ound
the slopes of Mont St. Genevieve, which at length became that
Christian Athens that Charlemagne dreamt of. Each college had its own
rules. Generally students were required to attend matins (in summer at
3 a.m., winter at 4), mass, vespers and compline. When the curfew of
Notre Dame sounded, they retired to their dormitories. Leave to sleep
out was granted only in very exceptional cases. Tennis was allowed,
cards and dice were forbidden. The college of Montaigu, founded in
1314 by Archbishop Gilles de Montaigu, housed eighty-two poor scholars
in memory of the twelve apostles and seventy disciples. There the rod
was never spared to the _faineant_; the discipline so severe, that the
college became the terror of the youth of Paris, and fathers were wont
to sober their libertine sons by threatening to make _capetes_[69] of
them. This was the _College de Pouillerye_ denounced by Rabelais and
notorious to students as the _College des Haricots_, because they were
fed there chiefly on beans. Erasmus was a poor _boursier_ there,
disgusted at its mean fare and squalor, and Calvin, known as the
"accusative," from his austere piety. Desmoulins, the inaugurator of
the Revolution, and St. Just, its fiery and immaculate apostle, sat on
its benches. To obtain admission to the college of Cluny (1269) the
scholar must pass an entrance examination. He then spent two years at
logic, three at metaphysics, two in Biblical studies; he held weekly
disputations and preached every fortnight in French; he was
interrogated every evening by the president on his studies during the
day. If students evinced no aptitude for learning they were dismissed;
if only moderate progress were made, the secular duties of the college
devolved upon them. It was the foundation of these colleges which
organised themselves, about 1200, into powerful corporations of
masters and scholars (_universitates magistrorum et scholiarum_) that
gave the university its definite character.

[Footnote 69: The Montaigu scholars were called _capetes_ from their
peculiar _cape fermee_, or cloak, such as Masters of Arts used to
wear. The Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve occupies the site of the
college.]

[Illustration: TOWER IN RUE VALETTE IN WHICH CALVIN IS SAID TO HAVE
LIVED.]

When the term "university" first came into use is unknown. It is met
with in the statutes (1215) which, among other matters, define the
limits of age for teaching. A master in the arts must not lecture
u