NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 587 



before he entered the seminary, he had devoted himself most 

 earnestly to the study of Hebrew and the Semitic languages, and 

 he was now obliged, during the lectures on biblical literature at 

 St. Sulpice, to hear the reverend professor make frequent com- 

 ments upon the Scriptures, based on the Vulgate, but absolutely 

 disproved by Kenan's own knowledge of Hebrew. On Renan's 

 questioning any interpretation of the lecturer, the latter was 

 wont to rejoin : " Monsieur, do you presume to deny the authority 

 of the Vulgate, the translation by St. Jerome, sanctioned by the 

 Holy Ghost and the Church ? You will at once go into the 

 chapel and say ' Hail Mary ' for an hour before the image of the 

 Blessed Virgin." " But," said Renan to Jules Simon, " this has 

 now become very serious; it happens nearly every day, and, mon 

 Dieu ! monsieur, I can not spend all my time in saying ' Hail 

 Mary ' before the statue of the Virgin." The result was a warm 

 personal attachment between Simon and Renan ; both were Bre- 

 tons, educated in the midst of the most orthodox influences, and 

 both had unwillingly broken away from them. 



Renan was now emancipated and pursued his studies with 

 such effect that he was made professor at the College de France. 

 His Life of Jesus, and other books showing the same spirit, 

 brought a tempest upon him which drove him from his professor- 

 ship and brought great hardships upon him for many years. But 

 his genius carried the day, and, to the honor of the French Re- 

 public, he was restored to the position from which the Empire 

 had driven him. From his pen finally appeared the Histoire du 

 Peuple Israel, in which scholarship broad, though at times inac- 

 curate in minor details, was supplemented by an exquisite acute- 

 nes and a poetic insight which far more than made good any of 

 those lesser errors which a German student would have avoided. 

 At his death, in October, 1892, this monumental work had been 

 finished ; in clearness and beauty of style it has never been ap- 

 proached by any other treatise on this or any kindred subject. It 

 is a work of genius, and its profound insight into all that is of 

 importance in the great subjects which he treated will doubtless 

 cause it to hold a permanent place in the literature not only of 

 the Latin nations but of the world. 



The anathemas lavished upon him by Church authorities dur- 

 ing his life, their denial to him of Christian burial, and their 

 refusal to allow him a grave in the place he had chosen, only 

 increased popular affection for him during his last years and 

 deepened the general mourning at his death.* 



* The facts as to the early relations between Renan and Jules Simon were told in 1SY8 

 by the latter to the present writer at considerable length and with many interesting details not 

 here given. The writer was also present at the public funeral of the great scholar, and can 



