SEEKING FORTUNE. 151 



Placentia in the young and handsome Brissac (Marshal 

 Cosse), there serving as lieutenant to the King of France, 

 and already famous for his gallantries 1 . Brissac was four 

 years younger than Cardan a man delicate and beauti- 

 ful, but agile and robust; at the siege of Naples he had 

 singly taken prisoner a knight in armour, though he was 

 himself on foot without the defence of casque or cuirass, 

 having no weapon but a sword. Brissac had taste and 

 scholarship, with a quick sympathy to feel the merits 

 of Cardan ; he therefore besieged Louis Birague, com- 

 mander of the French infantry in Italy, with petitions on 

 behalf of the poor scholar. The -hopes of Jerome were 

 excited very much, but there was nothing done. 



He went home therefore to his family at Milan, re- 

 sumed his harness as an unsuccessful and, so far as the 

 Milanese College was concerned, illegal practitioner, 

 wrote more books, prepared more lectures, and continued 

 the instruction of his apt young pupil Lodovico. 



Among the few patients whom Cardan attended, there 

 was a certain Count Camillo Borromeo, whom he had 

 cured of a serious disorder ; but because Jerome declined 

 to sit up a whole night with him when he was troubled 

 with some other ailment, the mean-spirited count had 

 carried his complaints about the town: " Therefore," says 



i De Vita Propria, p. 20. " Erat enim Brisaccus Prorex singularis 

 in studiosos amoris et humanitatis." 



