reasoner in the
department of speculative truth which he afterwards displayed. Among his
friends were the Hangests (especially Claude), Nicolas and Michel Cop,
sons of the king's Swiss physician, and his own kinsman Pierre Robert,
better known as Olivetan. Such friendships testify both to the worth and
the attractiveness of his character, and contradict the old legend that
he was an unsociable misanthrope. Pleased with his success, the canons
at Noyon gave him the curacy of St Martin de Marteville in September
1527. After holding this preferment for nearly two years, he exchanged
it in July 1529 for the cure of Pont L'Eveque, a village near to Noyon,
and the place to which his father originally belonged. He appears to
have been not a little elated by his early promotion, and although not
ordained, he preached several sermons to the people. But though the
career of ecclesiastical preferment was thus early opened to him, Calvin
was destined not to become a priest. A change came over the mind both of
his father and himself respecting his future career. Gerard Cauvin began
to suspect that he had not chosen the most lucrative profession for his
son, and that the law offered to a youth of his talents and industry a
more promising sphere.[3] He was also now out of favour with the
cathedral chapter at Noyon. It is said also that John himself, on the
advice of his relative, Pierre Robert Olivetan, the first translator of
the Bible into French, had begun to study the Scriptures and to dissent
from the Roman worship. At any rate he readily complied with his
father's suggestion, and removed from Paris to Orleans (March 1528) in
order to study law under Pierre Taisan de l'Etoile, the most
distinguished jurisconsult of his day. The university atmosphere here
was less ascetic than at Paris, but Calvin's ardour knew no slackening,
and such was his progress in legal knowledge that he was frequently
called upon to lecture, in the absence of one or other of the regular
staff. Other studies, however, besides those of law occupied him while
in this city, and moved by the humanistic spirit of the age he eagerly
developed his classical knowledge. "By protracted vigils," says Beza,
"he secured indeed a solid erudition and an excellent memory; but it is
probable he at the same time sowed the seeds of that disease (dyspepsia)
which occasioned him various illnesses in after life, and at last
brought upon him premature death."[4] His friends here w