It then became the Collége des Trois Langues, when the king, notwithstanding the opposition of the university, created in 1534 a chair of Latin. There was another objection made by the university to the new creation: from the commencement the courses were free; and this feeling was not decreased by the fact that around the celebrated masters of the Trois Langues a crowd of students was soon congregated.
The idea in the mind of Francis I in creating this Royal College may be gathered from the following edict, dated in 1545: "François, etc., savoir faisons à tous présents et à venir que Nous, considérant que le sçavoir des langues, qui est un des dons du Saint-Esprit, fait ouverture et donne le moyen de plus entière connaissance et plus parfaite intelligence de toutes bonnes, honnêtes, saintes et salutaires sciences. . . . Avons fait faire pleinement entendre à ceux qui, y voudraient vacquer, les trois langues principales, Hebraïque, Grecque, et Latine, et les Livres esquels les bonnes sciences sont le mieux et le plus profondément traitées. A laquelle fin, et en suivant le décret du concile de Vienne, nous avons piéça ordonné et establi en nôtre bonne ville de Paris, un bonne nombre de personnages de sçavoir excellent, qui lisent et enseignent publiquement et ordinairement les dites langues et sciences, maintenant florissant autant ou plus qu'elles ne firent de bien longtemps. . . auxquels nos lecteurs avons donné honnêtes gages et salaires, et iceux fait pourvoir de plusieurs beaux bénéfices pour les entretenir et donner occasion de mieux et plus continuellement entendre au fait de leur charge. . . . etc."
The Statistique, which I am following in this account, thus sums up the founder's intention: "Le Collége Royal avait pour mission de propager les nouvelles connaissances, les nouvelles découvertes. II n'enseignait pas la science faite, il la faisait."
It was on account of this more than on account of anything else that it found its greatest enemy in the university. The founding of this new college, and the great excitement its success occasioned in Paris, were, there can be little doubt, among the factors which induced Gresham to found his college in London in 1574.
These two institutions played a great part in their time. Gresham College, it is true, was subsequently strangled, but not before its influence had been such as to permit the Royal Society to rise phoenixlike from its ashes; for it is on record that the first step in the forming of this society was taken after a lecture on astronomy by Sir Christopher Wren at the college. All connected with them felt in time the stupendous change of thought in the century which saw the birth of Bacon, Galileo, Gilbert, Hervey, Tycho Brahe, Descartes, and many others that might be named; and of these, it is
