who then presided over
the Italian refugees in Geneva, came to visit him. At the suggestion of
this man Bruno once more laid aside his Dominican attire, and began to
earn his bread by working as a reader for the press--a common resort of
needy men of learning in those times. But he soon perceived that the
Calvinistic stronghold offered no freedom, no security of life even, to
one whose mind was bent on new developments of thought. After two
months' residence on the shores of Lake Leman he departed for Toulouse,
which he entered early in 1577.

We cannot help wondering why Bruno chose that city for his refuge.
Toulouse, the only town in France where the Inquisition took firm root
and flourished, Toulouse so perilous to Muret, so mortal to Dolet and
Vanini, ought, one might have fancied, to have been avoided by an
innovator flying from a charge of heresy.[87] Still it must be
remembered that Toulouse was French. Italian influence did not reach so
far. Nor had Bruno committed himself even in thought to open rupture
with Catholicism. He held the opinion, so common at that epoch, so
inexplicable to us now, that the same man could countermine dogmatic
theology as a philosopher, while he maintained it as a Christian. This
was the paradox on which Pomponazzo based his apology, which kept
Campanella within the pale of the Church, and to which Bruno appealed
for his justification when afterwards arraigned before the Inquisitors
at Venice.

[Footnote 87: On the city, university and Inquisition of Toulouse in the
sixteenth century see Christie's _Etiennne Dolet_--a work of sterling
merit and sound scholarship.]

It appears from his own autobiographical confessions that Bruno spent
some six months at Toulouse, lecturing in private on the peripatetic
psychology; after which time he obtained the degree of Doctor in
Philosophy, and was admitted to a Readership in the university. This
post he occupied two years. It was a matter of some moment to him that
professors at Toulouse were not obliged to attend Mass. In his dubious
position, as an escaped friar and disguised priest, to partake of the
Sacrament would have been dangerous. Yet he now appears to have
contemplated the possibility of reconciling himself to the Church, and
resuming his vows in the Dominican order. He went so far as to open his
mind upon this subject to a Jesuit; and afterwards at Paris he again
resorted to Jesuit advice. But these conferences led to nothing. It