CARDAN AT LYONS. 91 



money. Louis Birague, commander of the King's in- 

 fantry, whose good-will once, when he was at Milan, had 

 been sought for Jerome by young Brissac, as before nar- 

 rated, happened to be then in Lyons, and received the 

 great physician as a friend, offering him a stipend of a 

 thousand crowns a year, on the part of Marshal Brissac, 

 if he would consent to be attached to him, as his phy- 

 sician. Brissac's friends desired the presence of the 

 skilled physician; Brissac thought only 1 of the aid he 

 might have from his ingenuity in mathematics and 

 mechanics. That offer, however, was declined. Here, 

 too, we must name Guillaume Choul 2 , a nobleman of 

 Lyons, king's counsellor and judge in Dauphine, with 

 whom Jerome established an enduring friendship. M. 

 Choul was one of the most painstaking antiquaries of his 

 time, and wrote on medals, castrametation, baths, and 

 other Greek and Roman matters works which have had 

 the honour of translation into Spanish. 



At length Cassanate came, the bearer of a letter from 

 the archbishop himself, by which his physician was intro- 

 duced formally, and in which his exact errand was stated. 

 The letter written, of course, like all such documents, 

 in Latin spoke of " serious, urgent, and inevitable busi- 

 ness" that detained the archbishop at home, and its main 

 object was to persuade Jerome, if possible, to travel on to 

 1 De Yita Propria, cap. xxxii. 2 Ibid. cap. xv. 



