1 8 UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS. 



succeed, was placed beneath the fostering protection of the Church and the 

 Crown. Thus the generous assistance of the temporal power and the 

 tutelary influence of the spiritual power never failed it. The Holy See 

 loved and encouraged in the University the eloquent voice of France, which, 

 since the reign of Clovis, converted by St. Clotilde, had placed at the service 

 of the Catholic faith all the forces and influence of her national genius and 

 character. The Kings of France were equally well disposed towards 

 the University, which was, for the capital of their kingdom, a source of 

 wealth and ' of honour, ji reserve of eminent statesmen for their council, 

 a nursery of clever and distinguished youths for their diplomacy. Thus 

 sovereigns, spiritual and temporal, each in their own way, vied in showering 

 favours upon this fruitful and powerful institution, which, nevertheless, 

 showed itself, in certain grave circumstances, the reverse of grateful for the 

 benefits heaped upon it by its august protectors. 



The history of Paris teems with episodes, some curious, and only too 

 many tragic, which denote the' turbulent and seditious tendencies of the 

 University students. These headstrong and undisciplined youlhs took advan- 

 tage of the sort of inviolability which they owed to the blind and generous 

 affection of their religious and lay patrons to gratify their love of dis- 

 order. The University itself set the students an example of disobedience 

 when the smallest of its prerogatives was called in question. The Univer- 

 sity possessed three means of protesting against, or, as its historian, Egasse 

 du Boulay, puts it, of remedying any infraction of its privileges. If the 

 violation was committed by the secular power, it referred the matter at once 

 to the King, as its jurisdiction emanated direct from the Crown. If the 

 infraction was committed by the ecclesiastical authority, the University sent 

 to Rome an embassy, consisting of its own doctors, who often found in the 

 successor of St. Peter a former comrade, whose associations inclined him in 

 favour of a University to which, as a graduate, he had formerly taken an 

 oath of fidelity. If the Pope refused to comply with the request addressed 

 to him by the University, the latter appealed to the universal Church and to 

 the future council. Its last resource was what may be called a University 

 excommunication. This meant a general stoppage of all studies and lectures. 

 The masters and doctors in theology abstained from preaching in the 

 churches. The intellectual, moral, and religious life of the capital was sus- 

 pended. If the crisis lasted, the doctors, regents, and bachelors of the four 



