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75 



towns OH the bunks of the Rhine. After three years' exile he returned to 

 France, and \v;is included in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. His personal 

 enemy, Jacques Cliarpentier, of Clerniojit (in the Oise), professor of mathe- 

 matics at the Royal College, \v;is accused of having had him massacred by his 

 pupils during that terrible night. 



Plato, notwithstanding the efforts of Ramus, had not many followers in 

 the University of Paris, where scholasticism endeavoured to regain its sway. 

 Aristotle continued to be the favourite of the school, and his philosophical 



r- 



Fig. 54. Battle of Beggars and Peasants over a Barrel of Wine in the Chapter headed, " Com- 

 ment les vices Be combiittirent les uns aux autres pour les vivres." Miniature of the "Roi 

 Modus." Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century. Burgundy Library, Brussels. 



predominance was fostered by the decrees of the Parliament and the royal 

 ordinances. But the true French spirit was less in the direction of the 

 study of logic, even reformed and renewed, than in moral philosophy, 

 especially when it had a tendency to be sceptical and sarcastic (Fig. 54). 

 Montaigne, at the close of the fifteenth century, was, so to speak, the founder 

 of this philosophy, which neither denies nor affirms anything, which calls every- 

 thing in question, and makes light of all subjects. He was born at the 



