109 



and Spain was blasted for ever. The humanists,) 

 who at best were false friends of science and 

 medicine, were no longer powerful friends; their 

 noble rage was suppressed by chill penury, and 

 many of the most learned and zealous of them 

 were vagabonds in Europe. Rhetoric, fine art, 

 and even philosophy may flourish in slavery, 

 learning and science can breathe no air but that 

 of freedom ; and freedom of learning was quenched 

 in the blood of the Massacre of St Bartholomew. 

 In 1540 had been founded the Society of Jesus, 

 which then as now used science and learning, not 

 as sources of truth or tests of conduct, but as 

 tactics ; putting on indeed the habit of the scholar, 

 but only the more effectually to control research. 

 Two years later the Spanish Inquisition was set 

 up in Rome ; and its shadow fell even over Venice, 

 which abased itself to the imprisonment of Bruno. 

 The great Venetian printers, some time reduced to 

 the publications of decadent Averroism (p. 97), to 

 avert bankruptcy had to print breviaries. Henry of 

 Navarre, deserting Du Plessis Mornay, D'Aubigne", 

 and De Thou, turned not only Roman Catholic but 

 also ultramontane ; and, if with his accession the 

 Terror had ceased, social and political ostracisms, 

 tests, and disabilities stifled all generous culture. 



