alluding to the quarrel
in a poetical epistle to the king, poured out in verse his contempt for
the "Theologasters" of Paris:

"L'ignorante Sorbonne;
Bien ignorante elle est d'estre ennemie
De la _Trilingue_ et noble Academie
Qu'as erigee....
O povres gens de savoir tout ethiques!
Bien faites vray ce proverbe courant:
'_Science n'ha hayneux que l'ignorant!_'"

It would be unfair to French scholarship to omit all notice of the fact
that there were not wanting natives of France itself whose sound
learning entitled them to rank with the most conscientious of German
humanists; such men as Lefevre d'Etaples, a prodigy of almost universal
acquirements; or Louis de Berquin, who furnishes a signal instance of a
nobleman of high position that did not shun the toil and danger of a
more than ordinarily profound investigation of theological truth. Both
will claim our attention again.

[Sidenote: An age of blood.]

Yet, by the side or these manifestations of a growing appreciation of
art, science, and letters, it must be confessed that there were
indications, no less distinct, of a lamentable neglect of moral
training, and of a state of manners scarcely raised above that of
uncivilized communities of men. It was still an age of blood. The pages
of chronicles, both public and private, teem with proofs of the
insignificant value set upon human life and happiness. In many parts of
France the peasant rarely enjoyed quiet for even a few consecutive
months. Organized bands of robbers, familiarly known as "Mauvais
Garcons," infested whole provinces, and laid towns and villages under
contribution. Not unfrequently two or three hundred men were to be found
in a single band, and the robberies, outrages, and murders they
committed defy recital. Often the miscreants were _aventuriers_, or
volunteers whose employers had failed to furnish them their stipulated
pay, and who avenged their losses by exactions levied upon the
unfortunate peasantry. Indeed, if we may believe the almost incredible
statements of one of the laws enacted for their suppression, they had
been known to carry by assault even walled cities, and to exercise
against the miserable inhabitants cruelty such as disgraces the very
name of man.[73]

[Sidenote: Barbarous punishments.]

The character or the punishments inflicted for the commission of crime
furnishes a convenient test of national civilization. If France in the
sixte