favor and fashion, and not more remarkable for his
extraordinary intellectual endowments than for his brilliant personal
accomplishments.

In vain the trembling officials sought to clinch their arguments by
stating, that not alone did the conclave consist of the chief members of
the university, the senior doctors of theology, medicine, and law, the
professors of the humanities, rhetoric, and philosophy, and all the
various other dignitaries; but that the debate was honored by the
presence of Monsieur Christophe de Thou, first president of Parliament;
by that of the learned Jacques Augustin, of the same name; by one of the
secretaries of state and Governor of Paris, M. Rene de Villequier; by
the ambassadors of Elizabeth, Queen of England, and of Philip the
Second, King of Spain, and several of their suite; by Abbe de Brantome;
by M. Miron, the court physician; by Cosmo Ruggieri, the Queen Mother's
astrologer; by the renowned poets and masque writers, Maitres Ronsard,
Baif, and Philippe Desportes; by the well-known advocate of Parliament,
Messire Etienne Pasquier: but also (and here came the gravamen of the
objection to their admission) by the two especial favorites of his
Majesty and leaders of affairs, the seigneurs of Joyeuse and D'Epernon.

It was in vain the students were informed that for the preservation of
strict decorum, they had been commanded by the rector to make fast the
gates. No excuses would avail them. The scholars were cogent reasoners,
and a show of staves soon brought their opponents to a nonplus. In this
line of argument they were perfectly aware of their ability to prove
a major.

"To the wall with them--to the wall!" cried a hundred infuriated voices.
"Down with the halberdiers--down with the gates--down with the
disputants--down with the rector himself!--Deny our privileges! To the
wall with old Adrien d'Amboise--exclude the disciples of the university
from their own halls!--curry favor with the court minions!--hold a
public controversy in private!--down with him! We will issue a mandamus
for a new election on the spot!"

Whereupon a deep groan resounded throughout the crowd. It was succeeded
by a volley of fresh execrations against the rector, and an angry
demonstration of bludgeons, accompanied by a brisk shower of peas from
the _sarbacanes_.

The officials turned pale, and calculated the chance of a broken neck in
reversion, with that of a broken crown in immediate possession. The
former b