum which are clearly directed against 
 Dolet, and speak of him in terms similar to those used by 
 Voulte ; and in addition, his personal appearance is described 
 in language the reverse of flattering, but which does not 
 altogether disagree with the description given by Odonus in 
 the letter already quoted. His tall stooping figure, the 
 leaden pallor of his face, his fierce eyes, his squalid air, are 
 
 1 Voulte was assassinated on the 30th of December 1542, by a man 
 who had been unsuccessful in a law-suit against him. See Boulliot, 
 Biographie Ardenaise. Besides the two editions of the Epigrammata, and 
 the two small volumes of Hendecasyllabi and Xenia, Voulte was also the 
 author of Oratio funebris, a Io. Vulteio de lac. Minutio Tholosae habita. 
 Lugduni, apud Parmanterium, 1537. It is a tract of 16 pp., printed, 
 like the second edition of the epigrams, by Barbous for Parmentier, 
 and contains besides the oration a dedication addressed ' Malafantio et 
 Reynerio,' two epitaphs by Voulte and three by G. Sceve, as well as an 
 ode by Gripaldi. I have nowhere found this book noticed, nor do I know 
 of the existence of a copy except the one I possess. It is not to be found 
 in the Bibliotheque Nationak. 
 
3 i 8 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 assumed to correspond with the qualities of his mind, nor is 
 his short jacket forgotten, which had excited the ridicule of 
 Odonus : — 1 
 
 Quem buxeus vultus, macerque, et oculi truces, 
 Et proferentis tertiata vocabula 
 Flagrare felle livido satis indicant. 
 
 And in another epigram : — 
 
 Extabet atra macie, et exili toga 
 Tegitur Medimnus. 
 
 Dolet's friendship with a no less eminent, and to English- 
 men more interesting person, Nicolas Bourbon of Vandceuvre, 
 had the same fate as that with Voulte and Sussanneau. 
 The accomplished tutor of Henry Carey (Lord Hunsdon), 
 young Henry Norreys and the Dudleys, the friend of 
 Bishop Latimer and Dean Boston, 2 came to Lyons immedi- 
 
 1 Ludorum libri, fol. 16 and 34. On the other hand, Voulte (Epi- 
 grammata, lib. ii. p. 159, edit, of 1537) gives us a most favourable idea of 
 his personal appearance : — 
 
 Tam pulchrum est corpus, mens est tarn pulchra Doleti, 
 Totus ut hoc possim dicere, pulcher homo est. 
 
 And Claude Cottereau {Genethliacum), speaking of Dolet's son, says : — 
 Quare sive unum referat, vel utrumque parentem, 
 Dives erit forma, dives et ingenio. 
 
 The art. ' Sussanneau ' in the Biog. Univ. calls attention to a MS. note 
 in the copy of his Ludi in the public library of Lyons which states that 
 the epigram In Meevium is also directed against Dolet. I certainly 
 hesitate to differ from the President Bouhier (who on reference to the 
 copy in question appears to be the writer of the note), yet I think the 
 epigram Ad Lausum (fol. 27) proves clearly that Dolet is not intended 
 by ' Mjevius.' Sussanneau is, however, even more spiteful in an elegy 
 appended to his edition of the Quantitates of Alexander de Villedieu 
 (Colines, 1542) : — 
 
 Ad Odhtum, Inferni Calcographum. 
 
 Quid sine fortunis hominem, sine re, sine lege, 
 Expiet, et sine spe qui sit, et absque fide? 
 
 2 N. Bourbon was a protege of Queen Anne Boleyn, and was naturally 
 enough devoted to the men of the reform party in England. He is as 
 
xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 319 
 
 ately on his return from England in the spring of 1536, and 
 seems immediately to have made the acquaintance of Dolet. 
 The latter, always ready to welcome a new ally on the side 
 of the learned against the barbarians, gave a cordial welcome 
 to the newcomer, and obtained for him the friendship of 
 many of the learned men then at Lyons. It is probable that 
 it was to Dolet that Bourbon was indebted for his introduc- 
 tion to Rabelais, to Marot, and the Sceves, and in his volume 
 entitled TJatBaywyelov, printed by Rhomanus in 1536, he 
 showed his gratitude and esteem by three odes addressed to 
 him, the one, De Amicis Lugdunensibus, beginning — 
 
 Quos mihi Lugduni tua conciliavit amicos 
 
 Fides, Dolete, et gratia, 
 Efficiam, — 
 
 the others expressing the highest esteem for his person and 
 respect for his learning. Six odes by him also appear among 
 the commendatory poems affixed to the Carmina of Dolet. 
 
 But in the second and enlarged edition of his Nuga, 
 given by Gryphius at the end of 1538, though all the other 
 poems in the HaiBaycoyetov are inserted, the odes to Dolet 
 are omitted, and his name nowhere appears. A careful and 
 repeated study of the Nuga of Bourbon and of the poems of 
 Voulte has enabled me to glean somewhat as to the cause of 
 the estrangement between the two men, and has led me to 
 some probable conclusions on the subject. 
 
 One day shortly after Bourbon's return to Lyons from 
 England (in 1536) he went into the shop of Gryphius, and 
 in answer to his inquiry what new books had just appeared, 
 a volume entitled Epigrammata was handed to him. He 
 
 laudatory of Cromwell and Cranmer as he is unfair to Sir Thomas More. 
 But I think that the author of that interesting monograph on More's 
 Latin poems, Philomorus, is unduly hard upon him (2nd ed., London 
 1878, p. 261). 
 
320 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 eagerly turned over its leaves, and found as he thought 
 numerous lines and sentences taken from his Nuga. 
 
 Invenio illic e Nugis meis 
 Surrepta carmina innumera, et sententias 
 Alio tortas, et argumenta pleraque 
 Adsuta ineptiis nebulonis illius. 
 
 In the TLaiSaycoyelov, printed before the end of the same 
 year, Bourbon fiercely attacks the author of this volume and 
 charges him with shameless plagiarism in four epigrams 
 headed De Seipso, In quendam carminum suppilatorem. 1 
 
 Although the epigrammatist is not named, it appears 
 that Voulte was intended, and accordingly in his next edition 
 (Lyons, Parmentier, 1537) he in numerous epigrams defends 
 himself from the attack of Bourbon, and, though without 
 mentioning him by name, throws an abundance of abuse and 
 ridicule upon him, his Nug<e, and the two portraits which 
 Bourbon had prefixed and affixed to his book. But before 
 the end of 1538, about the time of the quarrel between 
 Dolet and Voulte, the two had become reconciled. In a 
 letter from Bourbon to his mistress Rubella, dated Nov. 29, 
 1538, 2 he says, 'I hear by a letter of our friend Christopher 
 Richer that Voulte is reconciled to me. Cursed be those 
 tattlers (or rather, God give them a better mind) who left no 
 stone unturned, as the saying is, that they might estrange 
 Voulte from me.' 
 
 Very shortly after the date of this letter Bourbon gave 
 a new edition of his Nuga, and Voulte published his In- 
 scriptions and his Hendecasyllabi. In the books of each 
 author there are friendly odes addressed to the other. Each 
 expresses his gratification at friendship being established 
 
 1 PP- 39> 4°- 
 
 2 Tabellte elementaria . . . Nicolao Borbonio autore. Lugduni, apud 
 
 Frellaeos Fratres, 1539. 
 
xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 321 
 
 between them, each is severe on the false friend who had 
 caused and kept up the estrangement, and Voulte proposes 
 that they shall consider him for the future as their common 
 enemy. These things, coupled with the fact that their 
 reconciliation immediately followed Voulte's quarrel with 
 Dolet, that the volume of Voulte which celebrates their 
 reconciliation is full of severe epigrams on Dolet, and that 
 the almost contemporaneous edition of Bourbon's Nug<e 
 omits the odes to. Dolet, 1 lead me to conclude that they 
 suspected the latter of being the creator and fomentor of 
 their estrangement, and that to this must be attributed the 
 cessation of Bourbon's friendship. 
 
 In the meantime Dolet' s intimacy and correspondence 
 with Jean de Boyssone continued as before. It would seem 
 that a sum of money was owing to him at Toulouse, either 
 a debt which in the haste of his forced departure he had been 
 unable to get in, or, as is perhaps more probable, the value 
 of the property he left behind him, which had either been 
 illegally seized by the officers of justice or detained by some 
 other person. A law-suit was necessary to recover it, and 
 Boyssone took charge of the conduct of the affair and em- 
 ployed as his advocate Nicolas Le Roy. 2 On the 22nd of 
 June he thus writes : — 
 
 Jean de Boyssone to Etienne Dolet 
 
 ' I have received your book De Re Navali, for which I 
 give you my best thanks. Your letter to Jean de Pins I 
 
 1 There are several epigrams of Bourbon headed In Zoilum that may 
 not improbably be directed against Dolet, but are not (as in the case of 
 those of Voulte and Sussanneau) so clearly intended for him as to justify 
 me in citing them as so intended. 
 
 2 Nicolas Le Roy was a friend of Calvin and Francois Daniel. In 
 1534 he had been professor of law at Bourges. Correspondance des Re- 
 
 formateurs dans les pays de Langue Franfaise, ii. 409. 
 
 Y 
 
322 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 have caused to be delivered to him. Nicolas Le Roy, a most 
 learned person and the leading man in his profession, has the 
 greatest regard for you, and omits nothing which he thinks 
 can tend to promote your interests and reputation. I hope 
 therefore that very shortly the money will be repaid me, and 
 as soon as I receive it I will take care that it shall reach your 
 hands as speedily as possible. But Chomard has written to 
 you more at length on these matters. Do you then rest con- 
 tent with the efforts we are all making on your behalf. Fare- 
 well. Toulouse, 22nd of June 1537.' x 
 
 But a great blow was soon to fall on Boyssone and the 
 other friends of learning at Toulouse, and Dolet was to lose 
 one of his best and most valued friends — with whom we see, 
 from the letter just quoted, he still continued his correspond- 
 ence. . The death of the First President Minut had occurred 
 on the 6th of November 1536. Voulte pronounced his 
 funeral oration, and he, Boyssone, and Dolet all composed 
 odes in honour of his memory, and in lamentation of his 
 death. An inscription on his tomb in the church of St. 
 Bartholomew (destroyed at the Revolution) justly described 
 him as veritatis amantissimus et litterarum propugnator acer- 
 rimus. The excellent Bishop of Rieux did not survive his 
 friend an entire year. He died at the Carmelite convent at 
 Toulouse on the 1st of November 1537. Jean de Boyssone 
 was at Lyons at the time of his death, and only learned the 
 sad news on his return to Toulouse. On the 20th of that 
 month he writes to Guillaume Sceve a letter containing an 
 interesting account of his journey to Toulouse, and thus 
 concludes : — 2 
 
 ' I arrived very tired at Toulouse. There I was met by 
 tidings the least pleasant and agreeable that were possible for 
 me to have, namely, that Jean de Pins, Bishop of Rieux, had 
 
 1 Boyss. MS. Epist. fol. xxxiv. 
 
 2 Boyss. MS. Epist. fol. xxxvi. 
 
xiv A HOMICIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 323 
 
 departed this life. I feel his death most bitterly, as well on 
 account of literature generally, as of the great loss which 
 Toulouse in particular has sustained by his death. For he 
 was indeed the great ornament to our city. I have saluted 
 Mansancal 1 and Michael Faber in your name. To-morrow 
 I return to my duty of lecturing, which has been for some 
 time interrupted. Meanwhile if you receive any news from 
 Italy write to me. Farewell. Toulouse, November 20, 
 1537. Salute in my name du Choul, Richer, Dolet, and M. 
 Sceve.' 
 
 A few days later he thus writes to Pierre Duchatel 
 (Castellanus), then Archdeacon of Avignon : — 2 
 
 ' Would that the rumour which lately reached you as to 
 the death of Jean de Pins had been false. In that case all of 
 us who devote ourselves to literature at Toulouse should not 
 be in such deep grief. What, let me ask you, could have 
 happened to us which we could have felt more severely ? 
 Last year we lost Minut. Death seemed then to have little 
 power left to trouble us, except by this year depriving us of 
 Jean de Pins, who alone was left to us as the guardian of 
 letters. Toulouse, December 9, 1537.' 
 
 The three poets again celebrated in their verses the 
 friend they had lost, and though the epitaphs of none of 
 them are to be ranked amongst their happiest efforts, yet 
 they all certainly proceeded from the heart, and are the 
 words of sincere mourners. 
 
 The death of the Bishop of Rieux broke the last tie that 
 bound Boyssone to Toulouse. Dolet, Voulte, and Gripaldi 
 had all left the city. The two protectors and promoters of 
 letters and learned men were dead. He now sought to 
 obtain some legal appointment where he might pass his time 
 
 1 Jean de Mansancal was then a Councillor of the Parliament of Tou- 
 louse. He succeeded Bertrandi as First President in 1538. 
 
 2 Boyss. MS. Epist. fol. xxxvii. 
 
324 ETIENNE DOLET chap, xiv 
 
 in peaceful study, unmolested by the barbarism of his native 
 city. After several unsuccessful applications, among others 
 to the Cardinals Odet de Coligny and Gabriel de Gramont, 
 of both of whom he afterwards writes with a little bitterness, 
 he was at length (in 1538), by the influence of Jean 
 Bertrandi, who now held the office of Third President of the 
 Parliament of Paris, appointed by the Chancellor Du Poyet 
 one of the judges of the Royal Court of Chambery, and a 
 member of the Council which administered the Province of 
 Savoy, then recently annexed to the dominions of the King 
 of France. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 The Printer 
 
 Ilia ego quas quondam, coelo ut delapsa, colebar, 
 Ilia ego qua? multis numinis instar eram : 
 
 Quam comitem addiderant mundi miracula septem, 
 Qua: decima Aonidum sum numerata soror : 
 
 Delicia; humani generis vocitata per orbem, 
 Qua; vocitabar amor deliciaeque deum. 
 
 H. Estienne. 
 
 Qua certe nulla in mundo dignior nulla laudabilior, aut profecto utilior 
 sive divinior et sanctior esse unquam potuisset. — Philip of Bergamo. 
 
 HE year 1538 was in many 
 ways a memorable year in 
 Dolet's life. There can 
 be little doubt that in the 
 early part of it his marriage 
 took place, yet of the cir- 
 cumstances attending this 
 event we know nothing. 
 His wife's name has 
 hitherto been unknown, 
 but I am now able to give 
 it from a notarial act pre- 
 served in the Archives of 
 Lyons, and which has for 
 its object an extension of the partnership subsisting in 1 542 
 
326 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 between Dolet and one Helayn Dulin. 1 The wife of Dolet 
 is there referred to as Louise Giraud. The name Giraud is 
 unfortunately too common to allow of our connecting her 
 with any of the families of the name, but I am disposed to 
 think, for reasons hereafter indicated, that she not improbably 
 came from Troyes, and may have been related to Nicole 
 Paris, the printer there. From the Genethliacum and the 
 Second Enfer we see that the marriage was not only one of 
 affection, but was also a source of great happiness to Dolet. 
 Some of his friends indeed disapproved of it, doubting, as it 
 seems, whether with his precarious means of livelihood he 
 was wise in taking upon himself a responsibility and expense 
 for which he might find it difficult adequately to provide. 
 Yet Claude Cottereau, always a prudent and judicious friend, 
 did not hesitate to express his thorough approval of it. 
 Writing to Dolet a year later, after the birth of a son, he 
 says : ' After the great labour to which I was obliged to 
 devote the whole of last winter (for the purpose of founding 
 my reputation, and acquiring some esteem among learned 
 men), as I was going from Lyons to Tours, as a relief from 
 the tedium of my journey, I set myself to compose some 
 dixains and huic tains on the birth of the son whom it has 
 pleased God to give you for the completion of the great 
 happiness of your marriage ; a marriage which, though many 
 others who litde know your spirit and judgment have been 
 surprised at, as a destruction or at least a hindrance to your 
 fortune, so far as material wealth is concerned, yet I have 
 always approved and praised, for I know that you have no 
 greater anxiety than to live according to the commands of 
 God, and to pass your time in tranquillity of mind so as to 
 devote yourself more completely to literature. You have 
 not entered the marriage state foolishly or without judgment, 
 but for the purpose of obtaining from it the greatest good.' 2 
 1 See post, p. 338. 2 L'Avant naissance de Claude Dolet. 
 
xv THE PRINTER 327 
 
 But it is probable that he would not have ventured on 
 this important step had he not seen the way open to a more 
 settled life and a more certain income than heretofore. 
 The second volume of the Commentaries was published in 
 February 1538, and in March the same year the author had 
 the honour of being introduced to the King at Moulins by 
 Cardinal de Tournon, and of presenting to His Majesty a 
 copy of his great work. To which of his friends Dolet was 
 indebted for his introduction to the great Cardinal, at that 
 time at the height of his power and the most influential of 
 the Ministers of Francis, we are not informed. Not im- 
 probably it was to Pierre Duchatel, now in great favour with 
 the King, and formally installed as his reader. The Cardinal 
 spoke most favourably of him to the King, and Francis not 
 only graciously accepted the volumes, but granted to Dolet 
 the privilege which he sought, to enable him to commence 
 with a good prospect of success the profession of a printer. 
 
 During the century which followed the invention of 
 printing, the position of those who exercised the art was 
 relatively much higher than it is in our own day. A printer 
 was then necessarily a man of education, usually and almost 
 necessarily a fair Latin scholar ; and the master printers 
 were invariably recognised as members of a learned profession, 
 as belonging to the fraternity of men of letters, and not as 
 mere tradesmen who exercised a mechanical art. The 
 traditions of the Aldi, the Estiennes, the Gryphii, and the 
 Elzevirs have indeed been worthily preserved in our own 
 days by more than one great family of printers and publishers, 
 and there have never been wanting learned printers who have 
 used their profession not so much as a means of profit, as for 
 the purpose of giving to the world books of the highest 
 merit printed on the choicest paper and with the most perfect 
 typography. But in modern times the combination of the 
 scholar, the author (or the editor), with the practical printer, 
 
328 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the publisher, or the bookseller, has been comparatively rare, 
 nor is it likely that we shall again see printing establishments 
 like those of the elder Aldus or Robert Estienne, the pro- 
 prietor of which, though calling himself by the modest title 
 of printer, was rather the head of a college of learned men, 
 and was no less competent to direct and assist their literary 
 labours than to perform the most practical and mechanical 
 details of his art. 
 
 The Greek prefaces of Aldus will favourably compare 
 with those of the greatest scholars of the day, even with 
 those of Musurus and Lascaris, and faulty as in the eyes of 
 modern criticism are several Greek editiones principes which 
 he both printed and edited, yet none but a man of rare 
 abilities and learning could have edited or printed them for 
 the first time even in the most faulty form. Robert Estienne 
 was himself the author of some of the books of the greatest 
 permanent value which issued from his press, he was one of 
 the most eminent Greek, Hebrew, and Latin scholars of his 
 day, and if his learning and the great services he rendered 
 to letters are less universally recognised than those of the 
 elder Aldus, it is because he has been overshadowed by the 
 still greater learning and literary merit of his eldest son. 
 The elder Aldus was surrounded at Venice by the most 
 eminent scholars of his time, who in concert with him and 
 under his direction and perpetual supervision, transcribed, 
 edited and emended, and who did not disdain to act as the 
 correctors of his press and sometimes even as compositors. 
 Robert Estienne, in the much less learned Paris, entertained 
 in his house ten scholars, all learned men, some of them pre- 
 eminently so, 1 as his assistants and correctors of the press, 
 and Latin was the language commonly and familiarly spoken 
 in the house, not only by the ten learned assistants, but by 
 
 1 'Decern hi partim literati partim literatissimi viri ' (Preface of Paul 
 Estienne to the Aldus Gellius of 1585). 
 
xv THE PRINTER 329 
 
 the master, his wife and children, and even by the servants. 
 But Aldus Manutius and Robert Estienne were also the 
 ablest practical printers of their day, thorough masters of 
 their art, and of every detail connected with it, personally 
 superintending, and (in the case of Robert Estienne) even 
 taking part in the work of the compositors, and each de- 
 signing and causing to be founded types for their books 
 altogether different from any used before. The cursive 
 characters still known as Italics were invented by Aldus 
 (who took the handwriting of Petrarch as his model) for the 
 purpose of his Latin books, a type which, though now disused 
 except for the purpose of emphasis, will at once be seen to 
 be an enormous improvement on either the Roman or Gothic 
 types with their innumerable contractions previously in use ; 
 and if I hesitate to ascribe to him alone the invention of the 
 two forms of Greek type which he first employed, it is only 
 because it seems probable that the credit of the invention 
 ought to be shared with Marcus Musurus, whose clear and 
 beautiful calligraphy the type used in the earlier volumes — 
 of many of which he was the editor — closely resembles. To 
 Robert Estienne was due the Greek typi regit — engraved by 
 Claude Garamond under the learned printer's direction — 
 which for two centuries and a half continued to be recognised 
 as the most perfect and beautiful of all Greek types. 1 
 
 To be a printer in the sixteenth century was to be a 
 member of a profession which was occupied with the pro- 
 motion and spread of literature and science. Long before 
 the invention of printing, the sworn bookseller clerks in 
 
 1 A duplicate set of the matrices and fount, taken by R. Estienne to 
 Geneva, became in the early part of the seventeenth century the subject 
 of diplomatic intrigues and negotiations — the ambassador of the King of 
 England desiring to purchase them from Paul Estienne, and the French 
 Government claiming to be entitled to them subject only to the payment 
 of the amount for which they had been pledged. See Les Estiennes et les 
 Types Grecs de Francois I'", far Aug. Bernard, Paris, 1856. 
 
33° ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 * Paris could only be admitted as such after a strict examina- 
 tion, and an edict of Charles VIII. in 1488 reduced them to 
 twenty-four in number, besides four principal booksellers 
 {magni librarii), and declared them, together with two 
 illuminators, two binders, and two scribes, to be officers and 
 servants of the University, and as such entitled to all the 
 privileges thereof as true scholars. 1 After the invention of 
 printing, the privileges of the booksellers naturally fell to the 
 rinters, and the twenty -four — then called imprimeurs 
 'ibr aires — long retained their importance. In 15 13 Louis 
 II., to whom, strangely enough, the welfare of his people 
 appears to have been sometimes a matter of interest, 2 issued 
 an edict by which he granted to printing what M. Didot 
 calls lettres de noblesse, exempting it from a considerable 
 
 ! impost, taking off the tax previously existing on books, and 
 declaring that ' the printer-booksellers, as true members and 
 officers of the University, ought to be maintained in their 
 privileges, liberties, franchises, exemptions, and immunities, 
 in consideration of the great benefits which have been con- 
 ferred upon our kingdom by means of the art and science of 
 printing, the invention of which seems rather divine than 
 human, and which, thanks be to God, has been invented and 
 discovered in our time by the means and industry of the said 
 printers, by which our holy Catholic faith has been greatly 
 augmented and strengthened, justice better understood and 
 
 1 ' Comme vrais escholiers d'icelle.' Didot, Essai sur la Typographic, 
 p. 720. 
 
 2 Henry IV. is the only one of his successors prior to the Revolution 
 of whom as much can be said. Even to Louis XVI., good husband and 
 father as he was, worthy and prosperous citizen and locksmith as he might 
 have been, had fortune been more favourable to him, the welfare of his 
 people never on any single occasion seems to have been a matter of 
 thought, nor did their sufferings and wretchedness, when they were dying 
 of hunger by hundreds, ever induce him to consider how large a part of 
 their misery was due to his enormous civil list. 
 
xv THE PRINTER 331 
 
 administered, and the divine service more fittingly and ac- 
 curately performed, said, and celebrated, and by means of 
 which so many good and salutary doctrines have been mani- 
 fested, communicated, and published to every one.' 1 
 
 Certainly the title of father of letters is more justly due 
 to the author of this noble and liberal decree than to Francis 
 I., who, as we have seen, issued an edict prohibiting the, use 
 of the printing press, and who permitted the burning of both 
 books and printers. 
 
 Etienne Dolet, as we have before seen, on his arrival in 
 Lyons in the summer of 1534, found employment with 
 Sebastian Gryphius as reader and corrector of the press ; 
 and though his two visits to Paris, the completion of his 
 Commentaries, and his other literary labours must have taken 
 up the larger part of his time, yet there can be little doubt 
 that during the following four years he continued with more 
 or less intermission to assist the great printer, as well as 
 Francois Juste and others, and to maintain himself by this 
 means, and that during this period he also acquired in the 
 workshop of his patron a practical knowledge of the art of 
 printing. 
 
 Amongst his most intimate friends and associates at this 
 time was the foreman and head under Gryphius of the 
 printing office, Jean de Tournes, clarum et venerabile nomen, 
 soon to rival and indeed to excel his master in the divine art, 
 and to found a family that for two centuries and a half con- 
 tinued to exercise their hereditary profession at Lyons and 
 Geneva. 2 At what period Dolet decided to adopt the pro- 
 
 1 Didot, Essai stir la Typ. 750. 
 
 2 Dolet has an ode Ad Joannem Turnceum et Vincentum Piletum com- 
 bibones. M. A. F. Didot {Essai sur la Typ.) seems to speak with less than 
 his usual accuracy in saying that Jean de Tournes had served his ap- 
 prenticeship to Sebastian Gryphius. According to the family papers cited 
 by M. Revilliod in the Bulletin du Bibliophile, 1856, pp. 917-930, he had 
 served his apprenticeship to Melchior and Gaspard Trechsel, and he 
 
332 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 fession of a printer we do not know ; not improbably it 
 was when he first contemplated marriage. The precarious 
 income of a man of letters, even when eked out by the wages 
 of a reader or corrector for the press, though sufficient for 
 his own simple wants, would be inadequate to maintain a 
 wife and children. It was on the 6th of March 1538, on 
 the occasion of his interview with Francis I. when he pre- 
 sented to him his Commentaries, that he obtained from the 
 King, 1 who was then at Moulins, a privilege or license 
 authorising him to print or cause to be printed all books 
 composed or translated by him, and other works of ancient 
 and modern authors, which should be by him properly re- 
 viewed, emended, illustrated, or annotated, whether by way 
 of interpretation, scholia, or other declaration, and as well 
 in Latin, Greek, and Italian as in French. By this license 
 all other persons are forbidden, under pain of fine and con- 
 fiscation of their books, to print or expose for sale, either 
 within the kingdom of France or elsewhere, books copied 
 from those of Dolet, for the space of ten years from the date 
 of the publication of such books respectively. The docu- 
 
 probably entered the service of Gryphius soon after the latter commenced 
 business as a printer. He tells us in the preface prefixed to his edition 
 of Petrarch in 1545 that he had worked twelve years before at the edition 
 given by Gryphius (in 1532) of the works of Luigi Alamanni, and that 
 this gave him the taste for Italian literature. He was acquainted with 
 Latin, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. The business, which he commenced 
 in or about 1 540, was carried on uninterruptedly by his descendants, 
 sometimes at Lyons, sometimes (for he and they were Protestants) at 
 Geneva, sometimes at both, until 1780, when the brothers de Tournes 
 disposed of their business, which, according to M. Revilliod, had for forty 
 years been the most considerable in Europe. The unmarried daughter 
 of one of these brothers lived far on in this century at Geneva. 
 
 1 The privilege is dated 6th March 1537. This would be 1538, 
 N.S. This is made clear by the words at the end (et de notre Regne le 
 vingt-quatrieme). Francis I. succeeded to the throne 1st Jan. 1515. His 
 twenty-fourth year would thus commence 1st Jan. 1538. 
 
xv THE PRINTER 
 
 333 
 
 ment concludes, ' Par le Roy. Monseigneur le Cardinal de 
 Tournon present.' It was signed by de la Chesnaye, and 
 sealed with the great seal in yellow wax. 
 
 Some time had still to elapse before Dolet was able to 
 avail himself of the privilege and to effect the necessary pre- 
 parations and arrangements for commencing business as a 
 printer. Before the end of the year 1538, however, his press 
 was set up, and at least two books printed at it. His old 
 friend Gryphius, instead of feeling any jealousy of his young 
 rival, gave him all the assistance which he required. A 
 careful examination of the books to which the name of Dolet 
 is attached as the printer induces us to suspect that more 
 than one of them was printed at the press of Gryphius, and 
 shows us plainly that several of the woodcut capital letters 
 used by the latter had been lent or given by him to Dolet, 
 since they are identical with those which ornament many of 
 the productions of the press of Gryphius. The resemblance 
 indeed is so precise that the letters seem to have been struck 
 from the same blocks. Moreover, the type generally used by 
 Dolet so much resembles that of Gryphius that it seems 
 probable that a great part of it was furnished by the eminent 
 printer. 1 
 
 Following the custom of the day, Dolet adopted a mark 
 and motto, which are to be found on all or nearly all the 
 productions of his press. The mark and the motto are 
 equally allusive. The former is an axe, of the kind then 
 known as the doloire, held in a hand which is issuing out of a 
 
 1 Not impossibly there may have been at some time a sort of partner- 
 ship arrangement between them, as we know there was between Sebastian 
 Gryphius and Jean de Tournes when the latter commenced business on 
 his own account. Several books printed between 1540 and 1550 which 
 have the name of Gryphius on the title-page were really the impressions 
 of de Tournes, and- the accounts between the printers dated and settled 
 in 1550 are still extant, and are cited by M. Revilliod in the article 
 before referred to. 
 
334 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 cloud. Below is a portion of a trunk of a tree, already begun 
 to be severed, and about to be completely so by the axe. 
 It is usually surrounded by the following motto, ' Scabra et 
 impolita ad amussim dolo atque perpolio.' It is often also 
 surrounded by an ornamental woodcut border. 1 At the 
 end we usually though not invariably find the mark repeated, 
 but instead of the motto one of the two following sentences, 
 the first being taken from Cicero : Durior est spec tat a 
 virtutis quam incognita conditio, and Preserve moy O 
 Seigneur des calumnies des hommes. 
 
 I But although in commencing and carrying on business as 
 |a bookseller Dolet retained the friendship of Sebastian 
 Gryphius, and derived much advantage from his experience 
 and assistance, his relations were very different with the 
 other master printers of Lyons. High as he placed the 
 ' divine art of printing,' and those high priests of its altars 
 who were no less distinguished by their learning than by 
 their knowledge of the art and by the accuracy of their im- 
 pressions, he more than once expresses himself with perhaps 
 undue severity on the carelessness or ignorance of the 
 common herd of printers. In the Commentaries 2 he speaks 
 with much bitterness on this point : ' What great negligence 
 and carelessness is displayed by printers ! How often are 
 they blinded and rendered careless by drink, and given up to 
 intoxication ! How boldly, how rashly, how utterly without 
 reason, do they not make alterations in the text if (a thing 
 which seldom happens) they have any tincture of letters ! 
 So that you scarcely find any book issue from the press with- 
 out innumerable faults. Yet no one can doubt that it was 
 made a matter of the very first importance by Aldus Manutius 
 that his books should be printed with the utmost accuracy. 
 Jodocus Badius and Joannes Frobenius (both lately deceased) 
 
 1 In some cases the words Scabra Dolo are printed on the axe. 
 2 i Com. Col. 266. 
 
xv THE PRINTER 335 
 
 took equal pains that their books should be worthy of 
 the learned ; and the same anxiety to excel in accuracy is 
 displayed by Sebastian Gryphius, a German, and Robert 
 Estienne and Simon de Colines, both Frenchmen. What 
 reputation have they not acquired by their admirable 
 productions ! Yet even they are not able entirely to 
 accomplish what they wish, or to prevent the carelessness of 
 their ill-conditioned and drunken assistants from manifesting 
 itself, so that the learned do not benefit as much as might be 
 wished from this their most laudable care and supervision. 
 Wherefore (if you find any inaccuracies) you must not 
 despise the care and judgment of those learned men, but 
 must note and correct with diligence any error you may meet 
 with.' 
 
 It is not impossible that the first part of this passage 
 was aimed at individual printers at Lyons who would be 
 easily recognised by their contemporaries, and would not be 
 disposed to view with favour one who had spoken of them 
 with such contempt, and who without having served any 
 apprenticeship to their art was commencing its exercise 
 under the protection of a royal license which conferred uponi 
 him unusual and exceptional privileges. But about this time' 
 grave disputes arose between the master printers and the 
 journeymen, and Dolet, always on the side of the weak and 
 oppressed, and utterly regardless of prudence or expediency, 
 warmly took up the cause of the journeymen. 
 
 Of the origin of these disputes, all that we know is that 
 the workmen had banded themselves together to force the 
 masters to pay them higher wages and to afford them better 
 food than they had previously received, and also that they 
 wished to reduce the number of apprentices, 1 the usual 
 
 1 ' Depuis trois ans en 9a, aucuns serviteurs, compagnons imprimeurs 
 mal vivans, ont suborne et mutine la plupart des autres compagnons, et ce 
 sont bandez ensemble pour confjaindre les maistres imprimeurs de leur 
 
336 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 objects of a trades-union. There can be little doubt that on 
 the first point the complaint of the workmen was just. 
 During the preceding half-century the prices of commodities 
 had risen considerably — that is to say, the value of money 
 had fallen, owing partly if not principally to the quantity of 
 silver which had flowed into Europe from America. At the 
 same time France had increased in wealth, and among all 
 classes a style of living was growing up less simple and 
 ' more opulent ' (to use the expression of the edict of 
 Francis I.) than had been usual. Hence the workmen 
 naturally complained of the old wages and the old * nourish- 
 ment ' as insufficient. Nor was it only among the printers, 
 or even in France, that this state of things prevailed. 
 Everywhere and in all trades greater wages were claimed by 
 the workmen and opposed by the masters ; and wherever, as 
 in England, the latter were the law-makers, foolish Acts of 
 Parliament were passed attempting to ignore the change of 
 the times and to prevent the legitimate and inevitable increase 
 in (the nominal rate of) wages. But not everywhere have 
 the workmen shown themselves so strong, and it may be 
 so turbulent, as at Lyons. Then, as ever since, they have 
 shown a zeal for progress and liberty, if not always a zeal 
 according to knowledge. Only three years before this time, 
 when the people of Geneva had expelled the Prince Bishop 
 and were expecting the attack of the Duke of Savoy, five 
 hundred men from Lyons, mostly printers and other artisans, 
 and commanded by a printer, marched to their assistance. 1 
 The disputes which commenced in 1538 lasted some 
 
 fournir plus gros gages, et nourriture plus opulente, que par la coustume 
 ancienne ils n'ont jamais eu ; davantage ils ne veulent point souffrir aucun 
 apprentis besongner audit art afin qu'eux se trouvans en petit nombre aux 
 ouvrages pressez et hastez, ils soient cherchez et requiz desdits maistres.' 
 Edict of Francis I. of 28th December 1 541, Du reglement de P Imprimerie 
 pour la ville de Lyon. See Crapelet, Etudes sur la Typographie, p. 53. 
 1 Spon. Hist, de Geneve. 
 
xv THE PRINTER 337 
 
 years. The journeymen printers were at first successful, 
 and obtained from the King an edict in their favour. But 
 they derived no benefit from it. The master printers 
 threatened to remove to Vienne in Dauphine. The citizens 
 of Lyons were alarmed at the prospect of losing what had 
 become the most important branch of the commerce of the 
 city, and in which so much capital had been invested. The 
 consuls were appealed to. They resolved that every effort 
 must be made to retain the master printers. The son of the 
 town clerk was sent to represent their case to the King and 
 to obtain a repeal of the edict, and in particular to obtain an 
 article reducing the day's wages to thirty-five sols. This 
 time the masters, backed up by the magistrates of the city, 
 were successful. On the 28th of December 1541, an edict 
 was issued for the regulation of printing in the town of 
 Lyons, which established in that city the same rules which 
 were in force in Paris. No book was thenceforth to be 
 printed without the royal license. The workmen were 
 forbidden to form unions or societies or to assemble together. 
 They were to receive the wages and food that had been 
 customary. They were not to leave unfinished the printing 
 of any book which they had commenced. The masters were 
 to be at liberty to engage any apprentices they might think 
 meet. 1 
 
 This edict, which was issued on the petition of the 
 consuls, bailiffs, and inhabitants of the city, caused, as may 
 be supposed, a lively dissatisfaction among the workmen. 
 They appealed against it ; but without avail. On the 1 9th 
 of July 1542, a confirmatory edict was issued staying the 
 appeal and peremptorily forbidding the journeymen printers 
 from impugning or further appealing against the former 
 edict. But the disputes still continued, and after scenes of 
 violence and tumult a compromise was arrived at between] 
 1 Crapelet, p. 53 ; Pericaud, Notes et Documents, p. 65. 
 
 z 
 
338 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the two parties and embodied in a deed of accord dated the 
 ist of May 1543. 1 
 
 In these disputes Dolet took an active part, supporting, 
 though a master, the cause of the workmen, and of course 
 adding thereby to the number of his enemies most of the 
 master printers of Lyons. But it seems that their hostility 
 was not only owing to his support of the cause of their 
 servants. He had not been apprenticed to their craft and 
 was considered as an interloper, and they laughed at the idea 
 that one possessed of such small means should commence so 
 important a business and one requiring for its successful 
 conduct so large a capital. 
 
 Whence he obtained the necessary capital for purchasing 
 presses, and otherwise starting in so important a business, 
 has hitherto been a mystery which I am able for the first 
 time to explain. An Act of Association of July 10, 1542, 
 exists in the Archives of Lyons, from which it appears that 
 on that day Dolet and his wife entered into an agreement 
 with Helayn Dulin for extending for a further period of six 
 years the partnership then subsisting between them, and 
 which had been entered into originally on January 24, 1539. 
 We know neither the original terms of the partnership, nor 
 of a continuation of it which was effected in August 1 540, 
 but from the fact that the agreement of 1542 was intended 
 to secure to Dulin a sum of 1500 livres (500 already paid 
 and the remainder to be advanced in equal parts at All Saints 
 and Easter then next), there can be little doubt that he was 
 the moneyed partner, who had found the greater part of the 
 capital. 2 
 
 1 Pericaud, p. 63. 
 
 2 I am indebted to the late M. Baudrier for a copy of this document. 
 It is so curious -and interesting that I print it in full in the appendix as 
 far as it can be deciphered. It will be noticed that Dulin is careful to 
 guard himself against the consequences of the printing by Dolet of any 
 livres reprins ou defendus. 
 
xv THE PRINTER 339 
 
 Dolet had however saved something, and with this and 
 the capital advanced by Dulin, and possibly some loans from 
 other friends, he commenced business both as printer and 
 bookseller — tenant bouticque de libraire, as he afterwards 
 expressed it. 1 
 
 ' Sire,' he wrote to the King during his imprisonment 
 after his condemnation to death in 1543, ' you will remember 
 how in the year 1538, after I had presented to you the two 
 volumes of my Commentaries on the Latin Tongue, and after 
 I had given you to understand that I wished (in addition to 
 my literary profession) to devote myself to the art of printing 
 and the business of a bookseller, so that I might make 
 myself still more useful to the common weal, you were 
 pleased (in order that I might not be deprived of the results 
 of my labour by a crowd of ignorant men) to give me ex- 
 clusive rights during ten years over all books which should 
 be either composed, emended, corrected, or duly revised by 
 me. Having obtained this of you, I gradually made all 
 needful preparations for properly executing my enterprise, 
 and I began to print good books both in Latin and French. 
 At this commencement of my undertaking the booksellers of 
 this city (Lyons), knowing that I had not such ample store 
 of this world's goods as they had, ridiculed me very much. 
 But I was not on this account induced to give up my plan, 
 and having by the assistance of my friends obtained some 
 addition to my capital, it came to pass that no printer or 
 bookseller in Lyons acquired a higher reputation for correct- 
 ness as a printer or was more successful in making profit as 
 a bookseller. Hence arose a great and mortal hatred on the 
 part of the members of my own trade, and in place of the 
 
 1 'II auroit mis ensemble quelque peu d'argent avec lequel et l'ayde 
 de ses amys, il despieca leve quelques presses d'imprimerye et soubz icelle 
 imprime et faict imprimer plusieurs beaulx livres tenant bouticque de 
 libraire.' Proch d'Estienne Dolet, p. 7. 
 
34Q ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 ridicule which they had been accustomed to use, they at the 
 end plotted my death.' 1 
 
 But whilst he frankly admits more than once that he 
 sought at obtaining by his presses a certain income suited to 
 his condition as head of a family, he yet proposed only to 
 print books of real merit. ' I shall strive,' he writes, ' to 
 increase by all the means in my power the treasures of 
 literature, and I have resolved as well to conciliate the sacred 
 manes of the ancients by the scrupulous accuracy of my 
 impressions of their works, as also to give my labour and 
 pains to contemporary writings. But whilst I shall cordially 
 and indeed eagerly welcome works of merit, I shall altogether 
 reject the wretched writings of the vile scribblers who are 
 the disgrace of our time.' 2 
 
 It was towards the end of the year 1538 that the work 
 of his press commenced, and in the six following years at 
 least sixty-seven different works issued from it, fifteen of 
 Which were either original treatises or translations written by 
 pie printer himself, while many of the others show marks of 
 his editorial care, and are preceded by a preface, a dedication, 
 or an ode, from his pen. Of these works several were re- 
 printed more than once by Dolet, making a total of upwards 
 of eighty impressions printed by him. 
 
 The first book which issued from his press was a short 
 treatise of thirty-eight pages entitled Cato Christianus : it is 
 a brief exposition of the Decalogue, the Creed, and the 
 Lord's Prayer, followed by the two odes to the Virgin which 
 had already appeared in the volume containing the orations. 
 It is dedicated to Cardinal Sadolet, and in the preface the 
 
 1 This letter forms the preface to his translation of the Tusculan 
 Disputations, printed at Lyons in 1543, but does not appear in the 
 subsequent editions. 
 
 2 Letter to Cardinal du Bellay prefixed to the book of Cottereau, De 
 Jure Militum, Lugd. 1539. 
 
xv THE PRINTER 341 
 
 author says that he had been made the subject of reproaches 
 and calumnies for never speaking of religion in his books, a 
 subject which he knows to be perilous, and which he would 
 rather have abstained from touching. ' I shall however,' he 
 adds, ' prove by this tract that not only my actions and the 
 example of my life, but also my words, attest my religious 
 faith.' 
 
 Among the pieces of verse which accompany this volume 
 is the following by Guillaume Durand, the first Principal of 
 the College of Lyons. Its motive is the same as that of the 
 volume : — 
 
 Cessate, crepantes, invidia obtrectatores, 
 Cessate dicere Doletum relligione 
 Vacuum : et, ut relligionis sit doctus doctor, 
 Hoc libro ab eo discite, iniqui obtrectatores : 
 Hoc discite libro Christiane vivere. 
 
 Dolet seems to have been especially desirous that the 
 book should make a favourable impression, and in writing 
 in the following year to Claude Cottereau he says, ' Tell me, 
 I pray you, how my Cato Christianus has been received by 
 the courtiers.' 1 
 
 In the same year three other volumes appeared with 
 Dolet's mark, and two of them with his name on the title- 
 page as printer, but of these three the two most important 
 were not in fact printed by him ; the one an edition of the 
 works of Clement Marot which I shall notice hereafter, the 
 other a small quarto of 1 84 pages containing the Latin poems 
 of Dolet in four books, which I agree with M. A. Firmin- 
 Didot in thinking was printed at the press of Gryphius, the 
 type and general appearance of the volume being identical with 
 that of the treatise De Re Navali printed in the same year. 
 
 It contains one hundred and ninety-five Carmina divided 
 into four books, and includes all those which had previously 
 1 Dedication of the Genethliacum. 
 
342 ETIENNE DOLET chap, xv 
 
 appeared in the volume containing the orations. The first 
 book is dedicated to Claude Cottereau, the second to Cardinal 
 de Tournon, the third to Jean de Boyssone, and the fourth 
 (containing epitaphs only) to Sebastian Gryphius. The 
 volume is accompanied by commendatory poems of Salmon 
 Macrin, Nicolas Bourbon, Honoratus Veracius, and Gode- 
 froi Bering. It is of great interest, but need not here detain 
 us further ; all such of the poems as have any special bio- 
 graphical or literary value being elsewhere noticed in this 
 book. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 The Genethliacum and the Avant Naissance 
 
 tj ol ZireiT 1 ijvTTjo-', tL[ia 8' aiKplirokos Kiev ai)r7/ 
 7raT5' tirl ic6\ir(p fyovtr' aTaX&fppova, vi]-Kiov atirtos, 
 ^KTopidTjf AyaTTTjTdy, aKbytaov Acripi ko.\oj. 
 
 Homer. 
 
 N the beginning of the 
 year 1539 Dolet's heart 
 was gladdened by the 
 birth of a son, named 
 Claude after his god- 
 father Claude Cottereau 
 of Tours. The delight 
 which this event gave 
 him, his warm affection 
 for his wife and son, his 
 anxiety for the latter's 
 welfare, he lets us see 
 in several of his writ- 
 ings. On the birth of 
 this son he wrote and published a Genethliacum or birthday 
 ode ; and very shortly afterwards in the same year a trans- 
 lation of it into French appeared under the following title ; 
 U Avant Naissance de Claude Dolet, filz de Estienne Dolet: 
 premierement composee en Latin par le pere : et maintenant par 
 
 IHBi2^^^» 
 
 m& 
 
 HSeSIi 
 
 yegsH 
 
 iIgsq 
 
 
 
 
 *§§*o 
 
 i^Mf^^^ 
 
 
 fe»«£ ' 
 
 
 fBl 
 
 
 a3§ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 jg|§=§|g5£ji3F i£J=!*iS3 
 
 
 
 
 pj^rsssap^p^gs?*^^^^^ 
 
 ^W 
 
344 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 ung sien amy traduicte en langue Francoyse. CEuvre tres 
 utile et necessaire a la vie commune : contenant comme 
 Yhomme se doibt gouverner en ce monde. These are two of 
 the most interesting and admirable of our author's works, 
 full of the purest and noblest sentiments set forth in har- 
 monious and poetical language ; and when his son read them 
 in after life, they must have taught him how much he had 
 lost in being so early deprived of his father. 
 
 The Genethliacum is dedicated to his friend Claude Cot- 
 tereau, or Claude of Touraine. ' You are not ignorant,' he 
 writes, ' of the custom of kings. When a son is born to 
 them they send messengers to announce the happy event to 
 all parts of the world, anxious to receive congratulations 
 from every quarter. They invite foreign kings to the bap- 
 tismal ceremony, and make a more than ordinary display of 
 splendour and luxury. But with what pomp shall I receive 
 the son who has been born to me ? It must indeed be a 
 literary pomp, since I have no regal magnificence to bestow. 
 I will announce to the world the birth of my son in a short 
 poem composed of precepts calculated to guide the steps of 
 youth in general in the ways of discretion. This is the 
 pomp with which I wish to receive my son, it is worthy of 
 me, honourable to him, profitable to all. In this little work 
 I have briefly strung together the maxims which I have 
 thought to tend to a life of wisdom, rectitude, and happiness, 
 whether we look at it externally only, or also with reference 
 to the inner good of the mind. This work, which I have 
 composed as a relaxation of my leisure, I wish to dedicate 
 to you, both because you held my son in your arms at 
 the sacred font, and also because I think you will receive it 
 eagerly, as not being altogether foreign to that philosophy 
 to which you are so entirely devoted.' 
 
 Next comes an address to the Muses, and this is followed 
 by the principal poem addressed to his son, Pracepta 
 
xvi GENETHLIACUM, AVANT NAISSANCE 345 
 
 necessaria vita communi, in hexameters ; then an ode in 
 sapphics addressed to the gods, asking their blessing on 
 the child. Then follow four odes addressed to Dolet, two 
 of them by Claude Cottereau, one by Jean des Gouttes 
 (Guttanus), and one by Maurice Sceve ; then a poem of 
 Barthelemi Aneau, in seventy-four hexameters, addressed to 
 the boy. A short ode of Pierre Tolet concludes the volume. 
 
 Noscitur a sociis. Of Jean des Gouttes indeed, the 
 translator of Ariosto, we hardly know more than the name, 
 but the four others (and probably des Gouttes also) were 
 men of whose friendship Dolet might well be proud, men 
 who combined literary gifts with high moral worth, and the 
 three last-named of whom are justly considered as among the 
 most eminent men whom Lyons has produced. The name 
 of Maurice Sceve, poet, musician, painter, and architect, the 
 friend of Marot, the poetical tutor of Pernette du Guillet 
 and Louise Labe, the precursor of Ronsard, is one of those 
 which the Lyonese most love to dwell upon, and if the 
 nineteenth century is unable to thoroughly sympathise with 
 the admiration which the sixteenth gave to Delie, objet de plus 
 haulte vertu, it will altogether approve of the prominent 
 place which in his great picture of Lyonese celebrities 
 M. Chatigny has given to Maurice Sceve. 
 
 The names of Barthelemi Aneau, the second Principal of 
 the College of Lyons, and Pierre Tolet, physician to the 
 Hotel-Dieu and afterwards Dean of the Faculty of Medicine 
 there, are probably less known. Yet the unhappy fate of 
 Aneau, a man of learning, virtue, and moderation, murdered 
 by a pious and orthodox mob for his heretical opinions, has 
 given him a niche in the Protestant martyrology ; while the 
 Pantagruelists will remember that Tolet was a fellow-student 
 of Rabelais at Montpellier, and played with him in la morale 
 comedie de celuy qui avoit espouse une femme mute. Charles 
 de Sainte Marthe, the common friend of Dolet and Tolet, has 
 
346 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 celebrated their friendship in an ode in which he plays upon 
 their names : — 
 
 Nature desirant faire un couple d'amis, 
 De parfaicte amitie oeuvre en perfection, 
 En un mesme lien ensemble vous a mis, 
 Faisant de vos deux coeurs en un conjonction : 
 Mesme temps, mesme lieu, mesme habitation, 
 Mesmes mceurs, mesme esprit et mesme aage l'empare ; 
 Un cas tant seulement l'un de l'autre separe : 
 L'un grand en medicine et l'autre en eloquence. 
 Pour declarer en vous profession dispare, 
 Une lettre a vos noms a mis la difference. 1 
 
 The poems of his five friends are full of affection and 
 admiration for Dolet, and of prophecies of a distinguished 
 future for his son, while the first of those of Claude Cot- 
 tereau makes a special mention of the boy's mother : — 
 
 Sed quid Matre ipsa laude omni plenius ? aut quid 
 Sanctius ? aut melius ? vel magis ingenuum ? 
 
 It has been a matter of some discussion who the amy was 
 who appears on the title of the Avant Naissance as having 
 translated the Genethliacum into French, and inasmuch as the 
 original poem was dedicated to Claude Cottereau, and as the 
 Avant Naissance contains both verse and prose by him, Nee 
 de la Rochelle attributed the translation to this firm friend of 
 Dolet and his family. The style is however clearly that of 
 Dolet himself. Several of the expressions there used appear 
 afterwards in the touching poem on his desolation and 
 consolation which he wrote when a prisoner in the conciergerie 
 shortly before his death, and it seems not improbable that 
 he attributed it to a friend for the purpose of avoiding the 
 charge of vanity which the translation into French of his own 
 poem might have given rise to. Certainly if the translator 
 1 La poesie franfoise, Lyon, Le Prince, 1540. 
 
xvi GENETHLIACUM, AVANT NAISSANCE 347 
 
 was Claude Cottereau, it seems strange that he did not affix 
 his name to the principal poem as well as to the dixains 
 which follow. The preface addressed ' to the reader, full of 
 goodwill, and free from envy and detraction,' but displaying 
 most egregious vanity, if, as we believe, Dolet is the author 
 of it, is interesting from the notice which the author gives of 
 the great French poets of the day. ' Reading some time 
 since a certain work of Estienne Dolet entitled Genethliacum 
 Claudii Doled, son of the said Dolet, I have determined to 
 employ myself in translating it from the Latin into the French 
 tongue, and this not for the purpose of displaying my own 
 poetical powers, but in order that every one may derive 
 benefit from the translation of a work so full of the learning 
 and prudence necessary for common life. True it is that 
 the Latin compositions of Dolet merit a much more excellent 
 translator than I am. Such would be a Maurice Sceve 
 (short indeed in stature but great in composition), a Seigneur 
 de St. Ambroise 1 (chief of the French poets), a Heroet 
 (called La Maisonneufve), the happy illustrator of the good 
 sense of Plato, a Brodeau the elder, or the younger (each of 
 them a singular honour to our language), a St. Gelais 
 (a divine spirit in every kind of composition), a Salel (a poet 
 as excellent as he is little known among the vulgar), a 
 Clement Marot (remarkable for the sweetness of his poetry), 
 a Charles Fontaine (a young man of great hope), a little 
 Moyne de Vendosme 2 (learned and eloquent contrary to" the 
 nature and custom of monks), or any of those others by 
 whom France is adorned in several different places, abound- 
 ing more (by the grace of God) than any other kingdom in 
 learned men. These indeed ought to be the interpreters of 
 
 1 Jacques Colin was Abbe de St. Ambroise at Bourges. 
 
 2 Probably Pasquier Le Moyne, porter to Francis I., who published his 
 poem Le Couronnement de Roy Francois I. (Paris, 1520) under the name 
 of Le Moyne sans froc. See Colonia, Hist. Lit. de Lyon, ii. p. 493. 
 
348 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the present work. But if by my sincere affection I have 
 anticipated them, I would not on this account be the cause 
 that such noble spirits as those I have mentioned should be 
 prevented from the undertaking. Now I return to my first 
 remark, gentle reader, which is that the profit and utility 
 which pervade this work have induced me to translate it, and 
 for the like reason I hope you will take in good part my 
 labour and pains.' 
 
 After the translation of the three poems of Dolet come 
 some dixains and huictains of Claude Cottereau, preceded by 
 the letter to Dolet, part of which I have already quoted, and 
 which thus concludes : — ' Having understood that the book 
 which you have composed on the birth of your son had been 
 translated into French, and that you are thinking of printing 
 it, I have wished to send you these compositions of mine, for 
 no other purpose than to show the friendship which I bear 
 to you ; and if the rhymesters of France do not find them to 
 their taste, I care nothing provided they please you. Adieu, 
 my friend.' 
 
 Both the Genethliacum and the Avant Naissance are 
 inspired with the purest and most elevated sentiments of 
 religion and morality, and it is impossible to believe that 
 they express anything but the genuine sentiments of the 
 author. It is with the Divine Author of all things that the 
 man who has been reputed an atheist begins and ends his 
 poem : — 
 
 Vive Deo fidens : stabilis fiducia Divum 
 Tristitia vitas immunem te reddet ab omni. 
 Relligionis amor veraa fert commoda tanta. 
 
 Tu ne crede, animos una cum corpore lucis 
 
 Privari usura. In nobis coelestis origo 
 
 Est quaedam, post cassa manens, post cassa superstes , 
 
 Corpora, et asterno se commotura vigore. 
 
 Scilicet a summo rerum Genitore creati 
 
xvi GENETHLIACUM, AVANT NAISSANCE 349 
 
 Sic sumus, ut rapida corpusque animusque necentur 
 Morte, nee in Ccelum pateant ex Orbe receptus ? 
 Non ita. Sunt nobis reditus ad Regna paterna 
 Regna Dei : genus unde animi duxere perennes. 
 
 It is true, as Maittaire has remarked, that in all the Latin 
 poems there is no mention of Jesus Christ or His merits. 
 But we must remember, first, that in the Latin poems of 
 the most pious men of the age the aim was always to 
 imitate the ancients, and that Deus and Divi are usually 
 the only expressions made use of in reference to the Deity : 
 and next, as Nee de la Rochelle has remarked sensibly 
 enough, that the author had said in his letter which is at 
 the commencement of the work ' that the birth of his son 
 had furnished him with the opportunity of writing short 
 precepts for guiding youth in the ways of prudence ' ; and 
 that we must therefore not impute it to him as a crime 
 if he has not reduced them into the form of a theological 
 catechism, where he would not only have had to speak of 
 Jesus Christ and His merits, but to have defended the three 
 Persons of the Trinity. 
 
 But the translation, or rather paraphrase, is at least not 
 open to this objection. After a few introductory lines it 
 thus commences : — 
 
 En premier lieu, ta foy ce poinct tiendra, 
 Qu'il est ung Dieu tout puissant, et unicque 
 En ses effectz : et si ce sans replicque 
 Tu crois par foy, et en luy ta fiance 
 Soit toute mise (o dieu quelle asseurance, 
 O quel repos) allors tu congnoistras, 
 Comme en tout bien, et honneur accroistras. 
 
 The conclusion is most emphatic as to the immortality 
 of the soul : — 
 
 La Mort est bonne, et nous prive de mal, 
 La Mort est bonne, et nous oste du val 
 
35Q ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Calamiteux : et puis nous donne entree 
 Au Ciel (le Ciel des Ames est contree) ; 
 Prens doncq en gre, quand d'icy partiras, 
 Et par la Mort droict au Ciel t'en iras. 
 En cest endroict il ne fault avoir foy 
 A ceulz disantz (et ne scavent pourquoy) 
 L'Ame, et le Corps tous deux mourir ensemble. 
 L'Ame est du Ciel, a son Pere resemble 
 (Cest Dieu) qui n'ha, et ne peult avoir fin : 
 Aussi n'ha il l'Ame au Corps mise, affin 
 
 eu'avecq le Corps par la Mort soit mortelle. 
 roy (et est vray) que l'Ame est immortelle, 
 Et que de Dieu a prins son origine, 
 Qui ne meurt poinct, et que Mort n'extermine 
 De l'heritage aux biens vivantz promis, 
 De l'heritage ou nous serons tous myz 
 Par le merite (o divine clemence) 
 De Jesu Christ : et en telle fiance 
 Meurs, quand plaira a Dieu d'icy t'ouster, 
 Ou aultresfois luy a pleu te bouter. 1 
 
 1 If any reader has sufficient interest in the two poems to compare 
 them together in the reprint given by Techener in 1830, he will find not 
 only that the Avant Naissance is a paraphrase rather than a translation, 
 but that there are three passages in it — two of considerable length — which 
 are neither translated from nor based upon anything in the original Latin. 
 It has been my good fortune to find in the Bibliotheque Nationale an 
 interleaved copy of the Genetbliacum, with several manuscript accessions 
 autoris. These accessiones, of which the paper, the ink, and the hand- 
 writing are all of the sixteenth century, I believe to be in the autograph 
 of Dolet, and the volume has every internal appearance of having been 
 prepared by him for a new edition. (I say internal appearance, for the 
 binding is comparatively modern, and has been put on since the additions 
 were written. These latter have been clipped in the binding. The last 
 few letters and in one or two cases the last word of the additions are 
 wanting to several leaves.) The additions are three in number, and are 
 translations, or rather paraphrases, of the three passages in the Avant 
 Naissance, of which no traces are to be found in the Genetbliacum. 
 
 The first addition comes in after the line 
 
 Re sine nullus eris : nostro sic vivitur aevo, 
 
xvi GENETHLIACUM, AVANT NAISSANCE 351 
 
 and is as follows : — 
 
 Praeterea, quern urget vitio proclivis egestas 
 In scelus omne ruit, casus projectus in omneis 
 Non tardante metu, non spe meliore vetante. 
 Tarn deforme malum ne te vehementius angat 
 Et vel nolentem ad crudelia crimina raptet 
 Frugi esto et moderate partis utere rebus. 
 
 This, the least important of the additions, and I think also the least 
 in poetical merit, is a translation of the passage in the Avant Naissance 
 beginning 
 
 Et d'avantage il te fault regarder. 
 
 The next addition has relation to the choice of a wife, and comes in 
 after the line 
 
 Felices liceat vitam sine lite molesta. 
 
 Its French equivalent will be found in two passages, the one of eight lines, 
 beginning 
 
 Saiche, mon filz que la beaulte de celle, 
 
 and the other of five lines, beginning 
 
 Ce bien, et heur, tous gracieux esbatz. 
 
 The addition is as follows : — 
 
 Forma perit : dos tandem etiam consumitur ingens 
 At remanent mores uxoris et ingenium trux. 
 Non te connubium assidua anxietate fatiget 
 Quod bene contractum lsetos subolescit in usus 
 Et velut alta quies petitur non causa doloris 
 In quod sancitum est dabitur si forte jugalis 
 Duxeris uxorem dignam placidoque hymenseo. 
 
 The longest and by far the most interesting of the additions comes in 
 after the passage in which the writer, with a good sense, rare in days when 
 the military calling took rank far above all others, had advised his son not 
 to adopt the profession of arms. Yet when he came to write his Avant 
 Naissance, he remembered that in case of an invasion it might become the 
 duty of every citizen to aid in the defence of his country, and he followed 
 his warnings against war with a long and vigorous passage, commencing — 
 
 Mais je veulx bien, que la cas advenant, 
 Qu'en ton pais il y eust guerre ouverte, 
 Tu craignes moins de la vie la perte, 
 Que par cruelz et felons ennemys, 
 En servitude a jamais tu sois mys. 
 
 In preparing his new edition he paraphrases the same idea in Latin. The 
 addition is intended to come in after the line of the Genethliacum, 
 Et dederit signum sociis, ut pressius instent 
 
352 ETIENNE DOLET chap, xvi 
 
 He amends this line, and then proceeds with a new passage : — 
 
 Praetulerit notam sociis ut praescius instent 
 Sed tamen in patrias sedes si barbara signa 
 Irrumpant animam pro libertate paratus 
 Fundere certa audax ; hoste succumbere pejus 
 Morte puta : quid enim dictu crudelius, hostem 
 Quam spectare serum patrios popularier agros. 
 Et (velut indomitam rabie exagitante Leonem) 
 In laribus ssevire suis, incendere tecta, 
 Uxorem stuprare ; sinu privare parentum 
 Lactantem sobolem tibi rebus denique cunctis 
 Ablatis juga dura oppresso imponere collo. 
 His vitam postpone malis ; servire ferarum est, 
 Non hominum. Prius aura tibi quam Candida desit 
 Libertas nee in hostes armis incide victus. 
 
 Dolet appears to have reprinted the Genethliacum in 1540, and it is 
 not improbable that the interleaved copy in the Bib. Nat. may be the 
 one used for the new edition, and the additions may have been inserted 
 therein. I have been unable to discover a copy of the edition of 1 540, 
 but it appears (No. 131) in the Catalogue d'une Collection de Livres rares 
 et precieux de M. La Roche la Carelle, Potier, Paris, 1859 (communicated 
 to me by M. Baudrier), which describes the edition as 'plus rare que 
 celle de 1539'; and in the Catalogue des Livres de M. de Boze, fol. 1745 
 (p. 113), and 8vo, 1753 (p. 174, No. 886), also in the Catalogue of the 
 Yemeniz sale, No. 1533. The Bib. Nat. has two copies of the edition ot 
 1539, but has not one of that of 1540. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Grammarian and Translator 
 L'idiome d'un peuple, c'est son verbe, son ame. — Philarete Chasles. 
 
 an 
 
 ESIDES the other great 
 works which Dolet had 
 planned was one upon 
 the French tongue, the 
 rules of which, then un- 
 settled, he desired to 
 reduce to order, and to 
 treat with the fulness 
 and accuracy of which 
 up to that time Latin 
 and Greek had alone 
 been thought worthy. 1 
 The work was to be 
 entitled UOrateur Fran- 
 f. 1 It was in 1540 that he published three tracts, as 
 instalment of this work, under the following title : La 
 
 1 It is referred to by Joachim du Bellay at the end of the first part ot 
 the Defense de la Langue Framboise, 1549. ' Je n'ignore point qu'Estienne 
 Dolet, homme de bon jugement en nostre vulgaire, a forme VOrateur 
 Francois, que quelqu'un (peut estre) amy de la memoire de l'auteur 
 et de la France, mettra de brief et fidelement en lumiere.' 
 
 2 A 
 
354 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre : D 'ad- 
 vantage, de la punctuation de la langue Francoyse ; Plus 
 Des accents dycelle. The work is dedicated to one who was 
 not less distinguished as a writer than as a soldier and 
 statesman, Guillaume du Bellay-Langei. The address is as 
 follows : Estienne Dolet, a Monseigneur de Langei humble 
 salut et recongnoissance de sa liberalite envers luy. 
 
 ' I am not ignorant,' he says, ' that many will be much 
 surprised at seeing this work proceeding from my pen, 
 since in time past I have professed and still profess myself 
 entirely devoted to the Latin tongue, but for what I now 
 do I give two reasons, the one that my regard for the 
 honour of my country is such that I wish to find every 
 possible means of illustrating it, and I cannot do so better 
 than by celebrating its language as the Greeks and Romans 
 have done theirs. The other reason is that I have not given 
 myself up to this exercise without abundant examples from 
 others. As to the ancients, as well Greeks as Romans, they 
 have never taken any other instrument for their eloquence 
 than their mother tongue. Of the Greeks there are as 
 witnesses, Demosthenes, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Thucy- 
 dides, Herodotus, and Homer, while of the Latins I produce 
 Cicero, Caesar, Sallust, Virgil, and Ovid, none of whom have 
 deserted their own language in order to obtain renown in 
 another, and indeed they despised any other tongue than 
 their own, except so far as some Romans learned Greek in 
 order to make themselves acquainted with the arts and 
 sciences treated by the Greek authors. As to the moderns, 
 Leonard Aretin, Sannazar, Petrarch, and Bembo among the 
 Italians, and in France, Bude, Bouille, 1 and Master Jacques 
 Sylvius, have done as I am doing. It is thus not without 
 the example of many excellent persons that I have under- 
 taken this labour, which you, full as you are of good judg- 
 1 Charles Boville. 
 
xvn GRAMMARIAN AND TRANSLATOR 355 
 
 ment, will receive not as anything perfect in the way of 
 a demonstration of our language, but only as a commence- 
 ment of such a work ; for I know that when it was wished 
 to reduce the Greek and Latin languages to a system, this 
 was not accomplished by one man but by many, and the 
 same thing will equally happen with respect to the French 
 language, and gradually by means of the labour of learned 
 men it will also be brought into the same state of perfection 
 that these are. For this reason I beg of you to take my 
 labour in good part, and if it does not completely reform 
 our language, I hope you will think that it is at least a 
 commencement of an undertaking which may ultimately 
 arrive at such a result that foreigners shall no longer be able 
 to call us barbarians.' 
 
 This letter is dated Lyons, the 31st of May 1540, and 
 is followed by a dedication to the French people, in which 
 the author explains the plan of the work of which this is 
 the first instalment. ' During six years past,' he says, 
 ' taking some hours from my principal study, which is the 
 Greek and Latin languages, and wishing to illustrate the 
 French by all means in my power, I have composed in 
 our language a work entitled L'Oraleur Franfoys, which 
 treats on the following subjects : Grammar, Orthography, 
 Accents, Pronunciation ; the origin of certain expressions ; 
 the manner of translating from one tongue into another : 
 the art of Oratory, and the art of Poetry. But since the 
 work is of great importance, and one which requires great 
 labour, knowledge, and judgment, I shall postpone the 
 publication of it for two or three years, so that it may not 
 be issued too hastily. ... If I knew that my work would 
 be agreeable to you, I should be more inclined to take pains 
 with it and to complete it. I expect however it will have 
 more success with posterity, than with the present age, for 
 the course of human affairs is such, that the excellence of 
 
356 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the living is always envied and disparaged by detractors, 
 who think to increase their own reputation by despising the 
 labours of others. But the man of knowledge and of good 
 judgment will pay no attention to such people except to 
 laugh at them, and so doing I shall pursue my attempts, 
 and await the legitimate praise of posterity, and not ex- 
 pect that of the living, who are too full of ingratitude and 
 ill-will. Content yourselves for the present with this little 
 work, and consider the affection which I bear to my own 
 reputation to be a pledge that some time or other I shall 
 give you the present work completed.' He then proceeds 
 as usual with complaints of his enemies and detractors. 
 The tract On the manner of properly translating from one 
 Language to another, is marked by much ability, originality, 
 and soundness of judgment ; and although the five principal 
 rules which the author lays down have in the three centuries 
 which have since passed become mere commonplaces, they 
 were certainly not so in the sixteenth century, and even now 
 do not appear to be borne in mind by all or even the 
 majority of translators. These five rules are — First, that the 
 translator must perfectly understand the sense and the matter 
 of the author whom he translates ; Second, that the translator 
 must perfectly understand the language in which the author 
 writes, and the language in which the translation is to be 
 written ; Third, that the translator must not translate 
 literally word for word, but so that the meaning of the 
 author shall be expressed, due regard being paid to the 
 idioms of both languages. The fourth rule, and one which 
 is especially to be observed in translating into modern 
 languages (particularly from Latin or Greek into French), 
 is, that the translator should use as far as possible words 
 really belonging to the language into which he translates, 
 and as seldom as possible those words which are mere 
 modernised forms of Latin words. His fifth rule is that 
 
xvii GRAMMARIAN AND TRANSLATOR 357 
 
 nombres oratoires, by which he means harmony and rhythm, 
 should be aimed at by the translator. 
 
 The other two tracts, on punctuation and accents, are 
 chiefly interesting in connection with the history of the 
 French language, and however little may be their real 
 value from the point of view of scientific philology, they 
 were certainly not unimportant contributions to French 
 grammar, and as such are favourably referred to in the 
 French Grammar of Ramus (Paris, Wechel, 1572), where 
 the writer places Dolet among the grammarians who had 
 before that time attempted the reformation of the mode 
 of writing French. On one point particularly (to which 
 M. Boulmier calls attention) Dolet first suggested a reform, 
 which has now after three centuries become completely 
 established, namely, that the plural of words ending in e long 
 should be formed by adding s and not z. Thus voluptes, 
 dignites, should be written, instead of voluptez, dignitez. 
 Nor on another point is his work without importance in the 
 history of the French tongue. He first, according to Henry 
 Estienne, 1 introduced the expression since so commonly used 
 faire de bons offices, where f "aire de bons services had formerly 
 been used, and translated officium by office instead of devoir. 
 
 The volume ends with the following dixain of Charles 
 de Sainte Mar the : — ■ 
 
 Au Lecteur Frangoys 
 
 Pourquoy es tu d'aultruy admirateur, 
 Vilipendant le tien propre langage ? 
 Est ce (Francoys) que tu n'as instructeur, 
 Qui d'iceluy te remonstre l'usage ? 
 Maintenant as en ce grand advantage, 
 Si vers ta langue as quelcque affection : 
 
 1 Deux Dialogues du Nouveau Langage Francois Italianize, par Henri 
 Estienne. Paris. Liseux, 1883, t. 1. p. 105. 
 
358 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Dolet t'y donne une introduction, 
 Si bonne en tout, qu'il n'y a que redire : 
 Car il t'enseigne (o noble invention !) 
 D'escrire bien, bien tourner, et bien dire. 
 
 These three tracts had the greatest immediate success of 
 any original 1 work of Dolet. A second edition was given 
 by the author in 1541, a third in 1542, and a fourth in 
 1543, and they were subsequently printed by others, the 
 tract upon accents and punctuation at least nine times, and 
 the Manure de bien traduire at least three times before 
 the end of the century. 
 
 After laying down in his tract the principles on which 
 a good translation must be based, and the rules which 
 a translator ought to follow, Dolet did not shrink from in- 
 viting the world to judge how far he himself was qualified 
 for the office of a translator, and to what extent he was 
 able to carry his rules into practice. Two years after the 
 -first edition of his tracts he gave to the world a translation 
 of the Epistola ad Familiares of Cicero, and a year later, 
 whilst an inmate of the prison of Lyons, a translation of the 
 first three books of the Tusculan Disputations. 
 
 ' If,' he says in his preface to the Epitres Familiaires, 
 ' I have laboured to acquire praise and fame in the Latin 
 language, I wish no less to become renowned in my mother 
 tongue. Pursuing this aim, I do not propose to publish 
 only my own compositions (such as the three tracts taken 
 from my Orateur Franfoys which have already appeared, 
 and the great dictionary of the vulgar tongue of which I 
 shall very soon print the commencement, and my transla- 
 tion of the Tusculans of Cicero which will hereafter appear), 
 but also all sorts of other good books, which I shall be 
 
 1 I use the word ' original ' because Dolet's translation of the Familiar 
 Epistles of Cicero had a still greater success, and ran through many more 
 editions than these tracts. 
 
xvn GRAMMARIAN AND TRANSLATOR 359 
 
 satisfied have issued from a good workshop, whether Latin 
 or Italian, ancient or modern, and whether originally written 
 in French or translated. This present work of Cicero, 
 some time since translated by me, will be an evidence of 
 my intention. I am not ignorant that this work has already 
 been translated into French. But that translation was 
 certainly made in spite of the French and Latin Muses ; 
 for besides the baldness of the style, the worthy translator 
 has so completely corrupted the sense, that Apollo only 
 could discover what he intended to express, a thing 
 altogether contrary to the divine clearness and ease of 
 Cicero. I believe you will find me here a little better 
 accoutred. Read however, and then you shall judge more 
 certainly. . . . 
 
 ' In the meantime I wish to warn you that the French 
 language is not sufficiently copious to express many things 
 with the same conciseness as the Latin. If then I some- 
 times use convenient circumlocutions, you must not be 
 surprised, for one cannot do otherwise. This arises from 
 the diversity of the two languages, for that which one 
 expresses in one word, the other requires several for. More- 
 over, he who wishes to be an eminent and accurate translator 
 must rightly consider the idioms and the expressions of each 
 language.' 
 
 The merits of Dolet's translation of the Epistola ad 
 Familiares were unquestionably great ; it was no mere 
 adaptation of the translation of Guillaume Michel de Tours, 
 which is not unfairly described in Dolet's preface, and which 
 had been printed in 1537 and 1539. 1 
 
 The work of Dolet was the independent translation of 
 one who possessed the qualifications and followed the rules 
 
 1 Guillaume Michel de Tours translated many Latin and Greek 
 authors into French, and all equally ill. His original poems were not 
 less wretched than his translations. 
 
360 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 which he had himself laid down in La Manure de bien 
 traduire. He perfectly understood the matter and sense 
 of Cicero. He perfectly understood the Latin and French 
 languages. He is literal where the idioms of the two 
 languages admit. He is careful never by too great ad- 
 herence to verbal accuracy to interfere with the true sense, 
 which is always what he aims at, and although he does not 
 attempt to translate such words as auspices, augur, consul, 
 dictator, he is careful, as far as consistent with the subject- 
 matter, to use words really belonging to the French language, 
 and not mere modernised forms of Latin words. 
 
 Dolet' s" book had nothing in common with those trans- 
 lations so popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, to which the appellation was not unhappily 
 given of Les Belles Infideles ; where Pomponius becomes 
 Monsieur de Pomponne, Trebatius Monsieur de Trebace, 
 and Postumia tua and Servius noster are rendered by 
 Madame votre femme and Monsieur votre fils, and where 
 the aim of the translator avowedly was to write what he 
 thought his author ought to have said, and would have 
 said, had he been a Frenchman of the seventeenth or 
 eighteenth century, rather than to render, as carefully as 
 the difference between the two languages would admit, 
 what he actually did say. The work of Dolet was a happy 
 medium between the extreme verbal literalness of some 
 early French translations, and the loose paraphrases which 
 came into vogue a century later ; and we may I think 
 say without hesitation, that no French translation of any 
 Latin author which had up to that time appeared, can 
 compare with it in accuracy, in scholarship, or in style. 1 
 
 1 This is perhaps not saying very much for it. The style is often 
 confused and never elegant. Dolet certainly was not a Ciceronian in his 
 French compositions. Yet I am not sure whether the judgment of MM. 
 Haag (La France Protestante, First edition, art. Dolet) is not too severe : 
 
xvii GRAMMARIAN AND TRANSLATOR 361 
 
 It soon became deservedly popular, and continued for 
 nearly a century to be the standard translation of the 
 Epistola ad Familiares. It was reprinted upwards of thirty 
 times, 1 and the translation of Simon Bernard, first printed in 
 1667 and several times reprinted, is rather an adaptation of 
 it suited to the tastes of the age, than an independent work. 
 Little benefit, however, in money or reputation seems to 
 have accrued to the unfortunate translator. The printing 
 of the work was completed on the 28th of April 1542 ; 
 only three months elapsed before Dolet was thrown into 
 prison, and the remainder of his life is little more than 
 a record of his imprisonments and trials. Few copies of 
 the original edition would have got into circulation, and the 
 remainder were no doubt confiscated, and burnt with his 
 other books. 2 There was no one to enforce the Royal 
 privilege, and the twelve reprints which appeared during 
 the time that it existed went to enrich the printers of Paris 
 and Lyons. 
 
 The translation of the first three books of the Tusculan 
 Disputations soon followed. With much greater merit it 
 never attained the popularity of the Epttres Familiaires. 
 
 'Le succes qu'a obtenu cette traduction est sans doute un temoignage 
 incontestable de son merite, mais ne prouve rien neanmoins quant a son 
 elegance. La lecture en est on ne peut plus fatigante. . . . Rien de 
 moins familier que son style.' 
 
 1 Of these editions I have seen copies of twenty, and I have given 
 in the Appendix a list of thirty-four, with the authorities for their 
 existence. Brunet in his last edition was only able to indicate eight. 
 No less than fourteen editions appeared in the seven years following 
 the first appearance of the book. Dolet only translated the letters 
 written by Cicero. Francois de Belleforest in 1 561 added a trans- 
 lation of those written to Cicero and a few complimentary letters 
 which Dolet had omitted. Thirteen editions include these. The 
 latest I have seen is that of Rouen, 1624, but Nee de la Rochelle 
 notices one of 1630. 
 
 2 A half-burned copy {brule dans les marges) exists in the library of 
 Lyons. 
 
362 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Completed and published whilst the author was lying in 
 the prison of La Rouane at Lyons under sentence of death, 
 it bears marks, as might be expected, of haste and want of 
 care in its printing. It is probable that it never got into 
 circulation, but that the whole impression, with the exception 
 of very few copies, was confiscated and burnt, a fate which 
 the injudicious epistle to the King prefixed to it by way of 
 preface could hardly have failed to insure. For three 
 centuries the first edition of the book disappeared, and its 
 existence was only inferred from the editions given (with- 
 out the preface) by Ruelle in 1544 and Sabon in 1549. A 
 few years since, however, a copy of the original edition 
 was discovered in the public library of Dole, and the 
 late M. Baudrier was the fortunate possessor of another 
 copy. 1 
 
 The epistle to the King, which has not hitherto been 
 noticed by any writer, is to us the most interesting part of 
 the book, throwing as it does much light on the cause of 
 Dolet's misfortunes, and on his trial. 2 The translation 
 itself was a labour of love. Shallow and unscientific as 
 the philosophy of Cicero appears to us, it was certainly 
 accepted by Dolet, not only as true, but as a rational and 
 adequate theory of life and death, and the consolations in 
 his misfortunes which he was unable to find in Christianity 
 he obtained from the Tusculan Disputations. The prin- 
 ciple that pervades the whole of the work, i.e. that man 
 possesses within himself the means of securing his own 
 happiness, was one which specially commended itself to 
 Dolet, and though we may think the enthusiastic admiration 
 which has been given to the Tusculans — by Erasmus as 
 
 1 I have found five reprints of Dolet's translations of the Tusculans 
 all printed before 1 550. Each contains only the first three books, showing 
 I think clearly that three only were printed by Dolet. 
 
 2 See ante, p. 339 and post, chap. xxi. passim. 
 
xvn GRAMMARIAN AND TRANSLATOR 363 
 
 well as by many inferior men — somewhat misplaced and 
 exaggerated, we can well understand their deserved popularity. 
 The epistle to the King is followed by the following 
 huictain : — 
 
 Jectez icy l'oeil 
 
 Touts passionnes, 
 
 Et serez de dueil 
 
 Tost abandonnes. 
 
 Les biens ordonnes 
 
 Par philosophic 
 
 Icy sont donnes 
 
 A cil qui s'y fie. 
 
 Besides the translations of these two works of Cicero 
 and that of the Axiochus and Hipparchus (to be noticed 
 hereafter), Dolet has been credited with a considerable 
 number of others, — some perhaps rightly, but others of 
 which he was only the printer or editor. He was never 
 content to be merely a printer, but to most of the books 
 that issued from his press he acted as editor, adding prefaces 
 (epitres liminaires as his process expresses it), odes, marginal 
 notes, or other additions, and it is not always easy to decide 
 how much we owe to his pen, and of how much he was 
 merely the printer. Le Chevalier Chrestien, translated 
 from the Latin of Erasmus and printed by Dolet in 1 542, 
 although by many authorities attributed to him, is really 
 a reprint of the translation of Louis de Berquin. Le vrai 
 moyen de bien et catholiquement se confesser, also from the 
 Latin of Erasmus, may possibly, though I think not prob- 
 ably, have been translated by Dolet. He nowhere claims it 
 as his, and it appears in his process as one of the livres 
 damnes et reprouves, contenant propositions erronees printed 
 (not written) by him with epitres liminaires excitatives 
 a la lecture d'iceux. His edition of L ' Internelle Conso- 
 lation (a translation of the De Imitatione Christi) has been 
 
364 ETIENNE DOLET chap, xvn 
 
 shown by Barbier (who had seen an imperfect copy) to be 
 only a reprint of the old translation. The French trans- 
 lation of the paraphrase by Campensis of the Psalms of 
 David, which Dolet printed in 1542, is attributed to him 
 by Du Verdier and Boulmier, but it is clear that neither 
 of them ever saw a copy of the work. Yet after the doubt 
 expressed by Nee de la Rochelle, M. Boulmier might have 
 hesitated before stating that it was imprime et traduit far 
 Dolet. The book is not so rare but that a copy might have 
 been found, and a reference to the preface would have shown 
 that the translation was by another hand. Du Verdier 
 no doubt confounded it with a translation of the Psalms 
 into French printed by Dolet, together with the Canticles, 
 and a short tract of St. Athanasius, certainly translated by 
 him from the Latin, in the same year as the paraphrase of 
 Campensis. Of all these Dolet may have been the trans- 
 lator ; yet so far as the Psalms and Canticles are concerned 
 the translation clearly is not an independent work, but only 
 a revision of one of the former translations, and it presents 
 no special merits or faults entitling it to notice. The tract 
 of St. Athanasius on the Psalms, Dolet states that he had 
 translated, not from the original Greek, but from the Latin 
 translation of Politian. 1 
 
 1 Of the translation of the Philippics of Cicero attributed by La Croix 
 du Maine to Dolet no other trace exists, and it is probable that the word 
 Philippics is an error for Tusculans, since no mention is made of the 
 latter in the Bibliotheque Franpise. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 The Historian 
 
 Large desires with most uncertain issues. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 ISTORICAL studies had 
 at all times attracted 
 Dolet, and the opus 
 magnum to the com- 
 position of which he 
 proposed to devote some 
 years of his life, and 
 from which he hoped to 
 acquire an immortality 
 of fame, was a history 
 of his own times, — a 
 work which we cannot 
 but regret that the per- 
 secutions and imprison- 
 ments which occupied so large a part of the last five years of 
 his life prevented him from accomplishing. 
 
 The reign of Francis I., although one of the most brilliant 
 as well as interesting and important in French history, is 
 strangely deficient in contemporary historians. Philippe 
 de Comines had been not merely an annalist or a chronicler, 
 
 
 ^^!^^&IkS^s^ 
 
 
 gv|| 
 
 S^Qlt^Ss J^S^? 
 
 
 
 w^S^ilPslj^l 
 
 
 Wm^'WIl 
 
 
366 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 but a philosophical historian desirous of arriving at the 
 truth among conflicting statements, of placing his facts 
 with a due regard to perspective and to their relative 
 importance, and not only of ascertaining the facts them- 
 selves, but of tracing their causes, their connection, and 
 their consequences, and capable of drawing just conclusions 
 from the facts he collected. If we admit that he wrote 
 with a purpose, and was not always, perhaps not generally 
 impartial when the acts and interests of Louis XI. were 
 concerned, we only ascribe to him faults which are shared by 
 some of the most eminent of the historical writers of the 
 nineteenth century. But his immediate successors were as 
 inferior to him as his predecessors had been. From the 
 point where his memoirs end (1498) to 1546 where de Thou 
 commences the history of his own time, France is again 
 reduced to chroniclers and annalists. Paul Emile, Beaucaire 
 de Peguillon, and Arnoul Le Ferron, many as are their 
 merits and great as is the historical value of their works, are 
 as inferior to Comines in all those points which distinguish 
 ( a historian from a chronicler, as they are to his prede- 
 j cessors Froissart and Monstrelet in picturesqueness of 
 style and interest of narrative, while the two du Bellays, 
 far superior to their Latin contemporaries both in style 
 and matter, confine themselves almost entirely to the 
 events in which they respectively took^ part. That Dolet 
 would not have been inferior to Paul Emile or to Arnoul 
 ; Le Ferron, the fragment or sketch which we have of his 
 ! history of Francis I. lets us see plainly ; but the lofty 
 conception which he had formed of the office and duty of 
 the historian, and of the studies, the labours, the prepara- 
 tion which were needed for it, joined with his judicious 
 criticism on the method of writing history then in vogue, 
 lead us to believe that had life and leisure been afforded 
 him he would have left us a narrative of the reign of 
 
xvin THE HISTORIAN 367 
 
 Francis I. which would at least have placed him in. the 
 foremost ranks of those who wrote history in France 
 between Philippe de Comines and Jacques Auguste de 
 Thou. 
 
 In the letter to Bude prefixed to the first volume of 
 his Commentaries, and in the dedication of the volume to 
 Francis I., Dolet had spoken of his intention, when the 
 Commentaries were completed, of devoting himself to com- 
 posing the history of his own time, and had asked for the 
 King's and the great scholar's approval of his design. 
 Two years later his plan was more matured, and in the 
 dedication and preface to the second volume he explains 
 it more at length. 
 
 ' Do you wish to know,' he writes to Bude, ' what literary 
 works I am intending in future to undertake ? For some 
 years to come I shall devote myself, in the first place, to 
 producing in as perfect a manner as possible my long- 
 promised third volume. Then the great object of my 
 studies will be the history of our own times. But this 
 work I shall scarcely be able to accomplish without the 
 assistance of the King. It will be necessary for me to 
 travel over the whole of Italy. I must visit Flanders, 
 Artois, Hainault, Bigorre, Beam, Gascony, Armagnac, 
 Guyenne, in order that I may carefully examine the sites 
 of those places which I shall have to describe when I 
 narrate the battles fought there. In this manner the ac- 
 curacy of my descriptions will be greatly promoted. But 
 how is the cost of these journeys to be defrayed, where 
 could I look to obtain it but from the King ? From him 
 also must be obtained the state papers, the instructions 
 sent to ambassadors, and the despatches from them, which 
 will be needed in order that I may learn the causes and 
 reasons of the plans which have been made, of the discords 
 which have arisen, of the wars which have been undertaken, 
 
< 
 
 368 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 of the battles which have been fought, of the treaties which 
 have followed the wars, and of the matrimonial alliances 
 which have been contracted. If these documents are, as 
 I hope they will be, furnished to me in abundance, and 
 if an opportunity is afforded me of enjoying the leisure 
 necessary for such a work, I shall do all that is possible to 
 be done by one who is extremely diligent, and a most 
 fervent lover of his country ; but if by any chance those 
 ^things which I have a right to hope for are denied me, and 
 I find my design neglected, I shall lay aside my plan of 
 writing history, and shall look out for other subjects for 
 .I literary labour.' 
 
 In this volume of the Commentaries he twice refers to his 
 ■'•^.NA intended Histories, to which he tells us, as soon as he has 
 completed and published his third volume, he shall devote 
 the rest of his life, and if, when his great task, the history 
 of his own time, is completed, life and leisure are still left to 
 him, he proposes to write the lives of the Kings of France, 
 /^ \V \ \ after the manner of Suetonius. 1 
 
 A history such as he contemplated required abundant 
 leisure, abundant pecuniary means, and abundant materials, 
 '$( such as could only be obtained by the assistance of the 
 King and his ministers. None of these were afforded him, 
 \4 ^ and he seems before long to have come to the conclusion 
 
 ^ that he must lay aside all hope of accomplishing anything 
 
 like the complete and exhaustive work, which he so care- 
 fully sketches in his letter to Bude. But he determined on 
 V a less ambitious work, and one better suited to his scanty 
 1 leisure and materials. In 1539 he wrote and printed a 
 history of the reign of Francis I. in Latin verse, under the 
 (title of Francisci Valesii Gallorum Regis Fata. It has 
 two dedications, one to the King, the other to Pierre 
 Duchatel now advanced to the bishopric of Tulle. To 
 
 1 2 Com. 1385. 
 
 / 
 
xviii THE HISTORIAN 369 
 
 judge from the commendatory verses of Pierre Tolet, Jean 
 Raynier, Guillaume Durand, Barthelemi Aneau, Antoine 
 du Moulin, and Jacques Bertrandi, all men of considerable 
 literary reputation and ability, it possesses very high merit. 
 It deals almost entirely with military affairs, and is certainly 
 a not unsuccessful imitation of Lucan, or of the poem 
 of Petronius on the civil wars of Rome. A few months, 
 later the author translated or rather paraphrased it into 
 French prose, and printed his translation under the title 
 of Les Gestes de Francoys de Valois Roy de France 
 The style of the translation, like that of the original, is too 
 rhetorical. The work is composed according to the ap- 
 proved classical models, the generals make speeches after 
 the manner of Livy or Polybius ; yet the book is a useful 
 compendium of the wars of Francis I., and I have found it 
 generally accurate as to facts, though too full of flattery of 
 Francis. It can hardly, however, be accepted as an adequate 
 specimen of its author's power of writing history in more 
 favourable circumstances. 1 
 
 But the books were successful and popular. The prose 
 history was reprinted by the author in 1543, with a con- 
 tinuation bringing it down to that year, and it was at least 
 twice reprinted by others in the next five years. 
 
 1 M. Boulmier, whom I willingly recognise as a more competent 
 judge than I am of such a matter, takes a much more favourable view of 
 the style of Les Gestes de Francoys de Valois than I am able to do. The 
 reader who desires to judge for himself will find Dolet's account of the 
 battle of Marignan extracted by M. Boulmier (pp. 183-191), who 
 remarks upon it, 'II y a, si je ne me trompe, du mouvement, du drame, et 
 de la vie, dans ce vaste tableau d'histoire nationale, dans ce recit a la Tite- 
 Live d'une bataille e"pique a laquelle nous pouvons encore songer avec 
 orgueil. . . . Malgre des latinismes un peu trop frequents, la prose 
 francaise de notre Estienne me parait presque toujours a la hauteur du 
 noble sujet qu'elle retrace.' 
 
 *»*** 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Marot and Rabelais 
 
 Et de ses vers qui ont dompte la mort 
 Les soeurs luy ont sepulture bastie 
 Jusques au ciel. Ainsi la mort n'y mord. 
 
 Joachim du Bellay. 
 
 L'ecrivain le plus original et le plus eminent de la renaissance, la 
 veritable incarnation de l'epoque. — Guizot. 
 
 F the French men of letters 
 of the first half of the 
 sixteenth century, only 
 two can be said really to 
 live. Bude, whose friend- 
 ship Dolet thought would 
 confer an immortality 
 upon him, and whose 
 works he prophesied 
 would never cease to 
 be the delight of the 
 studious, is a name and 
 nothing more ; his works 
 are relegated to the class 
 of 'old books,' and rarely (except his treatise De asse et 
 partibus ejus) find a place on the shelves of collectors, or in 
 the catalogues of the booksellers. Salmon Macrin, the Gallic 
 
chap, xix MAROT AND RABELAIS 371 
 
 Horace, is no longer either reprinted or read, but more 
 fortunate than his more learned contemporary, he is at least 
 purchased, occasionally quoted, and placed respectfully on 
 the shelves of the French bibliophile. Mellin de St. Gelais, 
 together with other poets who wrote in French, after a long 
 interval of repose has been galvanised into the appearance of 
 life in reprints, of which the paper, the printing, and the 
 prefaces, leave nothing to be desired. Bonaventure Des 
 Periers, though caviare to the multitude, has never wanted 
 select though fit readers. But Marot and Rabelais alone of 
 the writers of the period have never lost the popularity 
 which they acquired in their own time. There has never 
 been a period in which they were not both read and reprinted. 
 Their reputation has steadily risen, not only with the 
 multitude, but with men of thought and culture ; editions of, 
 and commentaries upon them are constantly issuing from the 
 press ; and though we shall be far from the ridiculous error 
 of placing the bright, natural, and graceful father of modern 
 French poetry upon the same lofty pedestal as the wise, the 
 witty, and the learned author of Pantagruel, we may yet 
 couple them together as the only two French authors of the 
 first half of the sixteenth century whose books are still in 
 every one's hands, and who have certainly many more readers 
 and admirers, now that three centuries have passed away, 
 than they had in their own days. 
 
 It is his connection with these two eminent writers, more 
 than anything except his death, that has preserved the 
 memory of Etienne Dolet from absolute oblivion, and has 
 made his name at least, familiar to every educated French- 
 man. Of both he was at one time the intimate friend ; of 
 the works of both he was the printer. Marot addressed to 
 his ' cher amy 'Dolet'' at least two odes, besides the prefatory 
 letter to the first complete edition of his works. None of 
 the biographers of Rabelais have omitted to mention his 
 
372 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 sending to Dolet from Rome the receipt for the mysterious 
 Garum, nor the ode in which Dolet celebrates the anatomical 
 skill of the great physician. 
 
 For some years the three men were united by a close 
 friendship, a friendship based on community of tastes and 
 community of sentiments. All agreed in an ardent love of 
 letters and of intellectual progress, in hatred of superstition 
 and bigotry ; and though Marot, by the fact that his 
 translation of the Psalms into metre has been ever since sung 
 in the temples of the Huguenots, has a place among the 
 apostles of the French Protestant Church, yet there is reason 
 to think that theological dogma was as uninteresting to him 
 as to his two friends, that his sympathy with Protestantism 
 was with its negative side only, and that to him, as to the 
 great master, the ' grand peut etre ' was a problem wholly 
 unsolvable, and of but slender interest. 1 
 
 It is probable that Dolet's acquaintance with both these 
 eminent men commenced in the latter part of 1534. On 
 his arrival at Lyons, Rabelais, besides holding the office of 
 Physician to the Great Hospital, was practising there as a 
 doctor of medicine, with a high reputation for both learning 
 and skill, but certainly was not generally identified with 
 Alcofribas Nasier, with whom indeed only the vulgar had 
 then made acquaintance. And it is not improbable that it 
 was under his care that Dolet placed himself, or would be 
 placed by Gryphius, for treatment, immediately on his arrival 
 when sick with fever. Marot he would find in Paris when 
 he arrived in the following October. But we cannot be 
 certain whether he then made the poet's acquaintance, or 
 whether this was not until the end of 1536, when Marot, 
 
 1 See on the opinions of Marot and Rabelais, Sir Walter Besant's 
 interesting monograph on Rabelais, and — clearly by the same hand — an 
 article in the British Quarterly Review for July 1873 (vol. 58), on the 
 causes of the failure of the French Reformation. 
 
XIX 
 
 MAROT AND RABELAIS 
 
 373 
 
 after nearly two years' exile on account of his heretical 
 opinions, was allowed to return to France, and spent several 
 months at Lyons. Immediately afterwards we find them on 
 terms of great intimacy, and Dolet addressed to Rabelais an 
 ode, De mutua inter se et Clementem Marotum amicitia, and 
 one to Marot congratulating him on his return from exile, 
 which thus begins : — 
 
 Jam satis afflixit variis te casibus atrox 
 
 Fortuna : sperare incipe 
 Collige jamque animum : Caelum non semper inumbrant 
 
 Nubes : redit tandem prior 
 Lux. Nee ponto alto semper nox incubat aspris 
 
 Horrenda tempestatibus. 
 
 Marot and Rabelais were each of the party which 
 assembled to congratulate Dolet on receiving the royal pardon 
 for the slaughter of Compaing, and to take leave of him on 
 his departure for Lyons ; and in the same year the former 
 addressed to him an ' estrenne ' commencing, 
 
 Apres avoir estren£ Damoyselles, 
 Amy Dolet, je te veulx estrener. 
 
 In the second volume of the Commentaries 1 Dolet thus 
 speaks of the poet : — ' In our days, among those who write 
 in the French tongue, the first place is due to Clement 
 Marot, a poet superior to all others, and most happy in his 
 poetic vein. The only thing to be desired for him is that he 
 might find fortune more propitious than heretofore, for 
 hitherto she has incessantly heaped upon one who is dis- 
 tinguished by all excellence, every possible injury and outrage, 
 and has harassed him with the most bitter persecution.' 
 Marot celebrated the publication of the Commentaries by the 
 following ode : — 
 
 1 Col. 403. 
 
 H 
 
 { 
 
 \j0 
 
374 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Le noble esprit de Cicero Romain, 
 
 Voyant ca-bas maint cerveau foible et tendre 
 
 Trop maigrement avoir mys plume en main 
 
 Pour de ses dictz la force faire entendre, 
 
 Laissa le ciel, en terre se vint rendre, 
 
 Au corps entra de Dolet, tellement 
 
 Que luy sans autre a nous se fait comprendre 
 
 Et n'a change que de nom seulement. 
 
 In 1538 Marot prepared for the press a complete edition 
 of his poems, comprising not only the Adolescence Clementine 
 (which he had first published in 1532), but also La suite de 
 r adolescence, Les epigrammes, and Le Premier Livre de la 
 Metamorphose d'Ovide. The printing and publication of 
 this edition he entrusted to Dolet, and addressed to him the 
 well-known letter which served as a preface, and which bears 
 date the last day of July 1538 : — 
 
 ' The injury which has been done me, dear friend Dolet, 
 by those who have already printed my works is so great and 
 so outrageous, that it has both touched my reputation and 
 endangered my person. For by a greedy desire of selling 
 at a greater price and more rapidly that which was already 
 selling well enough, they have added to my works several 
 others which are not mine ; some of which are composed in 
 a frigid and inelegant manner (so throwing upon me another's 
 unskilfulness), and others are full of scandal and sedition. 
 ... I have therefore omitted from this edition not only 
 the bad, but the good things which have been ascribed to 
 me, but with the composition of which I had nothing to do, 
 contenting myself with the genuine offspring of my own 
 muse. . . . And after having revised both the old and the 
 new, changed for the better the order of the book, and 
 corrected a thousand trifling errors of the press, I have de- 
 termined to send the whole to you, in order that under 
 colour of the ample privilege, which on account of your 
 
xix MAROT AND RABELAIS 375 
 
 great merits has been granted you by the King, you may, 
 by reason of our friendship, reprint it not only as correctly 
 as I send it to you, but still more so, which it will be easy 
 for you to do, if only you give to it a diligence equal to 
 your knowledge.' 
 
 In pursuance of his friend's request, Dolet superintended 
 this complete edition of Marot's works through the press. 
 It appeared before the end of 1538. The title-page is in- 
 scribed A Lyon, au Logis de Monsieur Dolet, and the same 
 form is repeated on the false titles to the different divisions 
 of the work, to each of which is prefixed a Latin ode by 
 Dolet. 1 
 
 1 An almost identical edition appeared under the same date but with 
 the name of Sebastian Gryphius on the title-page as the printer. The 
 type is the same, and very nearly all the pages are identical. A few 
 however, notably those where Dolet is referred to, are different. I was 
 formerly disposed to think that Marot had entrusted the edition to Dolet, 
 who not having yet set up his press, arranged with Gryphius for a joint 
 edition, putting on part of the copies his own name, on the rest that of 
 Gryphius. But I now incline to think that the following note of M. 
 Georges Guiffrey in the fragment which he has published of a magnificent 
 edition of the works of Marot (Paris, Jules Claye, vol. ii. p. 7), affords a 
 more probable explanation. 'Au retour de son exil vers la fin de 1536, 
 Marot, en passant par Lyon, eut l'occasion de se Her avec Gryphius. II 
 est vraisemblable que ce fut alors qu'il forma le projet de publier une 
 edition plus correcte de ses ceuvres, alterees, pendant son absence, par des 
 jeimpressions successives livrees au public sans son aveu. Ce fut pour 
 cette edition que Marot composa la preface adressee a ceulx qui par cy 
 devant ont imprime ses ceuvres, et le livre parut chez Gryphius sans mention 
 de date. Vers le meme temps, Dolet, ayant obtenu de Francois I er un 
 privilege d'imprimeur, vint l'exploiter a Lyon. Marot retira son edition 
 de chez Gryphius pour la mettre chez son ami. Tel est le motif qui le 
 determina i changer le feuillet de titre et a y placer le nom de Dolet, 
 avec la date 1538 ; il lui offrit meme la dedicace de son livre, au moyen 
 d'un leger changement de mots. Enfin dans les Epigrammes (folios 1 1 et 
 21 verso) trois pieces, dont deux avec cette suscription a Benest et a 
 Germain Colin sont remplacees par des vers adresses a Dolet.' The types, 
 which are small Gothic letters, are identical in the two editions. 
 
376 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 In 1542 Dolet, with the sanction of Marot, again re- 
 printed his works, with the addition of the Enfer and other 
 poems, and with a preface in prose addressed by Dolet to 
 their common friend Lyon Jamet. He also gave a separate 
 edition of the Enfer. In 1 543 a third edition, still with the 
 approval of Marot, issued from Dolet's press, with the 
 addition of twenty psalms, which appeared for the first time. 
 The edition of 1542, as well as that of 1543, contains the 
 epistle to Dolet, and the latter's preface, but not his Latin 
 odes. 
 
 But if we are to trust to the subsequent editors of Marot, 
 the short interval which elapsed between the publication of 
 the edition of 1 543 and the death of Marot in 1 544 saw the 
 friendship which had so long subsisted between the two men 
 changed, at least on the part of Marot, to bitter enmity. 
 Shortly after the death of Marot several epigrams made by 
 him in imitation of Martial were published which had not 
 appeared during his life. Among them is an imitation of 
 the epigram In detractor em (lib. v. lx.), commencing, 
 
 Adlatres licet usque nos, et usque 
 Et.gannitibus improbis lacessas. 
 
 It is addressed A Estienne Dolet, and is as follows : — 
 
 Tant que vouldras, jecte feu et fumee 
 Mesdy de moy a tort et a travers 
 Si n'auras tu jamais la renommee 
 Que de longtemps tu cherches par mes vers, 
 Et non obstant tes gros tomes divers, 
 Sans bruict mourras, cela est arreste : 
 Car quel besoing est-il, homme pervers, 
 Que Ion te sache avoir jamais este ? 1 
 
 1 I regret to be unable to state at what date or in what edition this 
 epigram first appeared, but I think it probable that it was in the Epi- 
 grammes de Clement Marot faictz. a I'imitation de Martial ,• plus, quelques 
 aultres auvres dudict Marot, non encores imprimees par cy-devant, Poictiers, 
 
xix MAROT AND RABELAIS 377 
 
 Of the causes of the quarrel, if quarrel there was, we 
 know nothing. Certain it is that the last authorised edition 
 of the works of Marot given by the poet in his lifetime, a 
 very few months before his death, 1 does not contain this ode, 
 but does contain the two before quoted ; and this seems to 
 show that the poet's friendly feelings towards Dolet were 
 still unchanged, even though he had not entrusted him, 
 probably for the sufficient reason that he was in prison, with 
 the publication of this edition. 
 
 Marot died in September 1 544, and no reference to him 
 is found in any subsequent work of Dolet. The epigram 
 which I have quoted gives all the information we have of 
 the matter of the quarrel. Certainly if it was directed 
 against Dolet, as Lenglet du Fresnoy has remarked, Marot 
 did not show himself a true prophet when he wrote ' sans 
 bruict mourras. , 2 
 
 Jeh. et Enguilbert de Marnef freres, 1547. No copy of this edition 
 appears to be in the Bibliotheque Nationale, nor have I anywhere been 
 able to see a copy. The earliest edition personally known to me in 
 which this epigram appears is that of Rouille, Lyon, 1554, which also 
 omits the two complimentary odes to Dolet above quoted. It is certain 
 that this ode did not appear in any edition given by Marot in his lifetime. 
 
 1 That of 1 544, a I'enseigne du Rocher. 
 
 2 The account given above contains really all that is known in refer- 
 ence to the alleged difference between Marot and Dolet, upon which 
 editors and biographers of the poet have enlarged at length, and have 
 indulged in conjectures altogether wanting in the smallest basis of fact, 
 but injuriously reflecting on the unfortunate Dolet. Among the epigrams 
 in imitation of Martial, printed for the first time after Marot's death, is 
 the following : — 
 
 Contre Pinique, a Antoine du Moulin 
 Masconnais, et Claude Galland. 
 
 Fuyez, fuyez (ce conseil je vous donne) 
 Fuyez le fol qui a tout mal s'adonne, 
 Et dont la mere en mal jour fut enceinte ; 
 Fuyez l'infame inhumaine personne 
 De qui le nom si mal cimbale et sonne 
 Qu'abhorre est de toute oreille saincte ; 
 Fuyez celuy qui sans honte ne crainte 
 
378 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Similarly unfortunate was the end of Dolet's friendship 
 with Rabelais, though in this case we are not so entirely in 
 the dark as to the causes of the rupture. Their intimacy 
 was certainly at one time close. It was in all probability 
 during Dolet's visit to Lyons in the autumn of 1534 that 
 the dissection of the body of a man who had been hanged 
 was performed by Rabelais at the great hospital in the 
 presence of the students, the first occasion of the kind with 
 which we are acquainted, being ten years before Vesalius 
 made his anatomical demonstrations before the students 
 at Padua. This dissection, at which it is not improbable 
 Dolet was present, certainly caused a great sensation at 
 
 Conte tout haut son vice hors d'usance, 
 Et en fait gloire et y prend sa plaiaance ; 
 Qui s'aymera ne le frequente done. 
 O malheureux de perverse naissance, 
 Bien heureux est qui fuit ta cognoissance, 
 Et plus heureux qui ne te cogneut one ! 
 
 Half a century later an editor of Marot, Francois Miziere, fancying, 
 apparently without any grounds except the character of the epigram, that 
 Vinique referred to Dolet, inserted in the edition edited by him, printed at 
 Niort by Thomas Portau in 1596, the following note after the ode 
 beginning Le noble esprit de Cicero Romain : — ' Entre ces epigrammes a 
 l'imitation de Martial, y'en a un au dit Dolet, qui se commence " Tant 
 que vouldras, jecte feu et fumee " et semble que le suivant soit encores 
 contre lui ; ' and then follows the above-cited ode Contre Vinique. 
 
 A hundred and thirty-six years afterwards (in 173 1) Lenglet du 
 Fresnoy repeated as his own the note of Miziere, and subsequent editors 
 have given the epigram, on the authority apparently of du Fresnoy, as 
 being directed against Dolet without a shadow of ground except the 
 semble of Francois Miziere ; and M. Boulmier, generally so anxious to 
 defend his hero, has not noticed upon what slight foundation the applica- 
 tion of this epigram to Dolet rests, but has given it without hesitation as 
 relating to his quarrel with Marot. But Mercier de St. Leger has gone 
 yet further in a manuscript note (to which my attention was called by 
 the kindness of M. Baudrier) to his copy of La Croix du Maine, now in 
 the Bibliotheque Nationale, where after citing the note of Miziere he 
 continues, ' l'editeur s'est contente de dire et semble que le suivant (Epi- 
 gramme) soit encore contre lui. L'e'diteur n'a ose rien affirmer, d'autant 
 
xix MAROT AND RABELAIS 379 
 
 Lyons, and Dolet wrote a long Latin ode to celebrate the 
 event. The corpse is supposed thus to speak : — 
 
 Spectaculo lato expositus 
 Secor ; medicus doctissimus planum facit 
 Quam pulchre, et affabre, ordineque 
 Fabricata corpus est hominis rerum Parens. 
 Sectum frequens circumspicit 
 Corona miraturque molem corporis 
 Tanto artificio conditi. 
 
 Early in 1534 Cardinal Jean du Bellay — afterwards to 
 become the chief patron and protector of Rabelais — had 
 passed through Lyons on his way to Rome as ambassador 
 from Francis to Clement VII. He persuaded Rabelais 
 to accompany him as secretary, and it would no doubt be 
 to the secretary that Dolet was afterwards indebted for an 
 introduction to the Cardinal, to whom he dedicated his 
 edition of the work of his friend Claude Cottereau, De jure 
 et privilegiis militum. The Cardinal was just such a patron 
 as Rabelais needed. ' Un jeune diable,' says M. Michelet 1 
 
 plus que Marot s'etoit montre dans differentes pieces l'ami de Dolet. 
 Quoi qu'il en soit, si cet inique est reellement Dolet il faut croire qu'il 
 passoit pour Pederaste ou Nonconformiste ; car Marot dit a ses amis de 
 fuir " celui qui, sans honte ni crainte conte tout haut son vice hors 
 d'usance." ' I think it right to cite the note of Mercier lest I should lay 
 myself open to the charge of omitting anything which I know to the dis- , 
 paragement of Dolet, but it is not necessary to do more in defending him 
 from the insinuation of the Abbe de St. Leger than to say that I find no 
 ground for the charge, and no confirmation of it in any of the numerous 
 attacks of which Dolet was the object. If Marot did intend Dolet by 
 Finique, and did intend the epigram to bear the meaning attributed to it 
 by Mercier, he himself must only have discovered the vices of his 
 quondam friend after he had been in close intimacy with him for more 
 than seven years, and within a very few months or even weeks of his own 
 death. But I confess I think it needless to go into" a charge which rests 
 simply on the semble of Miziere, and the inference from that to the semble 
 of Mercier de St. Leger. 
 
 1 Hist, de France, viii. 383. 
 
380 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 (in 1534 however he was forty-two years of age), 'plein 
 d'esprit, penetrant, flatteur, amusant . . . ce bon et pieux 
 personnage le parrain de Gargantua. . . . Eveque de Paris, 
 Cardinal, il ne fut pas loin, dit-on, d'etre Pape. La chose 
 eut ete piquante. Rabelais etait son evangile.' 
 
 It was probably in 1537, on his return from his second 
 journey to Rome with his patron, that Rabelais sent to 
 Dolet the receipt for the mysterious Garum of the ancients, 
 a species of sauce, of which the receipt had been up to that 
 time lost. It was accompanied by a short poem in elegiacs, 
 one of the very few pieces of Latin verse which we have of 
 Rabelais. It begins, — 
 
 Quod medici quondam tanti fecere priores 
 Ignotum nostris, en tibi mitto Garum. 
 
 Dolet's reply was as follows : — 
 
 Tuo ingenio, Rabelaese, Garum salsamentum 
 JEtnte ab antiqua reductum est. Jam nostris, 
 Marote, versibus celebretur animose, 
 Quando palatum utrique nostrum tarn belle 
 Irritat, et stomachum recreat tarn odorato 
 Sapore. Res tarn grata non est reticenda. 
 
 Dolet's volume of poems printed in 1538 contains three 
 poems in honour of Rabelais, two of them being those I 
 have already quoted. 
 
 The second book of ' Rabelais ' (the first of Pantagruel) 
 had first seen the light at the end of 1532 ; it was reprinted 
 at least twelve times in the ten following years. Several of 
 the reprints were without the sanction of the author, who 
 was at first not known. The first book (Gargantua), as we 
 now have it, was first printed in 1535, and several successive 
 reprints appeared in the few following years. The books 
 gave, as was to be expected, dire offence to the Sorbonne, 
 and when the name of the author began to be bruited 
 
xix MAROT AND RABELAIS 381 
 
 about, there can be little doubt that a prosecution for 
 heresy was imminent, and that Rabelais felt in danger of 
 his life. Cardinal du Bellay was entirely unable to stop, 
 or even to moderate, the persecutions which the affair of the 
 placards had caused to rage with increased rigour, and as 
 Rabelais had no desire to be ' burned alive like a red- 
 herring, being by nature dry enough already,' J he determined 
 to conduct himself in all respects as a good Catholic should 
 do ; he obtained the Pope's permission to enter as a canon 1 
 the abbey of St. Maur des Fosses, and resolved as far 
 as possible to remove the personal grounds of complaint 
 of the Sorbonne by printing a revised edition of his work, 
 omitting the passages where the doctors of that venerable 
 body were held up to ridicule, and omitting or modifying 
 other passages which savoured of heresy. As the book had 
 hitherto been published anonymously, it was open to him 
 to say that the previous editions had been unauthorised 
 and garbled. 
 
 Accordingly in 1 542 an edition was printed at the press 
 of Francois Juste at Lyons, carefully revised by the author, 
 and with important modifications and omissions. In the 
 fifth chapter of the earlier editions of Gargantua, Grand- 
 gosier repeats to Gargamelle, as she is beginning her illness, 
 a passage from the sixteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, 
 to which the good queen replies, ' vous dictes bien et j'aime 
 beaucoup mieux ouir tels propos de l'evangile et mieux 
 m'en trouve que de ouir la vie de sainte Marguarite ou 
 quelque autre capharderie.' Such a passage would alone 
 have been ample proof of the heresy of the writer. But not 
 content with heresy, Rabelais scoffed in numerous passages 
 at the Sorbonne and its doctors. In the same chapter he 
 has a passage ending with these words, 'Les Sorbonistes 
 disent que foy est argument des choses de nulle apparence.' 
 
 1 Rabelais, book ii. chap. v. 
 
382 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 In the revised edition of 1542 both these passages are 
 omitted, and wherever in the earlier editions the words 
 Sorbonne or Sorbonistes, or theologien, or similar words 
 occurred, they were either wholly omitted, or other ex- 
 pressions with an entirely different and perfectly inoffensive 
 signification substituted. Thus in chapter vii. (vi.) in place 
 of declare par Sorbonne scandaleuse we have simply declare 
 scandaleuse, and in chapter xiii. (xii.) instead of Sorbonne, 
 Guaye Science. In chapter xvii. (xvi.) in place of boire 
 theologalement, he substitutes boire rustement. In other 
 places Sophiste is substituted for Sorboniste, and also for 
 theologien, and docteur sophiste for docteur en theologie, while 
 the still more offensive word Sorbonagres has been suppressed 
 altogether. 
 
 These sacrifices to prudence (continued in every subse- 
 quent edition printed during the life of the author, except 
 the one I am about to refer to, and except a surreptitious 
 edition printed at Valence in 1547) appear to have satisfied 
 the Sorbonne, and probably, together with the influence of 
 Jean du Bellay, preserved the author from persecution, and 
 possibly from the stake. It was then with feelings of 
 excessive but justifiable irritation that immediately afterwards, 
 in the same year (1542), Rabelais found issuing from the 
 press of Dolet, without his sanction or knowledge, an edition 
 purporting to be revised and augmented by the author him- 
 self, in which all the obnoxious passages and expressions 
 reappeared. Instead of following the edition which had just 
 been published, Dolet had used for the Gargantua the 
 edition of 1537, and for the Pantagruel that of 1538, both 
 of which are verbally reproduced without any of the altera- 
 tions, omissions, or additions which Rabelais had since made. 
 Dolet's edition is well printed in Roman letters, and 
 illustrated with cleverly designed and executed woodcuts. 
 But nothing can justify his statement on the title-page that 
 
xix MAROT AND RABELAIS 383 
 
 his edition was * revue et de beaucoup augmentee par I'autheur 
 mesme.' We can readily pardon the indignation of Rabelais 
 at the appearance of this reprint. He was at the moment 
 superintending a further edition through the press, and to 
 it, when printed shortly afterwards, was prefixed the follow- 
 ing bitter attack upon Dolet, purporting to be by the 
 printer, but in which we cannot fail to recognise the hand 
 of Rabelais himself: — 
 
 ' The printer to the reader wishes health. 
 
 ' In order that you may not take false money for true, 
 dear reader, and the painted form for the simple and natural, 
 and the bastard and adulterine edition of the present work 
 for the legitimate and natural, take notice that a copy of this 
 book while still in the press has from avaricious motives 
 been hastily printed by one who is a plagiarist, and inclined 
 to all evil, and in order to anticipate my labours, and the 
 small profits which I have hoped for ; he being influenced 
 not only by avaricious greed, but also and especially, by 
 envious desire for the loss and injury of another. Such a 
 monster as he, is born for the trouble and injury of worthy 
 people. Nevertheless to warn you of the sign and mark 
 which serves to distinguish the false from the good and true, 
 know that the last sheets of this plagiaristic work do not 
 correspond with those of the true original which the author 
 has furnished to me. These latter, though he has taken 
 much pains, he has not been able to obtain for his fraudulent 
 piracy. This plagiarist is not only injurious to me, but also 
 to several others. He is a Monsieur (so he boastfully styles 
 himself), but prudent men who know him, know what sort 
 of a character he is. 
 
 ' His works are nothing but a collection of extracts taken 
 from other men's books, and heaped together in a confused 
 mass, whereas they had been well arranged in the books 
 
384 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 whence he has taken them. Thus, the spirit of Villanovanus 
 is indignant at being deprived of the fruit of his labours ; 
 Nizolius is offended at him ; Calepin finds himself robbed ; 
 Robert Estienne recognises the choicest passages of his 
 Thesaurus shamefully purloined, and still worse, disguised 
 and appropriated. Those compositions which have brought 
 him honour as a scornful mockery, never proceeded from his 
 mind, yet he dares to enrich and adorn them with brave and 
 magnificent title-pages, so that the portal far surpasses the 
 edifice, ennobled as it is by the Royal privilege ; whilst he 
 abuses both King and people, giving them to understand 
 that the works of good authors such as Marot and Rabelais 
 are in his way. Is it not well known that in certain books 
 on surgery and medicine, as well as on other subjects, he has 
 taken money from printers and booksellers to affix to books 
 printed by them the royal privilege ? Is not this an abuse 
 worthy of punishment ? But what is more, who has ever 
 seen this privilege ? To whom has he ever produced it ? 
 Certainly he has never ventured to show it any one who has 
 asked to see it. A likely thing it is (nay is it even possible ?) 
 that the King should have granted him such a privilege, 
 forbidding any one but himself from either selling or printing 
 the books which he should write. But what is the reason he 
 does this ? The reason is, because men of learning know 
 well that he has no genius, that he cannot put forth anything 
 of his own which would do him honour. Truly a great and 
 noble enterprise, and worthy of one inspired by the spirit of 
 Cicero, to have published in a handsome volume the little 
 book which the regular dealers [disdain to sell and] leave 
 to the pedlars who make their livelihood of such things. 1 
 
 1 I have been unable to find any trace of such a book as is here 
 referred to. The following is the original sentence, the meaning of 
 which is not very clear, and which I may not have accurately rendered : 
 — ' O la grande et haulte entreprinse : et digne de tel homme inspire de 
 
xix MAROT AND RABELAIS 385 
 
 Rubbish by the dozen ! Certainly he ought to be well 
 remunerated for it. Such important works well deserve that 
 bishops and prelates should by such a workman be choused 
 of their money. After the mountains have been in labour, 
 a little rat alone has been brought forth. The world cannot 
 help laughing at him, and saying in ridicule, How can such 
 a man, who calls himself so learned and so perfect a 
 Ciceronian, mix himself up with the production of these 
 fooleries in French ? Why does he not devote himself to 
 his works of merit without publishing these impertinences ? 
 grumbling, joking, protesting (this is his ordinary language), 
 jackanaping, abusing, and using figures of speech which are 
 not Ciceronian, but deserving of being delivered to the 
 mustard dealers to publish them through the city. Such is 
 this Monsieur. Adieu, reader ; read and judge.' 
 
 'This singular episde,' remarks M. J. C. Brunet, who 
 first called attention to it, ' is completely in the manner of 
 Rabelais, especially towards the end, and if he has not written 
 it entirely, he has probably assisted in its composition. For 
 we cannot suppose the printer would have allowed himself to 
 publish this preface without the permission of the author.' x 
 
 We must, however, exonerate Dolet from one of the 
 charges made against him in this epistle. He had certainly 
 not abstracted the proof-sheets of the edition then in the 
 
 lesperit de Ciceron, avoir redige en beau volume le livret et gaigne pain 
 des petits revandeurs nomme par les Bisouars. Fatras a la douzaine.' 
 
 1 J. C. Brunet, Recherches sur les editions originates de Rabelais (Paris, 
 1852), p. 89, where the reader will find the epistle given at length. M. 
 Heulhard {Rabelais: ses voyages en Italie ; son exit a Metz, p. 192), does not 
 see the hand of Rabelais in this preface, which he thinks is written by 
 the printer in imitation of Rabelais' manner. M. Brunet thinks that 
 Dolet had intended to refer to Rabelais in his Maniere de bien traduire 
 and his Trait'e sur les Accents, in the latter of which he censures those 
 who use a ' fricassee de grec et latin.' 'J'appelle fricassee une mixtion 
 superflue de ces deux langues : qui se faict par sottelets glorieux : et non 
 par gens resolus, et pleins de bon jugement.' 
 
 2 C 
 
386 ETIENNE DOLET chap, xix 
 
 press in order to print his own. The latter was, as before 
 noted, an exact reprint of the editions of 1537 and 1538, 
 which every one equally with Dolet could procure. The 
 blame which he jusdy incurred was for printing the book 
 without the author's sanction, for falsely stating on the title 
 that it was revised and augmented by the author himself, 
 and for inserting in it passages which the better judgment of 
 Rabelais had induced him to omit. 
 
 It is quite possible that there are excuses to be made for 
 Dolet in this matter. It could hardly be morally (certainly 
 not legally) blameable to print without the author's sanction 
 a work which, published anonymously, had been reprinted 
 by a variety of other printers at their own pleasure, while 
 the words ' revue et de beaucoup augmentee par Tautheur 
 mesme' are on the title of the edition of 1538 which Dolet 
 copied. It is moreover quite possible that the book did not 
 appear until Dolet was in prison, and that he was not really 
 responsible for the title-page ; and it is probable that, if he 
 was aware of the edition of Francois Juste, he had not 
 noticed the omissions or alterations which it contained, and 
 which he would most likely have copied had he seen. 
 
 The editions of Marot and Rabelais are those which are 
 most sought for of all the productions of Dolet's press. 
 They are all printed with great care, accuracy, and neatness, 
 and those of Marot had, as we have seen, the benefit of the 
 author's supervision. The edition of Rabelais, though 
 surreptitious and not free from errors of the press, yet 
 served as the basis of what was considered for many years 
 the classical edition, that edited by Le Duchat in 1 7 1 1 . 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 FORESHADOWINGS OF THE END 
 
 Ille potens sui 
 Lsetusque deget, cui licet in diem 
 Dixisse ' vixi : eras vel atra 
 Nube polum pater occupato, 
 Vel sole puro ; non tamen irritum 
 Quodcunque retro est, efficiet neque 
 Diffinget infectumque reddet 
 Quod fugiens semel hora vexit.' 
 
 Horace. 
 
 O calling was more hate- 
 ful to the friends of 
 bigotry and superstition 
 than that of a printer. 
 The printer was essenti- 
 ally the priest of a new 
 cultus, that of liberty 
 of the soul, a cultus in 
 every aspect inconsistent 
 with, in many diametric- 
 ally opposed to, the 
 religion then called 
 Catholic and Christian. 
 The reformers, who 
 advocated up to a certain point the emancipation of the 
 soul, and who fortunately, though illogically, succeeded in 
 
388 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 establishing in England and Germany a modus vivendi 
 between authority and liberty, found, not only in the press, 
 but in the printers, valuable allies. There was scarcely 
 a printer of reputation, either in France or Germany, 
 who was not either openly their adherent, or suspected, 
 and rightly so, of sympathising with their doctrines. But 
 it was not only the great master printers who were on 
 the side of reform ; correctors, readers, compositors, type- 
 founders, and binders, all who were concerned with the 
 press or its productions, felt the influence of the divine art of 
 which they were the ministers, and ranged themselves under 
 the banner of intellectual freedom. Among the martyrs 
 whose deaths are recorded in the Grand Martyrologe, 
 printers and booksellers are numerous. Among the five 
 hundred artisans of Lyons who in 1535 marched to the 
 aid of the citizens of Geneva in their contest with the 
 Bishop and the Duke of Savoy, the printers are especially 
 mentioned by the historians of Lyons. And M. Merle 
 d'Aubigne tells us that the trades connected with typo- 
 graphy — printers, booksellers, and binders — formed the 
 most numerous contingent in the band of fugitives whom 
 the persecutions which followed the affair of the Placards 
 drove from France in the same year. 
 
 To be a printer then, was to be open to the suspicion of 
 heresy or even worse ; and the rumours which, however 
 little they are based on any of his published writings, 
 certainly existed at this time, charging Dolet with irreligion 
 and even with atheism, were not likely to be allayed by 
 the setting up of his press and the opening of his shop. 
 His avowed opinions had undoubtedly rendered him an 
 object of suspicion for several years. His language we 
 may be certain was more violent than his published 
 writings, and though in the latter, as we have seen, there 
 was an ostentatious disavowal of any sympathy with Luther- 
 
xx FORESHADOWINGS OF THE END 389 
 
 anism, and an equally ostentatious declaration of his 
 adhesion to the faith of his ancestors, yet there was not 
 wanting abundant evidence that his sympathies were wholly 
 on the side of intellectual progress and freedom, that all 
 his affection was for the men of that party, and all his 
 hatred was given to their adversaries, who were at the same 
 time his own. 
 
 But careless as he was both in speech and action whom he 
 offended, he was as it seems by no means insensible of the 
 prejudice under which he suffered by reason of the rumours ? 
 of irreligion and atheism, and his earliest works after setting | 
 up his press were specially directed to relieving himself from | 
 this prejudice. In the Cato Christianas, the Genethliacum, 1 
 and the Avant Naissance he expresses himself in a manner ! 
 which we might have thought would have freed him from 
 the charge of irreligion, much more from that of atheism. 
 But these expressions did not satisfy his enemies. Though) 
 incompatible with atheism, these books might have eman-j 
 ated from a heretic, and they even subjected their author j 
 to charges of heresy. Besides, his epigrams were full of 
 sneers at the monk's cowl, his Commentaries bitterly at- 
 tacked the Sorbonne for its attempted suppression of 
 printing, and in his letters he had referred to the bosom 
 friend and trusted counsellor of the First President of the 
 Parliament of Paris as ' that beast Beda.' But his enemies 
 judged him by his life and language, not only by his 
 published writings. ' The opinion which all have of your 
 impiety,' says Franciscus Floridus, 1 ' cannot be got rid of by 
 any Genethliacum.' His life was not such as a Christian's 
 should be. That he was a good citizen, a good husband,! 
 and a good father, were minor matters. He walked about \ 
 during the celebration of mass. He preferred the sermon | 
 to the celebration. It was even whispered that he ate| 
 1 Adv. Calumnias S. Doleti. 
 
390 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 flesh in Lent. 1 He was suspected before he set up his press, 
 and the first two books printed by him (or to which his 
 name was appended), the Cato Christianus and the Carmina, 
 were no sooner issued in 1538, than they were denounced 
 as heretical to the Vicar-General and Official of the Arch- 
 bishop of Lyons, and their author and printer forthwith 
 cited to appear before that functionary. The charge in 
 reference to the Cato Christianus was twofold : first, the 
 author had interpolated as the second commandment a 
 precept beginning 'Thou shalt not make to thyself any 
 graven image,' a precept since accepted by the Reformed 
 Churches as the second commandment, but which the 
 Church of Rome has treated as a part of the first ; secondly, 
 the paraphrase of the Creed was made to commence Fidem 
 habeo instead of Credo, and the words communionem sanctorum 
 were omitted. 2 
 
 The special charge against the Carmina was the use of 
 the word, fatum in a Pagan and not a Christian sense ; and 
 although the word occurs in several parts of the book, the 
 ode which is specially open to the charge is one addressed to 
 Hugues Salel, De Fato, and which thus commences : — 
 
 Fati recognosco nimiam efficaciam, 
 Et sorte nos certa regi. 
 
 But there are not wanting other passages in which the author 
 laid himself open to attack, and which, as well as the use of 
 the word fatum, no doubt gave occasion to the censure. 
 The ode Expetendam esse Mortem, which had already ap- 
 peared in the volume containing the orations, thus con- 
 cludes : — 
 
 1 Proch, p. 11. 
 
 2 Proch, 9, 10, 13. But the Sorbonne censured many other passages 
 of the Cato Christianus. See D'Argentre", Collectio Judiciorum, vol. ii. 
 pt. i. p. 229. 
 
xx FORESHADOWINGS OF THE END 391 
 
 Ne mortis horre spicula, quae dabit 
 Sensu carere vel melioribus 
 Locis tegi, et statu esse laeto, 
 Elysii est nisi spes inanis. 
 
 But a poem in his Carmina addressed to Melanchthon (p. 31) 
 certainly laid him still more open to censure : — 
 
 Ridere quae possim, stolidorum et stultorum 
 Natio mihi multa suppeditat : sed nil prorsus 
 Magis libet ridere quam nonnullorum 
 Amentiam, qui, ceu deorum cognati 
 Jovisque cceli participes, de Diis semper 
 Sermonem habent : et qua ad polum efferri possis, 
 Qua deprimaris in nigri tenebras regni 
 Docent. Ineptum hominum genus, et intolerandum. 
 Scilicet accubuerunt Jovi, et divum mensis, 
 Ccelestia ut nobis modo isto dispensent. 1 
 
 Nor would the following epigram (p. 27) be likely to gain 
 for its author the favour of the Vicar-General, even though it 
 might not involve him in a theological censure : — 
 
 Incurvicervicum cucullatorum habet 
 
 Grex id subinde in ore, se esse mortuum 
 
 Mundo : tamen edit eximie pecus, bibit 
 
 Non pessime, stertit sepultum crapula, 
 
 Operam Veneri dat, et voluptatum assecla 
 
 Est omnium. Idne est, mortuum esse mundo ? Aliter 
 
 Interpretare. Mortui sunt hercule 
 
 Mundo cucullati, quod iners terras sunt onus, 
 
 Ad rem utiles nullam, nisi ad scelus et vitium. 
 
 1 The race of fools and dolts supplies me with abundant matter for 
 laughter, but there is absolutely nothing I more enjoy laughing at than 
 the insanity of those who, as though they were the kindred of the gods 
 and sharers with them of Jove's heaven, are always discoursing concerning 
 the gods, and teach you how you may be able to arrive at heaven, or how 
 you may be sunk down into the darkness of the black realm. Foolish 
 and intolerable race of men ! No doubt they have sat down at the tables 
 of Jove and the gods, in order that they may in such wise dispense to us 
 the celestial decrees. 
 
392 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Dolet was ordered to withdraw these books from sale, 
 and was required to enter into a written undertaking not to 
 again offer them or reprint them, unless he should obtain 
 official permission to do so. It is probable that he had 
 printed them — as he afterwards did several others — without 
 first submitting them either to the Provost of Paris or the 
 Seneschal of Lyons, as it appears from his process he was 
 expressly required to do by the Royal privilege given to him 
 at Moulins. 1 
 
 The three years which followed the setting up of his 
 I press (1539, 1540, 1 541) were probably the happiest, and 
 certainly the most prosperous, of Dolet's life. A wife and 
 son whom he tenderly loved, a circle of literary friends which 
 included nearly all the men of letters at Lyons as well as 
 many in distant parts of France, constant and profitable 
 literary work, a high reputation as a scholar, and success in 
 his business as a printer and bookseller, were the character- 
 istics of these years. Of his private life indeed we get but 
 few glimpses. Immersed in his literary work and his 
 business, scorning delights and living laborious days, he found 
 little leisure for those elaborate letters which, though chiefly 
 filled with phrases and compliments, still afford us for the 
 early part of his life so many interesting details. Yet he is 
 occasionally referred to in the correspondence of Jean de 
 Boyssone, and one letter exists written by the latter to Dolet 
 during this period. Jean de Boyssone took his seat on the 
 judicial bench of Chambery in 1539, and Dolet was of much 
 assistance to his friend in receiving from Toulouse and for- 
 warding to Savoy the books as well as other property of the 
 newly -appointed magistrate. On the first of May 1539 
 (or 1540), Boyssone wrote to Dolet to acknowledge the 
 
 1 J Proch, p. 11. But in the Extraict'du Privileige, as printed by 
 Dolet at the commencement of several of his books, nothing of this kind 
 appears. 
 
xx FORESHADOWINGS OF THE END 393 
 
 receipt of his books, and at the same time sent his friend a 
 packet of letters which he requested him to forward to 
 Toulouse, 'either by Jean Madamaxum (sic), or by some 
 other muleteer who may be starting for Toulouse, a class of 
 persons of whom you have no scarcity at Lyons, whereas we, 
 who are enclosed on every side by lofty mountains, seldom 
 have any communication with Gaul. Wherefore you would 
 act most kindly to me if you occasionally took thought to 
 write to me something of what is going on with you at 
 Lyons.' 1 At the end of 1540 Boyssone made a journey to 
 Paris, and on his return we catch a glimpse of Dolet, in a 
 letter to Guillaume Bigot, dated Chambery, December 1, 
 1540. Boyssone writes, 'At Lyons Dolet supped with me. 
 We devoted much of our conversation to you and your 
 pursuits, and at last we both came to this conclusion, to 
 exhort and persuade you to carry on and complete your 
 medical studies.' 2 But, although this is the last direct 
 evidence of intercourse between the two men, yet that their 
 friendship continued up to the time of Dolet's arrest in 1542 
 is proved by another letter of Boyssone to Bigot, dated the 
 30th of June in that year, which thus concludes : ' I much 
 admire your verses, and will take care that an opportunity of 
 reading them is afforded to Dolet.' 3 With this letter the 
 name of Dolet vanishes from the correspondence of Boyssone. 
 His arrest took place shortly afterwards, and the rest of 
 his life, with the exception of a very few months, was spent 
 in prison. 
 
 We should certainly have expected some reference to and 
 some expression of sympathy for his subsequent misfortunes 
 and his tragical end in the letters of Boyssone to their 
 common friends, but no such reference is to be found. 
 Whether, as M. Guibal suggests, 4 he had forsaken his friend 
 
 1 MS. Corr. fol. lii. 2 Id. fol. lxv. 3 Id. fol. Ixxii. 
 
 4 Rev. de Toulouse, 1864, p. ioz. 
 
394 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 in his misfortunes from one of those Idchetes which are dis- 
 guised under the name of convenances, and which are the special 
 peril of those who hold high official positions, or whether in 
 revising the correspondence for the press, all reference to 
 Dolet's trial, sentence, and death, and all expressions of 
 sympathy for him, were omitted, as fraught with danger to 
 the writer, we have no means of judging. 
 
 The after-life of Jean de Boyssone demands a few 
 sentences. At first he found the change from Toulouse to 
 Chambery a most agreeable one. He enjoyed his judicial 
 duties, he enjoyed the society of his fellow -councillors of 
 Savoy, several of them, including his friend Maurice Sceve, 
 men of culture and intelligence, and he was on the best 
 possible terms with the President, Pellisson. A Ciceronian 
 by faith if not by his Latin style, Boyssone dedicated the 
 villa which he inhabited, just out of Chambery, to the 
 memory of his master, and in a Savoyard Tusculum he 
 devoted his leisure to study, and correspondence with his 
 literary friends. Ten years passed away, he had become the 
 most important member of the Council of Savoy after the 
 President, and his services in administering the newly-annexed 
 province had been great. But he began to be weary of his 
 charge. The fall of the Chancellor Poyet deprived him of 
 his protector and patron ; several of his earlier and favourite 
 colleagues had either died or left Savoy, and he was anxious 
 to return to France, when a heavy blow fell upon him, 
 directed partly by the personal enmity of a subordinate, 
 pardy by the cupidity of a great personage. Neither his 
 services nor his integrity were able to protect him from the 
 personal enmity of Taboet the procureur du roi, supported 
 by the cupidity of the Duke of Guise. Taboet had been 
 severely reprimanded by the President in the name of the 
 Council ; Pellisson and Boyssone were both men of great 
 wealth ; the Duke of Guise, large as were his possessions, 
 
xx FORESHADOWINGS OF THE END 395 
 
 was in need of money, and desirous of obtaining from the 
 King grants of the confiscated property of wealthy criminals. 
 
 A charge of corruption was brought by Taboet against ! 
 Pellisson, Boyssone, and several other councillors. The 
 charge was referred to the Parliament of Dijon, the capital 
 of the province of which Guise was the governor, and it was ! 
 heard before a creature of Guise, the Second President Baillet 1 
 (who had purchased his office for a large sum of money), ' 
 and certain councillors submissive instruments of the Second 
 President's will. The result could not be doubtful. On 
 the 8th of August 155 1, the accused were found guilty; 
 Jean de Boyssone was deprived of his office, and sentenced 
 to pay a heavy fine and to be detained in prison until it was 
 paid. But public opinion was in his favour. The Chancellor 
 Bertrandi was not satisfied with the sentence of the Parlia- 
 ment of Dijon, and the University of Grenoble was eager to 
 offer the chair of Law to the disgraced councillor. He and 
 the President were permitted to appeal to the Parliament of 
 Paris, and after a long and wearisome process occasioning 
 violent disputes as to the respective jurisdictions of the two 
 Parliaments, and as to the right of that of Paris to revise the 
 sentence of a supreme Court which Dijon claimed to be, a ( 
 special commission appointed by the King, consisting of an 
 equal number of councillors of Paris and Dijon, in 1556 
 finally reversed the sentence of the Parliament of Dijon, 
 restored Pellisson and Boyssone to their rank, condemned , 
 Taboet in costs, and ordered him, with bare head and feet, ; 
 and a cord round his neck, to be led through the streets of ', 
 Chambery. 1 
 
 From this moment Jean de Boyssone disappears from \ 
 history. His correspondence and his poems bring us up to \ 
 this date, but his biographer has not been able to discover 
 
 1 Guibal, Rev. de Toulouse, Aout, 1864 ; De Thou, i. pp. 882 et seq. ; 
 MS. Epist. Boyss. passim. 
 
396 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 any trace of him after his rehabilitation, and we may there- 
 fore presume that he did not long survive it. 
 
 In the meantime Dolet was preparing for a considerable 
 extension of his business as a printer. Where he set up his 
 press when he first began to print we do not know ; some 
 of his earlier books are described on the title as printed Au 
 logis de Monsieur Dolet, words which seem to have given 
 rise to no little ridicule. But early in 1 542 he removed to 
 the house in the Rue Merciere, where he lived until his final 
 imprisonment. Several of the books printed in that year 
 have at the end, A Lyon ches Estienne Dolet, pour lors 
 demeurant en Rue Merciere a I'etyseigne de la dolouere d'or. 
 
 The Rue Merciere was the Paternoster Row of Lyons, 
 one of the most important streets of the city, full of printers 
 and booksellers' shops. As the griffin was placed over the 
 shop of Gryphius, and the entwined snakes surrounding a 
 book over that of Jean de Tournes, so over the shop of 
 Dolet in the Rue Merciere was placed as a sign a golden axe, 
 or dolouere, similar no doubt to that which appears on the 
 title-pages of his books. 1 
 
 During the five years that the press of Dolet existed, 
 upwards of eighty volumes issued from it upon every variety 
 of subject, theology, history, French and Latin poetry, 
 grammar, criticism, Latin classics and translations, medicine, 
 besides several Greek books. Of these about a fourth were 
 the composition of the printer, and to. at least another fourth 
 he performed the function of editor as well as printer, and 
 added a preface, dedication, or ode. The greater part of 
 these (upwards of sixty) appeared before Dolet's arrest at 
 
 1 M. Boulmier would seem not to have noticed that Dolet's shop and 
 house were in the Rue Merciere, and possibly not knowing Lyons he has 
 misunderstood a passage in the Second Enfer, and has erroneously stated 
 that Ddlet's house was one of the lofty buildings on the quay overlooking 
 the Saone. 
 
xx FORESHADOWINGS OF THE END 397 
 
 the end of July or the beginning of August 1542. In the 
 Appendix to this book I have given a list of these volumes, 
 and of the authorities for the existence of those (about a 
 fifth) of which I have not been able to discover a copy. 
 
 For the three years which followed the publication of the\ 
 Cato Christianus, Dolet showed, for him, an unusual degree 
 of caution. His quarrels with the master printers indeed 
 continued, but in the publications which issued from his 
 press, whether his own compositions or those of others, there 
 was litde that could justly give offence to the authorities. 
 The only original work of Dolet, besides those which have 
 already been noticed, was his Observations on the Andria 
 and Eunuchus of Terence, a book which met with a sufficient 
 success to induce him to give an edition of the text of the 
 whole of Terence revised by himself, and to reprint the 
 Observations in 1543. They were afterwards thought 
 worthy of insertion in several editions of Terence printed in 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 In addition to those previously mentioned a treatise in 
 folio by his friend Claude Cottereau on military law, a Latin 
 poem entitled Pandora, by Jean Olivier, Bishop of Angers, 
 nephew of the Chancellor, a volume of Orations and 
 Epigrams and a translation of the Antigone of Sophocles by 
 Gentian Hervet, were the more important original works 
 which Dolet printed during the years 1539-40-41 ; and 
 these were enriched, Jhe two first mentioned by a preface, 
 and the latter by an ode of his own composition. Besides 
 these, editions of the New Testament (in Latin), Suetonius, 
 the Elegantia of Laurentius Valla, a volume consisting of 
 an explanation of the Lord's Prayer and a few other tracts, 
 and translations into French by Jean Canappe and Pierre 
 Tolet of several medical treatises of Galen, and Paulus 
 vEgineta, are the only books which have been hitherto 
 noticed by bibliographers or biographers as issuing from his 
 
398 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 press during the years 1539-40-41. I am able to add eleven 
 others ; reprints of the De duplici copia verborum of Erasmus, 
 the De corrupti emendatione Sermonis of Cordier, the Tabula 
 Poetic<e of Murmellius, the Institutiones and the Meditationes 
 Graca of Clenard, an Alphabeticum Latinum, and editions 
 of the text of Virgil, of the Epistola Familiares, the De 
 Officiis and other minor philosophical treatises, and the 
 Rhetorica of Cicero, and the Disticha Catonis with the 
 Scholia of Erasmus. 
 
 During these three years Dolet suffered no serious mo- 
 lestation ; once indeed, if not oftener, he was summoned 
 before the official of the Archbishop in reference to the Cato 
 Christianas and the Epigrams, the sale of which it would 
 seem had not been discontinued, but it is not very clear what 
 was the result. 
 
 But the peaceful literary life, which he had led for some 
 years, was now drawing to a conclusion. Prosperous and to 
 all appearance happy as the last few years had been, they had 
 witnessed, as we have seen, the death of some, the alienation 
 of others of his friends, to whom in the misfortunes which 
 were impending he might have looked for sympathy, if not 
 for more substantial aid. The good bishops of Rieux and 
 Limoges were dead, nor while losing old friends does Dolet 
 appear to have acquired any new ones possessed of much 
 influence. Most of the master printers of Lyons still con- 
 tinued to be his bitter enemies, whether owing as he alleged 
 to their jealousy of him on account of the privilege which the 
 King had conferred on him and on account of the success 
 with which he, an interloper, had carried on his business, or 
 whether owing to the part he had taken and was continuing 
 to take in the disputes between the masters and the workmen. 
 In the meantime the hatred of the bigoted and superstitious 
 had gone on increasing. His friends were most of them 
 suspected of heresy, and some of them more than suspected. 
 
xx FORESHADOWINGS OF THE END 399 
 
 He had printed the poems of Marot and the Gargantua of 
 Rabelais, and in his own Epigrams had ridiculed the monks 
 as bitterly as either of those writers. 
 
 But still more serious crimes were shortly to be laid to 
 his charge. In 1542, the cautious line of conduct which he 
 had followed for the three preceding years was altogether 
 abandoned, and he rushed with open eyes into the lion's 
 mouth. His removal to the Rue Merciere was followed by 
 a great extension of his business as a printer and bookseller. 
 In the first half of 1 542 no less than thirty books issued from ' 
 his press. To about half of them no exception could be \ 
 taken. The Epztres Familiaires and the editions of Marot 
 and Rabelais I have already noticed ; the treatise of Rever- 
 gata De Comparanda Eloquentia, an edition with a French 
 translation by his friend Guillaume Durand of Sulpicius 
 Verulanus De Moribus in Mensa Servandis, La par/aide 
 Amye of Heroet, V Amie de Court of La Borderie, and 
 Allegre's translation, Du Mespris de la Court, from the 
 Spanish of Guevara, several medical treatises of Canappe, 
 Tolet, and Pierre Vernei, a funeral oration of Claude Baduel, 
 and a manifesto of Francis I. against Charles V., were books 
 which could involve the printer in no risk ; but the other ! 
 works which Dolet printed in this half year, some of them i 
 wholly or partially his own composition, could not fail to i 
 give offence to the rulers of the Church, and to afford to his j 
 enemies the handle for attack for which they had long been 
 watching. The New Testament in French, the Episdes and 
 Gospels for the fifty-two Sundays, with the commentary of ! 
 Lefevre d'Estaples, the translation of the Psalms and Canticles 1 
 into French, possibly made by Dolet himself, the Exhortation 1 
 to the reading of the Holy Scriptures, the Brief discours de \ 
 la republique Francoyse desirant la lecture des livres de la \ 
 Saincte Escripture luy estre loysible en sa langue vulgaire, 
 and a summary of the Old and New Testaments, were books \ 
 
40o ETIENNE DOLET chap, xx 
 
 which could not emanate from a pure and orthodox Christian, 
 iand, as their very titles show, were most dangerous to the 
 faithful, and were all filled, as the sentence on their printer 
 iand editor declared, with ' damnable and pernicious heresies.' 
 Besides these, Dolet printed translations of two religious 
 I treatises by the hated Erasmus, Le Chevalier Chrestien, made 
 ! by Louis Berquin, who was himself burned for heresy, and 
 Le Vray tnoyen de bien et catholiquement se confesser, pos- 
 sibly made by Dolet himself, both full of heresies ; while 
 La Fontaine de Vye and the Livre de la Compaignie des 
 Penitens were not less open to censure. 
 
 With an extraordinary want of prudence on the part of 
 
 | Dolet, all these books issued from his press in the first half 
 
 of 1542. 1 But he had also procured from Geneva, and had 
 
 J probably sold or offered for sale, copies of the French Bible 
 
 of Olivet, Calvin's Christian Institutes, the Commonplaces of 
 
 i Melanchthon, and the Unio Dissidentium 2 of Herman Bode. 
 
 The measure of his iniquities was filled up. His prosecution 
 
 on the capital charge of heresy was decided on. His accusers 
 
 ' were, as he tells us in his Epistle to the King prefixed to his 
 
 I translation of the Tusculans, his enemies the master printers 
 
 I of Lyons ; and to make his conviction and destruction more 
 
 sure, the aid of the most terrible tribunal which the world 
 
 has seen was invoked, and the Court which assembled for his 
 
 trial was presided over by the Inquisitor-General. 
 
 1 The authorities for attributing these to Dolet are stated in the 
 Appendix. Of several of these books no existing copy is known. 
 
 2 For an account of this very rare book and its editions, see Clement, 
 Bibliotheque Curieuse, vol. iv. pp. 413-419. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Nostre Maistre Doribus 
 
 Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jaceret 
 In terris oppressa gravi sub religione 
 Quae caput a coeli regionibus ostendebat 
 Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans. 
 
 Lucretius. 
 
 ISTORIANS have generally 
 ignored the existence of 
 the Inquisition in France, 
 except for a few years 
 after its foundation. That 
 it ever subsequently existed 
 there is a fact unknown 
 to many well-informed 
 writers on the legal and 
 ecclesiastical history of 
 that country ; whilst some, 
 and these careful and in 
 many matters trustworthy 
 writers, have actually de- 
 nied its existence. Richard Simon, one of the ablest and 
 most learned among French ecclesiastical authors, 1 says that 
 the title of Inquisitor-General of the Faith was a mere title 
 
 1 Lettres daisies (edit, of Amsterdam, i. p. 243). 
 2 D 
 
4 o2 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 assumed by the theologian whom the King or the Parliament 
 
 entrusted with the examination of books relating to religious 
 
 matters. But, as I have already had occasion to notice, the 
 
 Inquisition did in fact exist in France for centuries, and 
 
 though in its early days it was shorn of those great powers 
 
 which had been entrusted to it by the piety of Alfonso of 
 
 . Poictiers, St. Louis, Philip the Bold, and Philip the Fair, it 
 
 I continued to be a living force in the south of France until 
 
 I the middle of the seventeenth century. 
 
 But neither its friends nor its enemies have given to us 
 either sufficiently ample or sufficiently accurate details of its 
 history, its authority, or its procedure. The writers on the 
 Parliaments, the criminal law, and the administration of the 
 north of France are perhaps right in entirely ignoring its 
 existence, for though we find many cases in which the 
 i Inquisitor-General sat as judge on the trial of heretics beyond 
 the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Toulouse, he seems to 
 ! have acted on such occasions only as the assessor of the 
 j Bishop or of his Vicar-General, and not as exercising any in- 
 J herent authority. 1 We can readily understand that to lawyers 
 the subject would be distasteful, and we can no less readily 
 understand and excuse the silence of ecclesiastics, who must 
 feel humiliated at the thought that the eldest daughter of the 
 Church has shown so little appreciation of the benefits of the 
 Holy Office, that she only recognised its existence in Langue- 
 doc, and even there, where it undoubtedly did exist for more 
 than three centuries, placed such restrictions on its power, 
 that its beneficial influence was hardly able to make itself felt. 
 For we are not to suppose that the faithful adherents of the 
 Church of Rome find anything to censure in the Inquisition 
 of Spain or Italy, unless it may be its too great mildness. 
 ' The Inquisition,' says M. Charles Barthelemy, ' has made 
 
 I 1 Carcassonne was the only place besides Toulouse where the Inquisi- 
 I tion held regular and formal courts. 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 403 
 
 the glory of the country in which it had its birth, it has 
 assured the liberty of a great people : it has protected genius. 
 It has softened and moderated the severity of other courts of 
 justice.' 1 
 
 Yet from the historians of Toulouse and the archives of 
 the City and of the Parliament we can gather some few details 
 which let us see the importance of the Holy Office and of the 
 Inquisitor-General in Languedoc. The latter was appointed 
 at one time by the Provincial, at another by the General of 
 the Dominicans, at another by the Pope himself. During 
 part of the sixteenth century the brethren of the Order of 
 St. Dominic seem to have exercised the right of election, which 
 afterwards was acquired by the Congregation of the Holy 
 Office. Yet it was always necessary that the appointment 
 
 1 Mensonges et erreurs histon ques, Paris, Bleriot, 1863. This is a 
 favourite text-book in clerical schools and seminaries in France. Those 
 who desire to have precise and accurate details of the mildness and modera- 
 tion of the Holy Office should refer — not to protestant or infidel writers, 
 whose prejudices or feelings lead them into exaggeration, and who some- 
 times relate sensational stories on insufficient grounds — but to authorised 
 and official writings. The official code of the Inquisition {Sacro Arsenate 
 ovvere Prattica del officio della S. Inquisitione Amplicata), of which five 
 editions appeared, the latest that I know in 1730, describes at length and 
 in detail the several kinds and refinements of torture which are to bt 
 made use of. It is for the soul's health of the victim not only that his 
 feet should be burned, but that they should first be well steeped in lard. 
 They would thus burn better, and the burning would be more painful. 
 Umbertus Locatus, Inquisitor at Pavia and Piacenza, a Commissary- 
 General of the Roman Inquisition and confessor to Pius V., in his Praxes 
 judiciaria inquisitorum cum quibusdam Sancti Officii Decretis (Venice, 1583), 
 also specifies the different kinds of torture to be used in different cases. 
 We know the torture occasioned by tickling the feet. But this is much 
 refined upon ; salt is to be first well rubbed in, and then the feet are to be 
 licked by a goat. In no other way can so exquisite a torment be produced. 
 In reading these official and authoritative writings we wonder what were 
 the severities of the other courts, which, according to M. Barthelemy, 
 were softened and moderated by a court of which these were some of the 
 ordinary practices. 
 
4 04 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 should be confirmed by the King, and registered by the 
 Parliament. Even at Toulouse the Parliament was careful to 
 j keep the power of the Inquisitor within specified and narrow 
 | limits. It appointed ten assessors or adjoints to sit with him 
 and advise him on matters of law, and it was careful to allow 
 upon certain questions an appeal from the Inquisitor's sentence 
 J to itself. It seems doubtful whether the Holy Office of its 
 own mere motion could try an accused person. In all cases 
 of heresy, however, brought before the Parliament, the accused 
 was at once remitted to the Inquisition, whilst by sitting as 
 the Assessor of the Vicar-General of the Archbishop, the 
 Inquisitor-General was able to exercise an original and inde- 
 pendent jurisdiction. Yet however strictly defined was his 
 judicial power, the rank and importance of the ' Inquisitor- 
 General of the whole kingdom of France ' was very great, 
 j Neither the Governor of Languedoc nor the King himself 
 could enter the walls of Toulouse without first taking an oath 
 before him to preserve the faith and the Holy Inquisition. 
 I Another privilege which was greatly prized by the Holy 
 ( Office was that each year, on the election of the four capitouls, 
 j the Inquisitor-General inquired into their opinions, and if he 
 i found any among them who had the least taint or suspicion 
 ' of heresy, the election of the suspected person was annulled. 
 In 1540, the power and authority of the Holy Office in 
 Languedoc was expressly confirmed by an edict of Francis I., 
 and in 1557 his weak and contemptible successor Henry II. 
 actually requested and obtained from Paul IV. a bull estab- 
 lishing for the whole of France the Inquisition exactly as it 
 existed in Spain and at Rome. 
 
 A royal edict ordered the registration of the bull as the 
 
 1 sole means of arresting the progress of heresy. It authorised 
 
 , the Inquisitor-General to select bishops and priests as judges 
 
 1 in all matters of faith and heresy ; it gave absolute powers 
 
 of life and death to the Inquisitors and their deputies, and 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 405 
 
 deprived the accused of their right of appeal to the Parliament. 1 
 All that was left to the secular arm was to carry out the 
 sentence of the Inquisition. Notwithstanding the approval 
 which the edict received from the First President of the 
 Parliament of Paris, Le Maistre, supported by the Presidents 
 who sat with him in the Grand Chamber, Minard and St. 
 Andre, the majority of the members, led by Seguier and 
 Harlai, the Presidents of La Tournelle, and Arnoul du 
 Ferrier, the President of the Court of Enquetes, refused to 
 register the edict. The King had recourse to a bed of justice, 
 and the edict was duly registered in his presence in January 
 1558. But though the Grand Chamber thereupon either 
 refused to allow appeals from heretics convicted by the ecclesi- 
 astical tribunals, or when it permitted the appeals, confirmed 
 and in some instances increased the severity of the sentence, 
 the Chamber of La Tournelle continued as before to receive 
 all appeals that came to it, and when it did not reverse the 
 judgment of the Inquisition, it mitigated the sentences, 
 changing them in some instances from death to banishment. 
 The King and the Cardinals (of Lorraine and Bourbon) were 
 indignant. The Presidents and Councillors were summoned 
 to the royal presence, and charged to see that the practice of 
 the different Chambers was made uniform, and that strict 
 obedience was paid to the edict establishing the Inquisition. 
 The King's orders were read by the Procureur-General. 
 Never before had a matter of such deep importance been laid 
 before the Councillors of the Parliament, and never had there 
 been so serious and weighty a deliberation. Each member 
 was called on for his opinion. The members of the Civil 
 Courts, of the Enquetes and Requetes, supported the Presi- 
 dents of La Tournelle. In vain Le Maistre, St. Andre, and 
 Minard urged the commands of the King and the sin of 
 tolerating heretics. The party of toleration had a complete 
 victory. A large majority pronounced in favour of the 
 
406 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 practice of La Tournelle and of the President Seguier. 
 ^ Banishment was deemed to be a sufficient punishment for 
 i heresy, and a decree to this effect was ordered to be prepared. 
 
 The deliberations of the Parliament were in secret. Le 
 i Maistre betrayed them to the King, and the seance was 
 I ordered to be resumed in public in his Majesty's presence. 
 The members boldly expressed their opinions. Again the 
 Presidents Le Maistre, Minard, and St. Andre inveighed 
 against toleration, and recommended the extermination of 
 the Albigeois and the Vaudois as examples to be followed. 
 Four Presidents, Seguier, Harlai, du Ferrier, and de Thou, 
 and a great majority of Councillors, supported the cause of 
 toleration, some of them with tact and prudence, others with 
 more boldness than discretion. The King could hardly 
 restrain his indignation. He refused to allow the votes to 
 be collected. He ordered Arnoul du Ferrier — the most 
 eminent jurist, except his greater pupil Cujas, whom France 
 then possessed — and seven Councillors to be arrested. The 
 Councillors du Faure and Dubourg were seized on the judicial 
 bench. Du Ferrier and two others only saved themselves 
 by flight. Five members of the Parliament were lodged in 
 the Bastille. It seemed as though nothing could hinder the 
 establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in France, when the 
 fortunate death of Henry II. and the minority of his successor 
 enabled the Parliament, notwithstanding the opposition of the 
 Guises, to remain masters of the field, and the all-important 
 right of appeal in matters of heresy to a lay tribunal was 
 retained by France, 1 though this right was much curtailed ten 
 years later by the edict of Romorantin. 
 
 But the Inquisition continued to exist in Languedoc for 
 nearly a century longer, and played no unimportant part 
 during the religious wars. Yet its decline had really com- 
 menced before the attempt of Henry II. to increase its 
 1 Henri Martin, Hist, de France, book 50. 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 407 
 
 powers and extend its jurisdiction. A century later it was 
 to fall, not before the attacks of heretics or of scoffers, but of 
 an orthodox Archbishop of Toulouse, Charles de Montchal. 
 Jealous of an independent ecclesiastical jurisdiction, he 
 obtained from Anne of Austria in 1645 a decree for its 
 suppression as a royal court of criminal jurisdiction. The 
 Dominicans represented him as a wolf in sheep's clothing, 
 the Pope again appointed an Inquisitor, but the Parliament 
 of Toulouse deprived him of nearly all power and jurisdiction. 
 Yet the title of Inquisitor-General of the Faith continued for 
 upwards of a century longer, and conferred much rank and 
 prestige, a large income, and some shadowy if not real power 
 upon its possessor. At its abolition, the single privilege 
 which remained to the Inquisitor seems to have been that of 
 giving certificates of orthodoxy to advocates, as well as to 
 others who required them. In 1772, the Marquis d'Aignan 
 d'Orbesson, not being able to bear the idea that in the country 
 which claimed to be the leader of civilisation there still existed, 
 in an epoch of toleration and enlightenment, a degrading relic 
 of barbarism and bigotry, obtained from the King a decree 
 suppressing the salary paid to the Inquisitor, depriving Frere 
 Jean Dayde, who then held the office, of the title of Inquisi- 
 tor, and forbidding the Dominicans from naming a successor 
 to him. 1 
 
 1 Histoire de I 'Inquisition en France depuis son etablissement au XI IP siecle 
 a la suite de la croisade contre les Albigeois, jusqu'en 1772 epoque definitive de 
 sa suppression, par E. L. B. de Lamothe-Langon, Paris, 1829, 3 vols. 8vo. 
 (A useful summary of facts relating to the Inquisition in France, but 
 superficial and unsystematic. No information is given as to the procedure 
 of the tribunal, and the writer displays complete ignorance of many of 
 the commonest books, such as the Grand Martyrologe and the Histoire 
 Ecel'esiastique attributed to Theodore de Beze, which contain important 
 details on the subject. The greatest value of the book is that the writer 
 cites the archives of the Inquisition and the registers of the Parliament of 
 Toulouse.) La jurisprudence du grand Conseil examinee dans les maximes du 
 Royaume. Ouvrage precieux contenant V histoire de I 'Inquisition en France, 
 
4 o8 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 As the notices of the Inquisition in France are so scanty, 
 the reader will not be surprised if we have a difficulty in 
 tracing the succession of the Inquisitors. Raymond de 
 Gossin held the office in 1532, and would no doubt preside 
 at the trials of Jean de Caturce and Jean de Boyssone. It was 
 he who had denounced to the Parliament early in 1532 the 
 presence of heresy at Toulouse, and had obtained authority 
 for the arrest of the large number of persons of all classes 
 who, as we have seen, 1 were arrested in that year. He was 
 succeeded by Louis Rochette, who shortly after his appoint- 
 ment was deprived of his office, tried, and burnt for heresy, 
 in the place where there is every probability he had witnessed 
 the martyrdom of Caturce and the recantation of Boyssone. 
 He was succeeded by Vidal de Becanis. 
 
 In 1534 we find one Jehan Gauteret, described as 'juge 
 et inquisiteur de Vheretique -pravite es cite et diocese de Lyon,' 
 assisting in the trial of Baudichon de la Maison Neuve. 2 
 But he does not seem to have been Inquisitor-General. 
 
 In 1536, the person referred to by Rabelais 3 as Nostre 
 maistre Doriius was appointed by the Provincial of the 
 Dominicans Grand Inquisitor in succession to Valentin 
 Lyevin deceased, and was duly confirmed in that office by 
 the King, and subsequently by the Pope.* Brother Matthieu 
 Ory, or Orry, a Breton by birth and a Dominican by 
 
 Avignon, 1775 [by E. L. V. de Goezmann]. M. de Goezmann says that 
 the Inquisition continued as a real power in Roussillon until 1762. (Rous- 
 sillon was only acquired by France in 1659, an< ^ retained the Inquisition 
 with other Spanish institutions.) J Ante, p. 80. 
 
 2 Proces de Baudichon, Geneva, Fick, 1873. He is sometimes styled 
 ' Official des exces ' and ' Inquisiteur de lafoy.' 
 
 3 Book ii. c. 22. 
 
 4 Weiss, La Chambre Ardente, xvii. In the Proces d'Estienne Dolet 
 his name is printed Orcy, but in the original MS. it is Orry. Merle 
 d'Aubigne calls him Oritz, and he is elsewhere also referred to as Oriz. 
 I follow however the orthography of his own works and of the Grand 
 Martyrologe. 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 409 
 
 profession, was then forty years of age. He had already 
 attained some distinction as a preacher, and in selecting him, 
 the rulers of the Church showed that wise appreciation and 
 judgment which has ever been a marked characteristic of 
 the Church of Rome, and in which her heretical rivals have 
 so constantly shown themselves deficient. 
 
 Matthieu Orry possessed all the qualifications needed for 
 the high office of Inquisitor-General, sufficient theological 
 learning, a fair knowledge of the Canon Law, and a keen 
 scent for heresy, whilst his persuasive manner and his Socratic 
 method, easily drew suspected heretics into confessions, 
 admissions, and contradictions, which rendered extraneous 
 evidence of less moment, and enabled judges to pronounce 
 sentence without violating the requirements of the Canon 
 Law. Blasphemavit : quid adhuc egemus testibus? Instant 
 in season and out of season, ready to spend and be spent in 
 the service of the Church, he found no occupation so con- 
 genial to his mind as that of hunting, trying, and burning 
 heretics. 1 He was incessantly travelling through France. 
 Wherever a trial for heresy was imminent, even beyond the 
 limits of his own jurisdiction, that is to say, that of the Parlia- 
 ment of Toulouse, he was always ready to act as assessor to 
 the Bishop or his Vicar-General, and to assist in obtaining, 
 what it was the greatest triumph and satisfaction to obtain, 
 
 1 ' Je n'en cogneus jamais ung plus ignorant, ung plus maling, et plus 
 appetant la mort et destruction d'ung Chrestien.' Dolet, Epist. to the 
 King prefixed to his translation of the Tusculan Disputations. But on some 
 occasions he was open to bribes. Lamothe-Langon (vol. iii. liv. 16) says, 
 ' Orri n'etait mechant que pour ceux qui ne financaient pas en sa bourse. 
 II devenait doux et facile a l'egard de ceux qui le payaient ; dans la ville 
 de Sancerre par exemple il traita avec moderation les protestants qui lui 
 donnerent de bon vin ; et pour une somme ronde on obtint de lui 
 d'excellents certificats de catholicite.' (This is on the authority of Goez- 
 mann, La Jurisprudence du Grand Conseil examinee, vol. i. p. 22. See also 
 De Beze, Hist. Eccl. i. 13.) 
 
410 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 a confession, before the victim was delivered over to the 
 secular arm. We find him sitting at Paris, Lyons, Bourges, 
 Orleans, Poictiers, and Vienne. It was one of his earliest 
 duties as Inquisitor-General to examine the Spiritual Exercises 
 of Ignatius Loyola, and to his report, equally laudatory of 
 the book and its author, the Order of Jesus owes the favour- 
 able reception which it met with in France. As the trusted 
 counsellor of Cardinal de Tournon he acquired the favour 
 of the King, and it was to his influence and to his suggestions 
 that the most stringent measures of Francis I. against heretics 
 and blasphemers are due. When he followed the counsels of 
 Matthieu Orry, the King felt that he was indeed working 
 out his salvation. The same confidence which Francis I. 
 placed in the Inquisitor was shown by his successor, and when 
 tidings reached the Court that Renee of France, Duchess 
 of Ferrara, had fallen under the influence of ' cursed and 
 reprobate errors,' it was Matthieu Orry that was sent by 
 Henry II. to effect his aunt's conversion, by persuasion 
 if possible, but if not, and if the Duke her husband would 
 allow it, by shutting her up in seclusion, and separating 
 her children from her. The Duke was entreated to allow 
 Orry, who had much experience in such matters, to try, 
 and bring to severe punishment all those of the Duchess's 
 attendants who were tainted with heretical opinions. 1 That 
 the Inquisitor's persuasions were unsuccessful, and that the 
 Duchess had to be imprisoned and her children taken away 
 from her before she would confess and receive the communion 
 from a priest, showed only the depravity of the heretic, and 
 not any want of ability or zeal in the Inquisitor ; for on 
 proceeding to Rome he was received with high favour by the 
 Pope, who confirmed him in his office of Inquisitor-General 
 of France, and appointed him Apostolical Penitentiary. In 
 
 1 Lc Laboureur, Additions aux M'emoires de Castelnau, i. p. 718. See 
 also Frizzi, Memorie per la storia di Ferrara, iv. p. 328. 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 411 
 
 the Grand Martyrologe his name frequently occurs as pre- 
 siding at the trial of heretics, examining them, passing 
 sentence, and presiding at the executions. ' Miserable Orry ! ' 
 the martyrologist on one occasion thus apostrophises him, 
 ' qui as toujours aguise a cruaute ceux qui brulent de rage.' 1 
 But of all the trials for heresy at which he took the chief 
 part there are two which specially interest us. It had been 
 the letters of Calvin, letters full of noble and Christian 
 exhortations and sentiments, that had enabled Renee of 
 France to resist the persuasions of Matthieu Orry. In these 
 letters, as in many others of a similar character, we see the 
 Reformer at his best, such as we would fain hope and believe 
 he really was. In the letters, certainly inspired, and probably 
 dictated by him, in which he denounced to the authorities of 
 Vienne the blasphemies, and betrayed the person, of Michael 
 de Villeneuve, alias Reves, alias Servetus, we see the lowest 
 depths of degradation and infamy to which religious bigotry 
 (perhaps combined with personal dislike) can bring down a 
 naturally great and noble nature. It was to Matthieu Orry 
 that the letters written in the name of Guillaume Trie to his 
 cousin Antoine Arneys were carried. It was Matthieu Orry 
 who caused the replies of Arneys to be prepared, and who, 
 when all the necessary information had been received from 
 Calvin, took the leading part, though he did not actually 
 preside, at the trial of Servetus at Vienne. 
 
 Of no part of his life have we so many details, and 
 nowhere do we get so true a picture of the man, as in refer- 
 ence to the trial of Servetus. We see him acting, now as 
 a detective, now as the prosecuting attorney, now as counsel, 
 now as judge ; now chuckling over the letters of Guillaume 
 Trie, and then dictating the answers to them, asking for 
 information and documentary evidence from Calvin ; almost 
 daily spurring his mule between Lyons and Vienne ; closeted 
 1 Edit, of 1597, p. 180. 
 
412 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 with Cardinal de Tournon at Lyons one day, and dining with 
 Archbishop Paumier at Vienne the next, leaving no stone 
 unturned to procure evidence of heresy against the accused, 
 and to obtain his conviction and sentence. It was through 
 no fault of his that Servetus was not burned at Vienne. The 
 Archbishop, the Vicar-General, and the Vibailly of Vienne, 
 lukewarm as they were in the good work, yet when re- 
 proached by Calvin for allowing a heretic who ought to be 
 burned alive to live unnoticed among them, could do no other 
 than bring him to trial and sentence him to death. But it 
 was to Cardinal de Tournon that Orry first communicated 
 the matter, it was after conference with him and acting under 
 his directions that all the preliminaries were prepared. It 
 was not until the correspondence with Calvin was complete, 
 and the inculpatory documents procured from Geneva, that 
 the matter was first mentioned to Pierre Paumier, Arch- 
 bishop of Vienne, who thereupon, acting under the directions 
 of the Cardinal and the advice of Orry, ordered the arrest 
 and trial of the accused. 
 
 Servetus was permitted to escape from prison. The 
 Vibailly was commonly reported to have been the active 
 party in the matter, and as nobody was punished or 
 blamed we may believe with tolerable certainty that the 
 ' primate of primates,' Archbishop Paumier, was not ex- 
 cessively grieved at the escape, and that the Vibailly pro- 
 ceeded with the trial, and pronounced sentence of death on 
 his friend and physician with much greater satisfaction than 
 he would have done had Servetus been safe in the prison of 
 Vienne. 
 
 It was ten years before these events that Orry presided 
 | at a trial that is of more immediate interest to us — that of 
 Etienne Dolet. 1 
 
 1 The only notices of the life of Orry which I know are those in 
 Moreri, Grand Diet. Hist., and Echard, Scriptures ordinum pradicatorum, 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 413 
 
 The records of the trial of Etienne Dolet (technically' 
 called the proces), as well as those of every person who was 
 burned for heresy in France, have perished. They were in 
 general burned with the condemned, 1 in order that the 
 members of the Reformed Church might be unable to collect j 
 the acts of their martyrs. Not a single official record of a \ 
 trial for heresy exists in France. Such, if any, as were not so 
 burned probably perished with so many other records at the 
 time of the great Revolution. Nor, except in the few cases' 
 where the accused had (unsuccessfully of course) appealed to 
 the Parliament, is there even any existing record of the con- 
 viction or sentence. All that we know of the trials for 
 heresy are the brief notices of them, with hardly any details, 
 contained in the Grand Martyrologe of Crespin, in the corre- 
 spondence of the Reformers, and in the contemporary journal 
 of a Bourgeois de Paris, who made a point of attending and 
 recording every execution for heresy that took place in the 
 capital. 
 
 A single official record of a trial for heresy in France 
 was however discovered a few years since, not indeed in 
 France, but in the library of Berne ; 2 it is that of the 
 eminent citizen of Geneva, Baudichon de la Maison Neuve, 
 one of the very few who, after being convicted and handed 
 over to the secular arm, escaped punishment. Tried and 
 convicted at Lyons in 1535, by a flagrant violation of inter- 
 national law, for offences — if they were offences — committed 
 out of France, he was saved from the stake, as we have 
 before seen, by the intervention of the Lords of Berne, an 
 
 vol. ii. p. 162, where a list of his works will be found. See, however, for 
 the details in the text, D'Artigny, M'emoires cThistoire, de critique et de 
 litt'erature, ii. p. 68 et seq. ; Willis, Servetus and Calvin, pp. 239-277; 
 Grand Martyrologe, passim. 
 
 1 Journal iun Bourgeois de Paris sous le regne de Francois I' r (Paris, 
 1854), pp. 44.1-45 1. 
 
 2 See ante, p. 408. 
 
4H ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 intervention, however, which would have been useless had not 
 Jean de Peyrat, the Lieutenant-Governor of Lyons, by delaying 
 the execution (though much urged by the priestly party to 
 sanction it), given time for the Bernese messengers to reach 
 the court of the King of France. 
 
 All that we know of the trial of Dolet is from the 
 epistle to the King, prefixed by way of dedication to his 
 translation of the Tusculans, and from the letters of remission 
 and pardon subsequently granted to him, and discovered in 
 the Criminal Archives of the Parliament of Paris by M. A. 
 Taillandier, and printed by him in 1836. 1 Fortunately 
 for us these letters of remission are prefaced by recitals of 
 the trial, conviction, and sentence of an unusually detailed 
 character, and which have thrown a flood of light upon 
 one of the most interesting and important events of Dolet's 
 life. 
 
 It was at the end of July, or the beginning of August, 
 1542, that, by the order of the Inquisitor-General, but at 
 the instigation of the master printers and booksellers of 
 Lyons, Dolet was arrested and thrown into the archiepiscopal 
 prison. 2 His arrest was, it seems, merely on suspicion of 
 heresy, and without any formal charge made or information 
 
 1 Proch d'Estienne Dolet, imprimeur et libraire a Lyon, 1 543-1 546. 
 Paris, Techener, 1836. 
 
 2 Although there is no distinct authority for the date of Dolet's 
 arrest, yet from all the facts of the case and especially from the dates 
 of the books and their prefaces which issued from his press in 1 542 (see 
 ante, pp. 399, 400) it seems clear that the arrest must have taken place 
 at the end of July or the beginning of August. I do not forget that 
 Dolet's press continued at work during his imprisonment, and that several 
 books are expressly stated to be issued while Dolet was in the prison of 
 La Routine, especially L' Interne lie Consolation and the translation of the 
 Tusculans, but it is clear that the books referred to on pp. 399, 400 must 
 have appeared before his arrest. There is, however, a reference to some 
 serious trouble into which Dolet had fallen shortly before the 6th of 
 April, probably 1 542, but possibly one or two years earlier, in a letter from 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 415 
 
 laid against him as the law required, and a month elapsed 
 before this was done. In the meantime the ' procureur and 
 promoter of causes of the Inquisition,' the public prosecutor 
 in cases of heresy, with the aid of those who had denounced 
 Dolet, was preparing his indictment and collecting matter 
 for the prosecution ; and after his house and shop had been! 
 ransacked and his books seized, 1 the prisoner was formally j 
 charged with heresy before Matthieu Orry, Inquisitor- 
 General, and Estienne Faye, the official of the primacy! 
 and Vicar- General in spiritualibus of the Archbishop of 
 Lyons. The substitute of the Procureur-General, Nicole 
 Baconval, was present, and the following persons probably 
 on this occasion sat as assessors, as they certainly did 
 afterwards, — Matthieu Bellievre, official and judge of the 
 ordinary court for the delinquent clergy of the city and 
 faubourgs of Lyons, Jean de Bourg, reader to the friars 
 preachers of the convent of Lyons and professor of 
 theology, and two doctors of law, Guillaume Vandel and 
 Annemond Chalan. 
 
 The charges upon which he was arraigned were these : 
 that in his Cato Christianas 2 he had interpolated as the 
 
 Britannus to Boyssone printed in Rob. Britanni Epistolarum Libri Duo, 
 (Parisiis, 1542) which is as follows : — 
 
 'De ipso Doleto audivi modo mcesta, horribilia, inexpectata quaedam. 
 Doleo sane ilium in eum locum adductum, ex quo si emergere cupiat, 
 multum illi sit et cum plurimorum invidia laborandum : sed tamen sitne 
 verum nescio. Ego quidem cum illius caussa, turn multorum, et 
 honestissimorum caussa virorum, qui illi favent, hxc omnia falsa esse 
 cuperem. . . . Vale. Burdig. viii. Id. April.' 
 
 The year is not given, but the letter, like most of the others in the 
 volume, appears to have been written in 1542. I am unable to explain 
 this passage, for I know of no misfortune that happened to Dolet early in 
 1542, or indeed anything to which such words as those of Britannus 
 could apply since the homicide of Compaing. 
 
 1 Dolet, Preface to the translation of the Tusculans. 
 
 2 The Cato Christianas seems to have been submitted to the Sorbonne 
 immediately on Dolet's arrest, and a condemnation of it obtained on 
 
4 i 6 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 second commandment a precept beginning ' Thou shalt not 
 make to thyself any graven image,' and in his paraphrase 
 of the Creed in verse had substituted the words Habeo fidem 
 for Credo, and had omitted the words Communionem Sanc- 
 torum ; that he had used the word Fatum (in his Epigrams 
 and in his Fata Regis Francisct), not in the sense which 
 the word ought to be used by a Christian, but in the 
 signification in which the ancient heathen philosophers used 
 it, intending thereby to express approval of the doctrine 
 of predestination ; that several books which had been 
 condemned and censured as containing erroneous proposi- 
 tions had been printed by him with prefatory epistles of 
 his own composition recommending the perusal of them, 
 namely, L 'Exhortation a la lecture de la Saincte Escripture, 
 La Fontaine de Vye, Les Cinquante et deux Dimenches 
 composed by Lefevre d'Etaples, Les Heures de la 
 compaignye des Penitens, Le Chevalier Chretien, and La 
 Maniere de se Confesser of Erasmus ; that he had printed 
 other books in the vulgar tongue without any prefatory 
 epistles, namely, Le Sommaire de Viel et Nouveau Testament 
 and Le Nouveau Testament; that there were found in his 
 ( house and in his printing office other books full of errors, 
 among which were the Loci Communes of Melanchthon 
 (which some thought, having regard to the form and 
 appearance of the letters, had been printed by him), the 
 Unio Dissidentium, the Bible of Geneva in the vulgar 
 tongue, and the Lnstitutio religionis Christiana of Calvin ; 
 that, notwithstanding that he had been ordered to withdraw 
 the Cato Christianus and the Epigrams from sale, he had 
 continued to sell them; that he had not (as required by 
 the royal privilege) submitted each book before printing 
 it to the Provost of Paris or the Seneschal of Lyons'; that 
 
 Sept. 23, 1542. See the judgment in D'Argentre, Coll. Jud. vol. iL 
 part i. p. 229. 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 417 
 
 he had eaten flesh in Lent and at other prohibited times ; 
 that he had walked about during the mass, and said that 
 he preferred the sermon to the mass; and lastly, that in 
 his writings he seemed to doubt the immortality of the 
 soul. 1 
 
 His trial lasted until the beginning of October. Brought 
 from time to time before his judges, formal evidence of 
 most of the facts charged against him would no doubt 
 be easily procured, nor indeed would they (except the 
 last) admit of denial. The only question was, did the | 
 facts if proved justify or require a conviction for heresy ? i 
 But much evidence of a hearsay character tending to the 
 aggravation of the charges and to the prejudice of the 
 accused was offered, at the instance, as he tells us, of his 
 enemies the master printers, and greedily accepted by 
 the Inquisitor. Witnesses were found to swear that they 
 had heard that he had said that he had as much right 
 to eat flesh as the Pope had to compel him to eat fish. 
 Some testified that he was the reputed author of certain 
 songs (profane or heretical) which were current at Lyons. 
 Others had stories to tell to his discredit which they had 
 heard from third persons, some of whom were dead, and 
 the others not called as witnesses. No direct evidence 
 against him, however, except the facts as to which there 
 was no dispute, seems to have been given. The greater 
 part of the trial, as was usual in such cases, was occupied 
 by the examination of the prisoner. The harshness, as it 
 seems to English ideas, which French judges in our own 
 days occasionally display in the examination of prisoners, 
 the insidious and ensnaring questions frequently put to 
 them to lead them to admissions of guilt, give a faint but 
 only a faint idea of a trial for heresy in the sixteenth 
 century, where the judges were in all but name the 
 1 Proch, pp. 8-1 1. 
 2 E 
 
4 i 8 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 prosecutors, where the verdict and the sentence were 
 decided before the trial, and where the chief object of the 
 trial was to draw out admissions from the unfortunate 
 accused which would formally justify the sentence, and 
 perhaps enable the court to increase its severity. 
 
 Dolet underwent the usual examinations. He was 
 interrogated not only on the charges specifically made against 
 him, but generally on his life, his habits, and his opinions. 
 Cunningly -devised propositions and questions of theology 
 were put to him with that air of candour and gentleness 
 which the judges of the Holy Office in the early stages of 
 a trial knew so well how to assume. He defended himself 
 by saying, ' with all humility and sincerity of heart,' that 
 he had never wished and did not wish to maintain any 
 error ; that he had always declared himself to be an 
 obedient son of the Church, desiring to live and die as a 
 true Catholic Christian ought to do, following the faith 
 of his ancestors, and neither adhering to any new sect, nor 
 contravening any of the decrees of the Church. As to the 
 immortality of the soul, he always maintained that doctrine, 
 and still did so, as would be seen from various passages of 
 his writings, and if anywhere he seemed to express himself 
 otherwise, it would be found to be by way of argument or 
 hypothesis merely. 
 
 The word fatum he had used to express the providence 
 
 and certain will of God only, by which He casts us down 
 
 and again raises us up, and not in any other sense. As to 
 
 ] the books composed and printed by him, he was not aware 
 
 l of any doubt or error in them concerning the faith, or 
 
 anything contrary to the commands of God, or of our holy 
 
 mother the Church ; but, as well in reference to them as to 
 
 his opinions and language generally, he was desirous of 
 
 j j correcting and amending whatever he had written or said 
 
 i J erroneously, and he prayed that he might be taken to have 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 419 
 
 so expressed himself either through ignorance and want of 
 skill, or through the exigencies of the Latin tongue, and 
 the licence which was allowed in using it. As to the pro- 
 hibited books which were found in his house, but which 
 were not composed or printed by him, he had not obtained 
 them with any intention of either imitating them or follow- 
 ing their doctrine, but only from that curiosity which is 
 natural to literary men, so that reading them he might 
 more clearly know and discern the good and true, and 
 might better refute and reprove false and erroneous opinions.* 
 
 The fact of eating flesh in Lent and at other prohibited I 
 seasons he admitted, but alleged that he had done so under I 
 the advice of his physician, and with the express permission i 
 of the official and other ministers of the Church, because of I 
 a malady of long duration from which he suffered, and that 
 he had not intended by that to disparage or condemn any 
 of the laws of the Church, which he entirely approved and 
 wished to conform to, as an obedient son. The truth of 
 the hearsay evidence he absolutely denied, alleging besides 
 that it was both irrelevant and inadmissible. 
 
 Although interrogated and reinterrogated during the two 
 months over which his trial extended, he could not be 
 drawn into any admission, or induced to answer any 
 questions as to points of doctrine except as before stated. 
 ' He submitted in all respects to the authority of the 
 Church, and desired only to believe as she directed. If he 
 had fallen into any errors, it was from ignorance, and he 
 was ready and desirous to retract them.' Then he pleaded 
 to the jurisdiction of the court, and denied the competency 
 of the judges. But it can hardly be possible (knowing 
 what we do of Dolet's temper and the character of Matthieu 
 Orry) that the trial would pass without altercations between 
 the prisoner and the judges, and we may be sure that from 
 Dolet's bitter tongue remarks would fall which, however true 
 
J/. ) : ' r r 
 
 420 ETIENNE DOLET "r chap. 
 
 or apposite, could not fail to irritate the ignorantjanatic who 
 presided. In Dolet's opinion — an opinion which was shared 
 by the most learned and pious among the reformed — Orry 
 was the most ignorant and malicious of men, eager only to 
 compass the death and destruction of every true Christian. 
 It is hardly probable that he would entirely conceal this 
 opinion throughout the trial, but the following epigram 
 might have been rather supposed to indicate the character 
 of the sneers at his judges in which he indulged, than to 
 represent an actual incident of his trial, were it not that it 
 is related as a fact in a contemporary letter : — 1 
 
 Dolet enquis sur le poinct de la foy, 
 
 Diet a Orris qui faisoit ceste enqueste : 
 
 ' Ce que tu crois, certe point je ne croy, 
 
 Ce que je croy ne fut oncq en ta teste.' 
 
 Orris pensant l'avoir pris en lit feste 
 
 Luy demanda, ' Qu'est ce que tu crois doncq ? ' 
 
 'Je croy,' dit il, 'que tu n'es qu'une beste 
 
 Et si croy bien que tu ne le creus oncq.' 2 
 
 The prisoner's defence, however complete and conclusive, 
 was of no avail. It was the business of Matthieu Orry 
 to convict, not to acquit. On the 2nd of October Dolet 
 
 1 Lugduni conjectus est in vincula Doletus ille qui nobis latina lingua 
 Commentaries scripsit, qui, nuper eductus ut causam diceret coram 
 Synagoga Pharisaeorum rogatusque ab Inquisitore fidei (ut vocant) an 
 crederet in Deum, respondit ' se melius illo credere, et aliquid se 
 prasterea credere ac scire, quod ille non crederet.' Roganteque Inquisi- 
 tore quidnam illud esset ' Ego, inquit, credo ac scio te asinum esse et 
 hypocritam, id quod tu non credis.' Letter of Pierre Toussain to 
 Matthias Erb. dated 4 March 1543. Herminjard, Correspondence des 
 R'eformateurs, viii. p. 292. 
 
 2 This epigram is found written (in a contemporary hand) on the 
 reverse of the title-page of a copy of Dolet's Carmina in the library of 
 the Academy of Lyons. It was first printed, though not quite accurately, 
 by P. L. Joly in his Remarques Critiques sur le Dictionnaire de Bayle. 
 Paris (Dijon) 1748. 
 
xxi NOSTRE MAISTRE DORIBUS 421 
 
 was brought before the judges for the last time to hear that 
 sentence, so terrible in its operation, so vague in its wording, 
 by which the Inquisition and the Church hypocritically 
 pretended that the Canon Law, which forbade spiritual 
 judges to cause the shedding of blood, was duly observed, 
 and by which the accused was sentenced to be burnt at the 
 stake. The Inquisitor-General pronounced Etienne Dolet 
 guilty of heretical pravity ; he was declared to be wicked, 
 scandalous, a schismatic, a heretic, a favourer and defender 
 of heretics and heretical opinions, and as such was delivered 
 over to the secular arm. He was then removed to the 
 royal prison of La Rouane, and forthwith appealed, on the 
 ground of the incompetence of the judges, to the Parliament 
 of Paris. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 The First President 
 
 Un viel homme enchaisne, demy ignorant et demy savant, comme un 
 Androgyne de diable qui estoit de lunettes caparassonne comme une 
 tortue d'escailles, et ne vivait que d'une viande qu'ils appellent en leur 
 patois Appellations. — Rabelais. 
 
 REAT as was the position 
 of First President of the 
 Parliament of Paris, and 
 head of the civil and 
 criminal judicature of 
 France, it will be ad- 
 mitted that it was in 
 general worthily filled, 
 and that France can 
 look back with just 
 pride to a long list of 
 able and upright magis- 
 trates who have held the 
 office. This great place, j 
 which early in the century had been filled by the un-j 
 scrupulous and ambitious, but vigorous and able du Prat, | 
 which had just been vacated by the virtuous and excellent i 
 Jean de Selve, which was soon to fall to the learned and | 
 prudent Jean Bertrandi, and upon which in the two i 
 
 Fi^B 
 
 
 
 P® 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 y^i^Jftaa 
 
chap, xxn THE FIRST PRESIDENT 423 
 
 following centuries the Harlais, the de Thous, the Moles, 
 and the Bellievres were to confer so much lustre, was 
 occupied from 1529 to 1550 by Pierre Lizet, one of the 
 smallest persons who ever held that great office, and who 
 is known to posterity — if known in any way — neither as 
 a judge, nor as a jurist, nor as a theologian, in all which 
 capacities he hoped to go down with lustre to future ages, 
 but as the hero of Beza's merciless satire the Epistola 
 Passavanti. As we seldom think of his predecessor the 
 great du Prat without remembering the epithet which 
 Beaucaire not unfairly applied to him, 'the worst of 
 bipeds,' l to Lizet we might with justice apply the ex- 
 pression, the most stupid of bipeds ! He outrivalled 
 Hercules, says the author of the Epitaphe de Monsieur 
 Pierre Lizet: — 
 
 Car il fait mourir en mourant 
 
 La plus grand beste qui fut onques. 
 
 Well skilled in the forms and practice of the law, and 
 free from all suspicion of taking pecuniary bribes 2 — for we 
 must not deprive him of the single good quality which he 
 actually possessed — there seems little else to be said in his 
 favour. Obstinate, narrow-minded, and bigoted in the 
 extreme, arrogant in asserting his dignity in trifles as well as 
 in matters of importance, he was as ready to cringe when his 
 interests required it, as to bully when he thought he could do 
 it with impunity. 3 Eager to stretch beyond what was just 
 
 1 ' Bipedum omnium (ut quidam ait) nequissimus.' Belcarius, Hist. 
 Gallica, lib. xv. c. I. 
 
 2 He was so poor when he resigned his office that it was necessary to 
 give him the abbey of St. Victor to provide him 1 with the means of sub- 
 sistence. But if free from the suspicion of pecuniary bribes, he was, accord- 
 ing to Henri Estienne, ready to betray the cause of justice if a temptation 
 of another kind presented itself. Introd. au Trait'e de la Confortnite, c. xvii. 
 
 3 ' Ex viro, congressu primo, mulier posteriore factus,' says de Thou 
 of him on one occasion. Book vi. 
 
424 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the rights of the treasury and the crown and the epices of 
 the judges, he was equally ready when Advocate-General to 
 betray the royal rights in favour of his own private clients. 
 He detested the ancient French customary law, the palladium 
 of the liberties of the north of France, and used all his efforts 
 to substitute the laws of imperial Rome for the old droit 
 commun des Franpais. With the manners, the accent, and 
 the language of a peasant of his native Auvergne, his 
 loquacity, his ostentatious display of ignorance of everything 
 except the matters of his profession, his vanity in thinking 
 himself a great theologian and scholar, were no less sources 
 of amusement and ridicule to his enemies than his personal 
 appearance and figure. 
 
 Fancying himself a profound Latin scholar, he delighted 
 
 when on the bench to display his familiarity with it. His 
 
 knowledge of the language was about equal to that of 
 
 Bragmardus, whom Rabelais puts before us saying Ego habet 
 
 bonum vino. When, as sometimes happened, he had to 
 
 pronounce sentence in Latin, he committed the most 
 
 ridiculous blunders, and it is said to have been one of his 
 
 _ wonderful macaronic sentences which, coming to the ears of 
 
 'Francis I., caused him, in 1539, to issue the edict putting 
 
 j an end to the use of Latin on the judicial bench. The 
 
 First President having to dismiss an action, he expressed 
 
 the formula Deboutons et avons deboute by Debotamus et 
 
 debotavimus ! 1 
 
 Inordinately addicted to wine and women, the extra- 
 ordinary redness of his face and nose, and his complete 
 baldness, could not fail to afford marks for the shafts of his 
 satirists, and when the unfortunate man's nose finally dropped 
 off it excited no pity, but only ridicule. 2 
 
 1 Waddington, Fie de Ramus, 88 ; Gaillard, Hist, de Francois I., vol. 
 vii. p. 381. 
 
 2 See La Complainte de Messire Pierre Lizet sur le trespas de son feu nez, 
 
x X1 1 THE FIRST PRESIDENT 425 
 
 But the worst part of his character has yet to be noted. 
 There was one thing which he loved better than the pleasures 
 of either Bacchus or Venus ; it was the persecution of 
 heretics. He was nothing, if not pious and orthodox. If 
 it is doubtful whether that terrible chamber, where the lurid 
 light of the infrequent torches made darkness more hideous, 
 the Chambre Ardente, owed its origin to him, yet it is 
 certain that over its sittings for the trial of heretics he 
 almost always presided in person. 1 His tenure of office 
 coincided with the latter half of the reign of Francis I., when 
 the fair promises of the King's youth which had given rise to 
 hopes and expectations that he would prove a true father of 
 letters and a reformer of the Church had been falsified, and 
 when France was cursed with a King who allowed himself to 
 be the tool of his priestly counsellors, and to attempt the 
 destruction of that intellectual progress of which he had once 
 aspired to be the leader. Pierre Lizet was appointed First' 
 President in 1529, he filled that office until his compulsory 
 resignation in 1550, and though it would be unjust to 
 attribute exclusively to him the long series of punishments 
 which characterised this period (commencing with the martyr- 
 dom of Berquin in 1529), and of which the King himself 
 who sanctioned them must bear the chief reproach, yet it is 
 
 appended to the Epistola Passavanti, and to many editions of the Epistola 
 Obscurorum Virorum. Also H. Estienne, Introd. au Traite de la Conformite, 
 chap, xvii., 'le nez fut enchasse en plusieurs beaux epitaphes, en attendant 
 que le Pape eust loisir de le canonizer.' In the last chapter of the same 
 book H. Estienne quotes the following'as part of an epigram made upon 
 Lizet by ' un scavant personnage' : — 
 
 ' Viel pourri au rouge museau, 
 Deshonneur du siecle ou nous sommes.' 
 
 1 Beza, Hist. Eccl. book ii. See on the Chambre Ardente M. Weiss's 
 work La Chambre Ardente. Etude sur la libert'e de conscience en Trance. 
 Paris, 1889. M. Weiss is unable to give the exact date of the formal j 
 establishment of the Chambre Ardente, but he places it between 11 \ 
 December 1547 and 2 May 1548. 
 
426 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 I certain that the severity of the persecution was increased and 
 
 (its bitterness aggravated by the brutal bigotry of the First 
 
 iPresident, who was never so happy as when sitting in the 
 
 Chambre Ardente trying and condemning (for when he 
 
 presided the words were synonymous) the so-called 
 
 Lutherans. Fortunate were the accused who were tried by 
 
 j the Chambre de la Tournelle, where the Third President 
 
 Bertrandi or the President a mortier St. Andre usually 
 
 ! presided, for in the Grand Chambre (of which the Chambre 
 
 i Ardente was a branch) there was no hope either of acquittal 
 
 or of any but the most severe sentence. 1 
 
 It was as a theologian that Pierre Lizet especially hoped 
 to descend to posterity. On his compulsory resignation of 
 ] office in 1550, he took holy orders and received the abbey 
 'of St. Victor, and then occupied himself in giving to the 
 world the theological lucubrations which he had been for 
 some years preparing. In 155 1 and 1552 he published, in 
 a language which he supposed to be Latin, nine elaborate 
 controversial treatises which he fondly hoped would confound 
 the reformers, support the tottering cause of orthodoxy, and 
 (as they were dedicated to the Pope) might possibly entitle 
 him to the hat which du Prat, though a widower and fifty- 
 three years of age when he took holy orders, had obtained, 
 and which Bertrandi was soon afterwards to receive. Harsh 
 and repulsive in style, 2 the matter was even worse. A single 
 
 1 The two courts seem to have carried on their traditions for some 
 time after Lizet's resignation. I have already noticed (p. 405) the 
 difference between the two chambers in 1558, and we find complaints made 
 that the Chambre de la Tournelle (presided over by the Presidents a mortier 
 Harlai and Seguier) was more favourable to heretics than the Grand 
 Chambre where the First President Le Maistre presided (Life of Dubourg 
 in La France Protestante). 
 
 2 ' Son style se trouva si dur, que le Pape en ayant, par cas fortuit, 
 porte un feuillet a ses affaires, s'en escorcha tout le sainct siege 
 Apostolique.' H, Estienne, Introd. au Trait'e de la Conformite, chap. xvii. 
 The story is told at length by Beza in the Epist. Passavanti : — ' Dicitur 
 
xxn THE FIRST PRESIDENT 427 
 
 specimen of his arguments will suffice. In his treatise 
 against the translation of the Scripture into the vulgar 
 tongue, he pretends that in the early ages of the Church 
 there were two sorts of Latin, one only understood by the 
 learned, that it was into this learned language that St. 
 Jerome translated the Bible, and that this translation, though 
 called the Vulgate, was wholly incomprehensible to the 
 common people at the time it was made ! 
 
 While these treatises brought the ex-president neither 
 praises nor rewards from his own side, they gave rise to 
 one of the most entertaining and witty satires which the 
 sixteenth century, so rich in pieces of this kind, produced. 
 Beza, who had not yet learned that an air of sanctimonious 
 severity was a necessary mark of Christian piety, aided 
 perhaps by Viret, who to the end of his days was dis- 
 tinguished by his lively and satirical humour, printed in 1553 
 his 'Epistle of Master Benedict Passavant in performance 
 of the commission entrusted to him by the Venerable Pierre 
 Lizet, late President of the Parliament of Paris, and now 
 Abbot of St. Victor, prope muros.' Passavant is supposed 
 to have been sent by Lizet to Geneva to learn what was 
 said there of these wonderful treatises, which were expected 
 by their author to be found unanswerable and to work the 
 ruin of the heretical commonwealth, and in this letter, 
 written in the style of the Epistola Obscurorum Virorum, 
 
 quod Papa Julius modernus quamvis non plus sciat de Latino quam unus 
 miles et sit melior canonista quam theologista quum audivisset unam 
 partem vestri libri, tenuit tarn parvum numerum, ut jusserit portari ad 
 suam 'latrinam id est ad sedem foraminatam quam dicunt trufatores esse 
 beati Petri : ubi ipse Papa cacat, non in qualitate dei super terram sed in 
 qualitate humanitatis sus cacaturientis : et ibi cum voluisset semel suas 
 nates abstergere cum illo, reperit vestrum stilum tarn durum quod sibi 
 decorticavit totam sedem Apostolicam : et dixit fricando sibi nates : In 
 veritate erat montigena, tarn erat durus et asper.' The Epistola Passavanti 
 is intended as a caricature of Lizet's Latin style. 
 
428 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 the messenger renders an account to his master of the 
 result of his expedition, and omits none of the uncompli- 
 mentary criticisms on the book, and the still more un- 
 complimentary stories to the personal discredit of the 
 author which he purported to have heard at Geneva. The 
 most merciless and caustic ridicule is thrown on the ex- 
 president. His person, his habits, his disappointed ambition, 
 his style, and his arguments, are none of them spared. 
 The book had an immense success. While the treatises 
 of the ex -president fell into such utter oblivion, that 
 neither La Croix du Maine nor Duverdier, though writing 
 less than half a century after their first appearance, could 
 give the titles accurately, and that Bayle was never able 
 to see any of them, and could only refer to the Bodleian 
 Catalogue as an authority even for their titles, the Epistola 
 Passavanti had at least six editions in the sixteenth century, 
 was frequently reprinted in the eighteenth, 1 and has within 
 the last few years had the honour of a new edition and a 
 French translation. 2 
 
 The Abbot of St. Victor did not long survive the failure 
 of his hopes to achieve that distinction as a theologian 
 which he had missed as a magistrate. He died on the 7th 
 of June 1554. 3 
 
 Lyons was within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of 
 Paris, and it was to this tribunal presided over by Lizet 
 that Dolet now appealed. It will readily be guessed what 
 chance he had of escaping condemnation. Not only had 
 
 1 It is appended to the editions of the Epistolie Obscurorum Virorum 
 of 1 7 10, 1742, and 1757, and was printed with the notes of Le Duchat 
 in the Memoires de Litt'erature of Sallengre in 1717. 
 
 2 Le Passavant de Theodore de Beze traduit pour la premiere /bis par 
 Isidore Liseux. Avec le Texte en regard. Paris, Liseux, 1875. 
 
 3 See Bayle, Diet., art. 'Lizet' ; Dupin, Auteurs Eccl. du XFI"" Siecle; 
 Larfeul, ttude sur Pierre Lizet, Clermont Ferrand, 1856; Blanchard, 
 tloge des Presidents du Parlement de Paris; Crespin, Grand Martyrologe. 
 
xxii THE FIRST PRESIDENT 429 
 
 he been charged with heresy and atheism, but he was one 
 of a class of men that were the especial aversion of the 
 First President. If there were any class of persons he hated 
 worse than heretics it was that of printers and booksellers. 
 The friend and ally of Beda (who had great influence over ! 
 him 1 ), there can be little doubt that he was one of those 
 who had instigated the King to issue the edict of 1535 for 
 the suppression of printing. In 1538 we find him busily', 
 engaged in the prosecution of Jean Morin the printer of! 
 the first edition of the Cymbalum Mundi, and there exists ; 
 a letter from the ' pauvre jeune gar f on libraire ' from prison 
 to the Chancellor Dubourg, appealing to him against the 
 First President, and praying for letters of remission setting 
 him at liberty. 2 About the same time we find Lizet 
 writing 3 in great glee to the Chancellor, how that shortly 
 before he had caused a bookseller named Jehan de la 
 Garde, with his books, together with ' certain other persons,' 
 to be burned, 4 and showing great anxiety to proceed 
 against Morin. He even kept a bookseller in his pay, one 
 Andre, to discover and betray sellers and buyers of heretical 
 books. 5 
 
 Fortunately for the prisoner, the sentence was pro- 
 nounced at Lyons and not at Paris. In cases of heresy 
 it was seldom that more than a few hours intervened 
 between the sentence and its execution, and an appeal to 
 the Parliament, when it could be lodged and heard imme- 
 diately, only resulted in expediting the execution, and some- 
 
 1 Bayle, Diet., art. ' Beda,' Note E. 
 
 2 Notice sur Des Periers, prefixed to Lacour's edition of the Nouvelles 
 Recreations et Joyeux Devis, Paris, 1874. 
 
 3 C orrespondance des Reformateurs, vol. iv. p. 418. 
 
 4 One of the ' other persons ' was a youth of twenty. Sleidan gives 
 an account of his execution. ' Tolosanus adokscens nobilis et literarum 
 studiosus.' [Comment, lib. xii.) 
 
 6 Crespin, Grand Martyrologe (edit, of 1597), p. 177- 
 
430 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 times increasing the severity of the penalty. The sentence 
 of perpetual imprisonment was pronounced on Berquin on 
 the 1 6 th of April 1529. He straightway appealed to the 
 Parliament. His appeal was heard and rejected on the 
 morning of the 17th. The Parliament reformed the 
 judgment and condemned him to be burnt alive, and the 
 sentence was carried out the same afternoon. 
 
 With Pierre Lizet as its head, it was probable that an 
 appeal to the Parliament would not be allowed ; it was 
 certain that if allowed the sentence would be confirmed, 
 but at least time would be gained, during which the King 
 might personally be applied to. An appeal from Lyons 
 could not be disposed of with the same indecent haste that 
 was shown in the case of Berquin. The appeal had to be 
 lodged, the prisoner and the proces brought up from Lyons. 
 Jean de Peyrat was, fortunately, still Lieutenant-Governor, 
 and would take care that there was as much delay as 
 possible before the flames were lighted. It was he who, as 
 before mentioned, caused the execution of the sentence on 
 Baudichon de la Maison Neuve to be delayed so as to 
 allow of the intervention of the Lords of Berne, and who 
 had thus saved the life of the great citizen of Geneva. 
 But there was no time to be lost. Unless the King would 
 evoke the cause before himself, a very few weeks must see 
 the confirmation of the sentence and the lighting of the 
 flames. The first step was successful. By letters patent 
 of the 7 th of October the King withdrew the appeal from 
 the Parliament and remitted the case to the Grand Council. 
 The effect of this was, that in any case, considerable delay 
 must ensue before the sentence could be confirmed or 
 carried out. 
 
 In the meantime Dolet was left in the prison at Lyons, 
 where he remained more than three months after his 
 sentence. He was allowed pens and paper, and at least 
 
xxii THE FIRST PRESIDENT 431 
 
 a few books, and occupied himself in preparing, with a view 
 to publication, elaborate defences of himself in Latin and 
 French 1 from the charges on which he had been condemned, 
 and in revising and preparing for the press his translation 
 of the first three books of the Tusculan Disputations, which 
 in his translation of the Familiar Epistles he tells us he had 
 already composed. It appeared whilst he was still in prison, 
 prefaced by an epistle to the King, dated from the prison of 
 Lyons, the 15th of January 1543. 2 
 
 In this epistle he narrates his trials and convictions, he 
 alleges his innocence, and denies the charge of heresy. He 
 appeals to the protection of the King, and more vigorously 
 than prudently denounces the ignorant monk (Monsieur Le 
 Moyne as he sometimes calls him) before whom he was 
 tried, and whose legal right to try him and to style himself 
 Inquisitor of Faith he injudiciously calls in question. 3 
 
 The royal letters patent withdrawing the appeal from 
 the Parliament, and directing it to be heard by the Grand 
 Council, had no other effect than that of causing delay, for 
 either the Council itself rejected the appeal and remitted 
 the case again to the Parliament, or the enemies of Dolet 
 obtained the revocation of the letters patent. All that we 
 
 1 These are lost. Dolet refers to them in the preface to the transla- 
 tion of the Tusculans. 
 
 2 Until shortly before the publication of the last edition of Brunet's 
 Manuel no copy of this first edition of Dolet's translation of the Tusculans 
 was known ; and that it had been printed by Dolet himself was only 
 inferred from an edition printed at Paris by Ruelle in 1544. A copy 
 was, however, at length discovered in the public library at Dole, and on 
 consulting it I found it prefaced by the interesting epistle to the King to 
 which I have several times referred in the text, and which does not 
 appear in the subsequent editions. The late M. Baudrier was the 
 possessor of a second copy of the original edition. 
 
 3 ' Matthieu Orry soy-disant Inquisiteur de la Foy ; je ne scais si 
 plutost se deburait appeller inquietateur d'ycelle.' Preface to the 
 Tusculans. 
 
432 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 know certainly is that some time before the month of June 
 (1543) the appeal was remitted to the Parliament of Paris, 
 and the prisoner brought up from Lyons and imprisoned in 
 the Conciergerie pending the hearing. 
 
 Up to this time the efforts of Dolet's friends to obtain 
 the royal pardon had been unsuccessful. It was a difficult 
 task they had undertaken. A single friend of literature and 
 men of letters remained in attendance on the King. Pierre 
 Duchatel, now Bishop of Tulle and reader to the King, had 
 become an absolute necessity of life to his master. He was 
 the King's dictionary and encyclopaedia. Francis I., who 
 had seen and known many learned men, used to say that 
 Duchatel was the only one whose knowledge he had not 
 exhausted after two years' intimacy. Lively, intelligent, 
 well-informed, in his early manhood alternately a professor, 
 a corrector of the press, an adventurous traveller, the King 
 found him a most entertaining and instructive companion. 
 He had made the acquaintance of Francis in 1536, and 
 rapidly rose in the royal favour, which he retained until 
 the King's death. At first a sympathiser with the reformed 
 doctrines, he subsequently professed the strictest orthodoxy, 1 
 and sometimes expressed himself concerning heretics and 
 
 1 Yet he did not altogether escape the imputation of heresy. In his 
 funeral orations on the death of Francis I. he said that the soul of the 
 King had gone straight to paradise. The doctors of the Sorbonne (whom 
 he had offended by his protection of Robert Estienne) complained of so 
 horrible a doctrine. Pious as Francis I. was, his soul could not have 
 escaped passing through the flames of purgatory. Deputies were 
 appointed to wait upon the new King, and to charge Duchatel, who had 
 just been appointed Grand Almoner, with heresy. They were received 
 and entertained at dinner at St. Germans, where the King then was, by 
 his maitre d 'hotel, a certain Mendoza, who urged them not to proceed 
 further with their complaints. ' I know well the disposition of the late 
 King,' he said, ' he never could bear to remain long in one place, and if 
 he did go to purgatory, he only just stayed to drink a stirrup-cup.' 
 Beza, Hist. Eccl. book ii. 
 
xxn THE FIRST PRESIDENT 433 
 
 heresy in terms which we cannot but regret, but which do 
 not justify the severe language used of him by Beza and 
 Henri Estienne. It was seldom that he attempted to in- 
 fluence his master's opinions or actions. It was still more 
 rare for him to oppose Cardinal de Tournon. But he 
 was determined to make a vigorous effort to save from a 
 cruel death one of the foremost French men of letters, and 
 one with whom he had formerly been on terms of intimacy 
 and friendship. No time was to be lost ; the Parliament 
 was certain to confirm the sentence, and it would immedi- 
 ately be carried out. No further delay would be possible. 
 A petition to the King was forthwith prepared by Dolet 
 stating his case and the circumstances of his trial, repeating 
 his offer of submission and retraction of his errors, setting 
 forth the certainty of his conviction by the Parliament, and 
 praying the King's pardon. The document is judiciously 
 worded and well calculated to affect the King favourably to 
 the prisoner. It was presented by Duchatel, who personally 
 and warmly urged the cause of his friend. In the result, 
 and notwithstanding the opposition of the Cardinal, he was 
 successful. The proceedings before the Parliament were 
 again stayed, the case was brought up by the King's com- 
 mand before the Privy Council, and there inquired into ; 
 a favourable report was made to the King, and before the 
 end of June 1543 (Francis being then at Villers Cotterets) 
 the good Bishop had the satisfaction of obtaining for the 
 prisoner the royal pardon. 
 
 The letters of remission were in terms full and complete : 
 the heretic was to abjure all his errors before the Official of 
 the Bishop of Paris, all the books written and printed by 
 him referred to in the proces were to be burnt to ashes, but 
 subject to these conditions, all that had been done with 
 reference to the prisoner, the appeals, the sentences, the 
 judgments, the decrees, the trial, the procedure, were 
 
 2 F 
 
434 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 declared null and void ; perpetual silence was imposed on 
 the Procureur-Royal ; Dolet was declared to be restored to his 
 good name, fame, and life ; his goods, which as an effect of 
 the sentence were to be confiscated, were restored to him; 
 the Parliament was commanded to register the pardon, and 
 to allow the prisoner the full advantage thereof in every 
 way, and forthwith to set him at liberty. 
 
 The royal pardon was, however, but one step towards the 
 liberation of Dolet. The Parliament was always ready to 
 raise obstacles to the registration of a royal edict, and (as 
 in the case of the decree ordering the suppression of the 
 art of printing) a strong and judicious opposition, if well 
 supported by personal influence, not infrequently caused a 
 suspension or even a modification of the royal letters. The 
 Parliament had at its head a bigoted and violent opponent 
 of religious reform and intellectual progress, and among its 
 principal members were many who, if behind the First 
 President in ignorance and stupidity, were equal to him in 
 their hatred of the reformers and the men of letters. In a 
 body which, besides having Pierre Lizet as its head, had 
 Francois de St. Andre as a President a mortier, and Gilles 
 Le Maistre as Advocate-General, it was not difficult to find 
 pretexts for refusing to register the pardon or liberate the 
 prisoner. 
 
 It will be remembered that, owing to some mistake on 
 the part of Dolet or his advisers, the royal pardon granted 
 to him for the murder of ' Guillot dit Compaing ' had never 
 been registered, and that Dolet had only been liberated by 
 the Lieutenant-Governor of Lyons, on giving security to 
 appear for sentence whenever called upon. Accordingly, 
 when on the 19th of July the prisoner appeared in the 
 Criminal Court of the Parliament, presented the royal 
 pardon, and demanded that the same should be registered, 
 his application was refused on the ground (as it seems) that 
 
xxn THE FIRST PRESIDENT 435 
 
 he was still under sentence of death for the murder ofi 
 Compaing, and that the letters patent of the preceding June 
 in no way freed him from that sentence or its consequences, 
 and the prisoner was taken back to the Conciergerie. 
 
 On the 24th of the same month he again appeared in 
 the chamber of La Tournelle and presented the pardon of 
 the 19th of February 1537 ; but it was contended by his 
 opponents that this pardon, not having been duly registered 
 by the Seneschal of Lyons, was of no effect and could not 
 be pleaded, and the court again refused his application. 
 Once more the King was personally applied to, and on the 
 1st of July further letters patent were granted by Francis, 
 ordering the Parliament forthwith to register and give the 
 prisoner the benefit of the letters patent of February 1537. , 
 Again difficulties were made, and during the two following 
 months the unfortunate prisoner was frequently brought 
 before the court and interrogated, no doubt in the hope 
 that admissions might be obtained from him inconsistent 
 with his abjuration and submission to the Church, or that 
 he might be goaded into the use of unseemly or violent 
 language which would enable the Parliament, while pro- 
 fessing to recognise the royal letters, to punish Dolet for 
 contempt, or for acts or language subsequent to the date of 
 the pardon. 
 
 But the good Duchatel was unwearied in his efforts. 
 The King's literary tastes had not yet wholly passed away, 
 and he seems to have been convinced by the Bishop of Tulle 
 that it was Dolet's love of letters, and not his opinions, that 
 had led to his prosecution. Though rapidly sinking into 
 a state of mental and physical weakness, and a prey to 
 bigotry and superstition, there were still moments in which 
 Francis resembled his former and better self, and recollect- 
 ing that he had been called the father of letters, was un- 
 willing to seem wholly unmindful of his reputation. The 
 
436 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 refusal to register his successive pardons could not but 
 i have been distasteful to him, and accordingly further letters 
 patent were issued on the 21st of August confirming the 
 J former, ordering in peremptory terms the pardons already 
 j granted to be forthwith registered and due effect given 
 to them, or that the Parliament should within fifteen days 
 set forth and show to the King its grounds for refusing the 
 registration. This time success attended the efforts of 
 Duchatel. On the 13th of October 1543 Dolet was again 
 brought before the court in the chamber of La Tournelle, 
 all the letters patent were read, the Procureur- General 
 was heard, and the court decreed the registration of the 
 several letters of pardon and amplification ; the prisoner 
 was ordered to be liberated upon duly making his abjuration 
 before the Official of the Bishop ; at the same time his books 
 were ordered to be burned. The sentence was pronounced 
 by the President a mortier, Francois de St. Andre. 
 
 It is impossible to praise too highly the conduct of 
 Duchatel in this matter. Accomplished and intelligent, he 
 was a man neither of strong opinions nor of firm principles. 
 Essentially a courtier, he desired a life of learned leisure, 
 accompanied by royal favour and an abundance of good 
 things of all kinds, yet he risked the loss of all these by 
 his zealous attempts to save the life of one whom the 
 most powerful man in France, the Cardinal de Tournon, 
 had decided was an atheist, and had determined should 
 be burned. The Cardinal bitterly reproached the Bishop 
 of Tulle for his conduct. ' Do you,' said he, ' who hold the 
 rank of bishop in the Catholic Church, dare to oppose 
 yourself to all who have the interests of religion and piety 
 at heart, and to defend before the most Christian King, not 
 only those wretches who are infected with the Lutheran 
 heresy, but even atheists and blasphemers ? ' Duchatel 
 replied that he had not defended and did not defend any of 
 
xxn THE FIRST PRESIDENT 437 
 
 Dolet's crimes or heresies, that he had only interceded with 
 the King for one who promised a reformation of life and 
 manners befitting a Christian man. ' I,' he continued, ' act 
 the part of a bishop of the Church of Christ. I follow the 
 teaching of the Apostles, and of all those saints and martyrs 
 who by their blood have built up our holy Church. It is 
 their example which instructs me that the duty of a bishop 
 consists in turning the hearts of kings from bloodshed and 
 cruelty, in inclining them to gentleness, clemency, and mercy. 
 In accusing me of forgetting my duty as a bishop it is you 
 who forget your own. I have spoken as a bishop, you are 
 acting as an executioner.' 1 
 
 Released from prison, Dolet lost no time in returning to 
 Lyons to his wife, his son, his press, and his books. These, 
 not gold or silver, were, as he tells us, his treasures. To 
 Lyons he was bound by the strongest ties of affection : it 
 was there that he desired peacefully to pass his life, and to 
 pursue his literary and typographical avocations. 
 
 1 Gallandus, Vita Castettani, p. 62. About the same time, or a little 
 later, Duchatel successfully used his credit with the King in favour of 
 Ramus. Galland, Danes, Gouvea, and others had so worked upon the 
 King's mind as to induce him to decide on condemning Ramus to the 
 galleys for his heresies on the subject of Aristotle. It was then that 
 Duchatel, turning the matter into ridicule, appeased the King, and in- 
 duced him to come to a milder resolution. He represented to him that 
 it did not become so enlightened a king to inflict a criminal punishment 
 on a sophist whom no one believed to be serious, and who understood 
 nothing of philosophy, but that he ought rather to be made to dispute, 
 before competent judges, with other learned men, whose arguments might 
 convince him, and perhaps cure him of his folly. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 The Second Enfer 
 
 As good almost kill a man as kill a good book ; who kills a man kills a 
 reasonable creature, God's image, but he who destroys a good book kills 
 reason itself ; kills the image of God as it were in the eye. Many a man 
 lives a burden to the earth ; but a good book is the precious life-blood of 
 a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond 
 life. — Milton. 
 
 OT disheartened by his 
 past misfortunes, or by 
 the confiscation of nearly 
 all his books, Dolet lost 
 no time in again setting 
 his press to work. But 
 his misfortunes had, as 
 he thought, taught him 
 caution, and he was fully 
 resolved to keep out of 
 the dangerous line of 
 theology, and neither to 
 write nor print hence- 
 forth any book which 
 could cause the least scandal or bring him into the least 
 danger. The Commentaries of Caesar, and new editions of 
 his history of Francis I., of his observations upon Terence, 
 
 nasi Ik Ws5tsv$M^?s£k. ^ Is? 
 
 Ira? «lssisi!§S»Ek 11 
 
chap, xxm THE SECOND ENFER 439 
 
 of the works of Marot, and of the three books which had 
 previously hit the tastes of the time and enjoyed for the 
 moment an enormous popularity, La parfaicte Amye, 
 UAmye de Court, and Du Mespris de la Court: et de la 
 louange de la vie Rusticque, were the first fruits of his 
 freedom after his fifteen months of imprisonment, and were ' 
 books which afforded no handle to his enemies. But he had 
 underrated their hatred and their power. Shortly before 
 the 6 th of January 1544, two packets, on which were 
 written in large legible letters the name of Etienne Dolet, 
 were seized as they were entering the gates of Paris, and, 
 when examined, were found to be filled, the one with books 
 which had been printed by him, the other with prohibited 
 books emanating from the heretical press of Geneva. So' 
 far as we know, there was no evidence whatever that the 
 books had been sent by Dolet ; he positively denied that 
 such was the case, and it seems to me in the highest degree 
 improbable that, if he had sent them, he would have caused 
 his now too well-known name to be inscribed upon them. 
 Besides, the whole of the heretical books printed by him or 
 found in his house had been confiscated, and were already 
 in the possession of the Parliament or the Sorbonne. But j 
 the clumsy ruse of his enemies was successful. The matter 
 was forthwith brought before the Parliament. Dolet was 
 charged with sending prohibited and heretical books to 
 Paris, and an order for his arrest was despatched to Lyons. 
 It reached him on the 6th of January, whilst in the midst 
 of his family and friends he was celebrating ' le jour des rois,' 
 as he himself tells us : — 
 
 Quand on me vint au corps ainsi saisir ; 
 Car a cela alors point ne pensoys, 
 Et de crier le Roy boyt m'avancoys. 
 
 His denial of the charge was of no avail ; he was 
 
44Q ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 forthwith arrested and committed by the Lieutenant-General 
 of the Seneschalty to the custody of Jacques Devaulx, messager 
 ordinaire of Lyons, who was charged with the duty of taking 
 him to Paris, and in the meantime he was thrown into the 
 prison at Lyons, where, however, he only remained two days. 
 On the day following he persuaded the concierge of the 
 prison that it was of great importance to him that he should 
 on the next day visit his house in the Rue Merciere, as a 
 sum of money was payable to him which the debtor would 
 not pay unless he was there in person to receive it ; and he 
 further added the inducement that he had some excellent 
 Muscat wine just ready for drinking, and that if the concierge 
 would conduct him for a short time to his house he could 
 receive the money, and then they could together drink the 
 Muscat ' a plein fonds? 
 
 Gaolers and turnkeys have at all times had the reputation 
 of being thirsty souls, and, induced by the promise of the 
 wine, and not impossibly of a pecuniary gratification or a 
 commission on the amount to be received, the concierge 
 agreed to his prisoner's proposal, taking, however, as he 
 thought, due precautions against his escape. A supper was 
 provided at Dolet's expense for the concierge and four 
 sergents-de-ville, and very early the next morning, before 
 dawn, the concierge and his prisoner, preceded and followed 
 by two sergents, left the prison of La Rouane, which occupied 
 the site of the present. Palais de Justice. The bridge 
 which now crosses the Saone at that point did not exist in 
 the sixteenth century, but it seems probable that a foot- 
 bridge, possibly of boats, then occupied its place. The party 
 would cross the river by this bridge, and then would gain 
 the Rue Merciere very near to Dolet's house by the Rue 
 de la Monnaie. The Rue Merciere then runs parallel to 
 the Saone and to the Quai St. Antoine for some distance 
 in a northerly direction. At the corner of the Rue de la 
 
xxiii THE SECOND ENFER 441 
 
 Monnaie stood the convent of St. Antoine, and a little to 
 the north of the convent stood the house occupied by Dolet. 
 The upper stories of all the houses in this part of the 
 street have been since then demolished and rebuilt, but 
 the solid stone ground floors of most of them still remain 
 as they were in the sixteenth century. The entrance then 
 was, and still is, into an arched stone passage, which not 
 only gives access to the house itself, but extends (or 
 communicates with a further passage) under the house at 
 the back facing the river, and so affords a means of egress 
 to the Quai St. Antoine exactly as Dolet describes it. 1 
 
 The members of Dolet's household were prepared for his 
 visit, and had, as it appeared, privately received his directions 
 as to the course to be pursued. On arriving at the house, 
 Dolet knocked at the door leading into the dark arched 
 passage ; it was only partially and momentarily opened, 
 after much apparent hesitation, by some one from within, 
 who appeared greatly terrified at the sight of the guard 
 and immediately shut the door in the faces of the new- 
 comers. Dolet, however, forced his way into the passage ; the 
 concierge and sergents, not knowing the locality, followed as 
 best they could, the outer door was shut and fastened behind, 
 another door was hastily opened and as hastily shut ; Dolet 
 passed through it, but the concierge and sergents remained 
 
 1 I owe it to the kindness of M. le President Baudrier that I am able 
 thus precisely to identify the locality of Dolet's house. He was good 
 enough to walk with me from the Palais de Justice to the Rue Merciere, 
 following the route which Dolet and the concierge must have traversed, 
 and through several of the still existing stone passages which connect 
 the houses on the west side of this street with the Quai St. Antoine. 
 Though Dolet's house itself cannot be precisely identified, yet his 
 description of it and the narration of his escape enables us to decide 
 with certainty that it was one of those lying on the westerly side of the 
 street, a little to the north of the site of the convent of St. Antoine. 
 M. Boulmier has strangely mistaken the locality in giving Dolet a house 
 on the quay. 
 
442 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 fastened up like birds in a cage, while the prisoner escaped 
 through the passage at the back leading to the quay, and 
 soon was far from Lyons. He succeeded in making his 
 escape to Piedmont, where he remained concealed for some 
 months. 1 
 
 In the meantime, although Dolet had in person escaped 
 from the hands of his enemies, his books were still in 
 their possession, and it will be remembered that part of 
 the sentence of the Parliament was that they should be 
 burnt. It would seem that this part of the sentence was 
 not immediately carried into execution, and it may not 
 improbably have been the very books which were ordered 
 to be burnt that had been made use of for the infamous 
 plot against him which I have already narrated. 
 
 Next to burning heretics, nothing delighted the First 
 President so much as burning books. If he had not a 
 hand in the plot himself, we shall not be far wrong in 
 attributing it to his creature Andre, whom, as before 
 mentioned, he kept in his pay for the purpose of discovering 
 and betraying the buyers and sellers of heretical books. 
 The plot having for the present failed by the escape of the 
 prisoner, a grand auto da fe of the books was decided on, 
 and that this might be done with more pomp and publicity 
 it was determined not to rest upon the sentence already 
 
 1 The account of Dolet's arrest and escape is taken from his poem 
 addressed to the King in his Second Enfer. Jacques Devaulx, in his 
 petition to the Parliament of Paris praying to be reimbursed his expenses 
 arising from Dolet's escape and subsequent capture (Archives Nationales, 
 Carton x 2 b 6), states that on January 7 he had been 'charge par le 
 lieutenant general de la Seneschaucee de Lyon d'amener prisonnier 
 des prisons ordinaires de Lyon en la conciergerie du palais ung 
 nomme Estienne Dolet imprimeur de Lyon lequel des le VHP desd. 
 mois et an seroit evade" des mains et puyssance dud. suppliant.' It is 
 not impossible that Devaulx is the person referred to by Dolet as the 
 concierge. 
 
xxm THE SECOND ENFER 443 
 
 pronounced, but to have the matter again brought before 
 the Parliament and a formal decree made for their burn- 
 ing. At a sitting of the Grand Chamber on the 14th 
 of February 1544, presided over by the First President 
 Lizet in person, the Inquisitor-General made an application 
 for a special direction for burning the books mentioned in 
 the sentence of the preceding 1 3th of October, as containing 
 damnable, pernicious, and heretical doctrines, and on his 
 demand the court ordered that they should be burnt at the " 
 parvis of the church of Notre Dame at Paris, to the sound 
 of the great bell of the church, public proclamation, accom- 
 panied by the sound of the trumpet, being at the same time 
 made, forbidding all booksellers and printers thenceforth 
 from possessing such books, under pain of being punished 
 as heretics and favourers of heretics. Nevertheless the 
 court ordered that a single copy of each book should be 
 preserved and carefully kept in the registry of the Parlia- 
 ment. The sentence is signed by the First President, and 
 would be forthwith carried into execution. 1 Of several of 
 the books named in the sentence no copy is now known to 
 exist, while others are represented by a single copy, probably 
 the one that was retained by the order of the Court. 
 
 The mountains of Piedmont afforded Dolet a safe re- 
 treat. There he occupied himself in preparing a series of 
 
 1 The following were the books ordered to be burned : — Les Gestes du 
 Roy, Epigrammes de Dolet, Caton Chrestien, V Exhortation a la lecture de la 
 Saincte Escripture, La Fontaine de Vye, Les Cinquante-deux Dimenches 
 composes par Fabre Stapulense, Les Heures de la Compaignie des Penitens, Le 
 Chevalier Chrestien, La maniere de soy confesser d'Erasme ; Le Sommaire du 
 Vieil et Nouveau Testament imprim'e par le diet Dolet ; Le Nouveau Testa- 
 ment, imprime par icelluy Dolet en francoys, Loci communes de Melanchthon, 
 Unio Dissidentium, la Bible de Geneve, Calvinus intitule, Institution de 
 religion chrestienne, per Calvinum. Proces d'Estienne Dolet, p. 30 ; 
 D'Argentre, Collectio Judiciorum, vol. ii. pt. 1, p. 133 ; Bulletin de la 
 Societe de Phistoire du protestantisme franfais, 1 Jan. 1885. 
 
444 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 poems upon his imprisonment, to which he gave the name of 
 Le Second Enfer. In 1532, Marot, then in prison on charges 
 of heresy, had described his imprisonment, and appealed 
 against it to the King, in a volume which he subsequently 
 published under the name of L' Enfer, and from this time the 
 expression ' L 'Enfer de Marot ' has been used as a synonym 
 for a prison. Dplet borrowed the title from his friend. He 
 had intended, as he tells us in the preface, to publish a Premier 
 Enfer, relating to the fifteen months' imprisonment which had 
 so lately terminated ; but his arrest and flight had prevented 
 him from printing, although he had nearly completed, this 
 work, and the necessity of obtaining the royal pardon for his 
 escape from the hands of justice, and permission to return to 
 France, induced him to compose and publish his Second Enfer 
 before the first had seen the light. It was completed on the 
 1st of May 1544, and shortly afterwards, unable to resist the 
 desire of once more embracing his wife and son, Dolet 
 ventured to enter France, and even to make his way to 
 Lyons, hoping that his visit would remain undiscovered, and 
 intending, after he had given the necessary directions for 
 printing his Second Enfer, to proceed to the royal camp, 
 which was then pitched in Champagne, to present to the 
 King, whom he expected to find there, the pathetic epistles 
 with which the book commences, and to entreat pardon for 
 his escape, and permission to return in peace to Lyons. 
 ' Lately returning from Piedmont in company with troops of 
 veteran soldiers in order to proceed with them to the camp 
 which you, most Christian King, have pitched in Cham- 
 pagne,' thus he subsequently wrote to Francis I., ' affection 
 and paternal love would not allow me to pass near Lyons 
 without visiting it ; so, laying aside all thoughts of the danger 
 and risk which I ran, I went there to see my litde son, and 
 to visit my family. Being at Lyons four or five days, for 
 the contentment of my spirit I did not forget to examine my 
 
xxi 1 1 THE SECOND ENFER 445 
 
 treasures to see if there was anything spoiled or lost. My 
 treasures are not gold or silver or other perishable things, 
 but the products of my mind as well in Latin as in your 
 French tongue, treasures of far more importance to me than 
 earthly riches, and which I hold in singular affection for this 
 reason, that these are they which will make me live after my; 
 death, and will bear witness of me that I have not lived in , 
 this world as an idle or useless person. Examining these my 
 said treasures, I chanced to light upon two dialogues of Plato 
 which I had some time since translated, and as I had resolved 
 to publish certain of the compositions which I had made in 
 justification of myself with reference to my second imprison- 
 ment, it has seemed good to me to add to these compositions 
 the said dialogues, since the one is not unsuited to my con- 
 dition, being upon the miseries of human life, and the 
 other is to show you that I have commenced and made good 
 progress in the translation of the whole of the works of Plato. 
 So that either in your kingdom or elsewhere (since without 
 cause I have been driven from France) I promise you with 
 the help of God that I will give you within a year the whole 
 of Plato translated into your own language. 
 
 ' Certainly, if my chief aim were not the honour and welfare 
 of my country, I should not devote myself to such excessive 
 labour ; but even if France should prove ungrateful in refer- 
 ence to me (I call it ungrateful, since its rulers try to trouble 
 me and expel me from it without any crime of mine), I shall 
 not on this account cease from enriching it and illustrating it 
 in every way that I possibly can. It is in your power, Sire, 
 to put an end to these my troubles, and by your goodness 
 and clemency to give me still greater heart for pursuing and 
 effectuating my literary enterprises as well Latin as French, 
 and that you would do this I most humbly beg and pray.' 
 
 The volume which Dolet caused to be printed at Lyons, 
 containing the Second Enfer and the two dialogues {Axiochus, 
 
446 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 then erroneously attributed to Plato, and Hipparchus), is in 
 some respects the most interesting of all the compositions of 
 its author. Its extreme rarity is such that no copy is to be 
 found in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and that neither Nee de 
 la Rochelle nor any of the writers before M. Aime Martin 
 who have referred to it (except Goujet) were able to meet 
 with it. The single copy of the Lyons edition now known 
 to exist is among the treasures of the Mazarin library, and 
 it is from this that M. Aime Martin published his reprint in 
 1830. The epistles of which the Second Enfer is composed 
 are some of them of considerable poetic merit, and are written 
 in a pathetic and elevated tone, full of lofty and noble senti- 
 ments, asking for the writer's liberty, yet never in a servile 
 spirit, but on the grounds of his innocence and his deserts, and 
 I cannot but think that they conclusively disprove the 
 charges of irreligion and impiety. But the chief interest in 
 the volume does not arise from its merits or character, but 
 1 from the fact that it cost its author his life. Three words 
 j of the translation of Axiochus constituted one of the capital 
 i charges against Dolet. Of this book M. Aime Martin has 
 remarked that ' it is one of the pieces of the great process 
 prosecuted by fanaticism against the friends of intelligence 
 and of reason. Dolet published it to justify himself from the 
 calumnies of the monks, and the monks suppressed it in 
 order to destroy all traces of their victim. Such a work 
 ought not to perish. We should always be able to find a 
 copy to throw at the feet of those who regret the temporal 
 power of the Church, and the weakness of kings who allowed 
 it to rule.' 
 
 The Second Enfer consists of twelve epistles in verse : two 
 
 i addressed to the King, two to the Duke of Orleans, one to 
 
 the Cardinal of Lorraine, two to the Duchess D'Estampes, 
 
 and one each to the sovereign and venerable court of the 
 
 ; Parliament of Paris, the heads of justice at Lyons, the Queen 
 
xxin THE SECOND ENFER 447 
 
 of Navarre the sole Minerva of France, Cardinal de Tournon, ! 
 and the author's friends. The first epistle, addressed to the 
 King, is both the longest and the most interesting. Dolet 
 gives an account of the plot of his enemies in preparing and 
 sending to Paris the two packets of books, and shows the 
 absurdity of supposing he had done this ; he gives an account 
 of his imprisonment and of his escape, and then defends his 
 life, his opinions, and his actions. A single crime he appears 
 to admit, that he had continued since the royal pardon to 
 sell several books of Holy Scripture : this seems to have been 
 ' the head and front of his offending ' : — 
 
 Mais quelcques gens ne sont point a leur aise, 
 De ce que vends, et imprime sans craincte, 
 Livres plusieurs de l'Escripture Saincte. 
 Voyla le mal dont si fort ilz se deulent : 
 Voyla pourquoy ung si grand mal me veulent : 
 Voyla pourquoy je leur suys odieux : 
 Voyla pourquoy ont jure leurs grands dieux 
 Que j'en mourray, si de propos ne change 
 N'est ce pas la une rancune estrange ? 
 
 In his epistle to the Chiefs of Justice of Lyons, he is still 
 more explicit on this subject : — 
 
 Or on scait bien, et bien scavoir se peult, 
 Que la raison, dont de moy on se deult, 
 Et dont je suys poursuyvy par Justice, 
 N'est pour forfaict, et aulcun meschant vice, 
 Auquel je soys par trop abandonne. 
 C'est seulement que me suis addonne 
 (Sans mal penser) depuis ung temps certain, 
 De mettre en vente en Francois et Latin 
 
 )uelcques livrets de la saincte Escripture. 
 
 ^oyla mon mal, voyla ma forfaicture 
 Si forfaicture on la doibt appeler. 
 Mais si au Roy il plaist me rappeller 
 Et faire tant, que ce malheur me sorte, 
 Je suys content, que le Diable m'emporte, 
 
 Vo^ 
 
448 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Ou qu'on me brusle, ou qu'on me face pendre, 
 Si pour tel cas jamais tombe en esclandre. 
 
 He promises the King that for the future he will never 
 be guilty of this crime : — 
 
 Quant au surplus je m'en deporteray, 
 
 Et ton vouloir en tout je parferay : 
 
 Car s'il te plaist me defendre tout court, 
 
 Que veu le bruict, qui partout de moy court, 
 
 Je n'aye plus a liures imprimer 
 
 De l'Escripture ; on me puisse opprimer, 
 
 Si de ma vie il en sort ung de moy ; 
 
 Et si j'en vends, tomber puisse en esmoy 
 
 De mort villaine ou de flamme ou de corde 
 
 Et de bon coeur a. cela je m'accorde. 
 
 Although here, as elsewhere, he seems to have had a 
 singular prevision of the fate that was to befall him, and 
 which the boldness of his language seems to invite, he by no 
 means wishes for death. On the contrary, he begs the King 
 to grant him life that he may devote it to study and the pro- 
 duction of works useful to his country : — 
 
 Vivre je veulx, pour l'honneur de la France 
 
 Que je pretends (si ma mort on n'avance) 
 
 Tant celebrer, tant orner par escripts, 
 
 Que l'estrangier n'aura plus a mespris 
 
 Le nom Francoys : et bien moins nostre langue 
 
 Laquelle on tient pauvre en tout harengue. 
 
 Then, with more vigour than prudence, denouncing the 
 enemies of literature and culture into whose hands the 
 wretched King had now fallen, and whose slave, though 
 sometimes unwillingly, he now was, he calls on Francis not 
 to permit the persecutions of the learned, but to protect them 
 against the malice of their enemies : — 
 
 Permettras tu que par gens vicieux, 
 Par leur effort lasche et pernicieux, 
 
xxiii THE SECOND ENFER 449 
 
 Les gens de bien et les gens de scavoir, 
 Au lieu d'honneur, viennent a recepvoir 
 Maulx infiniz, et oultrages enormes ? 
 II n'est pas temps, ores, que tu t'endormes, 
 Roy nompareil, des vertueux le pere : 
 Entends tu point au vray, quel vitupere 
 Ces ennemys de vertu te pourchassent, 
 
 8uand les scavantz de ton royaume ilz chassent, 
 u les chasser a tout le moins pretendent ? 
 Certes (grand Roy) ces malheureux entendent 
 D'anihiler devant ta propre face, 
 Et toy vivant, la bienheureuse race 
 Des vertueux, des lettres et lettrez. 
 
 All that he desires and supplicates from the King is to 
 be allowed to return to France, to dwell peacefully at Lyons, 
 to devote himself to literary pursuits. 
 
 ' These verses,' remarks M. Aime Martin, ' as verses, are 
 far from being admirable ; but what elevation, what courage 
 there is in the sentiments which they proclaim ! Thus to 
 attack face to face the enemies of humanity, to throw light into 
 the hearts of kings, to teach them that which no one dares to 
 say to them, but which they have so much interest in know- 
 ing, namely, that they should make their glory repose on 
 the happiness and intelligence of their people, to do that 
 to-day, would be to deserve well of mankind, to do that in 
 those days of superstition was to devote oneself to death.' 1 
 
 The epistles to the Duke of Orleans, the Cardinal of 
 Lorraine, the Duchess d'Estampes, and the Queen of Navarre, 
 need not detain us. Dolet repeats the assertion of his 
 innocence, gives an account of the false charge upon which 
 he had been arrested, and entreats the interest of these 
 powerful personages with the King. In his epistle to the 
 Parliament of Paris he ventures on a still bolder strain, and 
 
 1 Rehabilitation (p. 8), prefixed to the reprint of Le Second Enfer. 
 Techener, 1830. 
 
 2 G 
 
45o ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 defends himself and his acts, and indirectly literature gener- 
 ally, in a strain of noble indignation, which if the author 
 really expected it to have any effect, shows us how entirely 
 ignorant he was of the cruel heart and narrow mind of the 
 First President : — 
 
 Quand on m'aura ou brusle ou pendu, 
 
 Mis sur la roue, et en cartiers fendu, 
 
 Qu'en sera-il ? ce sera ung corps mort. 
 
 Las ! toutesfoys n'auroit on nul remord 
 
 De faire ainsy mourir cruellement 
 
 Ung qui en rien n'a forfaict nullement ? 
 
 Ung homme est il de valeur si petite ? 
 
 Est ce une mouche ? ou ung verms, qui merite 
 
 Sans nul esgard si tost estre destruict ? 
 
 Ung homme est il si tost faict et instruict, 
 
 Si tost muny de science et vertu, 
 
 Pour estre ainsi qu'une paille ou festu, 
 
 Anihile' ? faict on si peu de compte 
 
 D'ung noble esprit qui mainct aultre surmonte ? 
 
 He concludes with asking from the parliament — 
 
 Ung bon arrest qui en sens bref et court 
 
 Dira comment la venerable court 
 
 Du parlement de Paris me remect 
 
 En mon entier : et qu'au neant el'mect, 
 
 Du tout en tout, mon emprisonnement, 
 
 Sans que jamais bruict en soyt aultrement ? 
 
 Cela faisant, justice vous fairez, 
 
 Et d'equite grande vous userez 
 
 En relevant l'innocent de malheur, 
 
 Qui ne taira jamais vostre valleur. 
 
 To Cardinal de Tournon, the all-powerful minister, he 
 protests his innocence from all thought of heresy, he declares 
 that he has lived and wishes to live a good Christian ; he 
 reminds the Cardinal, perhaps rather maladroitly, that it was 
 he who seven years before at Moulins had presented his 
 
xxiii THE SECOND ENFER 451 
 
 Commentaries to the King, and that to him he was indebted 
 for the royal privilege to print the books which he should 
 compose and edit, and he begs now for a single word to the 
 King in his favour. But it is in the epistle to his friends 
 with which the Second Enfer concludes that the author rises 
 to his highest strain. He has done with apologies, he has 
 done with justification, he has done with complaint, and as a 
 true disciple of Cicero and Plato, conscious of his innocence, 
 conscious of his integrity, he is prepared for either fortune, 
 equally ready for life or death : — 
 
 Bon cueur, bon cueur ; c'est a ce coup, 
 Que Fortune a faict son effort, 
 Pour me dresser du mal beaucoup : 
 Mais tousiours je suis le plus fort, 
 Car combien qu'elle tasche fort 
 De ruiner ce peu de bien, 
 
 ?ue j'avoys quis par bon moyen, 
 outesfois, l'esprit me demeure. 
 Parquoy oster ne me peult rien, 
 
 eue ne recouure en bien peu d'heure. 
 'est assez, que l'esprit s'asseure, 
 Et qu'il ne perd point sa Constance : 
 Victeur sera (c'est chose seure) 
 Du monstre arme a toute oultrance. 
 O que Vertu a de puissance ! 
 O que Fortune est imbecille ! 
 O comme Vertu la mutille, 
 Quand elle prend le frein aux dents ! 
 vertu n'est jamais inutille : 
 Les effects en sont evidents. 
 Ne plaignez doncq' mes accidents 
 Amys : doulcement je les porte, 
 Et me ry de ces incidents : 
 Car Vertu tousiours me conforte 
 Tant, que j'espere faire en sorte, 
 Que Fortune a moy attachee, 
 La premiere en sera faschee : 
 
452 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Et que du mal bien me viendra. 
 
 Ce ne sera chose cachee : 
 Je suys certain qu'il adviendra. 
 
 Had the book ended here we could hardly imagine that 
 even the First President could have found matter for con- 
 demnation. But after the Enfer came the two dialogues, 
 Deulx Dialogues de Platon, Philosophe Divin et supernaturel, 
 Scavoir est L'ung intitule Axiochus, Qui est des miseres de la 
 vie humaine et de Timmortalite de Vame. Et par consequence 
 du mespris de la mort. Item ung aultre, intitule Hipparchus, 
 qui est de la convoitise de I' Homme, touchant la lucratifve. Le 
 tout nouvellement traduict en langue Francoyse par Estienne 
 Dolet, natif D 'Orleans, 1544. This was one of the earliest 
 attempts to clothe any of the writings of Plato in a French 
 1 dress, and it is curious that the first dialogue to be translated 
 J into that language should be one of those now admitted to 
 | be apocryphal. 1 
 
 1 According to Nee de la Rochelle, the Axiochus had already been 
 translated into French and printed at Paris. The authority cited for this 
 statement is the catalogue of the library of Count Hohendorf (now at 
 Vienna) part 3, No. 1930, where a French translation of the Axiochus 
 appears, undated but bound up with pieces dated 1537 and 1539, from 
 which Nee de la Rochelle conjectures that the Axiochus, would be about the 
 same date. The only other copy known of this translation is in my 
 possession, having been purchased by me at the sale of Baron Pichon's 
 Library (May 1897, Cat. No. 11 14.). Baron Pichon thought it peut etre 
 unique, but from the fact that the title agrees with that given in the 
 Hohendorf Catalogue I have no doubt that they are both copies of the 
 same book. The following is'the title : Axiochus Dialogue de Xenocrates 
 Platonique, ou est traicte de despriser la mort, et de limmortalite de lame, 
 traduict de Grec en Francoys. On les vent a Paris a la rue sainct Jaques a 
 lenseigne des troys Corones par Hierome de Gourmoni. The dedication 
 is signed ' Gu. Post,' and confirms the statement of La Croix du Maine 
 that the Axiochus had been translated by Postel. The translation seems 
 to be made — as the title states — directly from the Greek, and is altogether 
 different from that of Dolet. A comparison of the two leads to the con- 
 clusion that neither translator was acquainted with the other's work, but I 
 
xxiii THE SECOND ENFER 453 
 
 Whether Dolet translated these Dialogues directly from 
 the Greek, or from the Latin translations already existing, 
 has been considered a matter of doubt, and the question 
 whether he was in fact acquainted with the Greek language 
 has been a subject of much discussion among his critics and 
 biographers. 1 Duverdier states him to have been ' Men 
 verse es langues Grecque et Latine? Baillet adopts this state- 
 ment. La Monnoye, however, in his edition of the 
 Jugemens des Savans, says, 2 ' It does not appear by the 
 works of Dolet that he knew Greek, his pretended versions 
 of the Hipparchus of Plato and the Axiochus have been 
 made from the Latin translations.' Maittaire quotes this 
 passage, but is disposed to give more weight to Dolet's 
 own statement that he had devoted much time and labour 
 to the study of Greek as well as Latin. 3 Nee de la 
 Rochelle, however, whilst admitting the weakness of Baillet's 
 
 am unable to form any opinion which was the earlier in point of time. I only 
 find two other books of Postel printed by Jerome Gourmont, Syria Descriptio, 
 1540, and Signorum Coelestium Configuratio, 1553. In the Yemeniz cata- 
 logue, No. 4.73, is a translation of the Axiochus printed at Paris by Denis 
 Janot, but without date. A note states it to be a second edition of 
 Dolet's translation, and it is so given in the last edition of Brunet's Manuel 
 (vol. iv. c. 703), but this seems doubtful, the title being altogether different. 
 I have been unable to meet with a copy of the book. 
 
 The same year (1544) that Dolet's translation of the two dialogues 
 appeared, a French translation of the Lysis of Plato by Des Periers was 
 printed at Lyons by De Tournes, with other works of Des Periers. It is 
 erroneously stated by M. Aime Martin (Rehabilitation, p. 21) to bear 
 the mark of Dolet, the doloire or axe. 
 
 1 We cannot attach much weight to the statement of so bitter an 
 enemy as Fr.Floridus who writes 'verum de Graecis Doletus non loquitur, qui 
 ne primis quidem Gnecte lingua rudimentis sit imbutus.' Adv. Doleti Calumnias. 
 
 2 Vol. i. pt. 2, p. 43. 
 
 3 Maittaire, Ann. Typ. vol. iii. p. 82. M. Boulmier has strangely 
 misunderstood Maittaire's remark. He says (p. 213), 'Maittaire qui 
 produit en note cette assertion du savant Dijonnais (La Monnoye) la 
 combat au moyen d'un argument plus specieux que solide, en invoquant 
 l'autorite de La Croix du Maine et de Duverdier tous deux probabkment 
 
454 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 argument, attempts with much ingenuity to combat the 
 statement of La Monnoye, and to show that Dolet was a 
 Greek scholar. He rests his case, 1 first, on the statement 
 
 \ of Dolet himself, who in his Maniere de Men traduire says 
 that the reading of the Latin and Greek languages was his 
 principal occupation ; secondly, on the privilege granted 
 to him by Francis I., for the impression of Greek, Latin, 
 Italian, and French books, composed, translated, revised, 
 amended, illustrated, or annotated by him ; thirdly, he 
 contends that it would have been impossible for Dolet to 
 have understood or translated the works of Cicero without 
 understanding Greek, since Cicero has made frequent use 
 of Greek words, has inserted in his works a great number 
 of Greek passages in verse and prose, and has translated or 
 
 \ imitated from that language a still greater number, so that, 
 without a knowledge of Greek, Dolet would have been 
 stopped at each line of his translation of the Familiar Epistles, 
 and still more of that of the Tusculans ; lastly, he replies to 
 the argument that might be drawn from the fact that Dolet 
 had not in fact printed any Greek books, by saying that 
 neither had he printed any Italian work, yet that it could 
 not be denied that he knew that language after having 
 spent more than four years in Italy. Nee de la Rochelle 
 further refers to the Greek verses addressed to Dolet by 
 Honor e Veracius, with the remark, ' C'est a mon avis se 
 moquer d'un savant, que de le louer en face dans une 
 langue qu'il n'entend pas.' 2 
 
 I need hardly say that M. Boulmier, who invariably 
 
 versus dans la langue Grecque.' This is just what Maittaire does not do. 
 He points out that Baillet was in error in citing La Croix du Maine as 
 an authority for Dolet's knowledge of Greek, as that writer says nothing 
 on the subject, and though he considers La Monnoye wrong in saying 
 that Duverdier was altogether ignorant of Greek, his own view is based 
 not at all upon Duverdier's opinion but upon Dolet's own statements. 
 1 Vie de Dolet, p. 71. 2 Ibid. p. 94. 
 
xxm THE SECOND ENFER 455 
 
 adopts the conclusion most favourable to the reputation of 
 his hero, concludes that ' Dolet knew sufficient Greek to 
 understand and translate Plato, not only by the aid of a 
 Latin version, but directly from the original text.' I have 
 already mentioned that I have been fortunate enough to 
 discover two (partially) Greek books printed by Dolet, 
 and which have been hitherto entirely unknown, the 
 Institutiones and Meditationes Grammatics of Clenard. 1 
 To the first of these is prefixed a Latin ode by Dolet 
 himself. Nee de la Rochelle's arguments do not seem to 
 me to be of much force. All the passages quoted by 
 Cicero in the Tusculans from Greek authors are cited in 
 Latin, and there are not more than about a dozen isolated 
 Greek words given in that work ; and as to these, and the 
 verses of Honore Veracius, if verses they can be called, 
 they could have been easily translated, with the aid of the 
 dictionary of Craston, Gyllius, or Morrhius, by any one 
 who knew the Greek alphabet ; an ability to translate these 
 certainly does not at all imply the ability to read Plato in 
 the original, and a careful perusal and consideration of 
 Dolet's translations of the Epistola Familiares and~ tin- 
 Tusculans as well as of his other writings leads me to the 
 conclusion that he had acquired a certain superficial acquaint- 
 ance with Greek, but I can find nothing whatever to induce 
 me to think that he was competent to read Plato, much 
 less to translate his writings from the original. But further,; 
 a comparison of Dolet's translation of the Axiochus with 
 the Latin versions of Agricola and Ficinus makes it quite 
 clear to me that Dolet's translation is made direct from that 
 of Agricola, and not from the Greek original, though I am 
 far from meaning to suggest, or even from thinking, that 
 
 1 The Meditationes include the Epistle of St. Basil to St. Gregory. 
 Besides these, Dolet printed T. Gaza's Greek translation of Cicero De 
 Senectute and Somnium Scipionis. 
 
456 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 he had not gone through the' originals with the assistance of 
 one or more of the Latin translations. 1 
 
 The Second Enfer and the two dialogues were committed 
 to the press by Dolet during his short stay at Lyons, but 
 it is not probable that he was himself able to superintend 
 their publication, and indeed it has been assumed by all 
 his biographers, that within a few days after his arrival at 
 Lyons he was there discovered and arrested. This, however, 
 is an error. His arrest did not take place at Lyons, nor 
 until some time after he had left that city, not long indeed 
 before the beginning of September (1544). In the letter 
 to Francis I. prefixed to the two dialogues, 2 he states that his 
 principal object in leaving his retreat in Piedmont was to 
 proceed to the King's camp in Champagne in order person- 
 ally to obtain, as he seems to have thought he should have 
 no difficulty in obtaining, the royal pardon for his escape 
 from prison. Now in this same year (1544), simultaneously 
 
 1 The dialogue entitled Axiochus, by whomsoever written, enjoyed 
 a greater popularity about this time than any of the genuine writings of 
 Plato. (Even an English translation appeared in 1592, nearly a 
 century before any part of the genuine works of Plato was translated into 
 our language.) No less than four independent translations of it into 
 Latin had appeared before 1 544, and of two of them there had been 
 numerous editions. The earliest printed was that of Marsilius Ficinus, 
 by whom the work was attributed to Xenocrates. It was printed, with 
 the translation of Iamblichus and other works, by Aldus in 1497, and again 
 in 1 5 16. At least eight other reprints appeared before 1540. The 
 dialogue had, however, been translated by Rudolf Agricola, of whose 
 translation the first edition with which I am acquainted appeared at 
 Antwerp in 15 11. It was reprinted in 1515, twice in 1 518, and again 
 in 1532. In 1523 Pirckheymer published a translation at Nuremburg, 
 and in 1 542 there was printed at Paris, and reprinted the following year 
 at Basle, an edition of the Greek text, with a translation by Joachim 
 Perion. Of these translations I only know those of Ficinus and Agricola, 
 both of which I have compared with Dolet's French translation. Of the 
 Hipparcbus I know of no translation printed before 1 544 except that of 
 Ficinus. 2 Ante, p. 444. 
 
xxiii THE SECOND ENFER 457 
 
 with or very shortly after the publication of the Second Enfer j 
 at Lyons, an edition, with several of the compositions of 
 Marot added, was printed at Troyes in Champagne by j 
 Nicole Paris. The poems of Marot are judiciously selected 
 for the purpose which Dolet had in view, namely, of obtain- : 
 ing the favourable consideration of the King. They com- 
 prised Marot's epistle to the Duke of Orleans praying him 
 to use his influence with his father to obtain the poet's 
 recall from exile, several pious and orthodox compositions 
 in praise of the Virgin and of our Lord, and one in praise 
 of the King. I have already stated that I think that the wife 
 of Dolet was either a native of or connected with Troyes, the 
 great seat at that time of the paper manufacture in France, 
 and it seems to me probable that Dolet, after entrusting 
 the manuscript to his wife or some confidential assistant for 
 the purpose of being printed, left Lyons (perhaps finding 
 that his presence there was known or suspected) and pro- 
 ceeded to Troyes, intending thence to make his way to the 
 royal camp if he found that the King was there in person, 
 and that at Troyes he decided to print from a manuscript 
 which he took with him, intending to present it to the King, 
 his Second Enfer, together with the compositions of Marot, 
 in order that a printed copy might be laid before the King 
 on his arrival at the camp. Certain it is that at Troyes he 
 was arrested by Jacques Devaulx, the Messager of Justice 
 of Lyons who afterwards claimed payment from the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris for his costs and expenses in reference to the 
 escape and arrest of Dolet, and who we may well believe had 
 discovered Dolet's visit to Lyons, and had thence tracked 
 him to Troyes. 1 
 
 1 The conjectuf% which I expressed in the first edition of this book 
 that it was at Troyes — not at Lyons — that Dolet was arrested, is turned 
 to a certainty by the petition of Jacques Devaulx which has been found 
 for me by M. Stryienski in the National Archives. It is printed in full 
 in the Appendix to this volume. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 The Place Maubert 
 
 What is it, life ? a little strife, whose victories are vain, 
 Where those who conquer do not win, nor those receive who gain. 
 
 Lord Strangford. 
 
 HE petition of Jacques 
 Devaulx to the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris asking for 
 the payment of his ex- 
 penses tells us that after 
 the escape of his prisoner 
 at Lyons, on 8 th Janu- 
 ary 1544, he diligently 
 searched for Dolet in 
 Germany, Switzerland, 
 Geneva, Burgundy, 
 Franche Comte, Dau- 
 phine, Languedoc, and 
 elsewhere, and ultimately 
 arrested him at Troyes and lodged him in the prison there 
 about the end of August or the beginning of September in 
 the same year. Devaulx then proceeded 2t once to Paris, 
 which he reached in three days, to obtain the directions of the 
 Parliament. A commission from that body was forthwith 
 issued authorising him to engage twenty men and horses, and 
 
chap, xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 459 
 
 to return with them to Troyes, and bring Dolet to Paris, and 
 lodge him in the conciergerie. Pierre Segnault, Sergent Royal 
 ou Baillaye du Palais, was included in the commission and 
 ordered by the Procureur Royal to accompany Devaulx. On 
 the day following their arrival at Troyes, where as it is stated 
 Dolet had been ten days in prison, they left that city with 
 their prisoner, taking besides the twenty men on horseback, 
 six additional men on foot for the distance between Troyes 
 and Sens. After three days' journey they reached Paris as it 
 would seem on the 1 2th of September. 1 Dolet was forthwith 
 delivered over to the custody of the officers of the Parliament, 
 and thrown into the conciergerie from which he had been 
 discharged less than a year before, and where he was to pass 
 the remainder of his life. 
 
 The First President determined that the trial should take 
 place before himself ; yet even on a trial before Pierre Lizet, 
 it would, one imagines, have been difficult, upon the trumped- 
 up charge of sending the books to Paris and the subsequent 
 escape from the hands of justice, to condemn the prisoner to 
 
 1 Jacques Devaulx — whose name is variously written Desvaulx, des 
 Vaulx and Devaulx in the pieces of the Proch — and Pierre Segnault 
 immediately applied to the Parliament for payment of their expenses. 
 See in the Appendix the petitions with several orders made thereon. 
 Devaulx claimed more than 100 ecus, but seems to have been allowed 
 only 1 86 livres 3 sols and 6 deniers. In the recital of his petition con- 
 tained in the decree of the Parliament of 2 August 1546 (Proch, p. 36) 
 it is stated that he claimed more than milk ecus, but this is not borne 
 out by the petition of 17 September 1544. The decree of 2 August 
 1546, refers also to a petition of 16 September 1543, which has not been 
 found. The documents printed in the Appendix are all that M. Stryienski 
 has been able to find in the Archives in addition to those already printed 
 by M. Taillandier in the Proch, It will be noticed, however, that though 
 the actual petition of Devaulx is dated 17 September, his application 
 for payment had been made on or before the 13th, on which day the 
 taxation of the Huissier de Montmirel is dated. It is therefore possible 
 that there may have been some other petitions, to which that of 17 
 September was merely supplementary. 
 
460 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 death, since the ample letters of remission of the King duly 
 registered by the Parliament freed Dolet from the consequence 
 of the acts which had formed the pretext for his former con- 
 viction and sentence. Even in the Chambre Ardente, and 
 when the First President presided, a prisoner must be charged 
 with some offence of a capital nature to allow of his being 
 sentenced to death, whatever might be the character of the 
 evidence, perjured or otherwise, to be adduced on the part 
 of the prosecution. 
 
 The only publication of Dolet since his release in 1543 
 (except the reprints already referred to) was the volume 
 containing the Second Enfer and the Dialogues of Plato. 
 This it was now determined to examine in order to find 
 matter for the prosecution of the author, and it was accord- 
 ingly referred to the Faculty of Theology of Paris. No 
 heresy was found in the Second Enfer, or in the translation of 
 Hipparchus, but it was otherwise with the Axiochus. The aim 
 of the writer of that dialogue was to prove the immortality 
 . of the soul, an aim which was carefully kept in view by the 
 ; translator, and we may well believe that one of the objects 
 \ which Dolet had in view in printing it was to prove the falsity 
 , of the rumour which, as we have seen, had prevailed, that he 
 disbelieved or doubted the existence of the soul after death. 
 The following is the argument which he prefixed to the 
 dialogue : ' This dialogue of Plato is nothing else than a 
 divine remonstrance which Socrates made to Axiochus, who 
 had been in his life a man of great wisdom and virtue, but 
 finding himself at the point of death he was troubled in spirit, 
 and did not continue in his former firmness. This remon- 
 strance of Socrates, then, consists of a clear proof of the 
 immortality of the soul, and a declaration of the evils which 
 there are in human life from which we are delivered by death ; 
 we then return to the eternal mansions, where every felicity 
 and happiness abounds for those who have lived virtuously.' 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 461 
 
 In the course of the argument, however, which is perhaps 
 more ingenious than solid, Socrates is represented by the 
 author as making the following remark concerning death : — 
 
 ' On irepi pxv tovs faWas ovk eortv, ol 8k aTrodavovrei ovk turlv 
 wore orrre irept, <re vvv karlv, ov yap TtOvrjKas, ovre e? Tt jra^ots, la-rat irepl 
 crt' av yap ovk tern. 
 
 This is thus translated by Dolet : — 
 
 ' Pour ce qu'il est certain que la mort n'est point aux 
 vivants : et quant aux defuncts, ilz ne sont plus : doncques 
 la mort les attouche encores moins. Parquoy elle ne peult 
 rien sur toy, car tu n'es pas encores prest a deceder ; et 
 quand tu seras decede, elle n'y pourra rien aussi, attendu que 
 tu ne seras plus rien du tout} 
 
 The passage in the original taken by itself hardly seems 
 to advance the general argument, and even to be opposed 
 to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, though this/ 
 is by no means the case when taken in apposition with the 
 context, 2 but even the Sorbonne would scarcely have had the; 
 hardihood to accuse Plato (to whom the dialogue was then 
 by many attributed) of doubting or denying the immortality 
 of the soul, it was therefore necessary to allege that it was 
 wrongly translated. On the 14th of November 1544, the' 
 Faculty of Theology assembled in the hall of the Sorbonne. \ 
 ' A sentence from a certain book of Plato translated into S 
 French by a certain Dolet was read, which is as follows, apres 
 la mort tu ne seras plus rien du tout. It was judged to be 
 heretical, agreeing in the opinion of the Sadducees and the 
 
 1 The following is the translation of Agricola : ' Quoniam neque circa 
 viventes est : hi vero qui obierunt non sunt amplius. Itaque neque apud 
 te est non dum enim obiisti : neque si quid tibi accidat, est circa te futura 
 non enim ens.' 
 
 2 Although Socrates seems to adopt the sentiment which he expresses, 
 yet it is a statement of an argument which he heard from Prodicus, and 
 which he merely uses as an illustration of his own views. 
 
462 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Epicureans, wherefore it was committed to the deputies in 
 matters of faith to pronounce a censure upon the same book. 1 ' 
 The censure declares ' that in the dialogue called Acochius 
 (sic) the passage attetidu que tu ne seras plus rien du tout is 
 wrongly translated and is contrary to the intention of Plato, 
 in whose work neither in the Greek nor in the Latin are 
 there these words rien du tout. 
 
 The crime of Dolet was thus having added to the text of 
 Plato the words ' rien du tout,' words which if they are not 
 to be found in the original, or in the Latin translation, in no 
 way alter the sense of the text, but only express more clearly 
 the author's meaning, and the censure was made by theolo- 
 gians ignorant even how to spell correctly the title of the 
 book they condemned. Yet these three words, added merely 
 j for the purpose of more completely expressing the sense of 
 ! the author, contributed in no small degree to Dolet's death, 
 and seem to have formed the sole ground of the charge of 
 I blasphemy, one of the three counts of the indictment upon 
 ! which the capital and final sentence was based. 
 
 The First President had not often such a criminal as 
 Dolet before him, one who combined in his own person 
 nearly every character that was hateful to Pierre Lizet ; he 
 was a printer, a scholar, and a heretic, or something worse. 
 Of heretics and journeymen printers Lizet had condemned 
 abundance, but never since the condemnation of Berquin in 
 1529 had a scholar and a poet (the author of more than 
 fifteen works) been brought before the Parliament on the 
 charge of heresy. The process was long, but we have 
 scarcely any details of it. From the sentence it appears that 
 jthe charges -were principally three, blasphemy, sedition, and 
 exposing for sale prohibited and condemned books. The 
 (blasphemy, which seems to have been the principal charge, 
 
 1 D'Argentre, Collectio Judiciorum, vol. i. p. xiv ; Prods d' Estienne 
 Dolet, p. 33. 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 463 
 
 was, as we have seen, that contained in the translation of the J 
 Axiochus ; the charge of exposing prohibited and condemned ! 
 books for sale would be based partly upon the false allegation / 
 of sending the two packets of books into Paris, partly upon 
 the fact, which he admitted, that he had sold portions of the 
 Holy Scriptures in French and Latin ; the nature and ground; 
 of the charge of sedition we can only conjecture. The escape 
 from prison could hardly be intended by the word sedition, 
 but bearing in mind the part Dolet had taken in the disputes 
 between the master printers and the journeymen, and also 
 the fact which he tells us that his former arrest was the work 
 of the master printers, I incline to think that it would be in 
 reference to this matter that he was accused of sedition. 1 He 
 was further charged generally with ' autres cas par luy faictz 
 et commis depuis la remission, abolition, et ampliation a luy 
 donnee par le roy au mois de juing et i" jour d'aoust 1543.' 
 The same course was taken as on the previous trial ; the 
 prisoner was brought before the Judge and interrogated, but, 
 weak and weary as he must have become by the long 
 imprisonment, his spirit does not seem to have been broken, 
 and to judge from the sentence which was ultimately pro- 
 nounced, no admissions were obtained from him. But besides 
 the direct charges against him the sentence refers to two 
 other questions raised in connection with his trial. On the 
 6th of September 1544, a petition was presented on behalf 
 of Charlotte wife of Jehan Mareault, and Jehan Compaing 
 (probably the sister and brother of Guillaume Compaing), 
 praying that, in case Dolet should be condemned and his 
 goods confiscated, five hundred livres tournois which had 
 
 1 Prior to the accord of May I, 1543, there had been some tumultu- 
 ous scenes between the masters and the journeymen (Pericaud, Notes et 
 Documents, p. 63), and Dolet may not improbably have taken part in them, 
 and as they had formed no part of the matters charged against him on his 
 former trial, it may have been held that they were not covered by the 
 royal pardon. 
 
464 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 been awarded to the petitioners by the sentence of the 
 Seneschal of Lyons might be paid to them, and that in case 
 Dolet should be found innocent of the charge made against 
 him, the petitioners might be heard before his discharge in 
 respect of their interest under such sentence. 
 
 The other matter referred to in the sentence was the 
 petition presented by Jacques Devaulx, in which the petitioner 
 alleged the great costs, charges, and expenses, amounting 
 according to the sentence to more than a thousand crowns, 
 besides his time and trouble, ' pour la fuyte industrieuse du 
 diet Dolet, duquel il avoit la charge four le amener prisonnier 
 en la conciergerie du palais, et aussi pour I 'avoir reprins et 
 amene a grand fraiz prisonnier en la dicte conciergerie,' and 
 prayed that he might be reimbursed. 
 
 Sentence was not pronounced until the 2nd of August 
 1 546, the process having thus lasted nearly two years, during 
 the whole of which Dolet was kept in prison in the concier- 
 gerie, except on the occasions when he was taken before his 
 judges. The pathetic and noble epistles of the Second Enfer 
 had been of no service to him. There was a time when such 
 poems would have touched the heart of Francis I., but 
 Francis was now merely the shadow of his former self. 
 Suffering physically from the terrible vengeance inflicted on 
 him by the husband of La Belle Ferroniere, his mind 
 altogether sunk in lethargy and superstition, he had become 
 the mere grovelling creature of the priests and their supporters 
 who surrounded him, and who seem to have allowed the 
 wretched King but two indulgences, the society of his mistress 
 the Duchess d'Estampes, and of his reader Pierre Duchatel. 
 To both he was greatly attached, but neither of them 
 ventured to interfere with the schemes of the ' parti pretre? 
 
 The years 1 545 and 1 546 are two of the most horrible 
 in the history of France, two of the most horrible in the 
 history of the Catholic Church. A decree was prepared 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 465 
 
 by Cardinal de Tournon and Jean de Maynier, Baron; 
 d'Oppede, First President of the Parliament of Aix, revok-j 
 ing the letters patent of the 15th of June 1544, by which, 
 all proceedings against the Vaudois had been suspended,' 
 and ordering that, notwithstanding all subsequent letters of] 
 pardon, the severe decree of the 18th of November 1540,1 
 should be forthwith carried out. Such a decree, in order to 
 be regular, required the sanction of the keeper of the seals 
 before it was presented to the King for his signature, and 
 the counter signature of the same official. Olivier, then 
 keeper of the seals and afterwards Chancellor, less pliable — 
 or less callous — than he afterwards became, shocked at the 
 wholesale murders which were in contemplation, refused to 
 sanction the decree or to present it to the King for his 
 signature. The Cardinal caused it to be presented by 
 L'Aubespine the Secretary of State, and the royal signature 
 was obtained. It was countersigned by L'Aubespine. 
 
 It was not likely that Olivier would affix the seals to a 
 decree so irregularly and illegally obtained. Accordingly 
 the Cardinal again interposed, and by some unexplained 
 means surreptitiously caused the seals to be affixed. And 
 then a scene of brutality commenced, which had not been 
 witnessed in France since the days of the crusades against 
 the Albigenses. On the 12th of April 1545, the Baron 
 d'Oppede read to the Parliament of Aix the royal decree, 
 and the day following placed himself at the head of the 
 soldiers who were appointed to carry out the royal commands. 
 ' These troops,' says M. Henri Martin, 1 ' reinforced by the 
 papal Vice-legate of Avignon and by a fanatical and brutal 
 populace, at once attacked the Vaudois territory. At first 
 the inhabitants offered no resistance ; murder, rape, and 
 flames were let loose against the whole district. At the sight 
 of eight or ten villages in flames the inhabitants of Merindol 
 
 1 Hist, de France, torn. viii. book 48. 
 2 H 
 
466 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 fled to the woods and mountains. The soldiers only found 
 in entering that town one inhabitant, a poor idiot ; d'Oppede 
 caused him to be shot. Then they discovered some women 
 in a church. These unfortunate creatures after a thousand 
 outrages were thrown headlong from the rocks of the castle. 
 After burning Merindol, the cut -throats marched upon 
 Cabrieres, a fortified place, which prepared to defend itself 
 and to submit to a siege ; d'Oppede offered to the inhabitants 
 their lives and property, and on the 20th of April the 
 Vaudois opened their gates. D'Oppede ordered the troops 
 to put the whole of the population to death. The old 
 soldiers of the army of Piedmont declared that their honour 
 was engaged by the capitulation and refused to obey the 
 First President's order. The fanatical military and rabble 
 who followed d'Oppede, headed by his two sons-in-law, 
 obeyed. Slaughter went on in the streets, in the castle, in the 
 church. To the latter, a multitude of women and children 
 had fled : the furious horde rushed headlong among them 
 and committed all the crimes of which hell could dream. 
 Other women had hidden themselves in a barn ; d'Oppede 
 caused them to be shut up there, and fire set to the four 
 corners. A soldier rushed to save them and opened the 
 door, but the women "were driven back into the fire with 
 blows of pikes. Twenty-five women had sought an asylum 
 in the cavern of Mus at some distance from the town. The 
 Vice-legate of Avignon, a worthy rival and coadjutor of 
 d'Oppede, caused a great fire to be lighted at the entrance 
 of the grotto : five years afterwards the bones of the victims 
 were found in the recesses of the cavern. La Coste had the 
 same lot as Cabrieres ; the lord of La Coste, a relation of 
 d'Oppede, had conjured the latter to spare his subjects; 
 d'Oppede promised to do so, the gates were opened, and all 
 the horrors of Cabrieres were renewed. A great number of 
 the wretched inhabitants threw themselves from the walls, 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 467 
 
 stabbed or hanged themselves, in order to escape the horrible 
 treatment of the executioners, who prolonged with an infernal 
 art the agony of an entire town. A mother finding herself 
 with her daughter in the hands of these ferocious beasts, 
 drunk as they were with blood and lust, pierced her own 
 heart with a knife, and handed the weapon all bleeding to 
 her daughter. 
 
 ' The three Vaudois towns were destroyed, three thousand 1 
 persons massacred, two hundred and fifty-six executed after . 
 the massacre, and after a phantom of a trial, six or seven 
 hundred more were sent to the galleys, and many children ; 
 sold as slaves.' i 
 
 Cardinal de Tournon rejoiced at the result, and at his 
 instance the King formally expressed approval of these 
 massacres. Letters patent of the 18th of August 1545,' 
 were issued, by which Francis solemnly approved of all that j 
 had been done against the Vaudois. At Rome the satis- 
 faction was as great as at Paris. Paul III. was especially 
 delighted ; he wrote a flattering letter to d'Oppede, con- 
 gratulating him on his pious work, and conferring upon him 
 the Order of the Golden Spur and the title of Count Palatine. 
 The Catholic party was everywhere delighted and triumphant. 
 The King's conversion was now manifest. Henceforth he 
 definitively belonged to the reactionary party : the remon- 
 strances of the League of Smalcalde and of the lords of Berne 
 had been unavailing, and the cause of reform and intellectual 
 freedom in France had received the first of that series of 
 blows which was to culminate a hundred and forty years 
 after in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But the ) 
 extirpation of the Vaudois did not stop the persecutions ; i 
 the year 1546 was fruitful in martyrs of the Reformed \ 
 Church. At Meaux, still an ardent focus of Protestantism, ! 
 no less than sixty members of the reform party, of whom ! 
 nineteen were women, were condemned, fourteen to the flames, \ 
 
468 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 I and the remainder to severe corporeal or pecuniary penalties. 
 Fourteen stakes were arranged in a circle, and the condemned 
 were burnt alive, at an auto-da-fe which in the number, if 
 not in the rank of its victims, rivalled those of Spain. Nor 
 were the executions confined to Meaux. Never had Matthieu 
 Orry been so busy. We find him presiding, or sitting as 
 assessor, in many provincial towns : at Sens the Archdeacon 
 denounced and caused to be burnt his own nephew ; in Paris 
 the flames were more than once lighted, and everywhere 
 among the pious and orthodox were to be heard praises 
 and thanksgivings for the conversion of the King, and for 
 the example he was setting his people by these displays of 
 real Christian piety and Christian practice. 
 
 At such a time it was not to be expected that any voice 
 | should be raised in Dolet's favour. There can be little 
 \ doubt that Duchatel had been given to understand that a 
 second intervention would cost him his place, and might even 
 render him personally liable to charges of heresy, and an 
 ostentatious display of orthodoxy certainly characterised this 
 part of his life. Nor is it probable that there was much 
 sympathy anywhere felt for the unfortunate prisoner. He, 
 in an age devoted to theological disputes, cared for none of 
 those things ; with the reformed doctrines he had never 
 sympathised, and except two or three who were men of 
 letters as well as theologians, such as Charles de Sainte 
 Marthe and Theodore de Beze, the reformers were generally 
 hostile to him. Calvin placed him in the same category with 
 Servetus, and would probably have assisted Orry in promoting 
 his burning with as much alacrity and satisfaction as he 
 subsequently displayed in betraying the unfortunate Spaniard 
 into the hands of the same Inquisitor. Yet the high spirit, 
 the elevation of feeling, and the consciousness of his own recti- 
 tude which appears in the Second Enfer, did not desert Dolet 
 during the two weary years of imprisonment, neglect, and 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 469 
 
 danger, which followed his final arrest. Conscious though 
 he must have been that at any moment sentence might be 
 pronounced against him, and knowing full well what the 
 sentence must inevitably be, yet in the last of his compositions, 
 written very shortly before his sentence, he expressed himself 
 as saddened indeed by his misfortunes, by the neglect of 
 his friends and of the whole world, but as consoling himself 
 by submission to God, by the consciousness that he had done 
 nothing worthy of death, but had lived a life not of innocence 
 merely, but of noble aims and no inconsiderable results, and 
 he shows us that the firmness and serenity of his mind was 
 unbroken. The following are among the last utterances of 
 ' Estienne Dolet, a prisoner in the Conciergerie of Paris, written 
 in the year 1 546, on his desolation and on his consolation ' : — 
 
 Si au besoing le monde m'abandonne, 
 Et si de Dieu la volonte n'ordonne 
 Que liberte encores on me donne 
 Selon mon vueil ; 
 
 Doibs-je en mon cueur pour cela mener dueil, 
 Et de regretz faire amas et recueil ? 
 Non pour certain, mais au ciel lever l'oeil 
 Sans aultre esgard. 
 
 Sus done, esprit, laisses la chair a part, 
 Et devers Dieu qui tout bien nous depart 
 Retirez-vous, comme a vostre rempart, 
 Vostre fortresse. 
 
 Mais vous esprit, qui scavez la parole 
 De l'Eternel, ne suivez la chair folle ; 
 Et en celuy qui tant bien nous consolle, 
 Soit vostre espoir. 
 
 Si sur la chair les mondains ont pouvoir, 
 
 Sur vous, esprit, riens ne peuvent avoir ; 
 
 L'oeil, Pceil au ciel, faictes vostre debvoir 
 
 De la entendre. 
 
470 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 Soit tost ou tard, ce corps deviendra cendre ; 
 Car a nature il fault son tribut rendre, 
 Et de cela nul ne se peult deffendre ; 
 II fault mourir. 
 
 §|uant a la chair il luy convient pourrir ; 
 t quand a vous, vous ne pouvez perir : 
 Mais avecq Dieu tousjours debues flourir, 
 Par sa bonte'. 
 
 Sus, mon esprit, monstres vous de tel cueur ; 
 Vostre asseurance au besoing soit cogneue : 
 Tout gentil cueur, tout constant belliqueur, 
 Jusque a la mort sa force a maintenue ! 1 
 
 On the 2nd of August 1 546, the First President Lizet, 
 sitting in the Grand Chambre, pronounced sentence on 
 Dolet as guilty of blasphemy, sedition, and exposing for 
 sale prohibited and condemned books, 'charges which are 
 set forth more at length in his process,' and condemned him 
 to be taken by the executioner in a cart from the prison of 
 the Conciergerie to the Place Maubert, where a gallows was to 
 be erected in the most convenient and suitable place, around 
 which was to be made a great fire, into which, after having been 
 hung on the said gallows, his body was to be thrown, with 
 his books, and burnt to ashes, his property to be confiscated 
 to the King. ' Nevertheless the Court orders that before the 
 execution and death of the said Dolet, he is to be put to 
 torture and to the extraordinary question in order that he 
 may inform of his companions ; and it is the will of the 
 Court (retentum in mente curia) that if the said Dolet shall 
 
 1 This pathetic cantique, the last utterance of fitienne Dolet, remained 
 in manuscript for more than two centuries. Then, having fallen into 
 the hands of Guillaume de Bure, it was communicated by him to Nee de 
 la Rochelle, who printed it in his Vie de Dolet (p. 142). 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 471 
 
 cause any scandal or utter any blasphemy, his tongue shall be 
 cut out, and he shall be burnt alive.' To this sentence the 
 signature of the First President is appended. 1 
 
 1 I have endeavoured to give all the facts relating to the trials and 
 sentences of Dolet so as to enable the reader to form his own conclusions, 
 but I have not hesitated to express, or at least to indicate clearly, those 
 at which the facts have compelled me to arrive. It may, however, be, 
 that my judgment is to some extent coloured by sympathy for Dolet and 
 his pursuits, by hatred of religious persecution, and by the recollection of 
 the bitter and persecuting spirit displayed by Matthieu Orry and Pierre 
 Lizet in other cases. There is another view which may be taken of the 
 final sentence, and which is adopted by one so capable of judging as the • 
 late M. le President Baudrier, distinguished not only as a judge and jurist, | ' 
 but at the same time one extremely well acquainted with the literary, 
 religious, and political history and institutions of the time. He is, I need 
 hardly say, a priori more likely to arrive at a true judgment as to the 
 significance of the procedure, the cause of the sentence, and the motives 
 likely to have actuated the judges, in the case of a trial or series of trials 
 in France in. the sixteenth century, than I can be. The conclusion to 
 which M. Baudrier comes is this ; that Dolet can in no respect be con- 
 sidered as a martyr for his opinions, that his persecutors existed only in 
 his own brain, that his misfortunes arose solely from his mauvaise the and 
 mauvais cceur, that the judges and courts which condemned him simply 
 carried out the existing laws without any prepossession or prejudice, that 
 though these laws were unduly severe (as were the laws of every country 
 at that period), yet, so far as they applied to the case of Dolet, they did 
 not trench upon liberty of conscience, and were neither unduly nor un- 
 fairly pressed against him. For the ten years previous to the final sentence 
 Dolet had been an incessant law-breaker. Twice he had been found 
 guilty of capital offences. Twice he had been condemned to death by 
 the courts of Lyons ; the sentence in one case having been confirmed on 
 appeal by the Parliament of Paris. He had been found guilty and 
 sentenced for a riot by the Parliament of Toulouse. He had several times 
 been summoned before the courts at Lyons for offences against the press 
 laws. He had been rescued from the capital sentences simply by the 
 royal pardon, upon the representations and by the influence of powerful 
 friends. Tried for the third time, upon a capital charge of blasphemy, 
 sedition, and exposing for sale prohibited books, and the judges being 
 satisfied upon the evidence (as to which we have no counter evidence 
 except the statement of the prisoner himself) that he was guilty, the 
 Parliament had no option but to pronounce upon him the capital sentence 
 
472 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 The sentence was carried out on the day following, the 
 3rd of August, the day of the Invention of St. Stephen, 
 and the day on which Dolet entered his thirty-ninth year. 
 We are fortunate in possessing an almost contemporary 
 narrative of the event, though unfortunately not by an 
 eye-witness. Three weeks afterwards, a certain Florent 
 Junius wrote to Herman Laethmatius, Dean of the Faculty 
 of Theology at Utrecht, an account which had been given 
 to him by one of the officials who assisted at the execution. 1 
 It was of course not to be expected that an atheist should be 
 simply executed in pursuance of the sentence. Physically 
 weakened by the torture which had been applied to him the 
 previous night or the same morning, or possibly both, he had 
 now to be morally tortured by the confessor with a view to 
 induce him to repent and publicly abjure his errors. What- 
 ever the result, the Church would be the gainer. If he 
 repented and abjured his errors, it was a triumph, far greater 
 in the case of a scholar and a reputed atheist such as Dolet, 
 than in the case of a poor wool-carder of Meaux, who, as 
 the Church herself declared, scarcely understood the doctrines 
 on which he presumed to form an opinion. If, on the other 
 
 which, however, was done in no haste, but after two years had been spent 
 ' in investigating the charges. He came before the Parliament of Paris 
 as a notorious, a persistent, and a wilful law-breaker, and was looked upon 
 I by the court, and treated in exactly the same manner, as a persistent law- 
 j breaker would be (and justly) by the courts at the present time. After a 
 series of offences such as those adverted to, no sentence other than a 
 ' capital one could have been pronounced upon him. 
 
 I cannot say that this reasoning is to my mind conclusive, though it 
 is undoubtedly of weight and worthy of consideration, and I think in the 
 interests of historical truth I ought to put it before my readers. If I do 
 not in this note attempt to controvert it, it is because the line of reasoning 
 that has led me to take a different view is sufficiently indicated, though 
 ; not always categorically expressed, in the text. 
 
 1 This letter is inserted in Almeloveen's Amcenitates Theologico- 
 Phiklogiae, Amsterdam, 1694., p. 78. 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 473 
 
 hand, he persisted in his impiety to the point of death, the 
 brutalities of the retentum would be carried out, the physical 
 tortures of the condemned would be increased, and an enjoy- 
 ment would be afforded to the pious crowd of which they 
 would have been deprived by the repentance of the sinner. 
 On his arrival at the place of execution, Dolet was exhorted 
 to think of his salvation, and to recommend himself to God 
 and the saints. He did not show himself too eager to follow 
 the advice, but muttered something or other, when the 
 executioner declared to him that he had orders to speak to 
 him of his salvation before the people. ' You must,' said he, 
 ' invoke the Blessed Virgin and your patron saint, whose 
 fiBte is celebrated to-day, and if you do not do this, you 
 know quite well what I am to do.' The unhappy prisoner 
 knew it too well. If the executioner's commands were not 
 obeyed, if Dolet did not invoke the Blessed Virgin and St. 
 Stephen, his tongue would be cut out and he would be burnt 
 alive. 
 
 Dolet, who had always professed himself a good Catholic, 
 would have no difficulty in repeating what was to him an 
 unmeaning formula, and so avoiding the terrible sufferings 
 which a refusal would have entailed upon him. He obeyed 
 the directions of the executioner, and repeated in Latin 
 the form of invocation which was suggested to him, ' Mi 
 Deus, quern toties offendi, propitius esto ; teque Virginem 
 Matrem precor, divumque Stephanum, ut apud Dominum 
 pro me peccatore intercedatis.' 
 
 He then, so Florent Junius was informed by the official, 
 warned the assistants to read his books with much circum- 
 spection, and declared several times that they contained 
 many things which he had not properly understood or 
 meant. A moment afterwards the sentence was carried out. 
 He was suspended at the gallows, and then, when he was 
 possibly dead, but more probably still breathing, the faggots 
 
474 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 were lighted, and the author and his books were consumed 
 in the flames. 
 
 Such was the manner in which the festival of St. Stephen 
 was celebrated in the good old times, the times which an 
 influential party, led by men of exalted rank and high 
 culture, fondly regret, and would gladly see restored. But 
 their efforts are happily vain ; whatever were the excesses 
 and crimes of the Revolution, it has placed an impassable 
 barrier between the good old times and the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The account of the execution given by Florent Junius 
 was that which the Church desired should go forth to the 
 people. The official who was the informer of Junius, 
 assured him that at the last moment Dolet had repented 
 of his errors. The same story had been spread abroad 
 respecting Berquin. The confessor who attended him at 
 the stake told Montius that he had acknowledged his 
 errors, adding, ' I doubt not that his soul departed in 
 peace.' ' I do not believe a word of it,' wrote Erasmus, 
 to whom Montius had communicated this statement, ' it is 
 the usual story which these people invent after the death 
 of their victims.' 1 
 
 Jacques Severt in his Anti-Martyrologe 2 relates a story 
 
 1 Erasmus, Epist. 1060. ' On sait l'usage invariable des jugements 
 ecclesiastiques : c'est d'affirmer que le coupable a tout avoue, tout retracte, 
 qu'il s'est dementi a la mort. Depuis que l'Eglise n'a plus le Chevalet 
 ni l'Estrapade elle a toujours le confesseur qui suit le patient, bon gre, 
 mal gre, et qui ne manque pas de dire du plus ferme des n6tres : il s'est 
 reconnu heureusement, il a abjure ses folies. C'etait uh grand mise- 
 rable ! Mais grace a Dieu il a fait un tres bonne fin.' Michelet, Hist, de 
 France, Renaissance, p. 264. 
 
 2 L'anti- Marty rologe, ou v'erit'e manifest'ee contre les Histoires des supposes 
 Martyrs de la religion pretendue r'eform'ee, imprimees a Geneve onze fois. 
 Divise en douze livres. Monstrant la difference des vrais Martyrs d'avec 
 les faux corporellement ex'ecut'ez en divers lieux. Par M. Jacques Severt, 
 Docteur Theologal en la Faculte de Paris. Theologal en l'Eglise de 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 475 
 
 which has placed Dolet in the ranks of ' les grands hommes 
 qui sont morts en plaisantant,' and which has since by its 
 introduction into numerous books of anecdotes made at 
 least the name of Dolet known to many who would other- 
 wise never have heard of the man or his death. 'When 
 Dolet,' says the Anti-Martyrologist, 'was at the place of 
 execution he fancied that the people who stood around 
 were regretting his death, then, instead of a prayer, he 
 uttered this Latin verse, "Non dolet ipse Dolet, sed pia 
 turba dolet ; " 1 on which it was replied to him worthily by 
 the criminal lieutenant sitting on horseback ' (or, as the 
 story is related in the Patiniana, by the doctor who accom- 
 panied him for the purpose of converting him), ' on the 
 contrary, " Non pia turba dolet, sed Dolet ipse dolet." ' 2 
 
 The death of Dolet, grateful to and approved by the 
 religious bigots of both parties, Protestant as well as 
 Catholic, was mourned only by the few men of letters in 
 whom the love of literature or the love of justice was not 
 overpowered by religious bigotry or personal malevolence. 
 It might be thought that personal animosity, where not 
 inflamed by religious bigotry, would have been softened 
 by his fate, but in one conspicuous instance this was not 
 the case ; the lapse of ten years had not induced Julius 
 Csesar Scaliger to forget or to forgive the wound which 
 the young scholar of Toulouse had inflicted on his vanity 
 by writing in defence of Longolius and Cicero, and scarcely 
 
 Lyon. Lyon, Rigaud, 1622, 4 (p. 475). I am particular in giving the 
 title of this very rare book at length because I have nowhere seen 
 the title accurately cited, and although in almost every book where Dolet 
 is mentioned the story of the Latin verse made by him at his execution 
 is related, I can find no writer except the anonymous author of the 
 Histoire abrigee des Martirs Francois (Amsterdam, 1684) who has cited 
 the story at first-hand or who has even seen Seven's book. 
 
 1 ' Dolet himself does not grieve, but the pious crowd grieves.' 
 
 2 ' The pious crowd does not grieve, but Dolet himself grieves.' 
 
476 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 were the flames that consumed Dolet's body extinguished, 
 ere Scaliger began to heap insults on his memory. Fifteen 
 years later the wound still rankled in his bosom, and in his 
 Poetics he seized an opportunity of indulging in brutal 
 pleasantry on Dolet's fate and gloating over his sufferings : — 
 'Dum optimi atque maximi regis Francisci fata canit, 
 ejus nomen suo malo fato functum est ; quodque turn illi, 
 turn illius versibus debebatur solus passus est Atheos flammae 
 supplicium. Flamma tamen eum puriorem non effecit : ipse 
 flammam potius effecit impuriorem.' 1 
 
 It is pleasant to know that there were some men of 
 letters who mourned Dolet's fate, and were not afraid to 
 express their sympathy for him, and their grief for his 
 loss. Theodore Beza, still young and sympathetic, whose 
 heart had not yet been hardened to the texture of that of 
 his great master, and for whom humanity and the Muses 
 had not yet lost their charm, composed and did not fear 
 to print an ode devoted to the apotheosis of the scholar 
 and the poet : 2 
 
 Ardentem medio rogo Doletum 
 
 Cernens Aonidum chorus sororum, 
 
 Charus ille diu chorus Doleto, 
 
 Totus ingemuit ; nee ulla prorsus 
 
 E sororibus est reperta cunctis, 
 
 Na'ias nulla, Dryasve, Nerei'sve, 
 
 Quae non vel lachrymis suis, vel hausta 
 
 Fontis Pegasei studeret unda 
 
 Crudeles adeo domare flamma?. 
 
 1 Page 305. This passage will be found translated ante, p. 216. 
 
 2 This ode, printed by Theodore Beza in the first edition of his 
 poems Juvenilia, Paris, 154.8, p. t,i, and reprinted in the edition s. 1. 
 aut a. (with the death's head), was omitted by its author in the editions 
 he gave in 1569 and 1576, after he had fallen wholly under the spiritual 
 dominion of Calvin. It has of course reappeared in the beautiful 
 edition lately published by M. Liseux, with a French translation by 
 M. Machard. 
 
xxiv THE PLACE MAUBERT 477 
 
 Et jam totus erat sepultus ignis, 
 Jam largo madidus Doletus imbre, 
 Exemptus poterat neci videri, 
 
 §uum ccelo intonuit severus alto 
 ivorum Pater, et velut persegre 
 Hoc tantum studium ferens sororum, 
 At cessate, ait, et novum colonum 
 Ne diutius invidete coelo, 
 Coelum sic meus Hercules petivit. 
 
 Another contemporary, whose name has not come down 
 to us, has written with more sympathy and with more 
 pathos the following epitaph in French : — 1 
 
 Mort est Dolet, et par feu consomme. 
 Oh ! quel malheur ! oh ! que la perte est grande, 
 Mais quoy, en France on a accoustume 
 Toujours donner a tel saint tel offrande. 
 Bref, mourir faut, car l'esprit ne demande, 
 Qu'issir du corps, et tost estre delivre, 
 Pour en repos ailleurs s'en aller vivre. 
 C'est ce qu'il dit, sur le point de bruler 
 Pendant en haut, tenant ses yeux en l'air. 
 ' Va-t-en esprit droit au ciel pur et munde, 
 Et toy mon corps, au gr£ de vent voler, 
 Comme mon nom voloit parmy le monde.' 
 
 1 Le Laboureur, Additions aux Memoires de Castelnau, vol. i. p. 348 
 (edit, of 1 731). 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Opinions and Character 
 
 Tts oiSev el to fijv /xiv icrri KarOaveiv 
 
 rb KarOavetv Se triv ; ~ 
 
 s " Euripides. 
 
 Atheism is the shadow of sacerdotalism. — T. P. Kirkman. 
 
 HE religious opinions of 
 Etienne Dolet have been 
 the subject of considerable 
 discussion among his 
 critics and biographers ; 
 and much that is wholly 
 false, much that is only 
 partially true, has been 
 written on the subject. 
 Rejected alike by Catholics 
 and Protestants, he ha^ 
 been generally regarded as' 
 an atheist, nor until the 
 publication by M. Taillan-| 
 dier of the Proces from which I have so frequently quoted,! 
 was it at all clearly known what were the precise charges 
 upon which he was condemned to death. That he wasl 
 convicted and executed as a relapsed atheist was the received 
 
 
 
 
 ■V^S/feV3Si=S4 
 
 ■■i^/^-E'Sfei/ : 
 
 1 • i ,-iv /:. • /-r3K . ,-«*. iT: ■■:: . rV ",. - j 
 
ch. xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 479 
 
 view, and although this is not borne out by the language of 
 the sentence, yet I incline to think that this was its effect 
 and intention, and that the almost universal belief that 
 he was a materialist, or (for the words were then and after- 
 wards used as synonymous) an atheist was shared by his 
 judges. Yet it sometimes served the purposes of Catholic 
 controversialists to confuse him with the Protestants, so 
 as to charge them with the blasphemies attributed to the 
 unfortunate Dolet. 
 
 La Croix du Maine speaks of Dolet as burned for 
 Calvinism. Jacques Severt in his Anti-Mar tyrologe, already 
 cited, speaks of him as a Lutheran, 1 and Le Laboureur 
 in his additions to the Memoires de Castelnau 2 says that he 
 is among the pretended martyrs commemorated in the Grand 
 Martyrologe of Geneva ; but, as Bayle first pointed out, no 
 mention of or reference to Dolet is to be found in that book. 
 Nor indeed have I found any Protestant work in which he is 
 referred to as a Protestant martyr, earlier than the anony- 
 mous His to ire Abregee des Martirs Franpois du Terns de la 
 Reformation? the author of which simply adopts the state- 
 ment of Severt. Le Laboureur quotes a letter of Cardinal 
 Philibert Babou dit de la Bourdaisiere, written from Rome 
 to Bernard Bochetel, Bishop of Rennes, on the 23rd of 
 May 1562, in which he speaks of having in his youth seen 
 ' Dolet, one of the earliest Huguenots, who beginning by 
 sufficiently thoughtless opinions, and these of little im- 
 portance, fell in a short time into the most execrable 
 blasphemies I ever heard.' * 
 
 Calvin, writing shortly after the death of Dolet, 6 says, 
 
 1 His language is, ' II catechisoit sur dogmes adulterins et scandalizoit. 
 ... II fut etrangle, puis brule . . . sous le bruit et la qualite d'homme 
 Lutherien.' 2 Vol. i. p. 347. 
 
 3 Amsterdam, 1684, p. 407. 
 
 * Mem. de Castelnau, vo\. i. p. 347. 
 
 5 De Scandalis, Geneva, Crespin, 1551, p. 78. 
 
480 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 !' It is a matter of common notoriety that Agrippa, Villano- 
 jvanus, Dolet, and such-like Cyclopes have always ostenta- 
 tiously despised the Gospel, and at length they have fallen 
 into such a depth of insanity and fury, that not only have 
 they vomited forth execrable blasphemies against the Son 
 of God, but as regards the life of the soul have declared that 
 it differs in no respect from that of dogs and pigs.' Du 
 Verdier a few years later says that Dolet was ' convicted 
 on a Icharge of atheism,' * and Dupreau (Prateolus) includes 
 him in his list of atheists together with Diagoras, Pliny, 
 Lucian, and Lucretius. 2 
 
 We have seen that a rumour was current as early as 
 1535 that Dolet was a materialist, and denied the immor- 
 tality of the soul. In the letter of Odonus to Gilbert 
 Cousin written in that year, Dolet is classed among the 
 atheists, his irreligious conduct is referred to, and he is 
 spoken of as ' impius, sine deo, sine fide, sine religione ulla.' 
 And in one of the earliest pages of the first volume of 
 the Commentaries, Dolet tells us that the Tolosans had 
 calumniated him to the King in reference to religion, and 
 seems to imply that it was on the occasion of the King's 
 visit to the city (in August 1533) that this denunciation 
 took place. We can hardly imagine that this was the 
 case, yet it is a clear admission on his part of the existence 
 of a rumour at a very early date unfavourable to his 
 orthodoxy. This rumour was formulated in print by 
 Floridus Sabinus in 1540, and undoubtedly was generally 
 believed. It was probably based rather on the conversation 
 
 1 Prosopograpbie, 41:0 Lugduni, 1572, p. 503 (by mistake numbered 
 4103). 'Dolet enfin avec son scavoir, estant pousse du diable fust 
 convaincu d'acte d'atheisme et brusle a Paris publiquement.' The 
 portrait and all reference to Dolet are omitted in the edition of the 
 Prosopograpbie of 1605. 
 
 2 De Vitis Sect is et Dogmatibus omnium Hareticorum (Cologne, 1 581), 
 p. 71. 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 481 
 
 than on the writings of Dolet, since it is not borne out by 
 the general tenour of the latter, though there are not wanting 
 passages, both in his poems and in his Commentaries, which 
 would certainly afford corroborative evidence to those who 
 wished to believe in the rumour. 
 
 In his Lectiones Succisiv^e, Floridus speaks of Dolet as 
 one who asserted the mortality of the soul, and placed the 
 chief good in corporeal pleasures. 1 To this Dolet makes the 
 following answer : ' You say Dolet does not believe that 
 the soul survives the body. . . . You must prove this either 
 from my writings or my life. Who can say that my 
 language is other than pious, chaste, filled with reverence 
 for God ? As to my writings, what is there in the slightest 
 degree to excite even the suspicion of impiety (for I call 
 the opinion that the soul perishes, impiety). And the life 
 which I lead is it not truly Christian ? ... It most clearly 
 appears from my writings how far I am from this opinion : 
 I here quote the verses on the subject of the immortality 
 of the soul which I inserted in my Genethliacum? He 
 then cites the passage part of which I have before quoted, 
 beginning, ' Tu ne crede, animos una cum corpore, lucis 
 Privari usura.' And he follows it up with an appeal to those 
 in whose intimacy he lived, whether his life was not such as 
 a Christian's should be. 2 In his work Adversus calumnias 
 Doleti, Floridus thus replies to Dolet's defence : ' The 
 opinion of your impiety, which is everywhere held, cannot 
 be got rid of by any extracts from your Genethliacum, for 
 I hold this to be certain, that what you believe concerning 
 God and the soul you would speak of cautiously and not 
 openly to all, lest you should be immediately seized and put 
 to the torture.' 
 
 1 ' Qui inquam, unicus Aristippi germanus, animam mortalem esse, ac 
 summum bonum in corporis voluptate consistere, non dubitat.' Lib. 
 iii. c. 4. 
 
 2 Doleti Liber De imit. Cic. adv. Floridum Sabinum, p. 41. 
 
 2 I 
 
482 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 That Dolet was generally believed by his contemporaries 
 to be, if not an atheist, at least a materialist, we have a 
 good deal of contemporary evidence. The fact is referred 
 to by J. C. Scaliger more than once, and their contemporary 
 Andre Le Freux (Frusius) honours Dolet (whose name 
 easily lent itself to the puns of his enemies) by devoting to 
 him two of his epigrams against notorious heretics ; one of 
 them runs : — 
 
 Mortales animas gaudebas dicere pridem ; 
 Nunc immortales esse, Dolete, doles. 1 
 
 In the copy of Dolet's Francisci Valesii Fata contained 
 in the Bibliotheque Nationale, the following verses are 
 written in a contemporary hand, signed Binetus : — 2 
 
 Qui modo Francisci descripsit Fata Doletus, 
 Non sua] prospexit fata futura miser ; 
 
 Debuit insequier Christum, nee vivere fato 
 Atheus, et rapidis inde perire focis. 
 
 Gigas begins one of his epigrams : — 
 
 Nate Dei verbum ridere dolende Dolete. 
 
 Now when we come to the writings of Dolet, one thing 
 is certainly clear, not only is there nothing to justify the 
 
 i appellation of atheist, but there is everything to lead to 
 the conclusion that Dolet was a sincere theist, fully 
 recognising a divine being as the creator and ruler of the 
 
 ' world. When, however, we desire to arrive at anything 
 more definite than this, we are met by a considerable 
 
 1 Epigrammata in Hczreticos, 1 609, Nos. lxxxvi. lxxxvii. 
 
 2 This was clearly Jehan Binet, a native of Beauvais, appointed pro- 
 fessor in the College of Guyenne in Nov. 1533. See Britarmi Epistolce, 
 passim, and Gaullieur, Histoire du College de Guyenne, pp. 54, 118. The 
 facsimile of his autograph given by M. Gaullieur (p. 60) exactly 
 corresponds with the signature Binetus in the copy of the Francisci 
 Valesii Fata in the Bibliotheque Nationale. 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 483 
 
 difficulty, and by some inconsistencies in our author's! 
 writings. His ostentatious avowals of orthodoxy, and his[ 
 odes to the Virgin, are not entirely conclusive. They do ' 
 not strike the reader as proceeding from the writer's heart, 
 but as being inserted rather as a matter of form than of 
 actual belief. In the second volume of his Commentaries, 
 under the word Anima, after some explanations and ex- 
 amples of its use by Cicero, he thus continues : ' Besides 
 this signification, Anima is used to express a certain celestial 
 force by which we live and move and are partakers of 
 reason. Which some indeed attribute to the blood, and 
 some to other parts of the body, and which some think 
 is mortal and is extinguished at the same time with the 
 body, but which others have asserted to be immortal, 
 believing that after the destruction of the body, according 
 as the life of the man has been right and pure, or wicked, 
 the soul either ascends into heaven or descends into hell. 
 These opinions concerning the mortality or immortality of 
 the soul, as well as the various judgments of men concerning 
 religion, and their different doctrines in reference to the 
 worship of God, I have discussed in those books De 
 Opinione which I have left to posterity in order that it may 
 understand that I have passed my life as it becomes a man 
 to do, and have not wasted it in a painful devotion to 
 trifles.' 
 
 On the subject of the immortality of the soul, however, 
 there can be little doubt that Dolet expressed his genuine 
 sentiments when he declared in his reply to Sabinus, and 
 in many of his poems and other writings, notably in the 
 Avant Naissance, that it was impiety to deny it. Yet he 
 seems to have been in considerable doubt, as must be the 
 case with every one who does not accept as authoritative j 
 and final, what is laid down by the Church or what is/ 
 stated in the New Testament, as to what he meant by; 
 
\ 
 
 484 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 I immortality. Whilst sometimes using language, which 
 [ implies that he accepted the immortality of the soul in the 
 orthodox and ordinary sense of the words, we gather from 
 other expressions that he certainly doubted whether the 
 individual soul had an independent existence after death, 
 or whether it was not absorbed in the Creator or in the 
 soul of the universe. In his earlier poems indeed, and par- 
 ticularly in his ode to the memory of Simon Villanovanus, 1 
 he seems to doubt whether consciousness exists after death, 
 and in a melancholy poem in the same volume, Expetendam 
 esse mortem, M. Boulmier conjectures that we find the phrase 
 which originated the charge of atheism and materialism. 
 It thus concludes 2 : — 
 
 Nunc ergo vitam quo insipiens cupis ? 
 Quo corpus optas omnibus obvium 
 Morbis, malisque ? Quo precare 
 Perpetuas tibi stulte poenas ? 
 
 Ne mortis horre spicula, qua dabit 
 Sensu car ere ; vel melioribus 
 Locis tegi, et statu esse laeto, 
 Elysii est nisi spes inanis. 3 
 
 The note which he gives in the second volume of his 
 Commentaries on the word Mors perhaps lets us see his 
 real sentiments more clearly than any other passage of his 
 writings. ' I now come to the subject of death, the extreme 
 boundary of life, terrible to those who are about to die, but 
 
 1 Ante, p. 34. . 2 Orat. dua, p. 224. 
 
 3 ' Now therefore why, O senseless one, do you desire life, why do you 
 wish your body to be exposed to all diseases and to all evils ? Why, O fool, 
 do you pray that your sufferings may be perpetual ? Do not be terrified 
 by the arrows of death, which will cause you either to be deprived of 
 sensation, or else to be sheltered in happier regions and to be in a joyful 
 condition, unless the hope of heaven is vain.' See also ante, pp. 390, 
 
 39 1 - 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 485 
 
 only an event to be laughed at by those who are immortal,! 
 that is by those who are renowned either by military gloryn 
 or by literary reputation. For by the separation of the" 
 soul from the body will he, to whom for all future time 
 life after death has been gained by his reputation for ex- 
 cellence, think that he is about to be annihilated for ever ? 
 Is the dart of death terrible to heroes of this kind, when by 
 the eternal fame and reputation of their name they have 
 blunted it and deprived it of all force ? That this is true of 
 myself I do not hesitate here to testify. There is certainly 
 nothing that could induce me more readily or courageously 
 to devote myself either to arms or letters than the constant 
 meditation upon and recollection of death. I do not say 
 this from any desire to die before my time, for to do so 
 would be contrary to the nature of man, but because I desire 
 to conquer death, and whilst I live to pass my life so nobly 
 and courageously, that I may achieve immortality either in 
 arms or letters. Unless those who either expose themselves 
 to the dangers of war, or pour out their life by their too 
 great devotion to literature, were actuated by this desire, 
 were borne up by this elevation of mind, do you think they 
 would act as they do, so eagerly or so nobly ? And indeed 
 there can be no greater stimulus to noble-minded men to 
 strive to attain an immortality of fame than the constant 
 recollection, agreeable to those who are immortal, horrible to 
 those who are mortal, that this life is to come to an end 
 in so short a space of time. What indeed has death been 
 able to accomplish as yet against Themistocles, Epami- 
 nondas, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Cassar, Pompey, 
 the Scipios, Demosthenes, Isocrates, Lysias, Homer, Pindar, 
 Aristophanes, Cicero, Sallust, Plautus, Terence, Virgil, 
 Ovid ? The power of death is naught against men fenced 
 about with such firm barriers of immortality. What again 
 will death with all its rapacity and ferocity be able hereafter 
 
486 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 to do against Bude, Longolius, Macrin, Maine, Maurice 
 Sceve, Richer, Hugues Salel, Bembo, Sadolet, Vida, Sannazar, 
 Erasmus of Rotterdam, or Melanchthon ? The works of 
 men of such excellence, consecrated as they are to immortal- 
 ity, are clearly beyond the power of death, and will I am 
 certain never perish, but rather the sharpness of death, and 
 of time which tramples all things under its feet, will be 
 blunted by their virtue. The consideration of death then 
 causes fear only to those who are weak-minded, those who 
 are courageous it makes still more so, and incites them more 
 and more to undergo all kinds of labours and dangers.' 1 
 
 The immortality to which Dolet really looked forward, 
 and in which he was in his heart of hearts a believer, was 
 metaphorical immortality only, such as that in which Horace 
 believed, an immortality of fame. 
 
 Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei 
 Vitabit Libitinam. 
 
 He believed that what he had written would live, and thus 
 that the better part of him would descend to future ages 
 and in that way be immortal, and where he speaks of im- 
 mortality he certainly sometimes means this only. Some- 
 i times again he doubts whether eternal happiness does not 
 ] consist in eternal unconsciousness and eternal insensibility, 
 i whether, in short, Nirvana is not the highest good. Yet 
 in other moods we find a belief in the actual existence of 
 the individual soul after death set forth, and the providential 
 government of the world insisted upon. 
 
 A belief in the immortality of the soul may, roughly 
 speaking, rest upon one of three grounds, the authority of 
 the Church, the authority of the New Testament, or the 
 conclusions of reason. But those who reject the two 
 former will rarely be induced to accept the latter as an 
 
 1 2 Com. 1 1 62. 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 487 
 
 adequate basis for the belief, or for anything more than 
 a vague hope. To every thinking man there must be ex- 
 cessive (I do not say insuperable) difficulties in accepting 
 as authoritative on such a question the voice of the Church. 
 The reformers with illogical ingenuity, rejecting the authority 
 of the Church and yet desirous of maintaining the doctrines 
 of the creeds, while they returned to a simpler faith and 
 a purer practice, invented an ingenious though illogical 
 theory, which has since found its symbol in the popular 
 Protestant cry, ' The Bible and the Bible only,' a shibboleth 
 to which one would suppose it must be difficult for those 
 who have not been accustomed to it from childhood, to 
 frame their lips. Difficult it must be to understand what 
 are the grounds except the authority of the Church on 
 which the Canon of Scripture is arrived at, or on which the 
 theory of plenary inspiration can be based ; to say why the 
 epistles of Barnabas and Clement have not the same 
 authority as those of Jude and James, and why the books 
 of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are relegated to the 
 Apocrypha, while the Song of Songs and the Book ot 
 Esther are enrolled in the Canonical books. 
 
 That the Church was infallible was believed neither by 
 Dolet nor by most other thoughtful men of the time, but 
 he could as little believe that Luther or Calvin was in- 
 fallible, nor was he likely to appreciate the grounds upon 
 which they asserted the plenary inspiration of Scripture in 
 an entirely different sense from the inspiration of Augustine, 
 of Jerome, or of Cicero. The religion which recommended 
 itself to Dolet, as it seems almost inevitable for it to have 
 done to all thinking men of that day who were equally 
 unable to accept the authority of the Church or the arbitrary 
 theories of the reformers, was natural religion, a religion 
 of duty in relation to this world only, and troubling itself 
 not at all with the future, as being a matter of which 
 
488 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 nothing can be certainly known, and concerning which it 
 is useless to reason or to speculate. 'Naturalistic religion,' 
 says one of the ablest writers of our own day, speaking 
 of a century and a half later, 1 'may seem a very unsafe 
 and comfortless halting-place to us, but to many who heard 
 of religion only in connection , with the Bull Unigenitus 
 and Confessional certificates, with some act of intolerance 
 and cruelty, with feeble discussions about grace and the 
 five propositions, the naturalism which Shaftesbury taught 
 in prose, and Pope versified, was like the dawn after the 
 blindness of night.' And much more is this true of natural 
 religion in the sixteenth century, when the acts of intoler- 
 ance and cruelty were greater both in number and in kind 
 than in the seventeenth. Dolet was neither a Protestant 
 nor a Catholic ; as M. Henri Martin remarks, ' philosophy 
 alone has the right to claim on its side the illustrious victim 
 of the Place Maubert, whom the reformation has denounced 
 as impious by the voice of Calvin.' 2 
 
 But while Dolet's religious opinions seem the natural 
 outcome of the circumstances in which he was placed, yet 
 all his sympathies were with the party of reform; and 
 while questions of doctrine, and indeed theological questions 
 generally, seem to have been wholly alien from his mind, 
 he was not insensible either to the value of the New 
 Testament or to the fact that the cause of the reformers 
 was the cause of intellectual progress. However little 
 interest we may feel in the dreary theological controversies 
 which occupied not only the religious minds of the sixteenth 
 century, but even those who in less theological times would 
 have devoted themselves to the healthy business of life, 
 in the precise method of justification, in such questions as 
 whether the rule of faith and life is to be found exclusively 
 
 1 John Morley, Fortnightly Review, 1875, p. 495. 
 2 Hist, de France, 4 m6 edit. vol. viii. p. 343. 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 489 
 
 in the sixty -eight books which the Protestant Churches 
 generally have held to be alone canonical, or whether the 
 living voice of the Church has a co-ordinate authority, 
 whether prevenient grace or grace of congruity exist, nay, 
 however it may seem to us that in many of the discussions 
 the champions of Rome held the broader and more reason- 
 able opinions, yet we can never forget that the cause of 
 Protestantism was essentially the cause of intellectual pro- 
 gress and of freedom of thought. It was the cause of the 
 development of reason, as the other was of its repression, 
 of the retrogression of the intellect. 
 
 There were indeed then, as there have been since at all 
 times, numerous Catholics who were better, and numerous 
 Protestants who were worse than their respective creeds : 
 Pierre Duchatel, Michel de l'Hopital, Cardinal Sadolet, 
 and Thomas More, favourably contrast with Calvin, Carl- 
 stadt, Cranmer, and Somerset. 
 
 There may seem to a superficial observer little to choose 
 between, on the one hand, Luther (with his incessant talk 
 about justification by faith) and Calvin (with his predes- 
 tination, his rigid Trinitarian orthodoxy, his personal in- 
 fallibility, and his readiness to betray into the hands of 
 the Inquisition those who ventured a hair's-breadth beyond 
 the limits which he had laid down, and if need be to burn 
 them himself) ; and on the other, Eck (with his defence of 
 indulgences) and Clement VII. (with his time-serving 
 worldliness and expediency), and Francis I. (with his 
 mixture of piety and profligacy). If a tree is to be known 
 by its fruits, we cannot deny that Sadolet was far in 
 advance of Calvin in all the Christian graces and virtues, and 
 that in the controversial epistles which passed between them 
 a much truer spirit of Christianity appears in the letters of 
 the Cardinal than in those of his great opponent. Nay, 
 our sympathies are more in unison, our reason less shocked 
 
490 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 with the arguments and doctrines of Sadolet, than with 
 those of Calvin. And we are apt to lose sight of the fact, 
 which cannot be too prominently put forward or too clearly 
 remembered, that in the sixteenth century, whatever we may 
 think of the dogmatic views of the reformers, Protestantism 
 by the logic of its position, though unknowingly and 
 sometimes unwillingly, permitted freedom of thought, and 
 Catholicism deliberately and intentionally repressed it. The 
 Catholic party was logically and consistently wrong ; the 
 Protestant party was illogically and inconsistently right. 
 Freedom of judgment, of thought, was really the basis- 
 and standpoint of Protestantism, which yet in terms re- 
 jected it, or only admitted it reluctandy when driven by 
 its Catholic adversaries from all other positions. Besides, 
 the reformers, even Calvin the most dogmatic of all, had 
 a sincere love and desire for the truth as such, and were 
 only in error in thinking and positively asserting that the 
 portion of truth which each had acquired for himself was 
 the whole truth ; thus each Church set up for itself canons 
 of infallibility, little less odious and much more ridiculous 
 than those of the Church of Rome. When Luther, having 
 rejected transubstantiation, excommunicated all who could 
 not accept the doctrine rather less reconcilable with 
 common sense of consubstantiation, and pronounced the 
 Zwinglian hypothesis no less heretical than the Roman, 
 and when Calvin, though certainly unsound on the doctrine 
 of the Trinity (if on this point the doctrine of the Churches 
 of England and Rome is to be counted as orthodox), burnt 
 Servetus for being a little more heretical than himself, they 
 were utterly false to the principles which had alone entitled 
 them to throw off so many of the doctrines and practices of 
 the Church of Rome, and to separate from her communion ; 
 they had ceased to deserve the name of Reformers. 
 Bossuet's history of the variations of the Protestant 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 491 
 
 Churches would have lost most of its force had each of 
 those Churches been content to accept for its own guidance 
 the measure of truth which it had acquired, without 
 attempting in a ridiculous rivalry of its great opponent to 
 uphold its own doctrines as the absolute and whole truth 
 for all men and for all time, and without excommunicating 
 with bitter hatred, and persecuting when it had the 
 opportunity, those who went a hair's-breadth farther from, 
 or halted a hair's-breadth nearer to, the Church of Rome. 
 
 That Dolet's friends were all on the side of reform 
 is certain, that he admired the pure life and moral teaching 
 of Lefevre d'Etaples and Charles de Sainte Marthe, that 
 he both read, admired, and desired to promote the reading 
 of the New Testament is clear, but to say that he was a 
 Christian, as the term was then used or accepted equally 
 by Protestant and Catholic, would be undoubtedly to say 
 what is not the fact. But we may ask, what was there 
 to attract him in Christianity as displayed by its chief 
 ministers and adherents, by Cardinal du Prat with his 
 wealth and his avarice, by Cardinal de Tournon with his 
 massacre of the Vaudois and his repression of everything 
 like freedom of thought, by Noel Beda who considered 
 Greek and Hebrew as in themselves heretical studies, by 
 Pierre Lizet with his hands red with the blood of martyrs, 
 by the most Christian King oscillating between devotion 
 and debauchery, and by Calvin with his narrow and rigid 
 system of doctrine and his persecuting spirit ? 
 
 If the description which Lucretius gives us of religion 
 is accurate, certainly all these may be called religious men, 
 but if we are to take our idea of religion from the defini- 
 tion given by St. James, or from St. Paul's enumeration 
 of the fruits of the Spirit, not one of these eminent persons 
 possessed a spark of it, not one of them displayed a single 
 one of those fruits, at least some of which we may expect 
 
492 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 to find in every Christian man. Goodness attracted Dolet 
 wherever it was to be found, whether in Sadolet, in Lefevre 
 d'Etaples, in Jean de Pins, or in Sainte Marthe ; but moral 
 goodness unaccompanied by orthodox sentiment was rejected 
 as no sign of real Christianity, equally by the Reformers 
 as by the Catholics. 
 
 We can hardly doubt the sincerity of the language with 
 which in the Genethliacum Dolet recommends to his son 
 the belief and trust in God as a sure support and consola- 
 tion from the miseries of life. In the Commentaries he 
 offers up this prayer : — 
 
 "Ye gods, the omnipotent rulers of all things, grant me 
 this one, only this one piece of good fortune. The material 
 goods of fortune, as fleeting and vain things, I deem not 
 worthy of your care, nor do I for them seek to weary you 
 by my prayers. But grant this to me, that my reputation, 
 my safety, my life, may never depend on the sentence of a 
 judge. If I can obtain this from you by my prayers, I shall 
 think that I abound in all good things, that every good 
 fortune which I could desire is heaped upon me, that my 
 life has been surfeited with every pleasure. That I may 
 obtain this I implore you with the same earnestness and 
 sincerity with which I attribute to your goodness everything 
 that I possess, with the same zeal with which I reverence 
 your divine will, and with which I contemplate with admira- 
 tion and awe your power.' 1 
 
 It will hardly be believed that this prayer, so suitable 
 to his circumstances, has been the source of vehement 
 attacks. His use of the word superi instead of deus was 
 made a charge against him, and by this he was said to have 
 shown himself a heretic and a pagan ; and the following is 
 the remark which our English Jortin, generally so fair and 
 liberal, but who was frightened by the terrible word Atheist, 
 
 1 2 Com. 1328. 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 493 
 
 makes upon it : ' The most charitable thing to be said for 
 the author of such a prayer is, that he was mad : and prob- 
 ably it was the truth of the case. Perpetual application to 
 study, continual quarrels, violent passions, poverty, a series 
 of calamities, and infinite pride and vanity, had soured his 
 temper, heated his blood, and shattered his brains.' x And 
 a writer whom Jortin quotes 2 had previously remarked on 
 the prayer, ' An ita precatur homo sanus, et non male sibi 
 conscius, et Christianus ? ' 
 
 But it is only from the accident of his condemnation and 
 death that the religious opinions of Etienne Dolet have 
 acquired any interest or have any significance. 3 For the 
 theological discussions and parties of the time he really 
 cared nothing, except so far as they affected the cause of 
 literature, and the remark which a contemporary writer 
 makes upon Dryden is equally (perhaps more strictly) 
 applicable to him : 'A busy man of letters, who never 
 seriously reflected upon such matters, but who amused 
 himself as occasion offered with easy acquiescence in con- 
 troversial dogmas, with the casual speculations of languid 
 scepticism, or with laughing at both.' * 
 
 1 Life of Erasmus, vol. ii. p. 68. 
 
 2 Re/at. Gotting. vol. iii. fasc. I, p. 101. 
 
 3 I have so frequently had occasion to note the shortcomings of M. 
 Boulmier's work that I am glad to be able to say that he seems to have 
 fairly discussed and to have arrived at true conclusions as to Dolet's 
 religious opinions. Any one who is interested in the matter will find 
 the seventeenth chapter of his book worthy of attention. 
 
 4 J. C. Collins, Essays and Studies, 1895. M. O. Douen, in two 
 articles in the Bulletin de la Societe d'Histoire du Protestantisme (separately 
 issued under the title Etienne Dolet,- ses opinions religieuses, Paris, 1 881), 
 has endeavoured to show that my view of the religious opinions of Dolet 
 is incorrect and has claimed him, if not as a martyr of Protestantism, at 
 least as a " catholique biblique, a moitie reTorme, amine" de l'esprit 
 nouveau, lequel delaissait paisiblement le culte des saints, les indulgences, 
 la confession auriculaire, le careme, et posait pour regie de foi la 
 
494 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 It is as a scholar and a man of letters that Dolet desired 
 and ought to be judged by posterity, and in each of those 
 characters, if we cannot place him among the two or three 
 
 parole sainte, oui, certes, il le fut, au moins dans ses dernieres annees, et 
 c'est ce qui explique pourquoi il repete avec une assurance non feinte 
 que l'impression de la Bible n'est pas un acte heretique. Aux savants 
 auteurs de la France protestante disant de lui : " Sa revoke se bornait a 
 favoriser le schisme, en pr£tant ses presses a la publication d'ouvrages mal 
 sentant de la foi," Dolet aurait pu repondre avec un parfaite loyaute : 
 La revoke, l'heresie, sont, d'une part, en ceux qui annulent la parole 
 divine par leurs traditions, et, d'autre part, en ceux qui dechirent 
 outrageusement l'Eglise de Jesus-Christ. — La rebellion de Dolet et de 
 ses pareils n'etait done qu'une demi-revolte, puisqu'elle excluait toute idee 
 de schisme." 
 
 M. Douen appears to think that I have read neither the Cats 
 Christianus, nor the prefaces to the several religious books, all of a 
 Protestant tendency, printed by Dolet. I had, however, read them all 
 before M. Douen's etude appeared, and since that time I have repeatedly 
 re-read them, especially the Cato Christianus, one of the only two known 
 copies of which is in my possession, and have very carefully weighed 
 the arguments of M. Douen, but I am unable to think that the pious 
 sentiments of which these prefaces are full, express the sincere opinions 
 of Dolet except in so far as they show his sympathy with the reformers 
 as favouring liberty of thought and the free circulation of the Scriptures 
 so bitterly opposed by those in authority. M. Douen considers that 
 in the latter part of his life, and in fact from the date of the publication 
 of the Cato Christianus (at the latest in 1538) Dolet had entirely laid 
 aside the opinions which had gained for him the reputation of an 
 atheist, and had adopted those indicated in the above extract from 
 M. Douen's work. I can only say that I find nothing to warrant this 
 hypothesis. Nowhere in the writings of Dolet is to be found the 
 slightest expression of regret for any of the opinions he had before 
 expressed or had before held. From beginning to end he is the same ; 
 he alters nothing, he retracts nothing. He is indeed surprised that 
 anything he has written should be thought contrary to the faith, and 
 desires wholly to submit himself to authority just as Pomponatius did 
 more than twenty years earlier, and I am obliged to agree with the 
 conclusions of the writer of the interesting (though very inaccurate) 
 article on Dolet in the new edition of La France Protestante that he 
 displayed to the end " l'esprit rationaliste qui l'inspirait quand, dix 
 ans plus t&t, dans ses Commentaires de la langue latine, il portait toute son 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 495 
 
 foremost names of his contemporaries, he is certainly entitled 
 to a high position. Though he may not have been that 
 consummate master of Latin style that he fondly believed, 
 and though he may have been wanting in critical acumen, 
 yet he must be admitted to have been a sound Latin scholar 
 as scholarship was then understood, possessed of much 
 learning, of strong classical feeling, of unwearied industry, 
 and of both the will and the power to make his learning 
 available for the use and benefit of others. His Cotn- 
 
 adoration sur l'Etre supreme et sur lui seul. . . . Sans doute Dolet 
 employa les derniers temps de son activite litteraire a iraprimer des 
 livres protestants et a les recommander dans de pieuses prefaces, 
 mais il pouvait favoriser la Reforme et la recommander parce qu'elle 
 s'accordait beaucoup mieux que l'eglise catholique avec les libertes de 
 l'esprit, et ne point en accepter les dogmes. En effet on a vu dans 
 tout le cours du present article, Dolet lui-m£me proteste contre cet 
 enr&lement, en confessant son pur deisme." (In this article a number of 
 M. Boulmier's errors are reproduced including the confusion of Jean de 
 Langeac with Jean du Bellay-Langey.) 
 
 But though I cannot agree with the conclusions of M. Douen, I none 
 the less thank him for the attention he has paid to my book, and I can 
 assure my readers that they will find his articles well worthy of their 
 attention. 
 
 In reference to the religious opinions of Dolet I may note that 
 among the books of M. Leopold Double (No. 343 in the sale catalogue) 
 was a volume of Horee described as " a la reliure d'Etienne Dolet et qui 
 porte sur les plats la devise qu'il avait adoptee : Preservez-moi, Seigneur, 
 des calomnies des hommes." A note of M. Paul Lacroix appended to the 
 volume assumes that it had belonged to Etienne Dolet and that it was 
 " un solennel temoin qui vient, pour ainsi dire, apres trois siecles de 
 doute et d'erreur, rehabiliter la memoire du celebre imprimeur con- 
 damne a mort, comme ath'ee relaps," M. Lacroix further assumes that 
 it proves that Dolet was " un bon chretien, attache a la foi, de ses peres, 
 et surtout au culte de la Vierge, lisant ses Heures et pratiquant ses devoirs 
 de piete avec autant de candeur qu'un digne chanoine." It is, of course, 
 possible that the book may have belonged to Dolet though the fact of 
 the device being stamped on it can hardly be admitted as conclusive proof, 
 but assuming it to have been Dolet's, I fail to see that it affords any evidence 
 of his religious opinions or as to his practice of " ses devoirs de piete." 
 
496 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 mentaries were one of the most important contributions 
 to Latin scholarship which France had as yet given. His 
 Formula, his criticisms on Terence, and his translations, 
 are all amongst the most meritorious works of their kind. 
 That his Latin works are rhetorical rather than scientific, 
 looking at form and not at substance, is only to say that 
 they were the works of a scholar of the Renaissance, of a 
 scholar of the first half of the sixteenth century. His 
 Latin verse is neither better nor worse than that of most 
 of his contemporaries, 1 and if he never rises to the height 
 
 1 The judgment of Buchanan was very unfavourable, but it was rather 
 the matter than the style that he censured. His two epigrams on Dolet 
 are as follows : — 
 
 Carmina quod sensu careant, mirare Doleti? 
 guando qui scripsit carmina, mente caret. 
 
 Verba Doletus habet (quis nescit ?) splendida : verum 
 Splendida nil prater verba Doletus habet. 
 
 Pasquier is not more friendly ; he says of him 
 
 1 Cui placuit nullus, nulli hunc placuisse necesse est.' 
 
 This is rather unkind, for the idea as well as the form of a long passage 
 in Pasquier's Recherches sur la France (book vii. c. vi.) is clearly taken 
 from the digression in Dolet's Commentaries, quoted ante, pp. 256-262. 
 On the other hand, Macrin — the French Horace — classes him with 
 Brice, Dampierre, Bourbon, and Voulte, and speaks of his verses in terms 
 of high praise. The reader who desires to see more fully the estimation 
 in which he was held by his contemporaries will find a large collection 
 of epigrams favourable and unfavourable to him in Maittaire's Annates 
 Typographic!, vol. iii. pp. 10- 113. None of his biographers have, how- 
 ever, noticed the bitter epigrams written against him by Gilbert 
 Ducher, generally under the name of Durus {Epigrammata, Lugduni, 
 1538, pp. 12, 38, 96, 104, 105), by Simon Vallambert, under different 
 transparent disguises {Epigrammaton Somnia, Lugduni, 1 54.1, pp. 24., 28, 
 47, 48), by Antoine de Gouvea {Epigrammata, Lugduni, 1540, p. 16), by 
 CI. Rosselet {Epigrammata, Lugduni, 1536, p. 66), and by Jehan Gigas 
 {Sylvarum Libri, Vitebergae, i'54°- This unpaged volume contains four 
 epigrams against Dolet.) The author of the life of Dolet, in Les 
 Hommes illustres de I'Orleanais (taken principally from the MS. of Dom 
 Gerou preserved in the public library of Orleans) says that Muret was 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 497 
 
 of Vida or Sannazar, he at least does not fall to the level 
 of Julius Csesar Scaliger. That he sometimes admits false 
 quantities is a fault which he shares with scholars and poets 
 of much greater reputation. 1 Yet sometimes in his Latin, 
 and still oftener in his French verse, notably in several of 
 those quoted in the course of this book, he rises to a height 
 of pathos, vigour, and imaginative power rarely if ever to 
 be found among the poets of the day, which certainly in- 
 duces us to believe that had he devoted to French verse 
 the labour and pains which he gave to elaborating and 
 polishing his Latin prose, he might have equalled any of 
 his contemporaries, and surpassed all except Marot. Nor 
 must his services to the French language be forgotten. He 
 
 among the intimate friends of Dolet, and speaks of him with lloge in his 
 collection of Epigrams. I have not been able to find any reference to 
 Dolet in the writings of Muret, nor anything to indicate that there was 
 any acquaintance between the two men. Muret was only twenty years 
 of age at the time of Dolet's death. 
 
 Besides the two poems of Charles de Sainte Marthe already quoted, 
 his Poesie Franpise contains the following ode to Dolet : — 
 
 Demosthene vivant, qui n'eut oncque second, 
 
 Les Grecs eurent jadis Eloquence entre mains. 
 
 Lui mort, au monde vint Ciceron le facond, 
 
 Lequel avecque soi la porta aux Romains. 
 
 Apres luy, elle fut transported aux Germains, 
 
 Ou toujours demoura tant qu'Erasme a eu vie ; 
 
 De la s'en retourna visiter l'ltalie, 
 
 Kt avoit prins manoir chez Bembe et Sadolet. 
 
 Mais depuis peu de temps leur a este ravie 
 
 Et tout droit amenee en France par Dolet. 
 
 1 Gray, usually one of the most correct and elegant writers of Latin 
 verse, has the following lines : — 
 
 * Irasque, insidiasque et taciturn sub pectore vulnus.' 
 4 Quin, uti no3 oculis jam nunc juvat ire per arva.' 
 ' Scilicet haec partem tibi, Masinissa, triumphi.' 
 ' Tempus ego certe memini felicia Pcenis.' 
 
 Salmasius notices mistakes of quantity in the poems of Milton, and neither 
 Buchanan nor Beza is free from them, nor even from faults of grammar 
 and construction. Joseph Scaliger twice (in the Scaligerana) remarks upon 
 the Gallicisms of Beza. 
 
 2 K 
 
498 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 was one of the few scholars of the day who did not despise 
 his mother tongue, and who had formed a true conception 
 of its importance, and of the method of treating it scientific- 
 ally. His grammatical tracts and his translations afford 
 us proofs of this, and add to the many other indications of 
 what he might and probably would have done had a longer 
 life been allowed to him. For in judging of his talents and 
 abilities we must not forget that he had only attained the 
 age of thirty-eight years at his death, and that the last four 
 years of his life were almost wholly passed in prison. What 
 would have been the reputation of Bude, of Calvin, or even 
 of Erasmus had their lives terminated with their thirty- 
 eighth year ? But the man ' was greater than his books.' 
 His books have fallen into a common oblivion with those 
 of greater men. ' The books of the scholars of the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries,' says Mr. Pattison in his admir- 
 able Life of Casaubon (p. 434), 'have for us little more 
 than an historical interest. They will be visited only by 
 those curious inquirers who may wish to acquaint them- 
 selves with the history of learning. The biographical data 
 will be of more interest than the philological matter.' 
 
 The books that Dolet did not write, but only planned, 
 interest us even more than those he actually composed, 
 since they help us to understand better the mind, the 
 aspirations, the aims of the passionate Ciceronian. The 
 history of opinions, the complete translation of Plato, 
 the translation of the whole Bible, the Orateur Franpoys, 
 the history of his own times, the lives of the Kings of 
 France after the manner of Suetonius, make us half admire 
 the enthusiasm, half laugh at the conceit of the man who 
 could imagine himself competent to undertake them, or 
 who could believe that one life could be sufficient to 
 accomplish them all, while his orations in his own defence 
 in reference to the death of Compaing, and his defence 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 499 
 
 from the serious charges on which sentence of death was 
 pronounced on him, and which he composed in the prisons 
 of Lyons, could not fail to have been of the highest bio- 
 graphical interest. His enthusiastic love of learning and 
 his intense belief in himself are his two strongest character- 
 istics, and both contributed in no slight degree to his 
 misfortunes. 
 
 It has been my endeavour in this book to show Dolet as 
 he really was, and I have omitted neither the unfavourable 
 criticisms of his contemporaries, both on his writings and 
 on his disposition, nor the facts from which unfavourable 
 conclusions may be drawn. When I first planned this 
 work I had absolute faith in the panegyrists of Dolet. I 
 believed, as it has been the fashion for a certain class of 
 men of letters in France to represent, that he was a man of 
 the noblest character, that his virtues and learning alone 
 excited the hatred of the enemies of virtue and learning, 
 and brought him to the Place Maubert. But the careful 
 study of his own writings, and of contemporary authorities, 
 has led me, however unwillingly, to the conclusion that his 
 own faults of head, and I fear it must be added of heart, 
 were, though not the principal, yet important co-operating 
 causes of his misfortunes. Yet even with these drawbacks 
 he remains a man possessed of many most admirable 
 qualities, of high talent, an intense desire after knowledge 
 for himself, and an equally intense desire of communicating 
 it to others, a profound sympathy with every kind of in- 
 tellectual progress, and a bitter hatred of ignorance, bigotry* 
 superstition, and priestcraft. 
 
 In judging fairly of his character, and in weighing his 
 merits and defects, I would ask that two facts be re- 
 membered in his favour, and due weight given to them. 
 The first is, that with all these serious faults of temper and 
 
500 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 temperament, which could not fail at once to make them- 
 selves seen, he yet excited the affection, the admiration, and 
 the respect, and obtained and at least for a time retained the 
 friendship of every man of learning and virtue with whom 
 he came into personal contact. One who so easily acquired 
 and so long enjoyed the friendship of men so different in 
 station, in sentiments, and in disposition as Jean de Langeac, 
 Simon Villanovanus, Jean de Pins, Arnoul Le Ferron, 
 Jacques Bording, Gui de Breslay, Jean de Boyssone, Charles 
 de Sainte Marthe, the two Sceves, Sebastian Gryphius, 
 Nicolas Berauld, Pierre Duchatel, Jean Voulte, and last 
 though not least, of Clement Marot and Francois Rabelais, 
 must have been possessed of some excellent qualities of head 
 and of heart. 
 
 The second fact is this, that with all the violence of 
 Dolet's temper, with all the outrageous and abusive language 
 in which he indulged towards his real and fancied enemies, 
 no single word of unkindness was ever printed by him con- 
 cerning any one of those with whom he had been on terms 
 of friendship, but with whom, from whatever cause, he had 
 quarrelled. Wherever the names of Rabelais, Marot, Voulte, 
 Bourbon, or Sussanneau occur in his writings, he uses the 
 language of affection and of admiration. It is possible 
 that every mention of them was written by him before their 
 estrangement, yet if so his silence ought to be allowed to 
 tell strongly in his favour. It is from them, not from him, 
 that we learn the existence of dissension. I have already 
 expressed my opinion — though the evidence on the subject 
 is very slight — that the probability is that in each case 
 Dolet was in the wrong. But the fact that he made no 
 complaint and used no unkind word, and that it is so much 
 more easy for the injured than for the injurer to forgive, 
 should be remembered in his favour, and will probably 
 lead us to the conclusion that thoughtlessness and personal 
 
xxv OPINIONS AND CHARACTER 501 
 
 vanity, rather than badness of heart, led to the conduct of 
 which his friends complained. 
 
 It is not from a priest and a Barnabite that we should 
 expect a perfectly fair and impartial opinion concerning 
 one who was reported to be an atheist, but I do not know 
 that there is much to complain of in the Abbe Niceron's 
 judgment (though only an imperfect one) on Dolet : — 1 
 
 ' II fut outre en tout, aime extremement des uns, ha'i des 
 autres a la fureur : comblant les uns de loiianges, dechirant 
 les autres sans pitie, toujours attaquant, toujours attaque, 
 scavant au-dela de son age, s'appliquant sans relache au 
 travail, d'ailleurs orgueifleux, meprisant, vindicatif, et 
 inquiet.' 
 
 1 Mem. pour servir a J' Hist, des Hommes lllustres, vol. xxi. p. 1 1 8. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 Claude Dolet 
 
 Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. 
 
 Scott. 
 
 O trace has hitherto been 
 discovered of Dolet's 
 widow or son Claude. 
 The question, what be- 
 came of them after his 
 death, has often been 
 put, but never answered. 
 The diligence of Nee de 
 la Rochelle was able to 
 discover the existence of 
 only two persons of the 
 same surname in the two 
 centuries which followed 
 the death of our hero — 
 a certain Leon Dolet, advocate and echevin of Paris in 1603, 
 and a Jacques Dolet, who filled the same characters in 
 1623 ; and M. Boulmier was unable to add any others to 
 this meagre list. ' After the death of Dolet,' he writes, 
 ' we completely lose the trace of his son Claude.' ' This 
 young unfortunate,' says Nee de la Rochelle, 'excites our 
 compassion, and compels our tears. An innocent victim, 
 
chap, xxvi CLAUDE DOLET 503 
 
 having bitterly to complain of the fury of the enemies of 
 Dolet, what became of him after the death of his unfor- 
 tunate father ? Forced by a prejudice, which still exists, to 
 conceal her misfortune, his mother perhaps sought an 
 asylum far from the city which gave him birth, where they 
 could live together in retirement, unknown, and sheltered 
 from the persecutions of the devotees and too zealous 
 defenders of the Catholic religion. Nevertheless it is 
 certain that this child was lost for the literary world in 
 which he had been destined to shine, or that he so com- 
 pletely concealed his name from the curiosity of the vulgar 
 that no one has since spoken of his existence, or even of his 
 death.' 1 
 
 I believe that I am able partially to draw away the veil 
 of mystery which has hitherto enveloped the after-life of 
 Claude Dolet, and to give some indications both as to him 
 and his descendants which, however, I must leave to others 
 with greater opportunities than I possess, to follow up. 
 
 After repeated and lengthened searches in likely and 
 unlikely quarters for persons bearing the name of Dolet, 
 I at length discovered that at Troyes, the great seat of 
 the paper manufacture in France, where the printers of 
 Lyons obtained most of the paper for their impressions, and 
 with which city the publication of an edition of the Second 
 Enfer in 1544 (by Nicole Paris) proves that Dolet had ! 
 intimate relations, and where, in fact, his final arrest took j 
 place, Claude Dolet was living as a flourishing citizen from ' 
 1570 to 1585. Among the manuscripts of the Biblio- ! 
 theque Nationale is a French translation of the Ethics of 
 Aristotle made by Nicole Oresme. 2 The volume is a large 
 quarto, written on vellum, in the handwriting of the 
 
 1 Vie de Dolet, p. 63. 
 
 2 See Lit Manutcritt Franfait de la Bibliotheque du Roi, par A. PauliD, 
 Paris, vol. iv. p. 430, No. 7059. 551. 
 
50 4 ETIENNE DOLET chap. 
 
 fifteenth century, and ornamented with numerous miniatures, 
 vignettes, and initial letters, and on the last sheet is this in- 
 scription, ' Cest livre de Ethiques est de Messire Bertran de 
 Beauvau. . . . et le acheta a Paris le XXIII" jour de May 
 Van Mil CCCC. quarante sept.' Then below follows, ' Et 
 depuis a Claude Dolet qui demeure a Troyes et I'achepta le 
 XXVII decembre M.V e LXX au diet Troyes.' Afterwards 
 on the vellum page which is fastened to the binding is 
 written, ' A Troyes Nicolas Vignier docteur en medecine 
 1587.' Fifteen years after the date of Claude Dolet's 
 inscription in the book {i.e. 1585), I find one of the same 
 name an echevin of the city. 1 If as I conjecture this was 
 the same person and was the son of Etienne Dolet, he would 
 be thirty-one years of age when he purchased the manuscript 
 of the Ethics and forty-seven when he was chosen an echevin 
 of Troyes. The extreme rarity of the surname, the identity 
 of the Christian name, the age of Claude Dolet, the con- 
 . nection of Etienne Dolet with Troyes, and lastly the 
 \ hereditary literary taste displayed in the purchase of the 
 I beautiful and costly manuscript, seem to me to prove con- 
 clusively the identity of Claude Dolet, echevin of Troyes, 
 With the son of Etienne Dolet. And if we are satisfied 
 of this identity, we shall probably not be far wrong in 
 concluding that it was from Troyes that Etienne Dolet 
 brought his wife to Lyons, and that she retired to her 
 native city and to her family there, when the sentence 
 of the Parliament of Paris had deprived her of her 
 husband. 
 
 Fourteen years after Claude Dolet had filled the office 
 of echevin, I find the Leon Dolet mentioned by Nee de la 
 Rochelle, an advocate at Paris. He appears in Loisel's list 
 
 1 Courtalon-Delaistre, Topograph. Hist, de la Ville et du Diocese de 
 Troyes, Troyes, 1783. 
 
xxvi CLAUDE DOLET 505 
 
 made in the year 1599, 1 and, according to the Antiquites de 
 Paris par Malingre (1640, p. 690), he was chosen echevin 
 of Paris on August 16, 1603. The next of the name whom 
 I have found is the Jacques Dolet (also mentioned by Nee 
 de la Rochelle), who according to Malingre (p. 692) was an 
 advocate, and was in 1623 echevin of Paris. In 1698 Paul 
 Dolet and the widow of Michel Dolet, both of Sedan, were 
 Protestant refugees at Cologne, and in 1704 the name of 
 Jean Dolet of Pignan, Languedoc, occurs as that of a Pro- 
 testant receiving assistance at Geneva. 2 
 
 In the eighteenth century there lived a Dolet who on 
 account of his Christian name is especially interesting to us. 
 Claude Louis Dolet, ' religieux Benedictin de la Reforme de 
 Clugni,' is mentioned by Le Long in his Bibliotheque His- 
 torique (17 19) as the author of ' MS. Histoire, ou plutot 
 memoires de la province de Nivernois.' To the edition of Le 
 Long given by Ferret de Fontette, 3 M. Parmentier, ' assesseur 
 de la Marechaussee du Nivernois? contributed the following 
 note relative to Claude Louis Dolet : ' Ses MSS. ont ete 
 disperses apres sa mort, et il y en a quelques morceaux a 
 S. Martin des Champs a Paris. II avait bien amasse des 
 materiaux mais il parait qu'il n'avoit rien redige. J'ai vu 
 de ses extraits en plusieurs endroits mais son histoire dont 
 parloit le P. le Long n'est nulle part.' 
 
 In the Grand Dictionnaire Historique qf Larousse (vol. 
 vi.) I find an account of a Charles Dolet, an actor and 
 theatrical manager, son of an officer of the mint, born at 
 Paris in 1682, and who died in the same city in 1738. 
 Francois Dolet was a printer at Boulogne in 1 7 8 1 .* Lastly, 
 there died in 1823 a certain Pierre Dolet, President d' "etude 
 
 1 Pasquier, ou Dialogue des Avocats du Parlement de Paris. 
 
 2 La France Protestante, 2nd edition. 
 
 8 1772. 4 vols, fol., vol. iii. p. 415, No. 35.570. 
 
 4 Morand, Essai sur les principales impressions Boulonais, 1 841. 
 
506 ETIENNE DOLET chap, xxvi 
 
 de la 'petite communaute de St. Louis en Vile. His funeral 
 oration was delivered by the Abbe de Rolleau, and after- 
 wards printed by Gamier (8vo, 1823). 
 
 Searches in the Archives of Troyes, of the Faculty of 
 Advocates of Paris, of the Benedictine order of Clugni, and 
 in other official records would probably result in the dis- 
 covery of the parentage of these persons. Much interest 
 has of late years been shown by France in those of her 
 children who shared in the revival of letters. This leads me 
 to hope that the indications given in this chapter, which, 
 however scanty or insufficient they may seem, have not been 
 collected without much labour, will be followed up by some 
 who, living in France, have facilities for researches of this 
 kind which I do not possess. It is in the belief that, if this 
 suggestion is carried out, it will appear that the persons 
 mentioned were the descendants of the victim of the Place 
 Maubert, and therefore not without interest to the few 
 whom sympathy for an unfortunate scholar of the Renais- 
 sance may induce to follow a somewhat dull record to its 
 close, that I venture, with these fragmentary notices, to 
 conclude my story of the life and death of Etienne Dolet. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 DOCUMENTS 
 
 I 
 
 ACT of ASSOCIATION of 10 July 1542, between Dolet and 
 his Wife, and Helayn Dulin. 
 
 ARCHIVES OF LYONS. 
 
 [The omissions are of illegible words and passages.] 
 
 Personnellement estably honnorable personne M tre Estienne 
 Dolet, marchant imprimeur et libraire, citoyen de lion et de son 
 autorite Loyse Giraud sa femme pour eulx et en leurs noms d'une 
 part et honorable homme Helayn Dulin, demeurant au dit lion aussi 
 pour luy et en son nom .... lesquels . . . . et iceux maries Dolet 
 Pun pour l'autre et chacun d'eux present et pour le tout renoncans 
 au benefice de demission d'actions ont fait et font entre eulx nouvelle 
 compaignie oultre les deux compaignies cy-devant faictes, d'une 
 presse d'imprimerie que les dits maries Dolet ont promis et pro- 
 mettent tenir dans les premiers jours de septembre prochain venant 
 soubs les memes actes . . . conventions et accords contenus es dites 
 premiere et seconde compagnie . . . faictes et passees entreux dudit 
 fait et train d'imprimerie la premiere le 24 e jour du moys de Janvier 
 Ian mil cinq cens trente neuf et la seconde le dix huictieme jour du 
 moys d'aoust ensuyvant mil cinq cens quarante et ce pour le tems et 
 terme de six ans entreux continuels et consequutifs commencant du 
 dt premier jour du moys de septembre prouchain veut mil cinq cens 
 quarante deux et finissant le dit jour d'aoust que l'on comptera mil 
 Ve quarante huict jusques auquel temps les dites parties par ces dites 
 presentes ont continue et proroge les . . . deux . . . premieres com- 
 
5io APPENDIX A 
 
 paignies a ce que toutes les dites troys compaignies viennent a finir 
 en ung mesme jour, adjoustant touteffois a l'accord de cette presente 
 compaignie les articles qui en suyvent savoir est que les diets maries 
 Dolet baillent presentement gratis au dit Dulin ung livre de chacune 
 sorte qu'ils ont imprimes en leurs deux presses depuis qu'ils commen- 
 cerent a lever la premiere presse et s'ils les ont imprimes derechef 
 quils lui en baillent aussy ung de autant de foys qu'ils les auront 
 imprimez, en declarant au dit helayn quel nombre il y en aura im- 
 prime et d'ici en avant, promettent faire le semblable de tous ceux 
 quils imprimeront ou reimprimeront en toutes leurs presses, plus 
 promettent semblablement que s'ils avaient imprim6 ou imprimeront 
 par cy apres quelque livre ou livres qui fussent ou vinssent a estre 
 reprins ou defendus . . . que iceux maries Dolet prennent cella sur 
 leur charge et en laisseront portant de les faire bons audit Dulin 
 suyvant leurs diets accords tout ainsi que s'ils etaient prins et auraient 
 . . . sans ce que le dit helayn en soit charge ou empesche . . . Et ce 
 moyennant le prix et somme de quinze cens livres que le dit Dulin 
 promet fournir aux diets maries Dolet pour son fonds dans cette 
 presente compaignie sur laquelle somme de quinze cents livres les dits 
 maries Dolet ont confesse et confessent avoir eu et receu dudit Dulin 
 cinq cents livres tant en cinquante escus d'or sol qu'ils ont cydevant 
 receu . . . ils ont dit et confessent . . . quatre vingt sept livres dix 
 sols qu'ils ont receus presentement en ducats doubles ducats ung demi 
 escu dor sol en partie et tellement que des . . . cinq cents livres les 
 susdicts marids Dolet se sont tenus et tiennent pour contents et en 
 ont quite et quitent le dit Dulin lequel Dulin a promis et promet leur 
 fournir et delivrer les mil livres restans desdites quinze cents livres 
 aux festes de Toussaint et de Pasques prouchains venant par e*galle 
 portion permettant les dites parties . . . et soubs leur serment et 
 soubs obligations et ypotheque de tous leurs biens . . . avoir agreable 
 tenir devoir tenir et accomplir des dites parties respectivement et en 
 droyt soy tout le contenu en ces presentes sans jamais controvenir 
 sur payne de tous arrests deppens dommaiges et interets soubmettans 
 ... a toutes cours royaux, senechaussees, officialite . . . Privileges 
 des foyres dudit lion voir de Champaigne . . . Donne a Lion en la 
 maison d'habitation des dits maries Dolet le lundi dixieme jour de 
 juillet l'an mil V e quarante deux. Presents Claude Millet D r en 
 medecine et Guillaume Lamayne demeurants au dit Lion. 
 
 {Signe) Cotereau. 
 
DOCUMENTS 511 
 
 [The first witness Claude Millet was a friend of Dolet to whom 
 there is an epistle in the edition of La Chirurgie de Paulus flLgineta 
 of 1540 (see Appendix B). The name of the other witness is 
 unknown to me. " Cotereau " appears as the Notary in several 
 Notarial Acts of the same epoch. He was probably a relation of 
 Dolet's friend Claude Cottereau.] 
 
II 
 
 DOCUMENTS relating to the Arrest of Dolet at Troyes in 1543, 
 and his subsequent removal to the Conciergerie of Paris. 
 
 ARCHIVES NATIONALES. 
 Carton X 2 b 6. 
 
 A Nossgrs DE Parlement 
 
 Suppl. humblement Jacques des Vaulx, messager ordine de Lyon 
 comme des le sept me jour de Janvier M.V C XLIII defr passe en 
 vertu de la comission emanee de la court led. suppl. ayt este charge 
 par le lieutefi. general de la seneschaucee dud. Lyon de amener 
 prisonnier des prisons ordinaires dud. Lyon en la conciergerie du 
 palais ung nofne Estienne Dolet imprimeur dud. Lyon lequel 
 des le VIII e desd. mois et an seroit evade des mains et puyssance 
 dud. suppl. qui apres plusieurs diligences et perquisitions par luy 
 faictes pour le recouvrer tant es pays dalemaigne, Suysse, Genefve, 
 Bourgongne, Franche conte, Daulphine, Languedoc que ailleurs en ce 
 Royaulme lauroit finablement faict constituer prisonnier es prisons 
 de Troyes en Champaigne des quell, il auroit este extraict avec led. 
 suppl. Ses gens et aydes jusques au nombre de vingt homes et 
 vingt chevaulx et rendu prisonnier en lad. conciergerie come 
 appert par ce seront cy atach. le tout aux fraiz, despens et poursuicte 
 dud. suppl. 
 
 Ce considere, il vo. plaise comectre lun de vous nosd. srs. tel 
 quil vous plaira po r tauxer aud. suppl. ce voyage davoir amene 
 ledit Dolet prisonnier des prisons de Lyon en lad. conciergerie 
 tant po r luy que po r six personnes de cheval ses gens et aydes actendu 
 la qualite dud. prisonnier Leu esgard aux grands fraictz que led. suppl. 
 a faictz pour lamener dud. Troyes qui excedent plus de cent escuz. 
 
DOCUMENTS 513 
 
 Et de la somme quil vo 9 plaira tauxer ordonner executoirc estre 
 delivre aud. suppl. contre le receveur des amendes de lad. court. Et 
 v° ferez bien. 
 
 Visa captura et adductione dicti Dolet et habito juramento dicti 
 Jacobi Desvaulx iterum qualitate temporis et captivis pro sex homini- 
 bus cum tribus et dicto captivo et pro redditu consortium dicti 
 Desvaulx, habent centum quinquaginta libras parisienses. Actum 
 XVII a septembris millesimo quingentesimo quadragesimo quarto. 
 
 Demontmirel. 
 
 Commictitur magister Stephanus de Montmirel, Regis consilia- 
 rius. Actum in parlamento, XVI a septembris M° V° Xliiii . 
 
 Consentio pro Rege taxationem rationabilem fieri supplicanti 
 habita ratione ad quantitatem tarn equorum quam servientiarum 
 pro qualitate temporis necessarii pro executione dicte capture. 
 [B]lanchard. J. Brulart ? 
 
 Fraiz et Mises faictz par Jaques Desvaulx, messaigier ordinaire de 
 la ville de Lion, depuis la capture de m e Estienne Dollet 
 faicte es prisons de la ville de Troyes. 
 
 Et premierement 
 
 Habito jura- Pour neuf postes prinses par ledit Desvaulx pour 
 
 mento Jacobi venir en ceste ville de Paris dudit lieu de Troies 
 
 Desvaulx, mes- p 0ur advertir messieurs de la court de ladicte capture 
 sagern Lugdu- et p 0ur aV oir commission d'icelle pour amener ledit 
 n *? 8is .... Dolet dudit lieu de Troies en la consiergerie du 
 
 sCI ' e xm x s ' palais, pour chacune desquelles postes a este paie 
 trente solz tournois. Pource pour les neuf 
 
 xiii 1 x s. tournois 
 
 s xviii s. t. Item aux postilions et guydes 
 
 xviii s. tourn. 
 
 s xxxvi s. t. Item pour le sejour faict par ledit Desvaulx en 
 
 ceste ville de Paris par l'espace de trois jours a 
 sollicker ladite commission 
 
 xxxvi s. tourn. 
 2 L 
 
5H 
 
 Habito jura- 
 mento Jacobi 
 Desvaulx, mes- 
 sagerii Lugdu- 
 nensis et Petri 
 Seguyneau, ser- 
 vientis palatii, 
 qui affirmant 
 solvisse pro quo- 
 libet homine 
 viginti solidos 
 turonenses et 
 pro sex diebus 
 viixx 1. t. 
 
 Habito jura- 
 mento iiil x s. t. 
 
 s. Pro quolibet 
 caballo et pro 
 sex diebus : s. 
 xxx. 1. t. 
 
 Habito juramen- 
 to dicti mes- 
 sagerii, scilicet 
 pro quolibet 
 homine pro quo- 
 libet die vi s. t. 
 pro xx'i homi- 
 nibus 
 xxxvi '■ t. 
 
 Habitojuramen- 
 to pro quolibet 
 homine sequente 
 vii s. vi d. t. 
 
 s. vi 1. xv s. 
 s. x s. t. 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 Pour la despence par luy faicte de vingt hommes 
 et vingt chevaulx tant pour aller que revenir depuis 
 ceste ville jusques audit Troies. 
 
 Item pour la despence faicte par ledit Dollet 
 durant dix jours qu'il a demoure aux prisons dudit 
 Troyes. 
 
 Item pour le louaige de vingt chevaulx 
 
 Item pour le sallaire de vingt hommes a cheval 
 
 Item pour six hommes de pied par luy prins 
 pour luy faire aide depuis ladicte ville de Troies 
 jusques a Sens 
 
 Item pour l'expedition de ladicte commission 
 
 x s. t. 
 Item pour le sejour faict tant par luy que par 
 ses aides en ceste ville de Paris 
 
DOCUMENTS 515 
 
 A Paris les parties susdictes avons taxez a la somme de neufvingtz 
 six livres trois solz six deniers parisis en regard au personnaige 
 et quality du temps. Faict par nous huissier soubscript, le xiii e jour 
 de septembre mil v c quarante quattre. De Montmirel. 
 
 A NOSSEIGNEURS DE PaRLEMENT 
 
 Supplie humblement Pierre Seguinault, sergent royal au baillage 
 du palais comme, en vertu de la commission de ladicte court et a la 
 requeste de monsieur le procureur general du Roy et a la poursuicte 
 et diligence de Jaques de Vaulx, messaigier ordinaire de Lyon, ledict 
 suppliant ait amene de la ville de Troyes en la conciergerie du palais 
 a Paris, luy acompaigne de vingt hommes et vingt chevaulx avec 
 plusieurs personnes de pied, ung nomine Estienne Dolet, estant 
 prisonnier audit Troyes, lequel Dolet n'a aucuns biens pour luy, 
 satisfaire esdicts fraiz, ce considere, il vous plaise commetre l'un de 
 vous nosseigneurs tel qu'il vous plaira pour tauxer les fraiz, sallaires et 
 vaccations dudit suppliant et de ses aides, et ordonnance executoire 
 de ladite tauxe en estre delivree audict suppliant a prendre sur le 
 revenu des amendes de ladicte court. Et vous ferez bien. 
 
 Audito procuratore generali Regis x 
 
 magister Stephanus de Montmirel. 
 
 Regis consiliarius. Actum in parlamento, xiii a septembris 
 m.v° xliiii t0 . 
 
 Consentio pro Rege taxationem rationabilem fieri supplicanti, 
 habito respectu ad quantitatem tarn equorum quam servientiarum que 
 necessaria erat pro qualitate rei et temporis pro executione dicte 
 capture. J. Brulart ? 
 
 Blanchard. 
 
 La Court oy sur ce le procureur general du Roy et veu la taxe de 
 certain conseillier dicelle a ce par elle commis A ordonne et ordonne, 
 actendue la qualite de la psone et du temps, a Nicolas Hardy recepveur 
 des exploictz et amendes de ladicte court bailler, paier et delivrer 
 
 1 Or Regio. 
 
516 APPENDIX A 
 
 a Jaques des Vaulx messaigier ordinaire de la ville de Lion la somme 
 de cent livres par. pour avoir amene des prisons de la ville de Troves 
 es prisons de la Consiergerie du palais a Paris Estienne Dollet Im- 
 primeur et libraire de ladicte ville de Lion. 
 xvii e Sept bre St. Andre\ 
 
 M.Vc XLIIII Demotmirel. 
 
 Aujourd'huy maistre Estienne Dollet a este amene prisonnier 
 des prisons de Troyes et mys es prisons de la conciergerie du palais 
 par Pierre Seguyneault, sergent royal au bailliage du palais suyvant 
 certaine ordonnance et commission de la Court dactee du IIII e jour 
 de ce present mois, signee Malon, obtenue a la requeste de Jaques 
 Desvaulx, messaigier ordinaire de Lion, et de Monsieur le procureur 
 general du Roy. 
 
 Faict le XII e jour de Septembre, l'an mil cinq cens quarante et 
 quatre Butet. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 This Appendix contains as complete a list as I have been able to 
 make of the books written, edited, or printed, by Etienne Dolet. 
 The list given by M. Boulmier, the most nearly complete which had 
 appeared when the first edition of this book was printed, contains (in 
 addition to four books written by Dolet and printed by Gryphius) 
 fifty-three books as printed by Dolet ; the present list contains 
 eighty-four, besides four of which he was the editor for other 
 printers. To the books enumerated in the edition of 1880 I am able 
 to add three of which I have since discovered the existence — but on 
 the other hand I have satisfied myself that two of those which I had 
 there mentioned are not the productions of the press of Dolet. 
 
 In each case in which I am able to refer to an existing copy I 
 have done so ; in all other cases the authority is given upon which 
 the title of the book is inserted. Of the eighty-four books printed 
 by Dolet I have seen and examined copies of sixty-five. Of each of 
 these I print the complete title-page. Of ten of the remainder, I 
 am able to refer to a copy now or lately existing, while nine have 
 totally disappeared, and I have been able to discover no trace of 
 any recently existing copy. Of these eighty-four volumes, copies 
 of forty-five are in my own possession, the Bibliotheque Nationale 
 possesses thirty-two, and the British Museum twenty-two. 
 
 The abbreviations, Bib. Nat., Brit. Mus., and R. C. G, respec- 
 tively after the description of any book, indicate that a copy is in 
 the Bibliotheque Nationale, the British Museum, or in my own 
 possession. 
 
 I further give lists of the reprints, if any, of each of the books 
 written or edited by Dolet. 
 
5i8 APPENDIX B 
 
 I 
 
 BOOKS WRITTEN BY DOLET AND PRINTED BY 
 SEBASTIAN GRYPHIUS 
 
 1. Stephani Doleti Orationes Duae in Tholosam. Eiusdem 
 Epistolarum libri ii. Eiusdem Carminum libri ii. Ad eundem 
 Epistolarum amicorum liber. 
 
 8vo. Italics. 256 pp. Sigs. j(c two, a-p fours, q two. 8 pp. unnumbered, 246 pp. 
 numbered. Last page, Doletus, Durior est spectata -virtutis quam incognita conditio. 
 
 No date or printer's name, but certainly printed by Sebastian Gryphius at Lyons, between 
 Aug. 13 and Oct. 15, 1534. 
 
 R. C. C. — Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 2. Stephani Doleti Dialogus, De Imitatione Ciceroniana adversus 
 Desiderium Erasmum Roterodarrmm, pro Christophoro Longolio. 
 [Mark and motto of Gryphius.] Lugduni apud Seb. Gryphium. 
 
 M.D.XXXV. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 200 pp. Signatures a-z and a and b twos. Ends on p. 197, then 
 3 pp. unnumbered, two of these blank. Last page, mark of Gryphius. 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. —Brit. Mus. 
 
 3. Commentariorum Linguae Latinas. Tomus primus. Stephano 
 Doleto Gallo Aurelio Autore. [Mark and motto of Gryphius.] Lug- 
 duni apud Seb. Gryphium, 1536. Cum privilegio ad quadriennium. 
 [All within woodcut border. See ante, pp. 251, 252.] 
 
 Folio. Italics. 912 pp. Signatures if., Aa sb, c threes, d two, a-z, A-z, aa-zz, aaa 
 threes, bbb fours. 56 preliminary pp. unnumbered. 854 pp. text, in double columns, 
 numbered 1-1708. 1 p. blank. 1 p. mark of Gryphius. 
 
 Commentariorum Lingua; Latinas. Tomus Secundus. Ste- 
 phano Doleto Gallo Aurelio Autore. [Mark and motto of Gryphius.] 
 Apud Seb. Gryphium Lugduni, 1538. Cum privilegio ad quad- 
 riennium. [In woodcut border.] 
 
 Folio. Italics. 924 pp. Signatures if, aA-cc threes, dD four, A-z, aa-zz, aa-zz, aaa, 
 bbb threes, ccc two. 64 preliminary pp. unnumbered ; 858 pp. text, in double columns, 
 numbered 1-1716. 2 pp. unnumbered ; on the second, mark of Gryphius. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 Watt {Bib. Brit.) and other bibliographers are in error in stating that the Commentaries 
 of Dolet were reprinted at London 1734, and at Leipsic 1749. The books cited as such 
 reprints are editions of the Latin Dictionary of Robert Estienne. Monfalcon (Manuel du 
 Bib, et de fArch, Lyonnais, Paris, 1857, p. liv) is equally in error in saying that Antoine 
 Gryphius printed a second edition of the Commentaries of Dolet. They have never been 
 reprinted. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 519 
 
 An epitome of the first volume was printed at Basle with the mark of Lasius and 
 Platter in 1537, the author of which styles himself Jonas Philomusus. An epitome of the 
 second volume by a different author appeared in 1539 (Basileae, Westheimer) and an epitome 
 of the first volume by the author of that of the second, and altogether different from that 
 of 1537, appeared in 1540. (Basilese, Westhemerum et Winter.) 
 
 R. C. C. — Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 4. Stephani Doleti De re Navali. Liber ad Lazarum Bayfium. 
 [Mark and motto of Gryphius.] Lugduni apud Seb. Gryphium, 
 
 J 537- 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 220 pp. Signatures a and b twos, c three, a-z and a twos. 
 28 pp. unnumbered. 1-189 text. 1 p. errata. 1 p. blank. 1 p. mark of Gryphius. 
 
 R. C. C. — Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 This book has been reprinted by Gronovius in the Thesaurus Antiauitatum Gracarum, 
 Lugd. Bat. 1697-1702, and Venice 1732-1737, vol. xi. 
 
 5. Doleti Carmina (see post, Books printed by Dolet). 
 
 II 
 BOOKS EDITED BY DOLET FOR DIFFERENT PRINTERS 
 
 1. Recueil de Vers Latins et Vulgaires de plusieurs poetes 
 Francoys composes sur le trespas de feu Monsieur le Daulphin. 
 [Mark of Fr. Juste.] m.d.xxxvi. On les vend a Lyon chez 
 Francoys Juste pres nostre Dame de Confort. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 4o(?)pp. unnumbered. Signatures a and B fours, c twos. 
 (Should not c have two more folios ?) 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 2. M. Tullii Ciceronis Orationes ex optimorum quorumque exem- 
 plarium collatione accuratissime castigatae. Tomus Primus. [Mark 
 of Gryphius.] Apud Seb. Gryphium, Lugduni, 1536. 
 
 The second and third volumes have the same title only substituting Secundus Tomus and 
 Tertius Tomus. 
 
 8vo [or small 4to?]. Italic letters. Vol. i. 22 + 538 + 2 pp. Signatures # four, 
 if if two, a-z, a-l fours, except L three. Last page, mark of Gryphius. pp. 3-6. Pre- 
 face purporting to be by Gryphius, but really by Dolet addressed to Cardinal du Bellay, 
 followed by an ode of Dolet Ad eundem which is reprinted almost verbatim in the Carmina 
 Doleti, but is there addressed to Francis I. Vol. 2.. 509 + 3 pp. Signatures aa-zz, aa-ii, 
 fours. Last page, mark of Gryphius. Vol. 3. 491 + 1 pp. Signatures Aa-zz, aaa-hhh 
 fours, except hhh three. Last page, mark of Gryphius. 
 
 R. C. C— Brit. Mus. (imp.) 
 
520 APPENDIX B 
 
 3. Le Courtisan de Messire Baltazar de Castillon. Nouvelle- 
 ment reveu et corrige. [Mark of Fr. Juste.] Avec privilege royal 
 pour trois ans. Francois Juste, m.d.xxxviii. 
 
 8vo. Roman letters. 
 
 Each page is in a woodcut border. This volume is divided into three parts, each with a 
 separate title-page, and pagination of folios. Pi. 1 (Books 1 and 11), 292 pp. cxlvi folios 
 irregularly numbered and full of mistakes : last, which should be cxlvi, is cxlii. Signa- 
 tures a-r fours, s five. Pt. 2. Le tiers livre du Courtisan. [Mark of Juste surrounded by 
 motto, and fwo verses underneath^ On les vend a Lyon ches Francoys Juste devant Nostre 
 Dame de Confort, m.d.xxxviii. 118 pp. Folios numbered i-lix. Pt. 3. Le quart livre 
 du Courtisan. 120 pp. Folios numbered i-lviii. Signatures a-?. On rev. of folio 58, 
 Fin du quatriesme et dernier I'vure du Courtisan imprime de nowveau. Lyon, far Francoys Juste, 
 demourant devant le grant porte Nostre Dame de Confort Lan 1538. Then follow 4 pp. un- 
 numbered. 
 
 Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 4. Le Guydon des Practiciens contenant tout le faict de practique 
 come Ton se doibt conduyre en exerceant icelle Premierement 
 imprime avec son repertoire et avec les allegations des droictz. 
 Et est divise par plusieurs chapitres comme amplement apert. 
 [Mark of Gobiano.] Avecques privilege pour six ans. m.d.xxxviii. 
 II se vendent a Lyon en rue Merciere chez Scipion de Gabiano et 
 freres. 
 
 8vo. Gothic letters. 856 pp. Signatures a-g fours, h five, a-v, a-z, Aa fours, Bb five. 
 132 pp. unnumbered, ccclxh folios numbered. On rev. of title; Estienne Dolet au lecteur 
 salut. 
 
 Brit. Mus. 
 
 This seems to be the original edition of this book, which was frequently reprinted. 
 
 [Le Theatre des bons engins auquel sont contenuz cent Emblemes (par Guil- 
 laume de la Perriere). The first edition of this book (without date but about 1536) has 
 been frequently attributed to the press of Dolet, and sometimes stated to have been edited 
 by him, but for no other reason than that it bears at the end a device similar to one after- 
 wards adopted by Dolet ; — Redime me a calumniis hominum. Brit. Mus.] 
 
 Ill 
 
 BOOKS PRINTED BY DOLET i 
 
 M.D.XXXVIII. 
 
 i. Stephani Doleti Galli Aurelii Carminum Libri quatuor. 
 
 1 This division includes all books purporting to issue from the press of Dolet. It is 
 certain that the two first mentioned, and probable that some others, were not in fact 
 printed by him. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 521 
 
 [Mark of Dolet with motto, Scabra et impolita ad amussim dolo 
 atque perpolio.] Lugduni. Anno m.d.xxxviii. 
 
 4to. Italic letters. 4+175 + 5 pp. Signature a three, b-y twos, z one. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 The mark of Dolet on the title-page shows that he put it forth to the public as printed 
 by him, but it is clear from the type and initial letters that it was in fact printed at the 
 press of Sebastian Gryphius. 
 
 2. Les CEuvres de Clement Marot de Cahors, valet de chambre 
 du Roy. Augmentees de deux Livres d'Epigrammes : Et d'ung 
 grand nombre d'aultres CEuvres par cy devant non imprimees. Le 
 tout songneusement par luy mesmes reveu et mieulx ordonne. 
 [Mark of Dolet with motto, Scabra etc.] A Lyon au Logis de 
 Monsieur Dolet, m.d.xxxviii. Avec privilege pour dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Gothic letters. 488 pp. Folios numbered i-xc, i-xcvi, i-xxxn, i-xxvi. Signatures 
 a-1, a-m, Aa-Dd, a-c. Each of the four divisions has a separate title, with the mark of 
 Dolet, which again appears on the last page. 
 
 Bib. Nat. 
 
 That this edition of Marot, though purporting to be, yet was not really printed by Dolet, 
 is clear. It was probably printed by Gryphius. 
 
 3. Cato Christianus. Stephano Doleto Gallo Aurelio Autore. 
 [Mark of Dolet with motto.'} Lugduni, apud eundem Doletum, 
 1538. Cum privilegio ad decennium. 
 
 8vo. Roman and Italic letters. 40 pp. Signatures a-b fours, c two. Rev. of title an 
 ode by Dolet ; pp. 3, 4, Dedication to Sadolet ; 5, 6, Address ad Ludimagistros christianos ; 
 7, two odes by A. Dumoulin and G. Durand ; 8, Table of Contents, Decalogi expositio. 
 Accessio ad praecepta legis, ex Christi doctrina. Christians et Apostolical persuasionis 
 Symbolum cum ejusdem expositione. Precatio dominica et ejus interpretatio. Odae, de 
 laudibus Virginis Mariae. At the end the mark of Dolet ; underneath, Durior est spectata 
 virtutis, quam incognita conditio. 
 
 R. C. C— (Coste's and Didot's copy). 
 
 ' 4. Catonis Disticha cum scholiis Erasmi. Nunc primum a 
 Stephano Doleto emendata et quibusdam in locis fusii explicata. 
 Nonnulla huic opusculo attexta sequente pagina reperies. [Mark 
 with motto.] Lugduni, apud eundem Doletum. Cum privilegio 
 ad decennium. 
 
 8vo. Roman and Italic letters. 112 pp. Signatures a-g. p. 2. Catonis Disticha 
 Grsece a Maximo Planude Latino versa. Apophthegmata Graecise sapientum interprete 
 Erasmo. Eadem per Ausonium cum scholiis Erasmi. Mimi Publiani cum ejusdem scholiis 
 recogniti ; pp. 3, 4, Stephanus Doletus Joanni Pellissoni Gymnasiarchae Turnonensi (at the 
 
522 APPENDIX B 
 
 end) Lugduni XII Cal. Octob. . . 1538. Last p. mark of Dolet ; underneath, Doletus, 
 Durior, etc. 
 
 Roanne Library (Cat. No. 3281). 
 
 The special interest of this book in addition to its rarity, consists in the Greek translation 
 of the Disticha which it includes. 
 
 M.D. XXXIX. 
 
 5. Formulae Latinarum Locutionum Illustriorum. Stephano 
 Doleto Gallo Aurelio Autore. Prima pars conflatas ex nomine et 
 verbo locutiones habet. Secunda significationem et constructionem 
 verborum profert. Tertia usum particularum indeclinabilium de- 
 monstrat. [Mark with motto, Scabra etc.] Lugduni, apud 
 eundem Doletum, 1539. Cum privilegio ad decennium. 
 
 Folio. Roman and Italic letters. 204 pp. Signatures a-r threes. Last page mark ; 
 underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 This book has been frequently reprinted : — 
 i. By Sturm with the Connubium Ad-uerbiorum of H. Sussanneau, under the title Phrases 
 et formulae linguae latinae elegantiores cum praefatione Joan. Sturmii quibus adjecimus 
 Connubium adverbiorum Ciceronianorum Hub. Sussannaei. Argentorati, Rihel. 
 1576, 1580, 1585, 1596, 1610. 
 ii. In 1606 Barezzi published at Venice an edition of the Thesaurus Cicermianus of 
 Nizolius, incorporating therewith, with some slight alterations, the Formula Latinarum 
 Locutionum of Dolet, but without any reference to Dolet's name, and stating both on 
 the title-page and in the preface that the Formula were by Nizolius : this was repeated 
 in the edition given by Bernard Junta at Venice in 1607, and probably in other 
 editions printed during the seventeenth century. In 1734 Facciolati restored the 
 Formula to their true author, in the edition which he gave of Nizolius under the 
 following title : Lexicon Ciceronianum Marii Nizolii ex recensione Alexandri Scoti. 
 Nunc crebis locis refectum et inculcatum. Accedunt Phrases et Formulae Linguae 
 Latinae ex Commentariis Stephani Doleti. Patavii, m.d.ccxxxiv. Facciolati has 
 prefixed a preface of his own composition, has omitted some examples given by 
 Dolet, adding others, and giving also the references to the passages cited. Reprinted 
 with the Lexicon Nizolianum, London, 1820, 3 vols. 8vo. 
 
 iii. In 1753, and again in 1764, Bandiera printed the Phrases et Formula of Dolet at the 
 end of his volume, Osservazioni su le epistole di Marco Tullio Cicerone a famigliari. 
 Venezia, Bettinelli. (See as to these volumes and the curious printer's errors therein, 
 ante, p. 270, note 1.) 
 
 6. Genethliacum Claudii Doleti Stephani Doleti Filii. Liber vitae 
 communi in primis utilis et necessarius. Autore patre. [Mark 
 ■with motto, Scabra etc.] Lugduni, apud eundem Doletum, 1539. 
 Cum privilegio ad decennium. 
 
 4to. Italic letters. 24 pp. Signatures a-c. 
 R. C. C. — Bib. Nat. (two copies). — Brit. Mus. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 523 
 
 Of the two copies of this book in the Bib. Nat., each with the date 1539, I have 
 already remarked that one is interleaved, and have quoted the additional verses contained 
 therein (ante, pp. 350-52). This copy was clearly prepared for a new edition, and probably 
 formed the basis of the reprint given by Dolet in the following year. The Genetkliacum 
 was again reprinted by Techener in 1830 with other tracts of Dolet, preceded by the 
 Rehabilitation of M. Aime Martin. A hundred and twenty copies only of each tract were 
 printed. The Genethliacum is intended to be an exact reprint of the edition of 1539 (it is 
 clear that neither the interleaved copy, nor the edition of 1540, was known to either the 
 printer or editor). Apparently by an error, the reprint omits the ode of Janus Guttanus 
 which immediately precedes the Xenia of Maurice Sceve. The marginal notes to the 
 original edition are also omitted in the reprint. In other respects, the impression given by 
 Techener is an exact copy of the original edition of 1539. 
 
 7. L'Avant Naissance de Claude Dolet, filz de Estienne Dolet : 
 premierement composee en Latin par le pere, et maintenant par ung 
 sien amy, traduicte en langue Francoyse. CEuvre tres utile et 
 necessaire a la vie commune ; contenant comme l'homme se doibt 
 gouverner en ce monde. \_Mark with motto. .] A Lyon ches 
 Estienne Dolet, m.d.xxxix. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 32 pp. Signatures a-d. Last page mark ; underneath, Doletus, 
 Durior, etc. 
 R. C. C. 
 Reprinted by Techener in 1830. 120 copies only, 
 
 8. Francisci Valesii Gallorum Regis Fata. Ubi rem omnem 
 celebriorem a Gallis gestam nosces, ab anno Christo m.d.xiii. 
 usque ad annum ineuntem m.d.xxxix. Stephano Doleto Gallo 
 Aurelio Autore. {Mark with motto.] Lugduni. Anno m.d.xxxix. 
 Cum privilegio ad decennium. 
 
 4to. Italic letters. 80 pp. Signatures a-k. Last page mark ; underneath, Doletus, 
 Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 9. Claudii Cotersei Turonensis jurisconsulti clarissimi, De jure, 
 et privilegiis militum libri tres. Ad haec de officio Imperatoris liber 
 non magis ipsi Imperatori quam cuivis alii communis prudentiae 
 studioso utilis. Cum singulorum capitum, vocum et rerum Indice 
 luculentissimo. \_Mark with motto.] Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 
 1539. Cum privilegio ad decennium. 
 
 Folio. Roman letters. 268 pp. Signatures -if. four, a-x threes. 16 preliminary pp. 
 unnumbered, 250 pp. numbered, ■ p. blank ; last page mark of Dolet ; underneath, Doletus, 
 Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
524 APPENDIX B 
 
 Contains a dedication and ode from Dolet to Cardinal du Bellay. 
 
 This book has been twice reprinted, first in vol. xii. of the great collection Tractatus 
 universi juris, Venetiis, Ziletus, 1583-86,29 vols, royal folio (Brit. Mus.) ; and secondly, 
 ' recensente Joachimo Cluten, Argent, apud Jo. Carol. 1610, 8vo.' Draudius, Bibl. Classica, 
 Francfort, 1625, and Bit!. Hulsiana, vol. iv., No. 3020. A French translation was made by 
 Gabriel du Preau, and printed under the title of Le devoir d'un capitaine et chef de Guerre. 
 Aussi du combat en camp clox ou duel le tout f aid Latin par Claude Cotereau, et mis en langue 
 Francoyse par Gabriel du Preau, Poictiers, a l'enseigne du Pelican, 1549, small 4to. (Brunet). 
 CI. Cottereau was also the author of a translation of Columella. 
 
 La Croix du Maine and Du Verdier make two persons of Claude Cottereau, the one 
 Claude Cottereau translator of Columella, the other Claude of Touraine the friend of Dolet, and 
 translator into French of the Genethliacum. Neither Rigoley de Juvigny nor La Monnoye 
 has noticed this error, nor do any of these writers seem aware of the existence of the book 
 De jure militum. 
 
 M.D.XL. 
 
 10. Stephani Doleti Galli Aurelii Liber. De imitatione Cicer- 
 oniana adversus Floridum Sabinum. [Mark with motto.'] Lugduni 
 apud eundem Doletum, 1540. Cum privilegio ad decennium. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 56 pp. Signatures a-g. Last page unnumbered, mark ; under- 
 neath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C. — Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 11. Genethliacum Claudii Doleti Stephani Doleti Filii Liber vitae 
 communi in primis utilis et necessarius. Autore patre. Lugduni, 
 apud Doletum, 1540. 
 
 Cat. de Boze, 1054. — Heber, pt. 1. 2261 — Yemeniz, 1533, — Catalogue des Livres de M. 
 De la Roche la Carelle. Potier, 1859 ; 131. 
 
 12. Observationes in Terentii Comcedias nempe Andriam et item 
 Eunuchum. Steph. Doleto Gallo Aurelio Autore. [Mark with 
 motto.] Lugduni, apud eundem Doletum, 1540. Cum privilegio 
 ad decennium. 
 
 8vo. 176 pp. Last page, mark $ underneath, Boletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 Public Library of Berne. 
 
 A second edition was given by Dolet in 1543. The observations of Dolet have been 
 frequently reprinted. They are included in the following editions of Terence : — 
 
 P. Terentii Afri Poetae Lepidissimi comcediae. Parisiis, apud Joannem de Roigny, 
 1552. Folio. (R. C. C.) 
 
 P. Terentii Afri Poetae Lepidissimi como;dias omnes cum absolutis commentariis . . . 
 Stephani Doleti in Andriam et Eunuchum . . . Venetiis, apud Bartholomseum 
 Caesanum. Anno m.d.liii. Folio. (R. C. C.) This edition, including the Obser- 
 vationes of Dolet, was five times reprinted at Venice : — Bonellus, 1558, and 1561, 
 (R. C. C.) ; Casanus, 1562 ; Hi. Scotus, 1561, and 1563. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 525 
 
 Terentius in quern triplex edita est P. Antesignani Rapistagnensis Commentatio. 
 
 Lugduni, apud Mathiam Bonhome, m.d.lx. 4to. (R. C. C.) 
 Many of the observations again reappear in the Variorum editions. 
 
 13. Publii Terentii Afri quae extant Comoediae. Nunc primum 
 a Steph. Doleto recognitae et emendatae, atque scholiis illustratae : 
 idque praeter Erasmi, Melanchthonis, et Rivii animadversionem, 
 [Mark with motto.] Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1540. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 368 pp. Signatures a-z. Rev. of title, Judicium Doleti de compara- 
 tione Terentii et Plauti ; pp. 3, 4, Steph. Doletus Jacopo Bordingio amico singular! ; pp. 364- 
 366, Steph. Doletus Lectori. 
 
 Brit. Mus. — Bib. de 1' Arsenal. 
 
 14. M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistolae Familiares cum argumentis 
 scholiis et Graecorum interpretatione. Nunc primum a Stephano 
 Doleto quam castigatissime recognitae et iis ipsis scholiis illustratae. 
 Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1540. 8vo. 
 
 Orellius, Ciceronis Opera, Turici, 1836. Vol. 6 {Onomasticon Tul/ianum), p. 286. 
 MacCarthy, 2319. 
 
 15. M. T. Ciceronis Libri tres de Officiis. Item de Amicitia, 
 de Senectute, Paradoxa et de Somnio Scipionis, cum Des. Erasmi 
 annotationibus, quibus accessit Graeca Theod. Gazae in librum de 
 Senectute et Somnium Scipionis traductio. Lugduni, apud Steph. 
 Doletum, 1540. 8vo. 
 
 Bordeaux Library (Cat. Sciences et Arts, No. 1284). 
 
 16. Pub. Vergilii Maronis Opera. [Mark with motto.] Lugduni, 
 apud Steph. Doletum, 1540. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 608 pp. (last two unnumbered). Signatures, a-z, a-p. Last page, 
 mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. pp. 3, 4, Stephanus Doletus, Gulielmo Bigotio ; pp. 
 458-606, the Supplement to ^Eneid by M. Vegius, and the minor poems attributed to 
 Virgil including the Priapeia. 
 
 Brit. Mus. 
 
 In 1545 the following edition of Virgil was printed at Cologne : — 
 
 Vergilius P. Melancthonis scholiis . . illustratus . . . Adjunximus . . . item in 
 omnia Virgilii opera ex S. Doleti de lingua Latina commentariis annotatiunculas. M. 
 Gymn. Colonise, 1545, 8vo. 
 
 Brit. Mus. 
 
 At the end of the volume is a long note referring to the annotations of Dolet, and 
 written so much in his style that I cannot but think that the Annotatiuncula must have been 
 selected and the note written by him. 
 
526 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 The Annotatiuncultz of Dolet (with the same note as a preface headed hudovicus Britan- 
 nicus Lectori and dated Brixise ex ofHcina nostra anno 1546) also appears in two editions of 
 Virgil given by Britannicus at Brescia in 1546 and 1548, and (according to Draudius) in 
 those edited by Henri Estienne and printed by him s.a. (1575), 1583. 
 
 17. De Duplici Copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo Des. 
 Erasmo Roterodamo Autore. {Mark with motto.'] Lugduni, apud 
 Steph. Doletum, 1540. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 360 pp. Signatures a-y fours, z two. pp. 3-346 numbered, 11 pp. 
 Index, unnumbered. 2 pp. blank, 1 page mark of Dolet j underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 R. C. C— Brit. Mus. 
 
 18. Alphabetieum latinum, cum plerisque aliis ad Christianam 
 juventutem pie sancteque instituendam apprime utilibus. Lugduni, 
 Steph. Doletus ; 1540, 8vo. 
 
 Chartres Library (Information of M. Buisson). 
 
 19. Les Gestes de Francoys de Valois Roy de France. Dedans 
 lequel oeuvre on peult congnoistre tout ce qui a este faict par les 
 Francoys depuis Lan mil cinq cents treize jusques en Lan mil cinq 
 cents trente neuf. Premierement compose en Latin par Estienne 
 Dolet : et apres par luy mesmes translate en langue Francoyse. 
 [Mark with motto.'] A Lyon ches Estienne Dolet, m.d.xl. Avec 
 privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 80 pp. Signatures a-k twos. Last page unnumbered, mark j 
 underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 Reprinted by the author in 1543, carrying on the history to that year. Twice reprinted 
 by others : — 
 
 1. Sommaire et recueil des Faictz et Gestes Du Roy Francoys premier de ce nom. 
 Premierement composez en Latin par Estienne Dolet : et apres par luy mesmes trans- 
 latez en langue Francoyse a Lyon. Imprime ceste annee mil cinq cens quarante et 
 troise. At the end on p. 95, Imprime nouuellement a Paris far Alain Lotrian. 
 
 Bib. Nat. 
 
 This reprint appears to have been made on the edition of 1543. 
 
 2. Les faitz et gestes du Roy Fracoys : premier de ce n3 . . . Composez par Estienne 
 Dolet ... La description dung enfant ne en forme de monstre aux basses Allemaignes. 
 8vo. Gothic letters. 6 pp. preliminary and 78 pages. 
 
 A copy of this reprint, coming from the collection of MM. Aime- Martin and Coppinger, 
 was sold at M. Firmin-Didot's sale in 1878 for 999 francs. In M. Didot's catalogue 
 (No. 701) it is described as the only copy known, but a copy is in the Bib. Nat. and 
 another in the public library of Berne. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY .527 
 
 20. La maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en autre. D'advan- 
 tage, De la punctuation de la langue Francoyse. Plus Des accents 
 d'ycelle. Le tout faict par Estienne Dolet, natif D'Orleans. [Mark 
 with motto.] Lyon, Estienne Dolet, 1540. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 40 pp. Signatures a-e twos. Reverse of title, Au lecteur ; pp. 3-6, 
 Dedication to Monseigneur de Langei ; 7-10, Estienne Dolet au peuple Francoys ; 11-16, La 
 Maniere de bien traduire; 17-24, De la punctuation ; Z5-39, Le: accents; 39, Dixain de 
 Saincte Marthe. Last p. unnumbered, mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 Bib. Nat. 
 
 Dolet reprinted this book in 1541, 1542, and 1543. It was also many times subsequently 
 reprinted in the sixteenth century, sometimes separately, sometimes with other grammatical 
 treatises, to which one or more of these three tracts were appended. The following are the 
 reprints which I know : — 
 
 Traicte touchant le commun usage de l'escriture Francoise faict par Loys Meigret 
 Lyonnois, 1545, Paris, Jeanne de Marnef. Italic letters. Pages not numbered. (Brit. 
 Mus.) 
 
 Some copies have Paris, yean Longis et Vincent Sertenas, 1545. (R. C. C.) 
 
 Although no mention of Dolet or his treatises appears on the title, they are inserted in the 
 book, preceded by a preface explaining why the printer had inserted them. 
 
 La Maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre, D'avantage De la punctuation de 
 
 la langue Francoyse. Plus Des accents d'ycelle. En Anvers par Jehan Loe. Gothic 
 
 letter. Small 8vo (or i2mo). 40 pp. unnumbered. (Brit. Mus.) 
 
 An exact reprint of Dolet's book, except that the name of Dolet nowhere appears. It 
 
 forms part of Le protocolle des secretaires et aultres gens desirant scavoir l'art et maniere de 
 
 dieter en bon francois toutes lettres missives et epistres en prose nouvellement Imprime. 
 
 Avec la maniere de bien traduite {sic) dune Langue en oultre. En Anvers par Jehan Loe. 
 
 The first part of the Protocolle has 152 pp., then follows : La Maniere. 
 
 La maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en autre, d'advantage, de la punctuation de 
 la langue francoyse, plu sdes accents d'ycelle. Caen. Robert Mace, 1550. 8vo. 
 56 pp. (Bib. Mazarine.) 
 
 An exact reprint of Dolet's book. 
 
 Ar t. Poetique Francois pour l'instruction des jeunes studieux et encor peu avancez en la 
 poesie Francoise Avec le Quintil Horatian, sur la defense et illustration de la langue 
 Francoise Reveu et Augmente. A Lyon par Jean Temporal, m.d.lvi. i6mo. (Brit. 
 Mus.) 
 
 This book contains pp. 267-292, Dolet's two tracts upon punctuation and accents, but 
 without any mention of his name, and they are also contained in the following 
 reprints with the same title : — 
 
 Lyon, Thibault Payan. 1556. i6mo. (Bib. Arsenal.) 
 
 Paris, Ruelle. 1564. i6mo. (Brunet.) 
 
 Paris, Veuve Jean Ruelle. 1573. i6mo. (Bib. Nat.) 
 
 Lyon, B. Rigaud. 1576. i6mo. (R. C. C. — Bib. Arsenal.) 
 
 La Forme et Maniere de la Poinctuation et accents de la langue Francoise. Paris par 
 Guillaume Thibaut Imprimeur et Estienne Denise, Libraire, 1556. i6mo. 32 pp. 
 (Brit. Mus.) Reprinted with the same title, size, and number of pp. A Lyon par Jean 
 Gros, 1557 (Brit. Mus.), and again by Regnault in 1560 (Bull, du Bib. i860, 
 p. 916). 
 
 Reprints of the two tracts of Dolet on punctuation and accents, but with no mention of 
 his name. 
 
528 APPENDIX B 
 
 Le stile et maniere de composer dieter et escrire tout sorte d'Epistre ou lettres missives 
 . . . avec Epitome de la poinctuation et accents de la langue Francoise ... A Lyon 
 par Thibauld Payan, 1566. (Brit. Mus.) 
 
 pp. 294-319 contain Dolet's two tracts on punctuation and accents, but without any 
 mention of his name. 
 
 La Maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en autre. D'advantage de la punctuation de 
 la langue Francoyse, plus des Accents d'ycelle. Autheur Estienne Dolet, natif 
 d'Orleans. Lyon, Estienne Dolet, 1540, Techener 1830, 8vo, 48 pp. 
 
 Of this reprint, 120 copies only were given. There is no indication from what copy the 
 reprint was taken, but it will be noticed that on the title-page, instead of the words 
 Le tout faict far Estienne Dolet, which are in all the editions printed by Dolet, are the 
 words autheur Estienne Dolet. 
 
 21. La Chirurgie de Paulus iEgineta. Qui est le sixiesme Livre 
 de ses ceuvres. Item ung Opuscule de Galien des Tumeurs contre 
 nature. Plus ung Opuscule du diet Galien de la maniere de curer par 
 abstraction de sang. Le tout traduict de Latin en Francoys par 
 Maistre Pierre Tolet, Medecin de Phospital de Lyon. [ Mark with 
 motto.'] Ches Estienne Dolet. A Lyon, 1540. Avec privilege pour 
 dix ans. 
 
 Small 8vo. Large round letters. 560 pp. Sig. a-z, Aa-Mm. pp. 3-11, A Monsieur 
 Squironis docteur Royal en I'universite' de Montpelier & Medecin de la Royne de Navarre, 
 Maistre Pierre Tolet docteur en Medicine humble salut, dated A Lyon Pan des Mortel% rachept/s 
 par le sang et merite de la passion de yesus Christ m.d.xxxix, et du mays d'Augst le xx ; pp. 
 12-16, Proesme au chyrurgien Francoys; 17-32, Table : 33-411, .Ltf Chirurgie de Paulus JEgineta 
 (p. 240 is repeated) ; 412, 413, Epistle of Dolet to Claude Millet ; 414-452, Des tumeurs 
 contre nature ; p. 453 blank; 454-546, De I' evacuation du sang ; 547 blank and unnumbered ; 
 548-556 (should be 557), Petits traictes propres a la tnedecine, autheur Galien {Des sangsues. 
 De revulsion. Des ventouses. De scarification). 2 pp. blank. Last page mark in border ; 
 underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 This is the earliest of the remarkable series of medical treatises in French, printed or at 
 least purporting to be printed by Dolet in 1540, 1541 and 1542. (For the remarks of 
 Rabelais upon this series see ante, p. 384.) Brunet erroneously describes the Opuscules of 
 Galen as a separate and independent book (Manuel, torn. ii. col. 145 1) as follows : — 
 
 1 Livre de la curation par mission du sang, et par sangsues, revulsion, cornettes et scari- 
 fication, mis en francois par maistre Pierre Toilet. Lyon, Est. Dolet, 1540, in 8°.' 
 
 The JEgineta and the tracts of Galen were separately printed by Dolet in 1 542, but I am 
 satisfied that he did not print them separately in 1540. 
 
 The whole book, including the Opuscules of Galen and the letter of Dolet to Claude 
 Millet, was reprinted at Paris in 1541 by Les Angeliers (R. C. C), and again by Jean de 
 Tournes at Lyons in 1552. Brunet erroneously gives the date of the edition of Les 
 Angeliers as 1540. Dolet's epistle to Claude Millet may be found in the Revue du Lyonnais, 
 vol. vi. p. 455. The best account of Pierre Tolet is that given in M. Breghot du Lut's 
 Melanges Biographiques et Litte'raires pour servir a I'histoire de Lyon, 1828, pp. 180-182. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 529 
 
 M.D.XLI. 
 
 22. Novum Testamentum Latinum. Lugduni, Stephani Dolet, 
 1541. 
 
 2 vols. i6mo. 
 
 The only original authority I can find for the existence of this book is Le Long, Bibliotheca 
 Sacra (Antwerp, 1709), vol. i. p. 674 } vol. ii. p. 474. He marks the book as having been seen 
 by him, and refers to a copy in the library of Saint Germain des Pres. The notice of it in 
 Maittaire, Nee de la Rochelle, Masch, Nodier {Bibl. Sacre'e), and elsewhere, seem all to be 
 based on the statement of Le Long. His reference to it is so precise that it is difficult to sup- 
 pose that he was in error, yet it is almost as difficult to suppose that it should so completely 
 have disappeared that no other trace of its existence can be found, as it was not one of the 
 books condemned, or ordered to be burnt. If a copy really existed in the library of Saint 
 Germain des Pres it was no doubt burnt in the great fire which took place on the 19th of 
 August, 1794, in which most of the printed books were destroyed. See Franklin, Precis de 
 I'histoire de la Bib. du Roi, 2™ edition, Paris, 1875, p. 270. 
 
 23. Dominicse Precationis Explanatio. Cum quibusdam aliis 
 quag sequens indicabit pagella. \_Mark of Dolet with Scabra Dolo 
 on the axe.~\ Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 154 1. 
 
 i6mo. alternately Italic and round letters. 200 pp. unn. Signatures a-z, a, b. On the 
 recto of the last leaf Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, on the verso the mark of Dolet. 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 On the reverse of the title is the table of contents : — Dominicse precationis interpretatio ; 
 Meditatio in Psalmum Miserere mei Deus, Hieronymo Savonarola ; Ejusdem in Psalmum In 
 te Domine speravi ; Idem in Psalmum Qui regis Israel intende j Decalogi Interpretatio per- 
 brevis ; Symboli Apostolici Exegesis paraphrastica j Paraphrasis orationis Dominica; ; Alia 
 Dominica? orationis Expositio. 
 
 The only writers who have mentioned this edition of Dolet are Nee de la Rochelle and 
 J. B. Riederer in his ' Nachrichten zur Kirchen Gelehrten und Buecher-Geschichte aus 
 gedruckten und ungedruckten schriften gesammelt.' (4 vols.) Altdorf, 1763 -1768. 
 (Brit. Mus.) Vol. 4, pp. 227-232, contains an elaborate description of the book and its 
 contents. 
 
 A reprint of a very popular devotional work frequently printed by S. Gryphius and others, 
 and inserted in the Index. To the Paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer Riederer says that the 
 initials P. M. {Philip Melanchthon) are affixed, but they do not appear in my copy. He also 
 states that the short exposition which follows, and with which the book concludes, is also by 
 Melanchthon. This would account for the work being put in the Index. 
 
 24. Stephani Doleti Galli Aurelii Liber unus De officio Legati, 
 quern vulgo Ambassiatorem vocant. Et item alter De immunitate 
 Legatorum. Et item alius De legationibus Joannis Langiachi, 
 Episcopi Lemovicensis. [Mark with motto.'] Lugduni, apud Steph. 
 Doletum, 1 541. 
 
 4to. De off. leg. and De immum. leg. Roman letters ; De leg. Jo. Langiachi Italic letters. 
 48 pp. Signatures a-f twos. Reverse of title blank, pp. 3-46 numbered (but the pagination 
 full of mistakes). 1 p. blank, 1 p. mark in border; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 2 M 
 
530 APPENDIX B 
 
 25. Rhetoricorum ad Herennium libri quatuor M. T. Ciceroni 
 ascripti, doctiss. plurimorum judicio. Ejusdem De inventione libri 
 11. [Mark with motto.] Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1541. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 274+14 pp. Signatures a-s. pp. 3-274 text. Then follows 2 pp. 
 Steph. Doletus Lectori. 9 pp. Index. 1 p. blank. On the last leaf (missing in my copy) 
 would be Dolet's mark. 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 In Dolet's address to the Reader he attacks Floridus Sabinus and others who denied the 
 Rhetorica to be the work of Cicero. 
 
 26. 0. Suetonii Tranquilli XII. Caesares. Ad veterum codicum 
 spectatam, atque probatam fidem, summa virorum multorum doctissi- 
 morum diligentia recogniti : quorum quidem Elenchum proxima 
 statim pagina reperies. [Mark with motto.] Lugduni, apud Steph. 
 Doletum, 1 54 1. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 560 pp. (528 numbered, followed by 32 unnumbered). Signatures 
 a-z, a-m fours. On last page mark j underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Brit. Mus. 
 
 This edition is stated by Boulmier (and others) to be 'faite d'afres celle de Gryphius 
 1537.' This is an error, as a comparison of the two editions shows. The work is an 
 independent edition made by Jean Raynier, who has added marginal observations and scholia 
 which do not appear in the edit, of Gryphius of 1537. Besides Suetonius, with the preface 
 and notes of Erasmus, it includes Egnatius De Romanis Principibus and his annotations upon 
 Suetonius. 
 
 27. Pandora. Jani Oliverii Andium Hierophantae. [Mark with 
 motto.] Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1541. 
 
 4to. Italic letters (except pp. 5-9 Roman). 52 pp. (50 numbered, 1 unnumbered). 
 Signatures a-f twos, g one. pp. 3, 4, Preface by Dolet addressed to the Chancellor Fr. 
 Olivier, the nephew of the author. Last page mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 28. Gentiani Herveti Aurelii quaedam opuscula. Quorum index 
 proxima statim pagina sequetur. [Mark with motto.] Lugduni, 
 apud Stephanum Doletum, 1541. 
 
 8vo. Italics. ii2 pp. Signatures a-g fours. On p. no a Latin ode, Stephani Doleti 
 carmen ad Lectorem ,■ last page mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Brit. Mus. 
 
 This volume contains only the orations and the translations from St. Basil. The 
 Antigone and the Epigrams form a separate volume. (See next article.) 
 
 29. Sophoclis Antigone Tragcedia a Gentiano Herveto Aurelio 
 traducta e Grseco in Latinum. Ejusdem Herveti Epigrammata. 
 [Mark with motto.] Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1541. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 531 
 
 8vo. Italic letters, 72 pp. (last 16 by mistake numbered 67-82). Signatures a-d fours, 
 E two. Last page mark in border ; underneath, Doktus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C. — Brit. Mus. — Bib. Mazarine. 
 
 An examination of this and the preceding article leads me to the conclusion that the 
 second, the Antigone, was first printed as an independent work, and subsequently the volume 
 containing the Orationes with the translation of St. Basil, and that to this latter volume 
 was prefixed a title-page and contents applicable to the two volumes. 
 
 The epigrams are thirty-five in number, and include one addressed to Dolet himself. 
 This is worth noting as coming from a man of the undoubted learning and orthodoxy of 
 Gentian Hervet. 
 
 30. Clenardi Grammaticae Institutiones Graecas. Ejusdem item 
 sequentia, Annotationes in nominum verborumque difficultates. 
 Investigatio thematis in verbis anomalis, cum indice. Compendiosa 
 et exacta syntaxeos ratio. [Mark with motto.'] Lugduni, apud 
 Steph. Doletum, 1541. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 160 pp. (last 6 pp. unnumbered). Signatures a-k fours. Reverse 
 of title, Stephani Doled carmen. On recto of last leaf, Lugduni Excudebat Stephanus Doletus 
 Gallus Aurelius, 1541. On verso, mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 I find no mention anywhere and know no copies of this or the next article except my 
 own. They are reprints of two of the most popular Greek school-books of the day. 
 
 31. Clenardi Meditationes Graecae in artem Grammaticam. 
 Eae in eorum gratiam, qui viva praeceptoris voce destituti sunt. 
 [Mark with motto.'] Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1541. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 144 pp. (last 3 unnumbered). Signatures a-i fours. Last page 
 mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 This book, though less popular than the Institutiones, went through numerous editions. 
 It consists of the Epistle of St. Basil De vita in solitudine agenda, in Greek with a literal 
 Latin translation by Clenard and a more elegant one by Bude, and a grammatical analysis 
 of each sentence. 
 
 32. Laurentii Vails Elegantias latinae linguae. Lugduni, apud 
 Steph. Doletum, 1541. 
 
 Of the writers who have referred to this book, Maittaire [Annates, vol. iii. p. 95) 
 appears to be the only one who ever saw a copy. He says that it is dedicated by Dolet to 
 Jean Raynier, whose notes would seem to be appended to it. The dedication is dated 
 Lugduni, Calend. Decemb. anno 1541. Maittaire states that this edition was reprinted in 
 1543 at Lyons by Guillaume Rouille. An edition of the Elegantia of Valla, with notes 
 by Dolet and other savants, was given at Cologne by Jean Gymnicus in 1545, and reprinted 
 by Fabricius at the same place in 1563. But the notes by Dolet printed in these editions 
 are all extracts from Dolet's Commentaries. 
 
 33. Tabula: Poeticae Joannis Murmellii Ruremundensis. Pleraque 
 alia, quae hie liber habet, sequens statim pagina non obscure demon- 
 
532 APPENDIX B 
 
 strabit, adjectis numeris, ubi quicque nullo negotio reperias. [Mark 
 with motto.'] Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1541. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 48 pp. Signatures a, «, c fours. Last page mark of Dolet; 
 underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 A reprint of one of the most popular introductions to Latin verse composition of the 
 day. 
 
 34. Maturini Corderii de corrupti serm. emendatione et Latine 
 loquendi ratione liber ; Lugduni apud Steph. Doletum, I54 1, 
 
 8vo. 624 pp. 
 
 La France Frotestante, 2nd edit. Art. Cordier. 
 
 35. La Maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre. D'ad- 
 vantage. De la punctuation de la langue Francoyse. Plus. Des 
 accent d'ycelle. Le tout faict par Estienne Dolet, natif d'Orleans. 
 [Mark with motto.'] A Lyon, ches Dolet mesme. m.d.xli. Avec 
 privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 40 pp. Signatures a-e twos. 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 The second edition, and an exact reprint of that of 1540. 
 
 36. L'Anatomie des os du Corps Humain. Autheur Galien. 
 Nouvellement traduicte de Latin en Francoys par monsieur maistre 
 Jehan Canappe, Docteur en Medecine. [Mark with motto.] A 
 Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1541. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Italic letters. 48 pp. Signatures a-c fours. Last page mark ; underneath, 
 Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 Reprinted at Lyons by Benoist Rigaud, 1588. According to the Bull, du Bouquiniste, 
 1878, p. 327, No. 2162, this book had already been printed in 1540 at Paris by Denys 
 Tanot. But I doubt whether the edition of Dolet was not the first. On the title-page he 
 claims privilege for ten years, which he could not be entitled to if the book had previously 
 appeared, and which in other such cases he did not claim. 
 
 This is the first of Canappe's translations of medical treatises which Dolet printed, and 
 which was succeeded by several others. In or before 1539, translations of the third and of 
 several other books of the Therapeutics of Galen had appeared, which are erroneously 
 attributed to Dolet in the Cat. des Irvres . . . de M. Filhcul (Paris, Dessain, 1779, 8vo), 
 No. 631. A MS. note of Nee de la Rochelle in M. Baudrier's copy of the Vie de Dolet 
 gives the title of this translation of the third book as follows : — ' Le troisieme livre de la 
 Therapeutique, ou Methode curatoire de Claude Galien, prince des Medecins, auquel est 
 singulierement traictee la cure des ulceres. On les vend a Lyon en Rue Merciere chez 
 Guillaume de Quelques Libraire ' ; and he adds that behind the title is a letter of Dolet 
 addressed to Canappe dated 2nd January 1539, and that at the end is ' Imprime a Lyon par 
 Jehan Barbou, 1539.' It was no doubt the letter of Dolet that gave rise to the error in 
 the Cat. Filheul. I have found in the Bib. Nat. an imperfect copy of this book, unfortu- 
 nately -without the title-page, which besides the 3rd contains the 4th, 5th, 6th and 13th 
 books of the Therapeutics, all printed by Barbou in 1539, and sold by Guillaume de 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 533 
 
 Quelques. With the volume is bound up Le deuxieme livre de Claude Galien intitule I'art 
 curatoire a Glaucon, On les vend a Lyon chez Guillaume de Quelques (s. d., but last page is 
 wanting). And Le quatorxieme livre de la methods de Therapeutique de Claude Galien. 
 Lugduni, afud Gulielmum de Quelques, anno M.D.XXXVI1I. (The volume is numbered T. 
 e. JrV) The 6th book contains two figures, the Glottotomon, I'invention de M e . Francois 
 Rabelais, docteur en Medecine, the other the syringotome. The names of the translators of 
 these books are not given, but the 4th and 5th are said to be translate par Philiatros. An 
 earlier edition of the translation of the 4th, and perhaps of the 5th and 6th books, is noticed 
 in the Bull, du Bib., 1858, p. 1298 ; the 4th, Lyon, Fr. Juste, 1537 ; the 5th, Lyon, Pierre 
 de Saincte Lucie, s. a. ; and the 6th, 3. 1. n. a. (No. 786, Yemeniz, seems to be a copy of 
 the same). A note of M. Briquet appended states that the translations of the different 
 books are by different hands. I should have thought the translator was Guillaume 
 Chrestien, who about this time, besides other medical works, published several translations 
 from Galen and Hippocrates j but I have found at the Bib. Nat. Le second Livre de Claude 
 Galien . . . mis en Francois par Guillaume Chrestien, medecin (Paris), Chaudiere, 1549 (not 
 mentioned in any of the lists of his works that I have seen), and it is an entirely different 
 translation from that published by de Quelques, with which Chrestien does not appear to 
 be acquainted. [According to the Supplement to Brunet (vol. ii. col. 374), 'Rabelais est 
 incontestablement l'auteur de cette traduction. C'est lui-meme qui s'est designe sous le 
 nom de Philiatros.'] 
 
 37. Du mouvement des muscles livres deux. Autheur Galien. 
 Nouvellement traduict de latin en francoys par Monsieur maistre 
 Jehan Oanappe, Docteur en Medecine. [Mark with motto.] A 
 Lyon, dies Estienne Dolet, 1541. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 88 pp. (last 5 unnumbered). Signatures a-e fours, r two. Last 
 page mark of Dolet. 
 
 Bib. Nat. (imperfect, wanting pp. 65-80). 
 
 In the Bull, du Bouquiniste, 1878, p. 3Z7, No. 2162, is Du mouvement des muscles par 
 Jehan Canappe, 1541, 64^ in 8° caracteres gothiques. Whether this or the edition given by 
 Dolet is the original I cannot say certainly, but as the Royal privilege is claimed by Dolet 
 we may infer that his edition was the original. It was again reprinted A Lyon, chez Sulpice 
 Sabon pour Antoine Constantin (Yemeniz, 784, where it is stated to be sans date). Brunet 
 however gives the date as 1541. This is clearly wrong. The book is several years later. 
 Brunet was misled by the date of the preface. 
 
 M.D.XLII. 
 
 38. De Comparanda Eloquentia Opusculum. Francisco Rever- 
 gato Autore. \_Mark with motto.] Lugduni, apud Stephanum 
 Doletum, 1542. 
 
 8vo. Roman letters. 48 pp. Signatures a-c. pp. 3-9, Francisci Revergati De com- 
 paranda Eloquentia ad Jacobum Bordingum et Claud. Baduellum Prxfatio ; pp. 10-37, De 
 comparanda Eloquentia Dialogus; pp. 37-47, Franc. Revergati in conscribendis epistolis Exer- 
 citatio. Last page mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 Bib. Nat. 
 
 I find no mention anywhere of this book. It appears from the preface that Revergat 
 had lately been a student at Nimes under Baduel, and that his preceptors there, especially 
 Frater Gulielmus (possibly Guillaume Bigot, who was then a professor at Nimes), had wished 
 
534 APPENDIX B 
 
 him to give a course of lectures on eloquence {i.e. Latin composition), but that this had 
 been prevented by the malice of his enemies, and that thereupon his friends had urged on 
 him the composition of an essay on the subject. In the preface he refers to Dolet. The 
 interlocutors in the Dialogus are the author and Frater Gulielmus. Dolet is referred to as 
 one 'qui jam non minorem laudem in lingua Gallica videtur assecutus quam in Latina.' 
 The epistles with which the volume ends are all written from Carpentras. All except the 
 last are addressed simply ' Amico.' In one the writer refers to ' Podianus consobr'mus tuus,' 
 'Joannes Ribotusfelix tua cognatus] * Boyssonus familiaris meusf ' Noalhus gener tuus. 1 In another, 
 written apparently to Bording, he speaks of Baduel and Bigot. The last and longest is 
 addressed to Baduel. In this he speaks of ' ea facultas vehementiaque dicendi qua in suo iambico 
 utitur Doletus? 
 
 The only mention I have anywhere found of Revergat is a very uncomplimentary one. 
 In 1544 he obtained the prize of the Eglantine at the Floral Games at Toulouse for his 
 Chant Royal. It is thus referred to by M. du Mege {Hist, des Instit. de Toulouse, vol. 4, 
 p. 308) : — * Francois Revergat qui obtint l'eglantine est auteur d'un Chant Royal plus 
 ridicule encore que celui de Forcadel. II voulut representer poetiquement V incarnation du 
 •verbe, et il se servit des personnages de la fable. Dans son poeme Jupiter est le Pere eternel, 
 Andromede la nature, et la Sainte Vierge est Danae.' 
 
 39. Libellus de moribus in mensa servandis Joanne Sulpitio 
 Verulano autore cum familiarissima et rudi juventuti aptissima 
 elucidatione Gallico-latina Guil. Durandi. [Mark with motto.'] 
 Lugduni, apud Stephanum Doletum, 1542. 
 
 8vo. 56 pp. 
 
 I have been unable to find any copy or any notice of a copy of this book except that of 
 M. Coste afterwards Didot's. The text of the tract of Sulpicius had been many times 
 before printed, but this is the original edition of the translation of Guillaume Durand. It 
 contains a dedication to Dolet, dated Lugduni, Cal. ^uintil. 1542. It was frequently 
 reprinted in the next thirty years. The following are the editions which I know or have 
 seen noticed : — 
 
 1548. (T. Payen?). Lugduni, 8vo. (Pinelli, 10,209.) 
 
 1554. Claud. Marchant. Lugduni. (Draudius, p. 1187, by mistake numbered 1087.) 
 
 1555. C. Stephanus. Paris, 8vo. (R. C. C. ; Yemeniz, 1215.) 
 1560. M. Menier. Paris, 8vo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 1563. G. Buon. Paris, 8vo. (Bib. Mazarine.) 
 
 1564. R. Stephanus. Paris, 8vo. (Renouard, Annal. des Estienne.) 
 1570. G. Buon. Paris, 8vo. (R. C. C. ; Bib. Nat.) 
 
 1573. G. Buon. Paris, 8vo. (Roanne Library.) 
 
 1574. R. Stephanus. Paris, 8 vo. (R. C. C.) 
 1577. G. Buon. Paris, 8vo. (Bib. Mazarine.) 
 
 Du Verdier notes an edition of T. Payen, Lyon, but gives no date. Of the above editions, 
 the seven which I have seen have each the dedication to Dolet. 
 
 40. 01. Baduelli Oratio Funebris in funere Floretae Sarrasise 
 Habita. Epitaphia nonnulla de eadem. [Mark with motto.] 
 Lugduni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1542. 
 
 For a notice of this excessively rare tract, see Claude Baduel et la Reforme des Etudes au 
 XVI' sie'cle far M. J. Gaufres (Paris, 1880, 8vo). The only other mention of it which I 
 have found is in Haag {La France Protestante, art. Baduel). I only know the reprint 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 535 
 
 accompanied by a French translation given at Montpellier in 1829, a copy of which is in 
 the Bib. Nat. and another in the public library at Montpellier. 
 
 M. Gundisy, the Public Librarian of Montpellier, has been so obliging as to inform me 
 that the copy of the original from which the reprint was made was formerly in the Montcalm 
 library, which was sold some years since. From the same source I learn that the translator 
 was M. Saurine, then juge d' instruction at Montpellier, and that of the fifty copies printed 
 nearly the whole were consumed in a fire which occurred at M. Saurine's house. 
 
 An older translation is mentioned by Du Verdier (art. Ch. Rozel), and the title is thus 
 given in the Supplement to Brunet : — ' Oraison funebre sur le trespas de vertueuse dame, 
 Dame Florete Sarrasie, premierement faicte en latin par Claude Baduel, et depuis traduicte 
 en langue Francoyse par Ch. Rozel. Lyon, Jean de Tournes, 1 546. pet. in 4, de 42 pp. 
 
 41. De Antiquo Statu Burgundiae Liber. Per Gulielmum 
 Paradinum virum eruditionis multae atque judicii non vulgaris. 
 [Mark with motto.'] Lugduni, apud Stephanum Doletum, 1542. 
 Cum privilegio Regio. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 168 pp. (last 10 unnumbered). Signatures a-x twos. pp. 3, 4, 
 dedication by Dolet, Francisco Montelonao Gallia cancellario, dated Cal. Novemb. 1542 ; pp. 
 3-158, text. 8 pp. index. 1 page blank. Last page mark in border ; underneath, Doletus, 
 Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 This book was reprinted under the above title in 8vo at Basle, without printer's name 
 or date (but about 1555). (R. C. C.) The reprint contains the preface of Dolet; and 
 several short tracts are appended. 
 
 42. Le Nouveau Testament imprime par Dolet en fran^oys. 
 
 Our only knowledge of the existence of this book is from the mention of it in the 
 Royal pardon of June, 1543 (Proces d'Estienne Dolet, p. 9), and in the several condemnations 
 of which it was the subject. By the decree of the Parliament of Paris of the 14th of 
 February 1543 (1544) it was ordered to be burnt (Prods, p. 30; also D'Argentre, Col. 
 Jud. vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 133, 134, by whom however the decree is erroneously cited, several 
 words being omitted, making it appear that only the Sommaire du Nouveau Testament was 
 condemned). It is again inserted in the catalogue of books censured in the same year. Id. 
 p. 135. It is there described as follows : — ' 36. Nouveau Testament imprime a Lyon par 
 Estienne Dolet. 37. Le contenu en cette seconde partie du Nouveau Testament.' It again 
 appears in [the catalogue of works censured in 155 1 (Id. p. 174), and in the catalogue of 
 the books condemned byTthe Inquisition at Toulouse in 1548 or 1549 printed by M. de 
 Freville in La Police des Livres, Paris, 1853, p. 16. No. 26 of this catalogue is as follows : 
 — * Les nouveaux testamentz imprimez par Dalet, Christophorum de Rimondia, Joannem 
 Lul ou aultres, plains d'erreurs et heresies, ou bien dangereux de y induire.' Dalet is evidently 
 a clerical error for Dolet. 
 
 It is probable that this New Testament was intended as an instalment of the Bible in 
 small size, and that it was never actually finished or published, but was seized with Dolet's 
 other books soon after his arrest in 1542, and was burned in the parvis of Notre Dame in 
 the following February. This would account for the entire disappearance of the whole of 
 the impression. A copy of an edition with the date 1539 is in the Bib. Ste. Genevieve, and 
 a second copy in the British Museum, and is attributed by M. Dufour (Catechisme Francais de 
 Calvin, p. exxn) to the press of Dolet. But neither in size, paper, type, initial letters, nor 
 in any single point does it bear the smallest resemblance to any one of the books printed or 
 purporting to be printed by Dolet. 
 
536 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 43. Le Sommaire du viel et nouveau Testament. Imprime par 
 Dolet. 
 
 This book is only known to us from the mention of it in the pardon of June 1543, 
 where it is referred to as one of those for printing which Dolet had been condemned 
 {Proces, p. 9), and in the decree of 14th February 1543 (1544), {Prods, p. 30, and 
 D'Argentre, Coll. Jud. vol. ii. pt. 1, p. 134), by which it was ordered to be burned. As I 
 do not find it referred to in any of the catalogues of heretical books cited in the note to the 
 last article, I conjecture it was only in the course of printing when it was seized after 
 Dolet's arrest in 1542, and was never actually completed or issued. 
 
 44. Les Epistres et Evangiles des cinquante & deux Dimenches 
 de l'An Avecques briefves & tresutiles expositions d'ycelles. 
 
 Medallion of Jesus Christ holding the cross, with these words under- 
 neath in the medallion, Si quis sitit veniat ad me et bibat. Joan. 7. J 
 A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avecq privileige du Roy. 
 
 i6mo. Roman letters. 656 pp. Signatures a-z, a-s. p. 2, List of Les sermons ou 
 exhortations contenues en ce present Traicte, oultre les cinquante et deux Dimenches de 
 l'an ; pp. 3, 4, preface by Dolet, beginning : Estienne Dolet au lecteur Chrestien salut 1 pp. 
 5-594, Les Epistres et Evangiles et les exhortations ; pp. 595-655, Le3 sermons ou ehhorta- 
 tions [sic) de nouveau adjoustes. Last page, mark of Dolet ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve 
 moy Seigneur des calumnies des hommes, 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 The copy of this book in the Bib. Nat. was lost for many years, and the copy which 
 appeared in the Yemeniz catalogue, No. 58, at the sale could not be found. It afterwards 
 fell into the possession of M. Renard, at whose sale I purchased it for 265 frs. 
 
 The epistle of Dolet Au lecteur Chrestien is dated Lyon le Hi. de May 1 542, and in it he 
 promises ' 'rendre parfaict la Bible en petite forme dedans troys ou quatre moys et en grande forme 
 dedans huit et desormais ne tiendra qu'en toy si tu rCas continuellement la parolle de Dieu de-vant les 
 yeulx. La quelle tu doibs receprvoir en toute reverence comme la vraye nourriture de ton ame.' 
 
 This book, the authorship of which is ascribed by La Croix du Maine, Du Verdier, and 
 others to Dolet himself, is however, as first suggested by Nee de la Rochelle, a reprint of the 
 work of Le Fevre d'lhaples first printed in 1523. Yet M. de Freville {La Policedes Litres, 
 p. 18) asserts this to be a different book from that of Le Fevre. But the translations in 
 Dolet's book are certainly taken from Le Fevre's translation of the New Testament. 
 Besides what is announced on the title the book contains Sermons ou Exhortations for several 
 festivals, beginning with one for the Nativity of our Lord. 
 
 45. Psalmes du Royal Prophete David. Fidelement traduicts de 
 Latin en Francoys. Auxquelz est adiouxte son argument & som- 
 maire a chascun particulierement. \_A small round woodcut, at the 
 bottom David kneeling, his harp lying beside him ; above, God the Father 
 holding a scroll inscribed with the words Delevi peccatum tuum.~\ Ches 
 Estienne Dolet a Lyon, 1542. Avec privileige du Roy. 
 
 i6mo or 321110. Roman letters. 384 pp. Sig. a-z, aa fours. (Paging full of mistakes, 
 e.g. goes from 67 to 78). pp. 3-6, Estienne Dolet au lecteur Chrestien ; 7-341, Translation of 
 the Psalms divided into five books ; 342-368, Nous avons adiouste au livre des Psalmes les 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 537 
 
 cantiques lequelz on chante journellment aux eglises ; then follow, in French, the Benedicite, the 
 Confitebor (from Isaiah xii.), the song of Hezekiah, the song of Hannah, the song of Moses, 
 the song of Habakkuk, the Magnificat, the Benedktus, the Nunc Dimittis, and the Te Deum ; 
 369-391, Opuscule de Sainct Athanase sur lei 'Psalmes de David. Cest asscavoir comtne on les 
 peult accommoder aux affaires humains. Opuscule premierement traduict de Grec en Latin par 
 Politian et de Latin en Francoys par Estienne Dolet. It ends (on page numbered 391) with Tel 
 est le style du Royal Prophete David ; le tout a I'utilite' des hommes. 2 pp. blank. Last page 
 mark of Dolet with the words Scabra dolo inscribed on the axe. Beneath, Dolet, Preserve 
 moy, etc. 
 
 Brit. Mus. (A copy was formerly in the Bib. Nat., but has been missing for some 
 years.) 
 
 Graesse (Tre'sor de Livres rares, art. Psalterium, vol. v. p. 481) in hia eagerness to point 
 out the errors of Brunet erroneously says of this and the Paraphrase of Campensis next 
 hereinafter described, ' Ces deux articles cites par M. Brunet ne font qu'un seul. Unique- 
 ment le format avait ete indique differemment dans les deux catalogues de Heber et de 
 Veinant.' Brunet is quite correct in distinguishing between the two books ; a copy of each 
 is in the British Museum, and they are entirely different. 
 
 46. Paraphrase c'est a dire claire et briefve interpretation sur les 
 Psalmes de David. Item Aultre interpretation Paraphrastique sur 
 Pecclesiaste de Salomon. Le tout faict par Campensis. [Mark with 
 Scabra dolo on the axe.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, I54 2 - 
 
 i6mo or 32mo. Roman letters. 448 pp. Sig. A-z, a-e fours, pp. 3-8, Estienne Dolet 
 au Lecteur Chrestien ; 9-403, Psalmes de David paraphrases par Campensis; 404-446, Exposi- 
 tion paraphrastique sur Pecclesiaste du sage Salomon selon la verite Hebraicque composie par Jehan 
 Campensi 8c nouvellement translate'e de Latin en Francoys. 1 page blank. Last page mark (as 
 on title) ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve moy, etc. 
 
 Brit. Mus. 
 
 This translation of the Paraphrase of Campensis had previously appeared (but without 
 the preface of Dolet) in 1534, without indication of place or printer's name (Bib. Nat.). It 
 was reprinted at Antwerp by Jehan Gymnick in 1556 with the preface of Dolet, but 
 omitting all mention of his name. (An imperfect copy of this is in the Brit. Mus.) 
 Another reprint (Antwerp, Jehan Steelsius, 1543) was in the Cailhava collection (Cat. No. 
 9), and is apparently the same that was sold at the Libri sale (1859). 
 
 Although the size and the type of this volume are the same as those of the last article, 
 this is printed much more carefully, and has fewer errors of the press. 
 
 47. L'lnternelle Consolation. CEuvre divisee en deux parties & 
 necessaire a tout esprit Chretien. Imprimee a Lyon chez Estienne 
 Dolet, 1542. 
 
 i6mo. Roman letters. 382 pp. pp. 3, 4, Estienne Dolet au lecteur Chretien ; 5-364, 
 Text of the three parts ; 18 pp. unnumbered, the Table and two dixains of Dolet ; last 
 page, mark of Dolet, with Scabra Dolo on the axe; underneath, Dolet, Preserve 
 moy, etc. 
 
 Bib. Nat. 
 
 I give the title of this book from Du Verdier, Bibliotheque Francoise, p. 779 (edit, of 
 Rigoley de Juvigny, vol. iv. p. 562), for the only copy which I know, that of the Bib. Nat., 
 wants the title. I believe it to be the same which was formerly in the possession of M. 
 Haillet de Couronne, and afterwards fell into the hands of M. Barbier, who has given a long 
 
538 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 account of it in his Dissertation sur soixantt traductions Francaises de Yimitation de Jesus- 
 Christ (Paris, 1812), pp. 119-121, and states that the following is the colophon : — 
 
 ' " Ce present reuvre fut acheve d'imprimer a Lyon, l'an de grace mil cinq cents, quarante, 
 et deux, chez Estienne Dolet, detenu pour lors aux prisons de Rouenne, et ce par l'enuye, et 
 calumnie d'aulcuns maistres imprimeurs (on pour myeulx dire, barbouilleurs) et libraires 
 dudict lieu, contre lesquelz il feit, estant prisonnier, les deux dixains qui s'ensuyvent." 
 
 Draudius in his Bibliotheca Exotica (1625), according to Barbier, places this book among 
 the French works of Protestant theologians, and it has sometimes been ascribed to Dolet 
 himself. It is however, as M. Barbier states, merely a reprint of the older translations of the 
 De Imitatione. Although the book does not appear in any catalogue of books censured by the 
 faculty of Paris, it is inserted (No. 50) in the catalogue of books censured by the Inquisition 
 at Toulouse as L'Internelle Consolation imprime'e far Dolet. (See La Police des Liiires au xviemc 
 siecle par E. de Freville.) No doubt it would be the preface of Dolet or his dixains which 
 gave occasion to the censure, for the orthodoxy of the book itself was never doubted. 
 
 48. Le Chevalier Chrestien. Premierement compose en Latin par 
 Erasme : & depuis traduict en Francoys. [Similar medallion and 
 inscription to that on the title-page of Les Epistres et Evangiles, ante 
 No. 44.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avec privileige du 
 Roy, pour dix ans. 
 
 i6mo. Roman letters. 348 pp. (last 2 unnumbered). Sigs. a-y. p. 2, Extraict du 
 Privileige ; 3, 4, Estienne Dolet au lecteur chrestien (in which he says that ce present ceuvre a 
 etc regard/ par auelques uns comme scandaleux ou illicite : 5"4^» Dedication of Erasmus. The 
 text begins on p. 49 and extends to p. 346. On the following page, Cest eewurejht imprime 
 Van de grace Mil cinq cents quarente & deux, a Lyon ches Estienne Dolet, demeurant pour lors en 
 la rue Ma-ciere a Venseigne de la Dolouere d?or. On the last page the mark of Dolet, with 
 Scabea dolo on the axe ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve tnoy, etc. 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 This translation is by Louis de Berquin. It had been originally printed by L'Empereur, 
 Anvers, 1529 ; and another edition was given by J. de Tournes in 1542. (See for the 
 different editions, Barbier, Diet. des. Anonymes, 3ieme edit. vol. ii. p. 102, and Bull, du Bib. 
 i860, p. 1210.) 
 
 49. De vrai moyen de bien et catholiquement se confesser. 
 Opuscule faict premierement en Latin par Erasme ; et depuis 
 traduict en Francoys. A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. 
 
 i6mo. 
 
 Du Verdier cites this translation as made by Dolet, and in the title in the Supplement to 
 Brunet (the Catal. des Foires de Francfort being cited as the authority) the title is given as 
 bearing these words, Traduict du latin d'Erasme par Estienne Dolet. Nee de la Rochelle 
 however does not think he was the translator, and implies that his name was not on the 
 title-page as such. It seems doubtful, however, whether Nee de la Rochelle had seen a copy. 
 I can find no trace of the existence of one. In the pardon of June 1543 (Proces, p. 9), and 
 in the decree of the parliament of 14th January 1543 (1544), (Proces, p. 30), it is referred to 
 as one of the books printed by Dolet with epitres liminaires excitati-ves a la lecture d'ictux, 
 which implies that he was not the translator, but only the author of the epitre liminaire. 
 
 50. Exhortation a la lecture des Sainctes Lettres : avec suffisante 
 probation des Docteurs de l'Eglise, qu'il est licite, & necessaire, icelles 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 539 
 
 estre translatees en langue vulgaire : & mesmement en la Francoyse. 
 [Mark.'] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avec privileige pour 
 dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Roman letters. 132 pp. p. 2, Extraict du privileige; on recto of last leaf 
 Imprime a Lyon par Estienne Dolet : pour lors demeurant en rue Merciere a Venseigne de la Doloire, 
 Van de grace Mil cinq cents quarente & deux ; on the verso, mark of Dolet. 
 
 This description is taken from that of Nee de la Rochelle, corrected by one obligingly 
 furnished me by M. A. Durel, through whose hands a copy had passed. 
 
 According to Nee de la Rochelle (p. 122) this volume contains besides the Exhortation, — 
 1. Traicte monstrant comme on se doibt apprester a la lecture des Escriptures sainctes & ce 
 qu'on y doibt chercher ; 2. Resolution d'une doubte sur ung passaige de la Saincte Escrip- 
 ture ; 3. Sermon de la Providence divine premierement faict en Grec par S. Jehan Chrysos- 
 tome et maintenant translate en Langue Francoyse. The whole is preceded by an epistle 
 from Dolet to the Lecteur Chrestien. Nee de la Rochelle shows clearly that Dolet was not 
 the author of the book. A copy is in the catalogue of the Bib. Hohendorfiana (pt. iii. No. 
 2 53)> ( no doubt now in the Vienna Library), with the date by mistake 1552 instead of 1542. 
 A reprint was given A Lyon Par Balthasar Arnoullet, 1544 (i6mo, 48 pp.). (Bib. Arsenal.) 
 Du Verdier cites an edition given by Arnoullet, Lyon, 1554 (probably an error for 1544). 
 
 51. Brief discours de la Republique francoys desirant la lecture 
 des livres de la Saincte Escripture luy estre loisible en sa langue 
 vulgaire. Le diet discours est en rime. Avec un petit traicte en prose 
 monstrant comme on se doibt apprester a la lecture des Escriptures 
 Sainctes, et ce qu'on y doibt chercher. A Lyon, ches Estienne 
 Dolet, 1542. i6mo. 
 
 Every writer who has noticed this book, including La Croix du Maine, Du Verdier, 
 Goujet, Niceron, Nee de la Rochelle, Brunet, Haag, and Boulmier, agrees in ascribing to it 
 the date 1 544. But it is plain that none of them except Du Verdier ever saw a copy, and the 
 date rests solely upon his authority and that of La Croix du Maine. Now the book appears 
 in the catalogue of books censured by the Faculty of Theology of Paris between December 
 25, 1542, and March 2, 1542 (1543 N.S.) (D'Argentre, t. ii. pt. 1, p. 135, No. 61, where 
 these words are added, t qui semhle de Dolet, a cause qu'il a fait Vepitre pre'liminaire?) It must 
 therefore have appeared before the last date, and probably in 1542. In order to escape this 
 difficulty Brunet suggests that the edition of 1 544 referred to by Du Verdier must have been a 
 reprint of an earlier edition of 1542. This is no doubt possible, but it seems more probable 
 that 1544 is an error for 1542 than that a second edition, which has disappeared as com- 
 pletely as the first, should have appeared in 1544. It again appears among the books of 
 Dolet, but without date, in the catalogue of 1551 (D'Argentre, p. 174). 
 
 Brunet, who is followed by Boulmier, says that the Exhortation a la lecture des Sainctes 
 Lettres (No 50) is printed at the end of the Brief Discours. They seem to have confused the 
 Exhortation with the Petit traicte' en Prose above mentioned, and which Nee de la Rochelle 
 tells us expressly is one of those appended also to the Exhortation. 
 
 52. Les prieres et oraisons de la Bible, faictes par les sainctz peres 
 et par les hommes et femmes illustres tant de l'Ancien que du 
 Nouveau Testament. [Mark with motto.'] Ches Estienne Dolet a 
 Lyon, 1542. 
 
54 o APPENDIX B 
 
 ibmo. Roman letters. 283 pp. 
 
 M. Douen {ttienne Dolet; ses opinions religeuses, Paris, 188 1, p. 37) gives an account of 
 this book from a copy in the possession of M. Gaiffe. See also Nee de la Rochelle (p. 48), 
 and the catalogue of books censured in 1551 (D'Argentre, t. ii. pt. 1, p. 177), where the 
 date of Dolet's edition is not given, but where an edition of J. de Tournes of 1544 is cited. 
 
 53. Livre de la Compaignie des Penitens. Contenant l'ordre de 
 recepvoir un Novice, matines de la Vierge Marie, l'office du Dimanche, 
 lundy et jeudy, l'office du mardy et vendredy, l'office du mercredy et 
 sabmedy, Prime, Sexte, Tierce, None, Vespres et Complie de nostre 
 dame : Mutation de l'office de PAdvent : Psalmes des degrez : Psalmes 
 Penitentiaux : L'offices des morts : les offices des Mercredy Jeudy et 
 Vendredy sainct : Hymnes de l'annee : Commemoration des Dimen- 
 ches & des Saincts. Lyon, Estienne Dolet, 1542. 
 
 i6mo. Gothic letters. 
 
 Du Verdier (art. Penitens) ; Prices, pp. 9 and 30 ; D'Argentre, t. ii. pt. 1, pp. 133 and 
 134 (as Les hewes de la Compaignie des penitens, and under that name ordered to be burned). 
 In the Supplement to Brunet, cited from the Cat. des Foires de Francfort as La compagnie des 
 penitens. 
 
 54. La Fontaine de Vye. Lyon, Dolet, 1542. 
 
 This book is mentioned among the * Livres dampnes et reprowves ' printed by Dolet, with 
 preliminary epistles made by him ' excitat'mes a la lecture d'iceux ' in the pardon of June 1543 
 (Proces, p. 9), and in the decree of the Parliament of February 14, 1543-4, ordered to be 
 burned (Proces, p. 29 ; D'Argentre, t. ii. pt. 1, p. 133). It was several times reprinted. 
 
 The book is included in the catalogue of those censured by the Faculty of Theology of 
 Paris, March 2, 1542-3, and by the Inquisition of Toulouse about 1549 ; but in a censure of 
 certain books by the Faculty of Theology of Paris, May 25, 1542 (D'Argentre, t. ii. pt. i, 
 p. 232), the book is censured not on account of its own demerits, but on those of a tract 
 printed at the end of ij, ' Liber qui dicitur La Fontaine de Vie continet alium annexum im- 
 pressum et eodem contextu ut non possit alter sine altero haberi : in quo secundo libro cujus 
 titulus est Introduction pour les enfans habetur quxdam Lutheri confessio . . . Ea Lutheri 
 confessio scripta est in eo libello circa finem.' 
 
 I have been unable to meet with a copy of the Latin original Fans Vita, the first 
 edition of which, according to Graesse (Tresor de Li-ares rares), was printed in 1533. A copy 
 of an edition of 1538 is in Cat. Bib. Thuana. 
 
 55. Les Epistres Familiaires de Marc Tulle Cicero, pere d'elo- 
 quence Latine. Nouvellement traduictes de Latin en Francoys par 
 Estienne Dolet, natif D'Orleans. Avec leurs sommaires et arguments 
 pour plus grande intelligence d'ycelles. [Mark with motto.'] A 
 Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Roman letters. 416 pp. ; folios numbered 3-207 (2 and 3 each numbered 3), last 
 folio unnumbered. Signatures a-z, a-c fours. Reverse of title, Extraict du privileige. 
 4 pp. preface, Estienne Dolet au Lecteur. Each of the sixteen books is preceded by an ' argu- 
 ment^ and in the margin are the Latin words with which the epistle begins in the original, 
 and in a few cases a note explanatory of the epistle. After the seventh book, on folios 140 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 541 
 
 and 141, is an Epistle of Dolet to the reader explaining why he omitted the eighth book 
 (consisting wholly of the letters of Ccelius), and most of the other letters not written by 
 Cicero himself. The translation of the sixteenth book ends on the verso of folio 207. Then 
 follow two unnumbered pages ; on the first, Ce present CEuvre fut acheve d'imprimer le 
 XXVIII. tTApuril, 1 542, a Lyon ches Estienne Dolet, pour lors demeurant en rue Merciere a 
 Venseigne de la Dolouere d'or. Lemuel Dolet mesme a est/ traducteur de ces Epistres familiaires de 
 Cicero. On last page, mark ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve may, etc. 
 
 R. C. C. — Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 This, by far the most popular of the works of Dolet, was reprinted at least twenty-eight 
 times before the end of the sixteenth century, and five times in the seventeenth. Dolet 
 only translated the letters written by Cicero, omitting many in the last books, and nearly all 
 those written by his correspondents in reply. These were translated by Fr. de Belle Forest 
 in 1561, and with the Latin text, added in moBt of the subsequent editions. The following 
 is as complete a list as I have been able to make. Besides the twelve editions, copies of 
 which are in my possession, I have seen all those that are in the Bib. Nat. and the libraries 
 of Limoges, Orleans, Lyons, and Chatsworth. For the others I cite my authorities. 
 
 Reprints of Dolet's Translation alone of the 
 Epistres Familiaires. 
 
 1542. Lyon, de Tournes. i2mo. (Nee de la Rochelle quoting Cat. MS. de la Bib. du 
 
 Roi.) 
 1542. Paris, P. Vidoue. (Brunet.) 
 1542. Paris, Jehan Longis (imprimeur Jehan Real). 8vo. (Nodier, 1091 — Didot(i883), 
 
 425.) 
 
 1542. Paris, N. Duchemin (imprimeur Jehan Real), 8vo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 (The two editions last cited are the same but with different title-pages. They were no 
 doubt a joint speculation of Longis and Duchemin. The same remark applies to the two 
 editions of 1547, to the two Paris editions of 1549, and probably to others.) 
 
 1543. Lyon, Frellon. i6mo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 1545. Paris, Nicolas Duchemin. 24mo. (Bib. Nat.) 
 
 1545. Paris, Gilles Corrozet. i6mo. (Chatsworth Library.) 
 
 1547. Paris, Guillaume Le Bret. At the end on page 307, Itnprime' par Guillaume 
 
 Thibout. i6mo. (Chatsworth Library.) 
 1547. Paris, Jehan Ruelle. At the end on page 307, Imprime' par Guillaume Thibout. 
 
 i6mo. (R.C.C.) 
 1547. Paris, Est. Groulleau. i6mo. (Graesse.) 
 1549. Lyon, Thibauld Payan. i6mo. (Limoges Library.) 
 1549. Paris, Guillaume Le Bret. At the end, Imprime par Maurice Menier. i6mo. 
 
 (Nee de la Rochelle.) 
 1549. Paris, Jehan Ruelle. At the end, Imprime' par Maurice Menier. i6mo. (Bib. 
 
 Nat.) 
 1549. Lyon, Jean de Tournes et Guillaume Gazeau. i6mo. (R. C. C. — Bib. Nat.) 
 1549. Lyon, Gu. Rouille. i2mo. (Graesse.) 
 
 1559. Paris, Menier. i6mo. (Graesse.) 
 
 1560. Lyon, Thibaud Payen. i6mo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 1 561. Lyon, Guillaume Rouille, but at end Imprime par FrancoysGaillard. (R. C. C.) 
 1569. Chambery? i6mo. (Boulmier.) 
 
 ». a. Paris, Buon. (Maittaire.) 
 
542 APPENDIX B 
 
 Reprints including the Translations of 
 Fr. de Belle Forest. 
 
 1561. Lyon, Jac. Cotier. i6mo. (Lyons Library.) 
 
 1566. Paris, H. le Be. i2mo. (Brunet. — Maccarthy, 2323. — Didot (1884), 385.) 
 
 1569. Paris, Jacques D'Arbilly. i2mo. (Ne'e de la Rochelle, 128. — Artur, 1141.) 
 
 1569. Paris, Est. Anastace. izmo. (Graesse.) 
 
 1572. Paris, Vincent Norment et Janne Bruneau. i6mo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 1572. Paris, Buon. i6mo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 1573. Lyon, Loys Cloquemin et Estienne Michel. i6mo. (R. C. C.) 
 1579. Lyon, Loys Cloquemin. i6mo. (Lyons Library.) 
 
 1585. Lugd. apud Ant. Gryphium. i6mo. (Orleans Library.) 
 1585. Paris, Claude Micard. i6mo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 1 59 1. Lyon, Rigaud, 'ex typis J. Roussin.' i6mo. (Baudrier, Bibliographic 
 
 Lyonnaise, ytx serie, p. 424.) 
 
 1592. Lyon, Jacob Stoer. iomo. (Limoges and Grenoble Libraries.) 
 16 18. Cologni (Geneva), Jacob Stoer. i6mo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 1623. Rouen, Bogard. i2mo. (Brunet.) 
 
 1624. Rouen, Richard l'AUcmand. (Bib. Nat.) 
 
 1624. Rouen, Manassez de Preaulx. 16 mo. (R. C. C.) 
 1630. Rouen, Jean de la Mare. i6mo. (Nee de la Rochelle.) 
 
 56. La mauiere de Bien traduire d'une langue en aultre. 
 D'advantage. De la punctuation de la langue Francoyse. Plus des 
 accents d'ycelle. Le tout faict par Estienne Dolet, natif d'Orleans. 
 [ Mark with motto.] A Lyon, -dies Dolet mesme. m.d.xlii. Avec 
 privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 4to. Roman letters. 40 pp. Signatures a-e twos. Last page unnumbered, mark ; 
 underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 R. C. C— Bib. de 1' Anenal. 
 The third edition given by Dolet, and an exact reprint of that of 1541. 
 
 57. La Plaisante et Joyeuse histoyre du Grand Geant Gargantua, 
 Prochainement reveu et de beaucoup augmentee par l'autheur 
 mesme. [Woodcut representing men and boys singing from a music 
 book.'] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. 
 
 i6mo. Roman letters. Woodcuts. 288 pp. (last 6 pp. unnumbered), pp. 2-282, text of 
 Gargantua ; 1 p. Cest ceuvrejut imprime Pan de grace Mil cinq cents quarente &f deux. A Lyon, 
 ches Estienne Dolet, demeurant pours lors en la Rue Merciere a I'enseigne de la Dolouere D'or ; 1 
 page, mark, not in border, but with Scabra dolo on the margin of the axe ; underneath, 
 Dolet, Preserve moy, etc. 4 pp. blank. Then follows : — 
 
 Pantagruel, Roy des Dipsodes, Restitue a son naturel : avec ses faictz & prouesses 
 espouuentables : composes par feu M. Alcofribas abstracteur de quintessence. Plus les 
 merveilleuses navigations du disciple de Pantagruel diet Panurge. A Lyon, ches Estienne 
 Dolet, 1542. 
 
 1 6 mo. Roman letters. Woodcuts. 352 pp. (last 2 pp. unnumbered), p. 2, Dixain de 
 M. Hugues Salel a l'autheur de ce lime ; pp. 3-7, Prologue de l'autheur ; 8-231, text divided 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 543 
 
 into xxxii. chapters ; 232-251, Pantagrueline Prognostication; I p. blank and unnumbered; 
 253-350 Le voyage it navigation que fin Panurge ; 1 p. blank ; 1 p. mark with Scabra dolo 
 on the margin of the axe j underneath, Dolet, Preserve moy, etc. 
 Bib. Nat. — R. C. C. (Pantagruel only). 
 
 58. Les (Euvres de Clement Marot de Cahors, valet de chambre 
 du Roy. Augmentees d'ung grand nombre de ses compositions 
 nouvelles, par cy-devant non imprimees. Le tout songneusement 
 par luy mesmes reveu et mieulx ordonne comme l'on voyrra cy 
 apres. [Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. 
 Avec privileige du Roy pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Roman letters. 648 pp. (Folios numbered but with many errors.) Signa- 
 tures a-z, a-r fours, s two. ff. 2. 3, Epistle of Marot to Dolet ; 4 (a), Latin odes of N. 
 Bourbon and N. Berauld. Last page mark of Dolet ; underneath, Estienne Dolet, Preserve 
 moy, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 59. L'Enfer de Clement Marot de Cahors en Quercy, valet de 
 chambre du Roy. Item aulcunes Ballades et Rondeaulx appartenants 
 a largument. Et en oultre plusieurs aultres compositions du diet 
 Marot, par cy-devant non imprimees. [Mark with motto.'] A 
 Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Italic letters. 64 pp. (Last three unnumbered, pagination full of mistakes.) 
 Signatures a-d. pp. 3, 4, Estienne Dolet a Lyon Jamet ; pp. 5-61, L'Enfer and the other 
 poems ; 1 p. unnumbered, Cest ceuvre Jut imprime' Van de grace Mil cinq cents quarante et 
 deux, A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, demeurant pour tors en Rue Merciere a Venseigne de la 
 Dolouere D'or. (My copy ends here, but there clearly should be another folio, on the verso 
 of which no doubt would be the mark of Dolet.) 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 60. L'Amie de Court. Nouvellement inventee par le Seigneur 
 de la Borderie. [ Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 
 1542. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Italic letters. 40 pp. Signatures a, b fours, c two. pp. 3, 4, Preface of Dolet 
 dated May 5, 1542; 5-36, L'Amie de Court; 37, A I'ung de ses amys ; TJA,Enigme; 1 folio 
 (wanting in my copy, but the recto would no doubt be blank, and the verso would have the 
 mark of Dolet as in the edition of 1543). 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 I cannot point to any copy of this or the next article except my own (formerly Didot's). 
 
 61. La Parfaicte Amye. Nouvellement composee par Antoine 
 Heroet diet la Maison neufve. Avec plusieurs aultres compositions 
 du diet Autheur. [Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne 
 Dolet, 1 542. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Italic letters. 96 pp. Signatures A-r fours, pp. 3, 4, Preface of Dolet 
 
544 APPENDIX B 
 
 dated June I, 1542 ; 3-63 (39 repeated), La parfaicte amye ; 64-79, L' Androgyne de Platm. 
 Nouvellement tradulct de Latin en Francoys par Antoine Heroet diet la maison neufve. Last 
 page mark ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve moy, etc. 
 R. C. C. (First folio in MS. facsimile.) 
 
 62. Du Mespris de la Court : & de la louange de la vie Rusticque. 
 Nouvellement traduict d'Hespaignol en Francoys. \_Mark of Dolet 
 with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avecq privileige 
 pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. 176 pp. Signatures a-l fours, pp. 3-5, Dedication of the translator, Antoine 
 Alaigre, to G. Du Prat, Bishop of Clermont, dated May I, 1542 ; p. 6, Au Lecteur ; 7, 8, 
 Table ; 9-170, text ; 2 pp. blank ; 1 p., Ce piesent ceuvre fut acheve d'Jmprimer, a Lyon Van 
 de grace mil cinq cents quarante & deux. Ches Estienne Dolet, demeurant pour lors en rue 
 Merciere a la Dolouere D'or ; 1 p. mark of Dolet ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve moy, etc. 
 (Should be another blank folio.) 
 
 R. C. C. — Roanne Library. 
 
 This is probably the first edition of the translation of Alaigre, though another edition 
 also appeared in the same year at Lyons from the press of Pierre de Tours. It was 
 reprinted the following year by de Tournes (R. C. C), and also by Fr. Juste. 
 
 63. Cry de la guerre ovverte entre le roy de France et l'Empereur 
 Roy des Hespaignes. Et ce a cause des grandes, execrables, et 
 estranges injures cruaultez et inhumanitez, des quelles le diet 
 Empereur a use envers le Roy et mesmement envers ses ambas- 
 sadeurs : a cause aussi des pays, qu'il luy detient et occupe indeument 
 et injustement. Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. 
 
 Sm. 4to. 4ff. Mark of Dolet on the last page. 
 
 Potier, 1974. — Cat. of St. Goar (Frankfort, 1877), No. 1520. In the Supplement to 
 Brunet a copy is cited as sold at the Conod sale. 
 
 A copy of an edition of this manifesto of Francis I., printed by Poncet le Preux, Paris, 
 s. a., which MM. Deschamps and Brunet state to be a re-impression of that of Dolet, is in 
 the Bib. Nat., but it seems to me probable that that of Poncet le Preux is the original. In 
 this edition the manifesto is dated Ligny, 10 July 1542. Le Long {Bib. Hist, de la France) 
 cites this manifesto under the date 1542, but as in 8vo and without the printer's name. 
 
 64. Discours contenant le seul et vray moyen par lequel ung 
 serviteur favorise & constitue au service d'ung prince, peult conserver 
 sa felicite eternelle, & temporelle, & eviter les choses qui luy pour- 
 royent 1'une ou l'aultre faire perdre. [Mark with motto.'] A Lyon, 
 ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avecq Privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Roman letters. Signatures a, b fours, pp. 3-6, A Monseigneur de VEstrange, 
 Estienne Dolet humble salut ; 7-31, text. Last page mark; underneath, Dolet, Preserve 
 moy, etc. 
 
 R. C. C. 
 
 Du Verdier attributes the authorship of this book to Dolet, but it appears from the 
 dedication that he was not the author. Dolet says that the discours ' est plein de prudence 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 545 
 
 accompagnee d'une telle ardeur envers la loi de Dieu que bien cognoissoit et bien observait 
 l'autheur de cet ouvrage.' 
 
 65. La Chirurgie de Paulus iEgineta. Nouvellement traduicte 
 de Grec en Francoys. [Mark with motto.'] A Lyon, ches Estienne 
 Dolet, 1542. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Italic letters. 208 pp. Signatures a-n. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. de Bordeaux. 
 
 This is a reprint of the first part of the volume of translations made by P. Tolet, 
 originally printed by Dolet in 1540. Brunet erroneously states that it includes the 
 Opuscules of Galen. This is an error ; reprints of the Opuscules were given separately by 
 Dolet. (See the two following articles.) 
 
 66. Des Tumeurs oultre le coustumier de Nature. Opuscule 
 nouvellement traduict de Grec en Latin : et de Latin en Francoys. 
 [Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avec 
 privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Italic letters. 32 pp. pp. 3-26, text ; 6 pp. unnumbered ; 1st, Ce present 
 Opuscule a este traduict par Maistre Pierre Tolet, medecin de P hospital de Lyon. Et par luy aussi 
 a este traduict hauitre opuscule de Galien intitule De la maniere de ewer par phlebotomie ; 2nd, 
 blank ; 3rd, mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 3 last pages blank. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 This Opuscule, as well as the next article, had before been printed by Dolet in 1 540 with 
 La Chirurgie of Paulus ^Egineta. 
 
 67. De la Kaison de curer par evacuation de sang. Autheur 
 Galien. CEuvre nouvellement traduict de Grec en Latin : et de 
 Latin en Francoys. [Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne 
 Dolet, 1542. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Italic letters. 64 pp. Signatures a-d fours. pp. 3-54, text $ 55-63, Petits 
 traictes propres a la medicine. Autluur Galien {Des Sangsues. De revulsion. Des -ventouses. 
 De scarification). Last page unnumbered, mark 5 underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 Again separately reprinted a Lyon ches Sulpice Sabon pour Antoine Constantin sans date. 
 (Yemenis, 781), 1545 was subsequently impressed on the unsold copies. See Baudrier, 
 Bibl. Lyon, 2i>ie Serie, pp. 30, 36. 
 
 68. Deux Livres des Simples de Galien. C'est asscavoir, Le 
 cinquiesme, Et le neufviesme. Nouvellement traduicts de Latin en 
 Francoys par Monsieur Maistre Jehan Canappe, Docteur en Medicine. 
 [Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1542. Avec 
 privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 164 pp. (p. 89 repeated and last but one numbered 162). 3-6, Le 
 translateur au lecteur. Last page mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 2 N 
 
546 APPENDIX B 
 
 Reprinted at Lyons in 1570 by Durelle for Rigaud. Baudrier, Bibl. Lyon, 31110 Serie, p. 
 265. 
 
 69. Prologue & chapitre singulier de tres excellent Docteur en 
 medecine & Chirurgie Maistre Guidon de Cauliac. Le tout nouvelle- 
 ment traduict & illustrede commentaires par Maistre Jehan Canappe, 
 Docteur en Medecine & lecteur public des Chirurgiens a Lyon. 
 [Mark with motto.] Ches Estienne Dolet a Lyon, 1542. Avec 
 privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Text of Guidon Roman letters, Commentary of Canappe Italics. 128 pp. Sig. 
 a-h fours, pp. 3-6, preface of Canappe. Last page mark ; underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 70. Le Livre des Presaiges du Divin Hyppocrates divise en troys 
 parties. Item La protestation que le diet Hyppocrates faisoit faire a 
 ses disciples. Le tout riouvellement translate par Maistre Pierre 
 Vernei, Docteur en Medecine. [Mark with motto.] A Lyon ches 
 Estienne Dolet, 1542. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Italic letters. 40 pp. Signatures a-b, fours, c two. p. 3 (unnumbered), La 
 •vie d' Hyppocrates ,* pp. 4.-6, La protestation et jurement du Divin & Maistre des Medecins 
 Hyppocrates ; 7-38, Translation of the Presaiges, ending on p. 38 with Imprime a Lyon par 
 Estienne Dolet, pour lors demeurant en Rue Merciere a Penseigne de la Doloire. Uan de 
 grace Mil cinq cents quarante &f deux. 1 page blank, last page mark j underneath, Doletus, 
 Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat. 
 
 Brunet is in error in only giving to this book 38 pp. 'y compris I'emblime de Dolet.' It 
 should consist, as above stated, of 40 pp. The book is a reprint of a volume printed at 
 Lyons in 1539 by Pierre de Saincte Lucie, some copies of which have Nicolas Petit on the 
 title-page as the bookseller, others Jehan Mousnier. One of these with Petit's name is in my 
 possession. 
 
 71. Tables Anatomicques du corps humain universel 5 soit de 
 1'homme ou de la femme. Premierement composees en Latin par 
 Maistre Loys Vasse"e ; et depuis traduites en Francoys par Maistre 
 Jehan Canappe. [Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 
 1542. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 248 pp. (carelessly numbered, last p. numbered 309). Signatures 
 A-c^. pp. 3-10, An epistle headed Maistre Jehan Canappe Docteur en Medecine au lecteur 
 Chirurgien salut. It is dated Lyon ce premier jour de Juillet Pan de Salut mil cinq cents 
 quarante & ung. 
 
 R. C. C— Orleans Library. 
 
 It was reprinted by Angelier, Paris, 1544 (Bib. Mazarine), and again by M. Fezendat (for 
 J. Foucher), Paris, 1555 (Bib. de Rouen). Du Verdier mentions a reprint by Jean de 
 Tournes, Lyon, 1552. 
 
 La Croix du Maine erroneously treats as two distinct books V Anatomic du Corps humain 
 and Let tables anatomiques. He is also in error (as is La Monnoye) in stating that the author of 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 547 
 
 the original is Jean and not Loys Vassee. Jean and Loys Vassee or Vassaeus were con- 
 temporaries. Jean was of Meaux, Louis of Chalons. Each wrote on medical subjects, but 
 Louis is the author of the Tabula. 
 
 M.D.XLIII. 
 
 72. C. Ivlii Csesaris Commentarii. Quas in hac habeantur 
 editione sequens pagina demonstrabit. [Mark with motto.] Lug- 
 duni, apud Steph. Doletum, 1543. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 656 pp. 64 pp. prelim, comprising the prefaces of Secundus and 
 Aldus, the usual plates and maps, notnina locorum, and Index rerum. pp. 1-524, text of Caesar 
 and Hirtius. 67 pp. unnumbered, Index ; 1 p. mark ; underneath, boletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 R. C. C. — Brussels Library. — Orleans Library. 
 
 An exact reprint page for page of the editions given by Seb. Gryphius, but badly and 
 carelessly printed with a coarse type, and on coarse paper. 
 
 73. Observations in Terentii Comoedias nempe Andriam : et 
 item Eunuchum. Steph. Doleto Gallo Aurelio Autore. [Mark 
 with motto.] Lugduni, apud eundem Doletum, 1543. Cum 
 privilegio ad decennium. 
 
 8vo. Italic letters. 176 pp. (17 unnumbered at end). Sig. a-l. Last page mark ; 
 underneath, Doletus, Durior, etc. 
 
 An exact reprint of the edit, of 1 540. 
 R. C. C. — Bib. Nat. — Brit. Mus. 
 
 74. Les Questions Tusculanes de M. T. Ciceron. QEuvre 
 tresutile & necessaire pour resister a toute vitieuse passion d'esprit ; 
 & parvenir au mespris, & contemnement de la mort. Nouvellement 
 traduict de Latin en Francoys par Estiemie Dolet, natif D'Orleans. 
 [Mark with motto.'} A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1543. Avec 
 privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Roman letters. 240 pp. Sig. a-p fours. 13 pp. prelim, unnumbered, Epistle to 
 the king. 1 p. Huictain. pp. 1-224, Translation of the first three books of the 
 Tusculans, ending (on p. 224) with Fin du Troysiesme I'vvre. 
 
 Dole Library. 
 
 Reprinted at least five times : — 
 
 1544. Paris, J. Ruelle. i6mo. (R. C. C.) 
 
 1544. No place or printer's name. i6mo. (Lyons Library.) 
 
 1545. Paris, Guillaume Le Bret. i6mo. (R. C. C. — Bib. Maz.) 
 1545. Paris, Benoit Prevost? i6mo. (Orellius, Onomasticon Tullianum.) 
 1548. Paris, J. Ruelle. i6mo. (R. C. C— Bib. Nat.) 
 
 (1549). Lyon, Sulpice Sabon pour Antoine Constantin. Sm. 8vo. (R. C. C. — 
 Brit. Mus.) This edition had originally no date, but 1549 was subsequently impressed 
 on the unsold copies. Baudrier, Bibl. Lyon. 2Uie Serie, pp. 31-37. 
 None of these reprints contain Dolet's preface, or anything more than the first three 
 books. 
 
548 APPENDIX B 
 
 75. La Maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre, 
 D'advantage de la Punctuation de la langue Francoise ; plus des 
 Accens d'icelle. Le tout faict par Estienne Dolet, natif D'Orleans. 
 [Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Dolet mesme, 1543. 
 
 An exact reprint in every respect of the edition of 1541. 
 
 Sunderland, (uncut) 4007 ; £12 — Bib. Hohendorfiana, part ii. No. 203. 
 
 76. Les Gestes de Francoys de Valois Roy de France. Dedans 
 lequel CEuvre on peult congnoistre tout ce qui a est6 faict par les 
 Francoys depuis l'An Mil cinq cents treize jusques en l'An Mil 
 cinq cents quarante & troys. Premierement compose" en Latin 
 par Estienne Dolet ; et apres par luy mesmes translate en Langue 
 Francoyse. [Mark with motto.'] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 
 1543. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 4to (but much smaller than the edit, of 1 540). Roman letters. 96 pp. Sig. a-f fours. 
 Pp. 2-74 same as in the edition of 1540, except that on p. 74 a paragraph is added glorifying 
 France and its invincibility ; 75-94, Le tiers livre (continuing the history for the years 1539, 
 1540, 1541, 1542. Unnumbered page, An lecteur (as in edit, of 1540). Last page mark; 
 underneath, Dolet, Preserve moy, etc. 
 
 R. C. C— Bib. Nat.— Brit. Mus. 
 
 For the subsequent reprints of this book see ante, p. 526. 
 
 77. Les (Euvres de Clement Marot de Cahors, Valet de Chambre 
 du Roy. Augmentees d'ung grand nombre de ses compositions 
 nouvelles, par cy-devant non imprimees. Le tout soigneusement 
 par luy mesmes reveu & mieulx ordpnne comme Ton voyra cy apres. 
 [Mark without border or motto, but with the words Scabra dolo on the 
 edge of the axe.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1543. Avec 
 privileige du Roy pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Roman letters. 760 pp. (folios numbered 2-304 and 1-76). On the verso of 
 last folio (76) mark of Dolet ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve may, etc. 
 
 Lyons Library. 
 
 It escaped the notice of Brunet that twenty psalms are contained in the second part of 
 this volume, and there seems every probability that they appeared for the first time in this 
 edition. No previous edition of the works of Marot contained more than thirty psalms, 
 and it is doubtful whether the edition of the psalms alone, dated 1543, was printed before 
 this. 
 
 78. L'Amie de Court. Nouvellement inventee par le Seigneur 
 de la Borderie. [Mark with motto.] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 
 1543- 
 
 8vo. Roman letters. 40 pp. Sig. a, b fours, c two. Recto of last leaf blank, verso 
 mark ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve mcy, etc. 
 Dole Library. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 549 
 
 79. La parfaicte Amye. Nouvellement composee par Antoine 
 Heroet, diet la Maison neufve. Avec plusieurs aultres compositions 
 du diet Autheur. [Mark with motto.} A Lyon, ches Estienne 
 Dolet, 1 543. Avec privileige pour dix ans. 
 
 Sm. 8vo. Roman letters. 96 pp. numbered 2-94 (48 being repeated and last p. un- 
 numbered). Sig. a-f fours. Last page mark ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve moy, etc. 
 
 Bib. Nat. (Imperfect, wanting the two preliminary pages containing Dolet's preface). — 
 Dole Library. 
 
 80. DuMespris de la Court ^ de la Louange de la vie Rustique. 
 Nouvellement traduict d'Hespaignol en Francoys. [Mark with 
 motto.'] A Lyon, ches Estienne Dolet, 1543. Avec privileige pour 
 dix ans. 
 
 8vo. Roman letters. 112 pp. Sig. a-g. Last page mark j underneath, Dolet, Preserve 
 moy, etc. 
 
 Dole Library. 
 
 Erroneously cited by De Bure (followed by Nee de la Rochelle and Boulmier) as of the 
 year 1545. 
 
 M.D.XLIV. 
 
 81. Le Second Enfer d'Estienne Dolet, natif d'Orleans. Qui 
 sont certaines compositions faictes par luy mesmes sur la justification 
 de son second emprisonnement. A Lyon, 1544. Avec privileige 
 pour dix ans. 
 
 Very small 8vo or z6mo. Roman letters. 104 pp. unnumbered. Signatures a-f 
 fours, g two. (g 11 by mistake printed f ii.) Reverse of title, Au lecteur. Apres t enfer tu 
 trowveras deux dialogues de Plato scavoir, etc. ; 4 pp., Estienne Dolet a ses meilleurs amys humble 
 salut, ending with Escript en ce ntonde ce premier jour de May Van de la redemption humaine mil 
 einq cens quarante et quatre f 44 pp. the Enfer. Then (on D 11) Deulx Dialogues de Platon, 
 Philosophic Di-vin et supernaturel, Scavoir est Uung intitule' Axiochus !%ui est des miseres de la 
 vie humaine et de Vimmortalite de Vame. Et par consequence du mespris de la mart. Item ung 
 aultre, intitule Hipparchus qui est de la convoitise de I' Homme toucliant la lucratifve. Le tout 
 nowvellement traduict en langue Francoyse par Estienne Dolet, natif D'Orleans, 1544. Reverse, 
 Estienne Dolet a ceulx de sa nation, * Cest asse's vescu en tenebres,' etc, ; 5 pp. Dolet Au Roy 
 Treschretien ; 24 pp. and part of 25, Translation of Axiochus headed Du mespris et contemne- 
 ment delamort. At the end of the 25th page and on the 18 following pages translation 
 of Hipparchus, De la convoitise et affection de gaigner ; 3 pp., Aulcuns Diets et sentences notables 
 de Platon ; 1 p. blank. 
 
 Bib. Mazarine. 
 
 MM. Deschamps et Brunet (Manuel du Libraire, Supplement, torn. ii. col. 1017) are in 
 error in stating ' il n'en existe qu'un seul exempl. qui faisait partie du cabinet Cigongne (No. 
 776 du catal.) et que possede aujourd'hui le due d'Aumale,' there being as above stated a 
 copy in the Bibliotheque Mazarine (No. 21994) from which the above description is taken. 
 
 Immediately after the appearance of the book it was reprinted at Troyes (see ante, p. 
 457). The following is the description of this edition : — 
 
550 APPENDIX B 
 
 Le Second Enfer d'Estienne Dolet, natif D'Orleans. Qui sont 
 certaines compositions faictes par lui mesmes, sur la justification de 
 son second emprisonnement. \_Mark of N. Paris, a boy falling from 
 a tree.] A Troyes, par maistre Nicole Paris, 1544. 
 
 Very small 8vo. Roman letters (rather larger than those of the Lyons edition). 64. pp. 
 I, 2, unnumbered, also last p. unnumbered. Signatures a-d fours. Reverse of title, Au 
 lecteur, Apres t enfer de Dolet, tu trou-ueras me epistre en rhlthme francoise faicte et composee par 
 Clement Marot, et far lui emioyee a Monseigneur le Daulphin qui est dung mesme argument ; car 
 par icelle il prie le diet seigneur, qu'il luy plaise tant faire envers le roy son pere que par son moyen 
 le diet Marot retourne en France a-vec sa premier liberte. hem plusieurs aultres belles compositions 
 pleines de grand proftct, et de singulier recreation pour Vesperit de I "Homme ; pp. 3-6, Estienne 
 Dolet a ses meilleurs et principaulx amys humble salut ; 7-48, The Enfer ; 49-63, Seven poems 
 of Clement Marot, the first being the Epistre envoyee a Monseigneur le Daulphin. Last page 
 unnumbered ; mark of N. Paris. [Then follow according to Brunet, 46 pages, numbered 
 49 to 95, containing Deux dialogues de Platan . . . scavoir est Vung intitule' Axiochus . . . 
 item un autre intitule Hipparchus. Le tout traduict par Estienne Dolet, I544-] 
 
 Bib. Nat. 
 
 A second copy is in the Versailles Library, and a third from which the description in 
 Brunet is taken, was formerly in the collection of M. de Lurde, No. 97, and afterwards in 
 that of the Baron de Ruble (Supplement to Brunet, torn. ii. col. 1018). A third copy, 
 formerly existing in the public library of Troyes, and for many years supposed to be unique, 
 has now disappeared [Recherches sur V etablissement et Vexercise de V imprimerie a Troyes, par 
 Corrard de Breban, 3 me edit., Paris, 1873). This copy, however, like that in the Bib. Nat., 
 did not contain the Dialogues. 
 
 Having regard to the following facts, (1) that on the reverse of the title-page of this 
 edition the poems of Marot are indicated as forming part of the volume, but that no mention 
 is made of the Dialogues ; (2) that the number of pages, i.e. 47, occupied by the Dialogues 
 is the same in each ; (3) that the pagination is inconsistent with the presence of both the 
 compositions of Marot and the Dialogues j and (4) that the mark of Nicole Paris appears 
 at the end of the poems of Marot, but not at the end of the Dialogues which form the 
 concluding part of the book, I am led to the conclusion that Nicole Paris printed only the 
 Second Enfer, the Epistre, and other compositions of Marot, and that with the copy of the 
 Baron de Ruble, a copy of the Dialogues from the edition of Lyons is bound up. 
 
 A copy of an edition under the same date as the three above mentioned, but with one 
 remarkable peculiarity, was in the collection of the Marquis de Ganay. (Sold at his sale in 
 1881, No. 109 to M. Durel for 1000 fr.) It was first mentioned by M. Aime Martin in 
 his Rehabilitation (p. 19), and has since been more clearly described in Brunet (art. Dolet), 
 and in the Supplement of MM. Deschamps and Brunet. The title is precisely the same as 
 that of the edition of Lyons, with Lyon as the place of the impression, but on the last page 
 is the mark of Nicole Paris. According to the Supplement to Brunet it is a small octavo, 
 95 pp., round letters, different from those of the Lyons edition, and the same as those of 
 the edition of Troyes. Having had no opportunity of seeing the Marquis de Ganay's copy,. 
 I cannot speak with any certainty, but I think it probable that this is a copy of the Troyes 
 edition with the title-page of that of Lyons. 
 
 There have been two modern reprints of the Second Enfer and the Dialogues, the first 
 given by Techener in 1830, preceded by the Rehabilitation of M. Aime Martin. 
 
 I. Le Second Enfer d'Estienne Dolet, Natif d'Orleans. Qui sont certaines compositions 
 faictes par luy mesmes sur la justification de son second emprisonnement. A Lyon, 
 1544. Avec Privilege pour dix ans. 
 
 Of this only 120 copies were printed. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 551 
 
 2. Le Second Enfer d'Etienne Dolet, suivi de sa traduction des deux Dialogues Plato- 
 niciens, L'Axiochus et l'Hipparchus. Notice Bio-bibliographique par un Bibliophile. 
 Paris, a la librairie de l'Academie des Bibliophiles 10, Rue de la Bourse, 10. Bruxelles, 
 Librairie Europeenne de C. Muquardt, Place Royale, 1868. (237 copies only 
 printed.) 
 
 Besides what is stated on the title, this volume contains a reprint of the Cantique (with 
 the mark of Dolet on the false title), and of the epitaph beginning Mart est Dolet, et 
 par feu consume'. 
 
 82. Les Louanges du sainct nom de Jesus par Victor Brodeau, 
 plus une Epistre d'ung pescheur a Jesus Christ faicte par le diet 
 Brodeau. A Lyon, chez Estienne Dolet, 1544. 
 
 Small 8vo (or l6mo). Gothic letters. 64 pp. On the 64th page the mark of Dolet. 
 
 Brunet, Supplement, vol. i. col. 176, and vol. ii. col. 992. A copy in which the title 
 was wanting is there cited as sold at the sale Desbarreaux-Bernard. The only other 
 authority cited by MM. Deschamps and Brunet, and the only one known to me, is the 
 catalogue of books censured in 1551, where it appears ex libris Victor Brodeau, as 'Une 
 epitre du Pecheur a Jesus Christ, imprimee a Lyon par Dolet ' (D'Argentre, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 
 I73)> fr° m which it would seem either that Dolet only printed the Epitre and not the 
 Louanges, or that the former only, and not the latter, contained matter for censure. Two 
 editions of the book are cited in Brunet : one, Lyon, chez Sulpice Sabon pour Ant. Con- 
 stants (1540) ; the other, Lyon, Oliver Arnoullet, 1543. I have found the following in 
 the Bib. Mazarine : — 
 
 Les Louanges de Jesus nostre Saulveur CEuvre tres excellent Divin et elegant. Com- 
 pose par Maistre Victor Brodeau, secretaire et valet de chambre du Treschrestien Roy 
 de France Francoys premier de ce nom : et de et haulte Princesse La Royne de 
 Navarre, sceur unique du d Seigneur. Avec Les Louanges de la Glorieux Vierge Marie. 
 Nouvellement Imprime veu & corrige Lan de la Nativite Jesus Christ m.d.xl. 
 (Small 8vo or i6mo. Gothic letters on coarse paper. 44 pp.) 
 
 83. L'Enfer de Clement Marot de Cahors en Quercy, Valet de 
 Chambre du Roy. Item aulcunes Ballades & Rondeaulx appar- 
 tenants a 1'argument. Et en oultre plusieurs aultres compositions du 
 diet Marot par cy-devant non imprimees. [Mark with motto.'] A 
 Lyon, dies Estienne Dolet, 1544. Avec privileige du roy. 
 
 8vo. Roman letters. 64 pp. Signatures a-d fours. A reprint of the edition of 1542. 
 On p. 53, Huictain falct a Ferrare, ending Z^u'ife ne -vouldroyent, que je feusse loing delle. 
 Immediately below is the signature d 3 and the word he as catchword for the next page ; 
 then follow (clearly by mistake) seven lines beginning {Presque periz) les lettres & Lettres, 
 and ending Bacchus aussi sa bonne vigne y plante, followed by the catchword Par. These 
 seven lines and catchword are a repetition of the last seven lines and catchword of p. 28, 
 which are here by mistake repeated. Last page, mark ; underneath, Dolet, Preserve 
 moy, etc. 
 
 Bib. Nat. 
 
 84. Les psalmes du royal prophete David, traduictz par Clement 
 
552 APPENDIX B 
 
 Marot. Avec aultres petits Ouvrages par luy mesme. Lyon, 
 Estienne Dolet, 1544. 
 
 i6mo. 172 and 46 pp. 
 
 Bib. de Berlin. (Clement Marot et le Psautier Huguenot, par 0. Douen, vol. 1, p. 449, 
 vol. 2, p. 508.) 
 
 Cantica Canticorum en Francois. 
 
 This title appears in the catalogue of books censured in 1551 under the heading Ex 
 Libris Stephani Dolet, and (ao doubt on the authority of this catalogue) is inserted in the 
 list of Dolet's books given by La Croix du Maine and Du Verdier, and from them has passed 
 into Le Long's Bib. Sacra and the lists of Nee de la Rochelle and Boulmier. But I can find 
 no other trace of its existence, and I think it probable that the author of the catalogue has 
 taken Les Cantiques given in Dolet's edition of Les Psalmes du Royal prophete David (No. 45) 
 for a translation of the Cantica Canticorum, 
 
 Exposition de l'evangile de notre seigneur J. C. selon S. Matthieu 
 translar.ee de latin en francoys et nouvellement imprimee. 1 540. 
 
 8vo. Gothic letters. 
 
 On the authority of the Catalogue da Lit/res de M. M.\arechaT\ (Paris, Techener, 1850), 
 No. 14, where this book appears as having on the title A Lyon ches Estienne Dolet, I 
 included it in the first edition of the present work, in the catalogue of books printed by 
 Dolet. M. Douen in his Etienne Dolet ; ses opinions religeusts (Paris, 1881) has however 
 remarked that these words do not appear on the title, and upon examining the copy in the 
 Mazarine Library to which M, Douen refers, I agree with him that there is no ground for 
 attributing it to Dolet. According to M. T. H. Dufour (Le Cate'chisme Francais de Calvin, 
 p. cclxxv), a licence was granted by the Council of Geneva on the 12th of March, 1540, to 
 John Michel to print this book. 
 
 Exposition sur la premiere Epttre de S.Jean, divisee par sermons. 
 
 The title of this book is inserted in the catalogue of books censured March 2, 1542 
 (1543), and in 1551 (D'Argentre, torn. ii. pt. 1, pp. 134, 174), in the latter of which it is 
 included among those ex libris Stepliani Dolet. It is also mentioned by La Croix du Maine 
 among the works of Dolet, and accordingly I inserted it in the first edition of this book 
 among the volumes printed by Dolet, but I am again indebted to M. Douen for a correction. 
 He has called my attention to a copy of the book in the Mazarine Library, which is 
 certainly not printed by Dolet, but as M. Douen thinks is the work of J. Michel of 
 Geneva, though the name of the printer does not appear. 
 
 Canticnie d'Estienne Dolet, prisonnier a la Conciergerie de Paris 
 sur sa desolation et sur sa consolation. Dolet." Imprime L'an 
 
 M.D.XLVI. 
 
 Such is the title of the Cantique given by Brunet, Boulmier, and the editions given by 
 Guiraudet in 1829 and by Techener in 1830. Brunet describes the original of this Cantique 
 as 'fort rare,' and Boulmier as ' excessiiiement rare' ; neither of them indicate where a copy 
 is to be found, and it is clear that no edition of 1546 ever existed. It was first printed by 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 553 
 
 Nee de la Rochelle in his Vie de Dokt, p. 142, with the following title and note : ' Cantique 
 d'Estienne Dolet, prisonnier en la Conciergerie de Paris l'an 1546 sur sa desolation et sur sa 
 consolation : en vers. 
 
 ' Ce petit ouvrage est sans contredit le plus rare de tous ceux de Dolet ; car personne que 
 je sache, n'en parle ; et j'avoue que je ignorerois son existence sans M. Guillaurae Debure, 
 qui ayant appris que je travaillois a la vie de Dolet, m'a offert obligeamment la copie manu- 
 scrite qu'il en possedoit. Je tie crois pas qu'il ait jamais /feimprime j c'est pourquoi je vais 
 l'annexer a'cet article aim que les Curieux jouissent aussi du sacrifice de M. Debure, et pour 
 empecher que ce Cantique ne se perde a l'avenir. . . 
 
 * L'anciennete de cette copie se prouve par l'ecriture, qui est absolument semblable a celle 
 d'un manuscrit date de 1535 que je possede j aussi je ne crains point d'en garantir 
 l'authenticite.' 
 
 It has been since four times reprinted : — 
 
 1. By Guiraudet, Paris, 1829. izmo. Guiraudet was the first to put in imfrime' Van 
 1 546, which has since been followed in the other re-impressions and in other books. 
 
 2. By Techener, 1830. (120 copies only.) 
 
 3. In M. Boulmier's Estietme Dolet. 
 
 4. With the Second Enfcr, Paris and Brussels, 1868. 
 
s 
 
INDEX 
 
 This Index does not extend to the Appendices 
 
 Accursius, F., 50, 74, 130, 156, 162 
 
 Achaia, 61 
 
 Achillini, A., 25 
 
 Adam, Melchior, 203 
 
 Adrian, Cardinal, 258 
 
 Adrian VI., 66 
 
 ^Egineta, Paulu9, 397 
 
 ^Emilius, Paulus, 123, 124, 366 
 
 Agen, 122, 199, 201 
 
 Aglionby, Edward, 305 
 
 Agricola, Rudolph, 259, 455, 456, 461 
 
 Agrippa, 480 
 
 Aix, Parliament of, 465 
 
 Albenas, Poldo de, 94 
 
 Albigenses, the, 51, 52, 75, 76, 406 
 
 Alboin, 200 
 
 Alciat, A., 50, 82, 84, 85, 134, 155, 158, 
 
 227, 258 
 Aldeguier, J. B. A. d', 78 
 Aldi, the, 175, 327 
 Aldus, the elder, 44, 65, 280, 328, 329, 334, 
 
 456 
 Aleander, J., 202, 210 
 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 25 
 Alexander the Great, 485 
 Alfonso of Poictiers, 402 
 Allegre, A., 399 
 Amaseo, Romulo, 19, 70, 258 
 Amsdorf, N., 227 
 Andre, Jean, 429, 442 
 Andrelini, Fausto, 118, 119 
 Aneau, Barthelemi, 167, 168, 345, 369 
 Angeliacus, Mathurinus Almandinus, 118 
 Angleberme, Pyrrhus, 260 
 Anne of Austria, 407 
 
 Antonio, Dom Nicolas, 31 
 
 Apelles, 44 
 
 Aphrodisias. See Alexander 
 
 Apollo, 359 
 
 Appianus, Hortensius, 258, 290 
 
 Apuleius, 62 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 22 
 
 Aquitaine, 125, 127, 129, 130, 132 
 
 Aretin, Leonard, 354 
 
 Aretin, Pierre, 12 
 
 Arianism, 51 
 
 Ariosto, 345 
 
 Aristippus, 15 
 
 Aristophanes, '485 
 
 Aristotle, 22, 25, 26, 124, 216, 252, 293, 
 
 354 
 Arlerius, Antonius, 312 
 Arnault. See Borie 
 Arneys, Antoine, 411 
 Arnold of Villeneuve, 30, 31, 32 
 Arnollets, the, 291 
 Asola, 23 
 
 Asulanus, Francis, 65 
 Athenagoras, 125 
 Aubespine, C. de L', 465 
 Aubigne, Merle D', 388, 408 
 Aulnaye, F. H. S., De 1', 32 
 Aulus Gellius, 280, 282 
 Aumale, Due d', 171 
 Ausonius, 51 
 Averroes, 25 
 Avignon, Papal Vice - Legate of, 465, 
 
 466 
 Axiochus, translation of the, 363, 445, 452- 
 
 456, 460-462, 463 
 
556 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 Babou, Cardinal Philibert, 476 
 
 Bachelin-Deflorenne, MM., 291 
 
 Bacon val, Nicole, 415 
 
 Bade, Josse (Badius), 65, 141, 198, 204, 334 
 
 Baduel, Claude, 399 
 
 Baif, J. A., 275 
 
 Baif, Lazarus, 30, 260, 263, 264 ; Dolet 
 
 charged with plagiarism from, 274-288 
 Baillet, A., 453, 454 
 Baillet, Second President, 395 
 Baldus, 130 
 Bandiera, A., 270 
 Barbarus, Hermolaus, 257 
 Barbier, A. A., 364; Anonymes, 270, 271, 
 
 272 
 Barbous, J., 317 
 Bardili, Professor, 26 
 Barezzi, B., 269 
 Barma, Roger de, 35 
 Barre, Chevalier de La, 4 
 Barroo, Claudius, 187 
 Barthelemy, Charles, 402, 403 
 Bartholus, 50, 74, 130, 156, 162, 175 
 Basle, 241, 270, 271, 282 
 Bastard d 'Es tang, Vicomte de, 113 
 Baudichon de la Maison Neuve, 241, 40S, 
 
 413. 43° 
 Baudrier, le President H. L., 41, 207, 208, 
 
 338, 35 2 > 362. 378, 43', 44i» 47i 
 
 Bayle, Pierre, 9, 81, 213, 214, 222, 305, 
 428, 479 
 
 Beatrice, Duchess of Milan, 199 
 
 Beaucaire. See Peguillon 
 
 Beaulieu, Eustorg de, 174 
 
 Beauteville, 84, 85 
 
 Beauvau, Bertran de, 504 
 
 Becanis, Vidal de, 408 
 
 Beda, Noel, 16, 146, 149, 150, 174, 186, 
 201, 230, 232, 234, 389, 429, 491 
 
 Bellay, Joachim du, 167, 353 
 
 Bellay-Langey, Cardinal Jean du, 39, 41, 
 230, 232, 233, 235, 268, 340, 366, 379, 
 380, 381, 382, 495 
 
 Bellay-Langey, Guillaume du, 30, 354, 366 
 
 Belle-Forest, Francois de, 361 
 
 Bellievre, Matthieu, 415 
 
 Bellievres, the, 423 
 
 Bembo, Cardinal, paganism of, 5, 7, 22, 
 266; at Padua, 21, 35; characteristics, 
 21-24; defends Pomponatius, 26 j friend- 
 ship with J. de Pins, 67, 72 ; a Ciceronian, 
 199 ; made a Cardinal, 266 ; other refer- 
 ences to, 71, 258, 285, 294, 313, 354, 486 
 
 Berauld, Nicolas, Dolet studies under, 15, 16; 
 other references to, 151, 234, 260, 3 12, 500 
 Bering, Godefroi, 342 
 Berjeau, J. P., 170 
 Bernard of Comminges, 60 
 Bernard, Simon, 361 
 Bernard VI., Count of Comminges, 60 
 Berne, 168, 304, 305, 413 ; the lords of, 
 
 241. 4'3» 43°. 407 . 
 Beroaldo the elder, Filippo, 62, 63 
 Beroaldo the younger, Filippo, 62 
 Berquin, Louis de, 4, 230, 363, 400, 425, 
 
 430, 462, 474 
 Bertrandi, Jacques, 369 
 Bertrandi, Jean, 59, 136, 162, 323, 324, 
 
 395- 4 22 > 4 2 ° 
 
 Besant, Sir Walter, 372 
 
 Bessarion, J., 124 
 
 Beza, Theodore, ode on Dolet, 8, 476 ; 
 Epistola Paaa-vattti, 423-428 ; other refer- 
 ences to, 168, 231, 304, 305, 407, 4;,3, 
 468,497 
 
 Bianchini, Bartholomeo, 63 
 
 Bible, French translation of the, 170, 171, 
 
 399. 4°°> 4i6 
 
 Bigot, Guillaume, 82, 285, 393 
 
 Bindonis, A. de, 65 
 
 Binet, J., 482 
 
 Bladus, A., 286 
 
 Blois, 45 ; Treaty of, 64 
 
 Bochetel, Bernard, 479 
 
 Bode, Herman, Unto Dissidentium, 400, 416 
 
 Boetie, Etienne de la, 121 
 
 Bois, Jacques du, 260 
 
 Boleyn, Queen Anne, 318 
 
 Bologna, 63, 64, 225 
 
 Bologna, University of, 19, 62, 70, 99, 281 
 
 Bonnivet, Seigneur de, 64 
 
 Bordeaux, 121, 125, 298, 299 ; Parliament 
 of, 53, 120, 121, 122, 125, 128 
 
 Borderie, Seigneur de la, 399 
 
 Bording, Jacques, at Toulouse, 59 ; sketch 
 of his life, 70 ; coolness between him and 
 Dolet, 142 ; correspondence with Dolet, 
 71, 142, 143, 145, 149, 187, 188 ; other 
 references to, 69, 103, 140-149, 174, 186, 
 500 
 
 Bordoni, Benedetti, 201 
 
 Borie, Francois Arnault, Seigneur de la, 116 
 
 Bosio, Otho, 75, 109, 258 
 
 Bossuet, J. B., 4, 5, 490 
 
 Boston, Dean, 318 
 
 Bouhier, President, 115, 318 
 
INDEX 
 
 557 
 
 Boulmier, Joseph, references to his Estienne 
 Dolet, 8, 9, 33, 41, 59, 83, 95, 96, 100, 
 106, 174, 182, 210, 224, 272, 275, 357, 
 364, 3 6 9, 378, 39°, 44i, 453, 454, 484, 
 493, 495, 5°2 
 
 Bourbon, Cardinal de, 120, 405 
 
 Bourbon, Constable de, 264 
 
 Bourbon, Nicolas, present at the banquet 
 given to Dolet, 312; estrangement between 
 him and Dolet, 318-321 ; other references 
 to, 151, 168, 260, 290, 313, 314, 315, 
 
 342, 49°, 5°° 
 Bourg, Jean de, 415 
 Bourgeois de Paris, Journal (Pun, 207, 231, 
 
 413 
 
 Bourges, 50, 155, 219, 221, 297, 321 
 
 Bourges, Clemence de, 174 
 
 Bouysson, Hugues, 84 
 
 Boville, Charles, 354 
 
 Boyssone, Jean de, his law lectures, 50, 59 ; 
 arrest or, for heresy, 80, 86 ; character- 
 istics, 81, 82, 84-86 ; Rabelais' opinion of, 
 81 ; his MS. correspondence and poems, 
 82, 83 ; trial and recantation of, 86-88 ; 
 visits Italy, 88 ; Dolet's intimacy with, 
 89 ; competitor and judge at the Floral 
 Games, 95 ; epigrams of, 97, 117 ^ en- 
 gaged in a law -suit, 296, 297 ; visits 
 Lyons, 297 ; appointed a member of the 
 Council of Savoy, 324 ; after-life of, 392- 
 395 ; correspondence of, with Dolet, 138, 
 160, 161, 163, 164, 178, 179, 186, 187, 
 188, 218, 219, 221, 240, 302, 321 ; other 
 references to, 67, 68, 69, 74, 79, 80-89, 
 9*. 93, 94, io 3, Io6 > io 9, II0 > I2 °> I2 5> 
 r 34, i7S, 2I 7, 2 3 6 , z6 °, 265, z8 4, 2 94, 
 295, 298, 299, 300, 301, 303, 305, 310, 
 311, 317, 322, 323, 342, 408, 415, 500 
 
 Boyssone, Jean, Seigneur de Beauteville, 84 
 
 Bragmardus, 424 
 
 Breslay, Gui de, 35, 187, 188, 234, 260, 295, 
 
 2 9 6 > 2 97, 5°° 
 
 Brice Germain, 260, 313, 496 
 
 Brioonnet, G., 301 
 
 Britannus, Robert, 299, 415 
 
 Brodeau, Victor, 347 
 
 Brunelleschi, the Duomo of, 43 
 
 Brunet, J. C, 182, 272, 285, 291, 361, 385 
 
 Brutus, 198 
 
 Buchanan, G., 496, 497 
 
 Bude, Guillaume, letters from and to Dolet, 
 142, 148, 153, 187; dedication of Dolet's 
 Commentaries to, 252, 262 ; other refer- 
 
 ences to, 8, 9, 12, 17, 30, 38, 65, 140-156, 
 168, 176, 185, 186, 188, 198, 199, 204, 
 206, 230, 232, 233, 234, 249, 253, 255, 
 259, 260, 267, 280, 285, 310, 311, 312, 
 
 354, 367, 368, 37°, 486, 49 8 
 Bull Unigenitus, the, 488 
 Bunel, Pierre, 27, 29, 30, 32, 75, 76, 81, 
 
 85, 106, 109, 151 
 Buonamici, L., 20, 89, 258 
 Bure, Guillaume de, 68, 470 
 Burgaud des Marets, H., 32, 185 
 
 Bursault, , 79 
 
 Buyer, Barthelemy, 170, 171 
 
 Cabrieres, 466 
 
 Caesar, 14, 44, 47, 154, 248, 276, 280, 354, 
 
 438,485 
 Cagnati. See Cousin 
 Cahors, 67, 303 
 Calanconius, Jacobus, 187 
 Calas, Jean, 4, 56 
 
 Calepin, A., 243, 248, 283, 287, 288, 384 
 Calogiera, A. M., 157 
 Calvin, Jean, 7, 16, 22, 157, 168, 266, 303, 
 
 304, 305, 321, 400, 411, 412, 416, 468, 
 
 476, 479, 4_87, 488, 489, 49°, 49 ', 49 8 
 Calvus, Franciscus, 158 
 Cambrai, war of the League of, 19, 42 
 Camerarius, J., 211 
 Camerarius, J., (II.), 223 
 Camillo, Giulio, 35, 36, 89, 146, 147, 150, 
 
 151, 156-159, 227, 282 
 Campensis, J., 364 
 Can Grande, 122, 200 
 Canappe, Jean, 181, 290, 397, 399 
 Cantiuncula. See Chansonette 
 Carcassonne, 402 
 Carey, Henry, 318 
 
 Carlstadt, , 489 
 
 Carondelet, Ferric, 63 
 
 Carpentras, College of, 70 
 
 Carpi, Albertus Pius, Prince of, 281, 282, 
 
 286 
 Carvaialus (Caravajal), Ludovicus, 226 
 Casaubon, Life of, 498 
 Cassander, Thomas, 187 
 Castel, Pierre du, 181, 187 
 
 Castellanus, , 218 
 
 Castelnau, Antoine de, 85 
 Castiglione, Baldasar, 292 
 Catel, G. de, 94 
 Cathari, the, 5 1 
 Catharin, Ambrose, 218 
 
558 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 Catullus, 137, 215 
 
 Caturce, Jean de, trial and burning of, 76-80 ; 
 other references to, 54, 59, 68, 74-87, 91, 
 106, 107, 108, no, 136, 186, 265, 408 
 
 Caxton, William, 170 
 
 Chalan, Annemond, 415 
 
 Chambery, 81, 84, 324, 392, 393, 394, 395 
 
 Champier, Symphorien, 167, 168, 169, 181, 
 260 
 
 Chansonette, Claude, 260 
 
 Charles V., 240, 241, 242, 264, 399 
 
 Charles VIII., 330 
 
 Charron, Pere Etienne Leonard, 68 
 
 Chassaigne, Geoffrey de, 122 
 
 Chatel, Tanneguy du, 112 
 
 Chatigny, M., 345 
 
 Chesnaye, , de la, 333 
 
 Chevallier, Francois, 115, 116 
 
 Chiere, 303 
 
 Chinon, topers of, 192 
 
 Chomard, , 322 
 
 Choul, Guillaume du, 167, 251, 263, 323 
 
 Christian III., 70 
 
 Cicero, 7, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22, 26, 35, 45, 47, 
 62, 68, 69, 71, 102, 104, 105, 127, 147, 
 150, 154, 155, 157, 188, 196-228, 236, 
 243, 246, 247, 248, 250, 254, 256, 258, 
 265, 268, 269, 294, 296, 334, 354, 358, 
 359. 3°°. 361. 362, 384. 39 8 . 4Si, 454. 
 .455, 475, 483, 485, 487 
 
 Ciceronians, the, 13, 14, 16, 27, 28, 71, 101, 
 126, 127, 142, 187, 195-228, 266, 385, 
 
 394 
 Claudin, A., 118 
 
 Clausanus, Joannes, 134, 161, 164, 187 
 Clement, Jacques, 55 
 Clement V., 61 
 
 Clement VII., 66, 181, 266, 379, 489 
 Clenard, N., Institutiones and Meditationes 
 
 Graca, 398, 455 
 Cleon of Daulia, 30 
 Clugni, Benedictine order of, 505, 506 
 Codreus, Urceus, 62, 63 
 Cognatus. See Cousin 
 Coligny, Cardinal Odet de, 135, 324 
 Colignys, the three great, 16 
 Colin, Jacques, 292, 347 
 Colines, Simon de, 178, 271, 280, 315, 317, 
 
 335 
 Collins, J. C, 493 
 Colomies, J., 115 
 
 Colonia, Pere de, 169, 239, 291, 301 . 
 Columella, 248 
 
 Comines, Philippe de, 365, 366, 367 
 
 Comminges. See Bernard 
 
 Compaing, Guillaume, 262, 306, 307, 314, 
 
 373, 4'5, 434, 435, 4^3, 49 8 
 Compaing, Jehan, 463 
 Constantinople, 43 
 Contarini, Cardinal, 21, 22, 26 
 Cop, Guillaume, 259 
 Cop, Jean, 146, 150, 260 
 Coras, Jean de, 50 
 Cordiere, La Belle. See Labe 
 Cornaro, Catherine, 23 
 Cornaro, Luigi, 24 
 Corneillan, Pierre de, 61 
 Corvinus, Matthias, 199 
 Cottereau, Claude, 59, 182, 187, 318, 326, 
 
 34°, 34i, 342, 343, 344, 345, 34«, 347, 
 
 348, 379,„397 
 Court, Benoit, 167, 169, 177, 291, 292 
 Cousin, Gilbert, 13, 223, 224-228, 480 
 Cousin, Jehan, 9 
 Coutances, 118 
 
 Cranmer, Archbishop, 319, 489 
 Crapelet, G. A., 232, 233 
 Craston, J., 455 
 Crawford, Lord, 171 
 Cremieu, 242 
 Crespin, J., Grand Martyrologe, 388, 411, 
 
 413 
 Crinitus, P., 257 
 Crito, Archagatus, 185 
 Cromwell, Thomas, 319 
 Cujas, Jacques, 50, 406 
 
 Cureau, , 9 
 
 Cursius, P., 222 
 Curtius, guintus, 248 
 Cuspidius, 189 
 Cyprus, 60 ; Queen of, 23 
 
 Dams, Paul, 88 
 
 Dampierre, J., 312, 313, 496 
 
 Dampmartin, Guillaume, 83, 117, 118, 135, 
 
 136, 139, 163 
 Danes, Pierre, 151, 260, 312, 437 
 Daniel, Francois, 321 
 Daniel, Pere, 231 
 
 Dauphin, death of the, in 1536, 290 
 Dayde, Frere Jean, 407 
 Dayde, Raymond, 55 
 Delminio. See Camillo 
 Democritus, 132 
 Demosthenes, 20, 105, 354, 485 
 Despautere, Jean, 259 
 
INDEX 
 
 559 
 
 Des Periers, Jean Bonaventure, 168, 237, 
 2 $h 37*, 453 
 
 Devaubc, Jacques, 440, 442, 457, 458, 459, 
 464 
 
 Diagoras, 480 
 
 Didot, Ambrose Firmin-, 171, 252, 330, 331, 
 34i 
 
 Dijon, Parliament of, 53, 395 
 
 Doges, Palace of the, 44 
 
 Dole, Public Library of, 362 
 
 Dolet, Charles, 505 
 
 Dolet, Christofle, 9 
 
 Dolet, Claude, 326, 343, 344, 346, 392, 
 444, 502-506 
 
 Dolet, Claude Louis, 505 
 
 Dolet, Etienne, a child of the Italian Ren- 
 aissance, 7, 12 ; birth of, 7 ; family and 
 parentage, 8, 9 ; fate of his father, 10 ; 
 early education, 11 ; at Paris, 12 j a 
 Ciceronian, 13 ; studies under Berauld, 15 ; 
 commences the Commentaries, 17 ; at Padua, 
 24 ; influence of Pomponatius on, 26 ; 
 writes epitaph and odes on death of Vil- 
 lanovanus, 33-35; life at Padua, 35-37; 
 made Secretary to Jean de Langeac, Am- 
 bassador to Venice, 38 ; attends Egnazio's 
 lectures at Venice, 45 ; love affair of, 46 ; 
 enters University of Toulouse as law 
 student, 49 ; introduced to Jean de Pins, 
 69 ; correspondence with Pins, 71, 72, 
 180; correspondence with Bording, 71, 
 145, 149 ; first acquaintance and friend- 
 ship with Boyssone, 89 ; competitor at 
 Floral Games, 91, 95 ; chosen orator by 
 the French students of Toulouse, 100 ; 
 his orations, 101 et seq. ; makes enemies, 
 in ; odes against Drusac, 116, 160 ; 
 friendship and correspondence with Le 
 Ferron, 120, 126-134 ; determines to 
 leave Toulouse, 134; writes to Langeac, 
 ib. ; is arrested, 135 ; letter of Pins to 
 Minut in favour of, 136 ; correspondence 
 with Boyssone, 138, 160, 161, 163, 179, 
 218, 219, 221, 240, 302, 321 ; released 
 from prison, 139 ; coolness with Bording, 
 142 ; reconciliation effected through Pins, 
 ib. ; correspondence with Bude, 143, 148, 
 153 ; his opinion of Giulio Camillo, 150, 
 158 ; leaves Toulouse hastily during ill- 
 ness to avoid arrest, 159 ; banished from 
 Toulouse, 163 ; sets out for Lyons, ib. ; 
 again attacked by illness, 164 ; arrives at 
 Lyons, ib. ; his reception by Gryphius, 
 
 178 ; publication of the orations, epistles, 
 and poems, 182 ; intimacy with Rabelais, 
 189, 378-386 ; determines to devote his 
 life to literature, 195 ; displeased with the 
 Ciceronianus of Erasmus, 203 ; visits Paris 
 to obtain license for publication of the 
 Commentaries, 204, 229, 234 ; publishes 
 his dialogue De Imit. Cic. adv. Erasmum, 
 209 ; incurs the hatred of Scaliger, 212, 
 475 ; his personal appearance and manners, 
 224; returns to Lyons, 235; editor and 
 corrector for the presses of Gryphius, 
 Juste, and Gabiano, 235, 236, 290, 293 ; 
 begins to print the Commentaries, 237 ,■ ode 
 of, to Pompone de Trivulce, 239 ; obtains 
 permission to print the Commentaries, 242 ; 
 description of, and extracts from, the 
 Commentaries, '242-272 ; attacks the Sor- 
 bonne, 265 ; prints his Formula? Latinarum 
 locutionum, 269 ; is charged with plagiarism, 
 273-288 ; issues his De Re Jtiava/i and 
 answers the charge of plagiarism, 276 ; 
 first charged with atheism, 284 ; prints 
 his De Imit. Cic. adv. Sabtnum, ib. ; his 
 fondness for music and swimming, 294 ; 
 his friendship with Voulte, 298-3005 
 attacked in the streets of Lyons, and 
 commits homicide, 306 ; escapes to Paris 
 to avoid arrest, 307 ; obtains royal pardon, 
 310-312; banquet given in his honour, 
 312; returns to Lyons and is re-arrested, 
 313, 314 ; estrangement of Voulte, 
 314-317 ; loses the friendship of Sussan- 
 neau, 317 ; his friendship with N. Bour- 
 bon and termination of the same, 318- 
 321 ; marries, 325 ; sets up as printer and 
 obtains license, 332 ; his mark and 
 motto, 333 ; takes the part of the 
 journeymen printers, 335, 398, 463 ; his 
 partnership with Helayn Dulin, 338 ; 
 prints his Cato Christianus, 340 ; Carmina, 
 341 ; birth of a son, 343 ; prints his 
 Genethliacum and Awant Naissance, ib. ; 
 plans his Orateur Franpys, 353 ; issues 
 La Maniere de bien tradmrt, 354; his 
 translations of Cicero, 358-363 ; trans- 
 lation of the Psalms, 364 ; intention of 
 writing a history of France, 365 ; prints 
 his Francisci Valesii Fata and Les Gestes, 
 368, 369 ; his friendship with Marot and 
 Rabelais, 370-386 ; Marot's letter to, 
 374; his editions of Marot's works, 375, 
 376 ; his quarrel (?) with Marot, 376, 
 
560 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 377 ; termination of his intimacy with 
 Rabelais, 378-386 ; ordered to withdraw 
 the Cato Christianas and Carmina from 
 sale, 392 j removes to the Rue Merciere, 
 396 ; activity of his press, ib. j issues 
 heretical books, 399, 400 ; arrested, 414 j 
 charged with heresy, 415 ; his trial, 417- 
 420 ; sentenced to death, 42 1 ; appeals to 
 the Parliament of Paris, ib. ; obtains the 
 royal pardon, 433-436 ; liberated, 437 j 
 recommences printing, 438 ; again ar- 
 rested, 439 ; escapes from prison, 440-42 ; 
 writes the Second Enfer in Piedmont, 444 ; 
 again enters France, ib. $ the Second Enfer, 
 446-452 ; his translation of the Axiochus 
 and Hipparchus, 452 ; re-arrested, 456, 
 459 ; tried before the First President, 
 459 ; composes his Cantique, 469 5 is 
 finally sentenced to death, 470 ; M. 
 Baudrier's opinion of the sentences on, 
 471 ; the sentence carried out, 472-475 5 
 epitaphs on, 476-477 3 opinions and char- 
 acter of, 478 ; his descendants, 502 
 
 Dolet, Francois, 505 
 
 Dolet, Jacques, 502, 505 
 
 Dolet, Jean, 505 
 
 Dolet, Leon, 502, 504 
 
 Dolet, Louise, wife of Etienne, 326, 338, 
 
 343, 346, 392. 444, 457. 5°*, 5°3 
 Dolet, Martinus, 9 
 Dolet, Mathieu, 9 
 Dolet, Michel, 505 
 Dolet, Paul, 505 
 Dolet, Pierre, 505 
 Dolet. See Doulet 
 Domenichi, Ludovico, 157 
 Dominicans, Order of, 53, 47, 408 
 Donadeo, 281 
 Doneau, H., 125 
 
 Doribus, Nostre Maistre. See Orry 
 Dorpius, Martin, 259 
 Double, L., 495 
 Douen, O., 493, 494, 495 
 Doulet, Guillaume, 9 
 Drusac, Gratien du Pont, Sieur de, 83, 96, 
 
 113-117, 118, 139, 160, 162, 163 
 Dryden, J., 493 
 Dubourg, Chancellor, 429 
 Dubourg, Councillor, 406 
 Duchat, J. Le, 30, 31, 78, 386 
 Duchatel, Pierre, 290, 300, 301, 312, 315, 
 
 323. 327. 3°8, 432, 433, 435, 43^, 437, 
 464, 468, 489, 500 
 
 Ducher, Gilbert, 260, 274, 290, 314, 496 
 Duchesne, Pere, 267 
 Dudleys, the, 318 
 Dulin, Helayn, 326, 338, 339 
 Dupetit-Thouars, L. M. A., 223 
 Dupreau, G., 480 
 Durand, Guillaume, 341, 369, 399 
 Duranti, the President, 54 
 Du Verdier, A., 68, 81, 115, 116, 118, 125, 
 174, 364, 428, 453, 454, 480 
 
 Eck, J., 489 
 
 Egnazio, Giovanni Baptista, 27, 44, 45, 59, 
 89, 258 
 
 Elena, 46 
 
 Elvamus, C, 290 
 
 Elzevirs, the, 327 
 
 Entommeures, Brother Jean des, 191 
 
 Epaminondas, 485 
 
 Epistemon, 81 
 
 Erasmus, Desiderius, his admiration for 
 Cicero, 14; his opinion of Berauld, 15; 
 attends the lectures of Musurus at Padua, 
 20 ; his letter to J. de Pins, 67 ; com- 
 parison of, with Bude, 141 ; the Encomium 
 Moria, 191; his opinion on wine, ib. ; 
 his Ciceronianus, 196 ; attacked by J. C. 
 Scaliger, 201 $ Dolet's attack on, 203-205, 
 208-211, 224 ; his reply to Cursius, 222 j 
 printer's error in his Vidua Christiana, ib. ; 
 letter of Odonus concerning, 224 ; Dolet's 
 ode on his death, 250 ; Dolet's comparison 
 of, with Longolius, 256 ; French transla- 
 tions of his books, 363, 400 ; on the 
 alleged repentance of Berquin, 474 ; other 
 references to, z, 3, 6, 12, 16, 36, 37, 48, 
 68, 119, 127, 168, 176, 202, 212, 213, 
 217, 218, 219, 220, 222, 226, 249, 253, 
 259, 263, 266, 267, 280, 282, 283, 285, 
 
 294, 3'3, 362, 398, 416, 474, 486, 49 8 
 Erb, Matthias, 420 
 Estampes, Duchess d', 446, 449, 464 
 Estienne,' Charles, 262, 263, 264, 274, 275, 
 
 276, 279, 280, 281, 283 
 Estienne, Francis, 275 
 Estienne, Henry, 172, 328, 357, 423, 425, 
 
 426, 433 
 Estienne, Paul, 328, 329 
 Estienne, Robert, 168, 172, 176, 178, 243, 
 
 244, 245, 249, 264, 274, 275, 280, 283, 
 
 284,287,288, 313, 328, 329, 335, 384, 
 
 432 
 Estiennes, the, 168, 176, 327 
 
INDEX 
 
 561 
 
 Estoile, Pierre de 1', 260 
 
 Etaples, Lefevre d', 260, 399, 416, 491, 492 
 
 Eunapius, 62 
 
 Faber, Michael, 323 
 
 Faber Stapulensis. See Etaples 
 
 Fabricius, Arnold, 187 
 
 Facciolati, J., 28, 268, 270 
 
 Faciot, Jean. See Voulte 
 
 Farges, 304 
 
 Farget, Pierre, 170 
 
 Farnese, Cardinal Alexander, 286 
 
 Faure, Louis du, 406 
 
 Fausto, Vittorio, 65 
 
 Faye, Estienne, 415 
 
 Fenelon, F. de Salignac de la Motte, 5 
 
 Fermo, ,Bertachino de, 175 
 
 Ferret, Emile, 168, 206, 258 
 
 Ferrier, Arnoul du, 82, 84, 88, 125, 405, 
 406 
 
 Ferrier, Augier, 83 
 
 Ferron. See Le Ferron 
 
 Ferroniere, La Belle, 464 
 
 Ficinus, Marsilius, 259, 455, 456 
 
 Fine, Oronce, 260 
 
 Finet, Simon, 59, 99, 102, 163, 182, 185, 
 187 
 
 Floral Games of Toulouse, 90 et seq. 
 
 Florence, 43, 44, 167 
 
 Florentine Chapel at Lyons, 167 
 
 Florian, ballad of, 94 
 
 Floridus. See Sabinus 
 
 Foix, Gaston de, 201 
 
 F.oix, Odet de, 264 
 
 Fontainbleau, 65, 66 
 
 Fontaine, A., 291 
 
 Fontaine, Charles, 167, 347 
 
 Fontenay, Abbey of, 185 
 
 Fontette, Ferret de, 505 
 
 Foulques, Bishop of Toulouse, 52 
 
 Fournier, Claude, 181,208, 290 
 
 Fournier, Hugues, 169, 208 
 
 Fournier, Humbert, 169, 208 
 
 Fourviere, Academy of, 169 
 
 Francis I., 8, 9, 63, 64, 65, 66, 105, 106, 
 122, 135, 146, 150, 157, 158, 174, 182, 
 216, 218, 222, 227, 229, 230, 231, 232, 
 233, 235, 238, 240, 241, 242, 252, 262, 
 264, 296, 309, 312, 327, 331, 332, 336, 
 337, 339, 347, 362, 3&5, 3 66 > 3°7, 3^8, 
 369, 375, 379, 384, 399, 4°4, 4*°, 4*4, 
 425, 429> 43°, 43 1 , 432, 433, 435, 436, 
 
 437, 43 8 > 444, 44°, 447, 448, 449, 45', 
 45", 457, 464, 467, 468, 489, 49 1 
 
 Freher, Paul, 125 
 
 Frellons, the, 172 
 
 Fresnoy, Lenglet du, 377, 378 
 
 Freux, Andre Le, 482 
 
 Froben, J., 252, 334 
 
 Froissart, J., 366 
 
 Frusius. See Freux 
 
 Fuchsius, Leonard, 259 
 
 Gabiano, Scipio de, 293 
 
 Gadagne, Thomas de, 301 
 
 Gagnius, J., 290 
 
 Gaignat Sale, the, 237 
 
 Gaillard, Jeanne, 174 
 
 Galen, C., 271, 397 
 
 Galland, Claude, 377 
 
 Galland, P., 437 
 
 Garamond, Claude, 329 
 
 Garde, Jehan de la, 429 
 
 Gargantua, 172, 189-194, 380-386, 399 
 
 Gamier, , 506 
 
 Garum, the, 372, 380 
 
 Gascons, Marie, 94 
 
 Gaullieur, E., 298, 482 
 
 Gauteret, Jehan, 408 
 
 Gay Science, Academy of the, 91 et seq., 97 
 
 Geneva, 168, 241, 304, 305, 329, 331, 332, 
 
 33°,. 388, 412, 439 
 Gentilis, Valentine, 305 
 Germany, the Lutheran princes of, 241 
 Gerou, Dom, 496 
 Gesner, C, 172, 272 
 Gesner, J. M., 244 
 Gibbon, E., 197 
 Gigas, Joannes, 220, 482, 496 
 Gilbert, Jean, 118 
 Gilles, Pierre, 260 
 Girardie, Pierre, 55 
 Giraud, Louise, wife of Etienne Dolet. See 
 
 Louise Dolet 
 Glareanus, Henricus, 259 
 Goclenius, Conrad, 210, 259 
 Goezmann, E. L. V. de, 408, 409 
 Gondi, Antoine de, 174 
 Gondi, the, 166 
 Gonsalvo of Toledo, 169 
 Gonthier, Jean, of Andernach, 270, 27 1 
 Gorgias, 124 
 
 Gossin, Raymond de, 408 
 Goujet, Abbe, 46, 81, 114, 115, 116 
 
 2 O 
 
562 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 Gourmont, Jerome, 452, 453 
 
 Gouttes, Jean des, 290, 345 
 
 Gouvea, Andre de, 299 
 
 Gouvea, Antoine de, 168, 437, 496 
 
 Gramond, President de, 50 
 
 Gramont, Cardinal Gabriel de, 135, 324 
 
 Grapaldo, F. M., 118 
 
 Gratius, Ortuinus, 267 
 
 Gray, T., 497 
 
 Grenier, the brothers, 56 
 
 Grenoble, University of, 395 
 
 Greyff, Michael, 175 
 
 Gripaldi, Matthieu, 302-305, 317, 323 
 
 Grotius, H., 304 
 
 Gruter, J., 215, 282 
 
 Grynaeus, Simon, 259 
 
 Gryphii, the, 172, 327 
 
 Gryphius, Sebastian, message from Boyssone 
 to, 161 ; number of editions printed by, 
 171, 172 ; scholarship of, 172 j visit of 
 Dolet to, 175, 178 j notice of, 175 ; im- 
 portance of his press, 175-178 ; Dolet's 
 friendship with, 178 ; Dolet as editor and 
 corrector of the press for, 179, 214, 221, 
 235, 290, 331; prints the Orationes of 
 Dolet, 182 ; Rabelais as editor for, 189 ; 
 prints the Dial, de Imit. Cic, 209 ; obtains 
 licence to print the Commentaries, 242 ; 
 prints the Commentaries, 251 ; his Latin 
 Bible, it. ; prints the De Re Na-vali, 276 ; 
 books from the press of, 291 ; assists 
 Dolet in commencing business as a printer, 
 333 ; dedication of the fourth book of 
 Dolet's Carmina to, 342 j his edition of 
 Marot, 375 ; other references to, 183, 187, 
 204, 226, 234, 236, 248, 252, 275, 280, 
 282, 286, 288, 292, 297, 300, 317, 319, 
 332. 334, 335, 34>. 372, 396, 500 
 
 Guevara, A. de, 399 
 
 Guibal, Georges, 81, 83, 84, 86, 117,219, 
 296, 393 
 
 Guiffrey, Georges, 291, 375 
 
 Guillet, Pernette du, 173, 345 
 
 Guillot. See Compaing 
 
 Guingene, P. L., 62 
 
 Guise, Duke of, 394, 395 
 
 Guises, the, 406 
 
 Guttanus. See Gouttes 
 
 Guyenne, 125 
 
 Guyenne, College of, 298, 299 
 
 Gyllius, P., 455 
 
 Haag, MM., 360 
 
 Hallam, Henry, 26, 187, 243 
 
 Hammonius, Chrysogonus, 175, 183, 185, 
 
 187 
 Hannibal, 485 
 
 Harlai, President de, 405, 406, 426 
 Harlais, the, 423 
 Harsy, Olivier de, 293 
 Henrietta Maria of England, 4 
 Henry II. of France, 404, 405, 406, 410 
 Henry IV. of France, 330 
 Henry VII., Emperor, 200 
 Henry VIII., 135, 209 
 Hercules, 200, 423 
 Herissant, L. T., 270, 271 
 Herminjard, A. L., 15 
 Herodotus, 354 
 Heroet, Antoine, dit La Maisonneuve, 347, 
 
 399 
 Hervet, Gentian, 298, 299 
 Hesse, Eobanus, 259 
 Heulhard, A., 385 
 Heuman, C. A., 222 
 Hipparchus, translation of the, 363, 446, 
 
 452. 453, 4S6, 460 
 Hippocrates, 178, 189 
 Hirtius, 276, 280 
 Hoefer, Dr., 223 
 Hohendorf library catalogue, 452 
 Holbein, J., 252 
 Homer, 188, 252, 354, 485 
 Hopital, Michel de 1', 85, 260, 489 
 Horace, 15, 105, 137, 150, 151, 236, 248, 
 
 486 
 Houssaye, Amelot de la, 9 
 Huet, Bishop, 34, 188, 216, 217 
 Hugh, Bishop of Cahors, 67 
 Huguenots, the, 4, 54, 372 
 Hungary, King of. See Corvinus 
 Hungary, Marie, Queen of, 222 
 Hunniadae, the, 199 
 Hunsdon, Lord. See Carey 
 Hutten, Ulric von, 99, 259 
 
 Imitatione Chrhti, De, French translation of, 
 
 363,4H 
 Innocent IV., 61 
 Inquisition, the, 50, 53, 55, 75, 76, 77, 78, 
 
 80, 87, 88, 122, 176, 177, 241, 400, 401- 
 
 421 
 Isaure, Clemence, 92, 93, 94, 95 
 Isocrates, 485 
 
 Jamet, Lyon, 376 
 
INDEX 
 
 563 
 
 Jannet, P., 32 
 
 Janot, Denis, 453 
 
 John XXII., 67 
 
 Joly, P. L., 420 
 
 Jortin, Dr., 492, 493 
 
 Josephus, 67, 68, 109 
 
 Julius II., 266 
 
 Junius, Florent, 472, 473, 474 
 
 Juste, Francis, 177, 290, 292, 293, 331, 
 
 381,386 
 Justes, the, 291 
 Juvenal, 105 
 
 Labe, Louise, 173, 174, 345 
 
 La Coste, 466 
 
 Lacroix, P., 495 
 
 La Deviniere, vine-dressers of, 192 
 
 Lsethmatius, Herman, 472 
 
 La Faille, G, 78, 79, 84, 88, 91, 101, 296, 
 
 301 
 La Monnoye, B. de, 29, 30, 31, 32, 123, 
 
 453. 454 
 
 Lamothe-Langon, E. L. B. de, 55, 115, 116, 
 407, 409 
 
 Lampridio, Benedetto, 20, 24, 157, 258 
 
 Lando, Hortensio, 13, 36, 189, 225, 226 
 
 Langeac, Francis de, 40, 158, 187 
 
 Langeac, Jean de, account of, 38-40 ; ap- 
 points Dolet his secretary, 38, 41 ; assist- 
 ance of, to Dolet, 48, 134 ; urges Dolet to 
 study the law, 48 ; letters of Dolet to, 
 134, 187 ; retires from public affairs, 
 195 5 Dolet dedicates his Dial, de Imit. Cic. 
 to, 204; other references to, 42, 44, 45, 47, 
 60, 154, 186, 251, 263, 267, 398, 49s, 500 
 
 Langey. See Bellay 
 
 Languedoc, 4, 5, 51, 52, 60, 402, 403, 404, 
 406 
 
 La Reole, 1 1 8 
 
 La Rouane, prison of, 362, 421, 440 
 
 Larousse, , 505 
 
 Lascaris, Jean, 65, 173, 328 
 
 Lasius, B., 270 
 
 Lateran, Council of, 122 
 
 Lateranus, , 290 
 
 Latimer, Bishop, 318 
 
 Latomus (Masson), J., 219, 220 
 
 Laurentius, , 202, 210 
 
 Lautrec. See Foix 
 
 Lectoure, 118 
 
 Le Duchat. See Duchat 
 
 Le Ferron, Arnoul, contemporary of Dolet 
 at Toulouse, 59 ; sketch of his life, 120- 
 
 125 ; appointed Councillor of the Parlia- 
 ment of Bordeaux, 121 ; his intimacy 
 with J. C. Scaliger, 122 ; as historian, 
 123, 366; authorities for his life, 125; 
 correspondence of, with Dolet, 126-134, 
 187 ; other references to, 49, 101, 102, 
 103, in, 186, 187, 188, 202, 212, 213, 
 
 214. 23 6 . 5°° 
 
 Le Ferron, Jean, 120, 122, 128 
 
 Le Gendre, L., 124 
 
 Le Laboureur, J., 8, 479 
 
 Le Long, J., 505 
 
 Le Maistre, the President Gilles, 405, 406, 
 426, 434 
 
 Lemnians, the, 276 
 
 Le Moyne, Pasquier, 347 
 
 Leo X., 5, 21, 23, 64, 66, 266 
 
 Leoniceni, Nicolas, 258 
 
 Lepidus, Joannes, 187 
 
 Le Puy en Velay, 164 
 
 Le Roy, Nicolas, 321, 322 
 
 Le Tellier, Chancellor, 4 
 
 Lewis V. of Bavaria, 199, 200 
 
 Limasol, 60 
 
 Limoges, 160, 195 ; Cathedral of, 39, 40 ; 
 Bishop of. See Langeac 
 
 Limoux, 76, 77 
 
 Linacre, Thomas, 259 
 
 Liseux, Isidore, 476 
 
 Lisieux, College of, 70 
 
 Livy, 14, 47, 154, 248, 369 
 
 Lizet, Pierre, First President, imprisons Jean 
 Morin, 237, 429 ; his character, 422-425 ; 
 as a theological writer, 426 ; Beza's satire 
 on, 427 ; his death, 428 ; orders the burn- 
 ing of Dolet's books, 443 ; presides at the 
 final trial of Dolet, 459, 462 ; pronounces 
 sentence, 470; other references to, 186, 
 232, 389, 422 et seq., 442, 450, 452, 460, 
 
 47'. 49i 
 Locatus, Umbertus, 403 
 Longinus, 62 
 Longis, J., 293 
 Longolius, Chr., 7, 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, 28, 
 
 29. 3°> 32. 35. 3 6 > 6 7> 7h 72. 89, 104, 
 
 105, 187, 196, 198, 203, 204, 249, 256, 
 
 260, 267, 285, 475, 486 
 Longueville, Jean d'Orleans, Cardinal de, 135 
 Lorraine, Cardinal of, 234, 299, 300, 405, 
 
 446, 449 
 Louis XI., 366 
 Louis XII., 330 
 Louis XIV., 4 
 
564 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 Louis XVI., 330 
 
 Louvain, 70 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 410 
 
 Lucan, 369 
 
 Lucca, 167 
 
 Luciaa, 480 
 
 Lucretius, 45, 177, 258, 480, 491 
 
 Lut, Breghot du, 175 
 
 Luther, Martin, 6, 7, 75, 86, 89, 106, 209, 
 *■*>$, 294, 3°3, 487» 489, 49° 
 
 Lutherans, the, 76, 80, 102, 107, 206, 
 233, 265 
 
 Lyevin, Valentin, 408 
 
 Lyons, city of, 165 et seq. ; distinguished 
 literary men living at, 167 ; the early 
 printers of, 170 ; first French book printed 
 in France printed at, ib. ; early editions 
 of the Bible printed at, 171 ; cultivated 
 women of, 173 ; May-day custom of 
 printers of, 238 ; disputes between master 
 and journeymen printers of, 335-338; 
 other references to, 160, 161, 163, 164, 
 165-194, 195, 207, 208, 214, 218, 220, 
 222, 225, 242, 278, 284, 290, 296, 297, 
 
 2 9 8 , 2 99> 3°°» 3 OI > 3° 6 . 3°7> 3° 8 , 3°9. 
 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 317, 318, 319, 
 
 3^5. 33*. 33 2 > 339. 362. 37*. 373. 375. 
 378. 388, 393. 396. 4", 4'7, 43°. 437> 
 439. 44°. 444. 447. 45&, 457. 458. 5°3. 
 504 
 Lysias, 485 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 239 
 
 Machard, A., 476 
 
 Macho, Julien, 170 
 
 Macrin, Salmon, 27, 30, 151, 168, 260, 290, 
 
 301, 312, 313, 342, 370, 486, 496 
 Madamaxum, Jean, 393 
 Maffei, B., 20 
 
 Maine, Guillaume du, 151, 260, 486 
 Maine, La Croix du, 81, 115, 167, 364, 
 
 378, 4*8, 452, 453, 454, 479 
 Maittaire, Michael, 9, 41, 96, 97, 217, 272, 
 
 284, 285, 349, 453, 454, 496 
 Malingre, C, 505 
 Manardus, Joannes, 258 
 Mansancal, Jean de, 323 
 Mansion, Colard, 170 
 Manuel, Don Juan, 66 
 Manutii, the, 176 
 Manutius, Aldus. See Aldus 
 Manutius, Paulus, 29, 187, 224, 281 
 Mareault, Charlotte, 463 
 
 Mareault, Jehan, 463 
 
 Marguerite de Valois, 173, 219, 221, 229, 
 237, 241, 264, 297, 311, 447, 449 
 
 Marignan, battle of, 64, 369 
 
 Marmeisse, Abbe, 40 
 
 Marot, Clement, first prints his Enfer, and 
 complete works at Lyons, 172 $ present 
 at banquet given to Dolet, 313 ; his 
 friendship with Dolet, 370-377 ; ode, and 
 letter of, to Dolet, 374 ; Dolet's editions of 
 his works, 375, 376, 386 ; subsequent 
 quarrel (?), 376-379 > his ^nfer, 444 ; 
 other references to, 83, 167, 168, 174, 235, 
 239, 251, 263, 268, 290, 291, 301, 312, 
 319. 341, 345. 347. 384, 386. 399. 439. 
 
 457. 497. 5°o 
 Marthe. See Ste. Marthe 
 Martial, 51, 376 
 Martial de Paris, 291 
 Martin, Aime, 446, 449, 453 
 Martin, Henri, 190, 230, 231, 465, 488 
 Masch, A. G., 171 
 
 Masinissa, 200 
 
 Mastino, 200 
 
 Maubert, the Place (Paris), 49, 53, 207, 231, 
 
 458, 470, 499, 506 
 Maumont, Jean, 187 
 
 Maur, Jean, 97, no, 118, 119, 300 
 
 Maurolet, Jean, 63 
 
 Maussac, the President de, 203, 213 
 
 Maximilian, Emperor, 200 
 
 Maynier. See Oppede 
 
 Mazarine Library, the, 446 
 
 Meaux, 467, 468 
 
 Medici, Cardinal Giulio de. See Clement 
 
 VII. 
 Mege, A. du, 81, 83 
 Melanchthon, Philip, 211, 219, 220, 259, 
 
 313, 391, 400,416,486 
 Mellier, Guillaume, 290 
 Menage, Gilles, 32, 217 
 Menapius, G., 220, 263 
 
 Mendoza, , 432 
 
 Merbelius, , 202, 2 10 
 
 Merciere, Rue (Lyons), 396, 399, 440, 441 
 
 Merindol, 465, 466 
 
 Metellus, J., 157 
 
 Meuschemus, J. G., 63 
 
 Michelet, J., 189, 379 
 
 Milan, Duchess of. See Beatrice 
 
 Milan, Duke of. See Sforza 
 
 Millanges, Simon, 125 
 
 Milton, John, 497 
 
INDEX 
 
 565 
 
 Minarcl, the President, 405, 406 
 
 Minut, Jacques de, Dolet acquires the friend- 
 ship of, 59 ; orders Dolet's release from 
 prison, 139; letters of Dolet to, 187 ; 
 funeral oration and odes on death of, 317, 
 322 ; other references, 136, 138, 152, 
 161, 162, 187, 188, 218, 29;, 296, 300, 
 
 3°3, 3*3 
 Mirabel, 84, 85 
 Miziere, Francois, 378, 379 
 Moissac, Abbey of, 65 
 Moles, the, 423 
 Moliere, J. B. P., 2, 3 
 Moliniar, Guillaume, 93 
 Monstrelet, E. de, 366 
 Montaigne, Michel de, 2, 121 
 Montauban, 118 
 Montbrun, 69 
 
 Montchal, Charles de, 53, 407 
 Montecuculi, Sebastian, 290 
 Montfort, Simon de, 52 
 
 Montius, , 474 
 
 Montmaur, 85 
 Montmirel, Huissier de, 459 
 Montpellier, 70, 189, 192, 345 
 Mopha. See Gripaldi 
 More, Le. See Mam- 
 More, Sir Thomas, 36, 37, 209, 210, 249, 
 
 259. 319.489 
 Moreri, L., 81, 123 
 
 Morin, Jean (Lieutenant-Criminel), 201 
 Morin, Jean (printer), 237, 429 
 Morley, John, 488 
 Morone, Cardinal, 21 
 
 Morosina, , 266 
 
 Morrhius, G., 455 
 
 Moulin, Antoine du, 290, 369, 377 
 
 Moulins, 327, 332, 392, 450 
 
 Muret, M. A., 496, 497 
 
 Murmellius, J., 398 
 
 Musurus, Marcus, 21, 65, 328, 329 
 
 Mycillus, Jacobus, 259 
 
 Nantes, Edict of, 4, 5, 55, 467 
 
 Naude, G., 213 
 
 Navagero, Andrea, 45, 258, 284 
 
 Navarre, Queen of. See Marguerite 
 
 Naxos, Dukes of, 43 
 
 Nebrissensis, Antonius, 259 
 
 Nee de la Rochelle, references to his Vie de 
 Dolet, 41, 100, 174, 210, 224, 235, 236, 
 270, 272, 275, 285, 346, 349, 361, 364, 
 446, 452, 453, 454, 455, 47°. 502. S 4,S05 
 
 2 O 
 
 Neufville, 27 
 
 New Testament, French translation of the, 
 
 170, 171. 399, 4'6 
 
 Niceron, Abbe, 81, 214, 224, 305, 501 
 
 Nicolas V., 5 
 
 Nigroni, Francesca, daughter of Ternio, 70 
 
 Nimes, Reformed Church at, 94 
 
 Ninivita, Codes. See Despautere 
 
 Nizolius, Marius, 147, 150, .248, 258, 264, 
 
 269, 270, 274, 283, 287, 288, 384 
 Nocera, 223 
 Noel, Eugene, 192, 193 
 Norreys, Henry, 3 18 
 Noulet, J. B., 94 
 Nourry, Claude, 177, 189, 292 
 Nourrys, the, 291 
 Noyon, Peace of, 19 
 Nozeray, 223 
 
 Odoni, Caterina, 224 
 
 Odonus, Joannes Angelus, 13, 28, 183, 222, 
 
 223, 224-228, 234, 236, 284, 317, 318, 
 
 480 
 Old Testament, French translation of the, 170, 
 
 171, 399, 4i6 
 
 Olivet, French Bible of, 400 
 
 Olivier, Chancellor, 397, 465 
 
 Olivier, Jean, 397 
 
 Omphalius, Bernard, 268 
 
 Omphalius, Jacobus, 161, 162, 259, 268 
 
 Oporinus, Joannes, 259 
 
 Oppede, Baron d', 465, 466, 467 
 
 Orbessan, Marquis d'Aignan d', 53, 407 
 
 Oresme, Nicole, 503 
 
 Or khan, 6 1 
 
 Orleans, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 105, 153, 234, 
 309 
 
 Orleans, Duke of, 446, 449, 457 
 
 Orry, Matthieu, Inquisitor General, his life 
 and character, 408-412 ; Dolet arrested 
 by his order, 414 ; Dolet's trial before, 
 415-421 ; denunciation of, by Dolet, 431 ; 
 makes application to burn Dolet's books, 
 443 ; other references to, 266, 400, 401, 
 468, 471 
 
 Osman, the Sultan, 61 
 
 Oswen, Jhon, 305 
 
 Otho. See Bosio 
 
 Ovid, 44, 137, 291, 354, 485 
 
 Oxford, University of, 58 
 
 Pac, Matthieu, 80, 106, 109, 295, 300 
 Padua, and University of, 19 et sea., 38, 39, 
 
 2 
 
566 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 44, 45, 49, 85, 88, 89, 134, 154, 155, 
 «57, 159. "84. 2°9. 2I0 > 2 4 2 , 3<>3. 3°4. 
 378 
 
 Pagnac, Maurice de, 6 1 
 
 Pagnini, Sanctes, 167, 172, 177, 301 
 
 Paleario, Aonio, his opinion of Padua, 20 ; 
 on G. Camillo's theatre, 157 ; his poem 
 on the immortality of the soul, 176 5 
 other references to, 22, 215 
 
 Paludanus, Carolus, 260 
 
 Pamiers, See of, 65, 67 
 
 Panciroli, G., 155 
 
 Pantagruel, 80, 81, 172, 189-194, 380-385 
 
 Panzer, G. W., 175 
 
 Papadopoli, N. C, 28, 303 
 
 Parentucelli, Tommaseo, 12 
 
 Paris, 9, 15, 17, 144, 146, 156, 161, 167, 
 168, 170, 206, 229 et seq., 309, 310, 311, 
 312, 313, 439; Parliament of, 53, 232, 
 
 234. 2 37> 395. 4°5, 4° 6 , 414. 4^2. 4* 8 , 
 429, 430, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436, 439, 
 
 44*, 443. 446, 449, 45°, 457, 458, 459, 
 462 ; University of, 58, 62, 70, 201, 330 
 
 Paris, Nicole, 326, 457, 503 
 
 Parmentier, M. (bookseller), 317 
 
 Parmentier, M., 505 
 
 Pasquier, Etienne, 496 
 
 Passavant, Benedict, 427 
 
 Patiniana, the, 475 
 
 Pattison, Mark, Life of 'Casaubon, 498 
 
 Paul III., 21, 22, 266, 467 
 
 Paul IV., 404 
 
 Paumier, Archbishop, 412 
 
 Pavia, and University of, 19, 27, 28, 50, 85, 
 
 134, '55, *59 
 Pazzi; the, 166 
 Pedro II. of Aragon, 60 
 Peguillon, Beaucaire de, 366, 423 
 Pelagius, 22 
 Pellechet, Mile., 17 1 
 Pellisson, the President, 394, 395 
 Peregrinus, 33 
 
 Pericaud aine, A., 170, 175, 239 
 Periers. See Des Periers 
 Perion, Joachim, 456 
 Pernetti, J., 291 
 Perottus, Nicolas, 280 
 Perron, Dame du, 174 
 Perrot, fenile, 29, 30, 206, 260 
 Petrarch, 24, 329, 354 
 Petronius, 369 
 
 Peyrat, Jean de, 168, 292, 314, 414, 430 
 Philelphus, F., 209, 257 
 
 Philip the Bold, 402 
 
 Philip the Fair, 402 
 
 Philip V., 67 
 
 Philologus, Jonas, 270, 27 1 
 
 Philomorus, 319 
 
 Philomusus, Jonas, 270 
 
 Pichon, Baron, 452 
 
 Pico de la Mirandola, 62, 257 
 
 Pinache, Pierre, 10, 101, 102, 103, 104, 
 105, 107, no, in, 126, 127, 129, 130, 
 137, 139, 152, 212, 266 
 
 Pinas, Counts of, 60 
 
 Pindar, 24, 485 
 
 Pins, Gaillard de, 62 
 
 Pins, Gerard de, 61 
 
 Pins, Jean de, his ancestry, 60; life and 
 character of, 62-69 i his writings, 65 ; 
 charged with heresy, 67 ; opinion of 
 Erasmus concerning his Latin style, 68 ; 
 correspondence of Dolet with, 71, 72, 
 180, 187 ; friendship between Dolet and, 
 73 ; letter of, to Minut on behalf of Dolet, 
 136 ; seeks to reconcile Dolet and Bording, 
 142 ; death of, 322 ; other references to, 
 59, 76, 106, 109, 120, 143, 144, 145, 
 147, 152, 153, 161, 162, 180, 186, 188, 
 196, 260, 267, 300, 307, 310, 314, 321, 
 322, 323, 398, 492, 500 
 
 Pins, Odo de, 60, 62 
 
 Pins, Roger de, 61 
 
 Pins et de Montbrun, Marquis de, 69 
 
 Pinus, Bartholomaeus, 68 
 
 Piochetus, P., 290 
 
 Pirckheimer, B., 456 
 
 Pius, Albertus. See Carpi 
 
 Pius IV., 54 
 
 Pius V., 403 
 
 Placards, affair of the, 206, 231, 241, 381, 
 388 
 
 Plancus, 165 
 
 Plato, 22, 252, 262, 293, 347, 354, 445, 
 
 446, 45', 452, 453, 455, 45^, 4°°, 461, 
 
 462, 498 
 Platter, T., 270 
 Plautus, 14, 248, 282, 485 
 Pliny, 248, 276, 280, 283, 480 
 Plutarch, 124 
 Pluto, 313 
 
 Pocrjeus, Franciscus, 312 
 Poggio Bracciolini, J. F., 2, 209 
 Poictiers, University of, 62 
 Poitiers, Jean de, 9 
 Pole, Reginald, 21, 29, 89, 168 
 
INDEX 
 
 567 
 
 Politianus, Angelus, 44, 176, 257, 280, 364 
 
 Polybius, 369 
 
 Pompey, 485 
 
 Pomponatius, P., 20, 23, 25, 26, 27, 494 
 
 Pomponius, 360 
 
 Poncher, Estienne, 63 
 
 Pont, Gratien du. See Drusac 
 
 Pont anus, Jovianus, 258 
 
 Pope, A., 185, 488 
 
 Portes, C. B. F. Boscheron des, 120, 125 
 
 Postel, Guillaume, 452, 453 
 
 Poyet, Chancellor du, 324, 394 
 
 Prat, Cardinal du, 63, 64, 65, 66, 121, 182, 
 
 4". 423. 4*6, 49 » 
 Prateolus. See Dupreau 
 Prefond, Girardot de, 271 
 Prevost, Eustace, 187 
 Printers, the, of the sixteenth century, 327- 
 
 331. 334. 387. 388 
 Printers of Lyons, trade disputes of the, 
 
 335-338. 398, 463 
 Printing, attempted suppression of, in France, 
 
 230, 232, 233, 238 
 Prodicus, 461 
 
 Psalms, French translation of the, 364, 399 
 Pythagoras, 252 
 
 Quaritch, B., 291 
 Quintilian, 270, 271 
 
 Rabelais, Francois, his place in the Renais- 
 sance, 2, 190 j his reference to Simon 
 Villanovanus, 27, 30-32 ; to the martyr- 
 dom of Caturce, 80 ; praises Boyssone, 8 1 ; 
 his correspondence with Boyssone, 82 $ at 
 Lyons, 168, 181 j intimacy with Dolet, 
 189, 191, 371-386; as editor for Gry- 
 phius, 189 5 his Gmgantua and Pantagruel, 
 172, 189, 193 j imaginary conversation 
 between Dolet and, 192 ; present at the 
 banquet given to Dolet, 313; his quarrel 
 with Dolet, 378-386 5 his reference to 
 Matthieu Orry, 408 ; other references to 
 3. *7. 39. 79. 82, 83, 98, 122, 147, 178, 
 185, 187, 190, 191, 194, 260, 268, 274, 
 
 294, 3 J 3> 3'9, 345. 37°, 399. 4*4. 5°° 
 Ramel, General, 56 
 Ramus, Pierre, 357, 437 
 Rathery, E. J. B., 32, 185 
 Ravenna, battle of, 200 
 Raymond VI., 60 
 Raymond VII., 58 
 Raynier, Jean, 369 
 
 Recared, 51 
 
 Regis or Le Roi, Guillaume, 170 
 
 Regnard, Jean, 124 
 
 Renaissance, the, 1-7, 12, 177, 190, 230 
 
 Renee, Duchess of Ferrara, 410, 411 
 
 Reuchlin, Johan, 259 
 
 Reutlingen, 175 
 
 Revergata, F., 399 
 
 Revilliod, G., 331, 332, 333 
 
 Rhenanus, Beatus, 259 
 
 Rhodes, Island of, 6 1 
 
 Rhodiginus, Ccelius, 257, 280 
 
 Rhomanus, P., 319 
 
 Riccius, Bartholomaeus, 258, 264, 283, 287, 
 
 288 
 Riccoboni, A., 28 
 Richer, Christopher, 274, 275, 278, 320, 
 
 323, 486 
 Rieux, See of, 65, 66, 67 
 Rigauds, the, 172 
 Rihel, J., 269 
 Rochette, Francois, 56 
 Rochette, Louis, 54, 408 
 Roffet, E., 291 
 Rolleau, Abbe de, 506 
 Romanus Aquila, 175 
 Romorantin, Edict of, 406 
 Ronsard, P. de, 345 
 Rosarius, Sebastian, 157 
 Rostagno, Jacques, 187, 209 
 Rostock, 70 
 Rouilles, the, 172 
 Roussel, G., 301 
 Rousselet, C, 314, 496 
 Roussillon, 408 
 
 Rubella, , 320 
 
 Ruel, Jean, 260 
 Ruelle, J., 362, 431 
 
 Sabellicus, M. A., 44, 257 
 
 Sabinus, Franciscus Floridus, charges Dolet 
 
 with plagiarism and impiety, 281-284, 389, 
 
 480, 481, 483; Dolet's reply, 284; 
 
 answer of, 286 ; as a bibliophile, ib. ; other 
 
 references to, 136, 220, 274, 287, 307, 453 
 Sabon, Sulpice, 362 
 Sadolet, Cardinal, 3, 21, 22, 67, 70, 168, 
 
 172, 176, 199, 258, 285, 313, 340, 486, 
 
 489,490,492 
 St. Ambroise, Seigneur de. See Colin 
 St. Andre, Francois de, 405, 406, 426, 434, 
 
 436 
 St. Augustine, 22, 86, 228, 487 
 
568 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 54 
 
 St. Catherine of Sienna, 63, 68 
 
 St. Cyprian, 236 
 
 St. Gelais, Mellin de, 290, 292, 347, 371 
 
 St. Jerome, 51, 427, 487 
 
 St. John of Jerusalem, Order of, 23, 60, 61 
 
 St. Leger, Mercier de, 378, 379 
 
 St. Louis, 402 
 
 St. Mark, Venice, Church of, 43 
 
 St. Maur des Fosses, Abbey of, 381 
 
 St. Roch, 65, 68 
 
 St. Victor, Abbey of, 423, 426, 427 
 
 Sainte Bar be, College of, 298 
 
 Sainte Marthe, Charles de, his ode on Dolet 
 and Tolet, 346 ; dixain of, at the end of 
 La Maniere, 357; ode to Dolet, 497; 
 other references to, 167, 299, 345, 468, 
 
 49'. 49 2 > S°o 
 
 Salel, Hugues, 136, 347, 390, 486 
 . Sallust, 47, 154, 198, 248, 354, 485 
 
 Salmasius, C, 497 
 
 Salvarolo, Federigo Altan di, 157 
 
 Salviati, F., 167 
 
 Sannazar, A. S., 177, 215, 258, 313, 354, 
 486, 497 
 
 Sanuto, Marino, 65 
 
 Saragossa, 57 
 
 Sarrazin, Philibert, 122 
 
 Savonarola, J., 6, 167 
 
 Savoniano, Hieronymo, 29 
 
 Savoy, Duke of, 336, 388 
 
 Scaliger, Joseph, 203, 213, 497 
 
 Scaliger, Julius Cassar, Hurt's opinion of 
 his poetry, 34, 188, 216, 217 ; praises 
 Pinache, 102 j his friendship with Le 
 Ferron, 122, 123, 126 ; charged with 
 heresy, 122 ; his opinion of Le Ferron's 
 History, 124 ; expresses friendly feelings 
 towards Dolet, 126, 128 ; his compli- 
 mentary letter to Gryphius, 177 ; criticism 
 of, on Dolet's poetry, 188 ; his ancestors, 
 199-20X ; attacks Erasmus, 201 ; Erasmus 
 attributes his oration to Aleander, 202 ; 
 his hatred of Dolet, 212, 267 ; causes of, 
 212-215; his insults to Dolet's memory, 
 215, 216, 475, 476 ; criticisms on his 
 poetry, 217 ; other references to, 49, ill, 
 127, 172, 186, 203, 209, 210, 211, 226, 
 
 234. 236, 482, 497 
 
 Sceve, Claudine, 174 
 
 Sceve, Guillaume, ode of, to Dolet, 187 ; 
 letter of Dolet to, 204; editor for Gry- 
 phius, 236 ; other references to, 30, 82, 
 
 83, 167, 189, 209, 221, 231, 260, 290, 
 
 .297. 3°°> 3 OI > 3'5> 3i7, 3'9> 3"> 5°° 
 Sceve, Maurice, 167, 168, 174, 189, 251, 
 
 263, 290, 297, 319, 323, 345, 347, 394, 
 
 486, 500 
 Sceve, Sibylla, 174 
 Schelhorn, J. G., 123, 213 
 Scipios, the, 485 
 Second, Jean, 168 
 Segnault, Pierre, 459 
 Seguier, the President, 405, 406, 426 
 Selve, Jean de, 422 
 Seneca, 22 
 Sens, 459, 468 
 Sermet, Pere Hyacinthe, 55 
 Servetus, Michael, 31, 56, 84, 168,266, 304, 
 
 411, 412, 468, 490 
 Servius, 360 
 
 Severt, Jacques, 474, 475, 479 
 Sforza, Francesco, Duke of Milan, 155 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 488 
 Sidonius Apollinaris, 51 
 Simon of Villeneuve. See Villanovanus 
 Simon, Richard, 401 
 Sleidan, J., 231, 429 
 Smalcalde, League of, 467 
 Socrates, 252, 354, 460, 461 
 Solar Sale, the, 171 
 Solomon, King, 252 
 Solon, 22 
 
 Somerset, , 489 
 
 Sonnet, Claude, 187 
 
 Sophocles, the Antigone of, 397 
 
 Sorbonne, the, 58, 168, 169, 172, 176, 230, 
 
 232- 233. 234. ^37. *3 8 > 2°4. 265, 380, 
 381, 382, 389, 390, 415, 432, 439, 461 
 
 Spalding, Professor, 119 
 
 Spencer, Lord, 171 
 
 Strappado, the, 231 
 
 Strasburg, University of, 224 
 
 Stryienski, C, 457, 459 
 
 Sturm, J., 45, 70, 157, 268, 269, 284 
 
 Sucquet, Carolus, 259 
 
 Suetonius, 44, 368, 397, 498 
 
 Sulpicius Severus, 41 
 
 Sussanneau, Hubert, editor and corrector for 
 Gryphius, 172 ; his opinion of Dolet's 
 ability, 236 ; Dolet loses the friendship of, 
 317; other references to, 81, 118, 168, 
 268, 318, 321, 500 
 
 Swift, Dean, 185 
 
 Sylvius, Jacques, 354 
 
 Sypontinus. See Perottus 
 
INDEX 
 
 569 
 
 TaboSt, J., 394, 395 
 
 Tacitus, 15 
 
 Taillandier, A., 232, 306, 414, 459, 478 
 
 Tarbes, Bishop of. See Gramont 
 
 Tartas, Jean de, 298, 299 
 
 Teehener, J., 3 50 
 
 Terence, 14, 24, 47, 154, 248, 265, 285, 
 
 397. 438, 485 
 
 Themistocles, 485 
 
 Thierry, A., 5 1 
 
 Thomasinus, , 144 
 
 Thomasius, J., 274 
 
 Thou, J. A. de, 81, 84, 366, 367, 406, 423 
 
 Thous, the de, 423 
 
 Thrasymedes, 30 
 
 Thucydides, 354 
 
 Tibullus, 137 
 
 Tolet, Pierre, 181, 345, 369, 397, 399 
 
 Tollin, A., 57, 84 
 
 Tolozan, Louis, 239 
 
 Tomasini, J. F., 28, 33 
 
 Tonstal, Cuthbert, 259 
 
 Torquemada, Thomas de, 55 
 
 Toulouse, the Inquisition at, 50-54, 402-404, 
 407, 408 ; University of, 58, 74-89, 98 
 et seq.,217, 295, 301 ; spread of heresy at, 
 75-80 ; floral games of, 90-97 ; the 
 historians of, 91 ; the Seneschal of, and 
 his Lieutenant-General, 111-113 ; other 
 references to, 11, 39, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 
 88, 89, 143, '5*. '55. '59. i°°> l6 *. 
 163, 174, 179, 180, 183, 184, 194, 196, 
 207, 212, 214, 218, 219, 220, 221, 227, 
 234, 240, 284, 294, 297, 300, 302, 303, 
 309, 321, 322, 323, 393, 394, 409 
 
 Touraine, Claude of. See Cottereau 
 
 Tournes, Jean de, 172, 331, 332, 333, 396, 
 
 453 
 Tournes, the de, 172, 332 
 Tournon, 290 
 Tournon, Cardinal de, 8, 168, 239, 314, 
 
 3 2 7> 333. 34 2 > 4 IO > 4i 2 . 433. 43°. 447. 
 
 45°. 465. 467. 49i 
 Tours, Guillaume Michel de, 359 
 Toursaint, Bernard, 29 
 Toussain, Jacques, 151, 260, 312 
 Toussain, Pierre, 420 
 Trebatius, 360 
 Trechsel, Gaspard, 331 
 Trechsel, J., 173 
 Trechsel, Melchior, 331 
 Trie, Guillaume, 411 
 Trivulce, G. J. de, 238 
 
 Trivulce, Pompone de, 238, 239 
 
 Trivulce, Theodore de, 238, 239 
 
 Trivulces, the, 168 
 
 Troyes, 326, 457, 458, 459, 503, 504, 506 
 
 Tubingen, University of, 304 
 
 Tudeschi, Nicolas de, 175 
 
 Tulle, Bishop of. See Duchatel 
 
 Uffenbach, Z. C. von, 213 
 Ulpian, 82, 221, 276, 283 
 
 Vaissette, Dom Joseph, 9 1 
 
 Valence, 303, 382 
 
 Valla, Laurentius, 2, 209, 244, 257, 283, 
 
 397 
 Vallambert, Simon, 496 
 Vallee, Briand de, 122 
 Valliere, Louise de la, 4 
 Valliere Sale, the la, 171, 237 
 Valois, Duke of. See Francis I. 
 Vandel, Guillaume, 415 
 Vandy-sur-Aisne, 298 
 Vanini, J. C, 55 
 Vascosan, M., 123 
 Vaudois, the, 406, 465, 466, 467 
 Vauzelles, George de, 207, 208 
 Vauzelles, Jean de, 207, 208 
 Vauzelles, Ludovic de, 208 
 Vauzelles, Matthieu de, 207, 208 
 Venice, 26, 38 a tej., 47, 60, 64, 65, 76, 
 
 173, 281 
 Veracius, Honoratus, 342, 454, 455 
 Verdets, the, 56 
 Vergerio, P. P., 304 
 Vernei, Pierre, 399 
 Verona, 120, 121, 122, 125, 201 
 Verulanus, Sulpicius, 399 
 Vesalius, A., 20, 378 
 Vida, Hieronymus, 177, 215, 258, 313, 486 
 
 497 
 
 Vidal, Arnaud, 92 
 
 Vienne, 337, 411, 412 
 
 Vignier, Nicholas, 504 
 
 Villanovanus, M. See Servetus 
 
 Villanovanus, Simon, Dolet the scholar of, 
 27; account of, 27-31; death of, 32; 
 Dolet's epitaph and odes on, 33-35 j one 
 of the interlocutors in Dolet's Dial, de 
 Imit. Cic, 36, 37, 209, 210 ; Dolet charged 
 with purloining his Commentaries from, 
 240, 274, 384 ; other references to, 21, 
 38, 89, 104, 105, 154, 187, 203, 215, 
 249, 256, 260, 480, 484, 500 
 
570 
 
 ETIENNE DOLET 
 
 Villanueva (Catalonia), 32 
 
 Villaret, Fouques de, 61 
 
 Villedieu, Alexander de, 318 
 
 Villeneuve. See Arnold. Villanovanus 
 
 Villeneuve, Humbert de, 169 
 
 Villeneuve (Montpellier), 32 ; (Provence), 
 
 ib. 
 Villiers, John de, 60 
 Vinet, A., 5 
 
 Vinhalibus, Antoine de, 94 
 Viret, P., 427 
 Virgil, 24, 188, 216, 248, 276, 280, 285, 
 
 354. 39 s 
 
 Visagier. See Voulte 
 
 Vives, Ludovicus, 259 
 
 Volaterranus, R., 257, 280 
 
 Voltaire, F. M. Arouet de, 2, 3, 5, 54 
 
 Voulte, Jean, his references to Dolet's father, 
 10, 1 1 j his epigrams on the Floral Games, 
 97 ; his epigram on the Vauzelles, 208 ; 
 on the ability and learning of Dolet, 234 ; 
 notice of, 298-301 ; desirous of assisting 
 Dolet, 309, 310, 312; present at the 
 banquet given to Dolet, 312; estrange- 
 
 ment between Dolet and, 314-317 ; death 
 of, 317; his quarrel and reconciliation 
 with Bourbon, 320 ; other references to, 
 69, 81, 83, 118, 161, 169, 236, 260, 268, 
 290, 295, 296, 302, 303, 305, 307, 311, 
 313, 318, 319, 321, 322, 323, 496, 500 
 Vulteius. See Voulte 
 
 Weiss, N., 425 
 Westheim, B., 271 
 Winter, R., 270 
 Wurtemburg, Duke of, 304 
 
 Xenocrates, 456 
 Xenophanes, 124 
 
 Xenophon, 200 
 
 Yemeniz Sale, the, 292, 293, 352, 453 
 
 Zazius, Ulric, 222, 259 
 Zell, Ulric, 170 
 Zeno, 124 
 Zuichemus, Viglius, 259 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh 
 
D O L E T, 
 
 PrcTerue moy.o' Seigneur, 
 
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