the University of Paris, and employed the
skilful pen of the bold Rector Nicholas de Clemangis, met with no word
of condemnation from the new generation of theologians.

Such was the Sorbonne of the beginning of the sixteenth century, when
intriguing doctors, such as Beda and Quercu, ruled in its deliberations.
An enemy of liberal studies as well as of the "new doctrines," the
faculty of theology was as ready to attack Erasmus for his devotion to
ancient literature, or Jacques Lefevre for establishing the existence of
the "three Marys," as to denounce the Bishop of Meaux for favoring
"Lutheran" preachers in his diocese. Against all innovators in church or
state, the sentiments of the Sorbonne, which it took no pains to
conceal, were that "their impious and shameless arrogance must be
restrained by chains, by censures--nay, by fire and flame--rather than
vanquished by argument!"[44]

[Sidenote: Number of students.]

Meanwhile, in the external marks of prosperity the University of Paris
was still in its prime at the period of which I speak. The colleges,
clustered together in the southern quarter of the city--the present
_Quartier Latin_--were so numerous and populous that this portion
continued for many years after to be distinguished as _l'
Universite_.[45] The number of students, it is true, had visibly
diminished since one hundred years before. The crowd of youth in
attendance was no longer so great as in 1409, when, according to a
contemporary, the head of a scholastic procession to the Church of Saint
Denis had already reached the sacred shrine before the rector had left
the Church of the _Mathurins_ in the Rue Saint Jacques, a point full six
miles distant.[46] Yet the report of Giustiniano, in 1535, stated it as
the current belief that the university still had twenty-five thousand
students in attendance, although this seemed to be an exaggerated
estimate. "For the most part," he added, "they are young, for everybody,
however poor he may be, learns to read and write."[47] Another
ambassador, writing eleven years later, represents the students, now
numbering sixteen or twenty thousand, as extremely poor. Their
instructors, he tells us, received very modest salaries; yet, so great
was the honor attaching to the post of teacher within the university
walls, that the competition for professorial chairs was marvellously
active.[48]

The influence of the clergy fell little short of that of the university
in moderating