rs, but would take a view of the other universities of France.
Therefore, going to Rochelle, he took shipping and arrived at Bordeaux,
where he found no great exercise, only now and then he would see some
mariners and lightermen a-wrestling on the quay or strand by the
river-side. From thence he came to Toulouse, where he learned to dance very
well, and to play with the two-handed sword, as the fashion of the scholars
of the said university is to bestir themselves in games whereof they may
have their hands full; but he stayed not long there when he saw that they
did cause burn their regents alive like red herring, saying, Now God forbid
that I should die this death! for I am by nature sufficiently dry already,
without heating myself any further.

He went then to Montpellier, where he met with the good wives of Mirevaux,
and good jovial company withal, and thought to have set himself to the
study of physic; but he considered that that calling was too troublesome
and melancholic, and that physicians did smell of glisters like old devils.
Therefore he resolved he would study the laws; but seeing that there were
but three scald- and one bald-pated legist in that place, he departed from
thence, and in his way made the bridge of Guard and the amphitheatre of
Nimes in less than three hours, which, nevertheless, seems to be a more
divine than human work. After that he came to Avignon, where he was not
above three days before he fell in love; for the women there take great
delight in playing at the close-buttock game, because it is papal ground.
Which his tutor and pedagogue Epistemon perceiving, he drew him out of that
place, and brought him to Valence in the Dauphiny, where he saw no great
matter of recreation, only that the lubbers of the town did beat the
scholars, which so incensed him with anger, that when, upon a certain very
fair Sunday, the people being at their public dancing in the streets, and
one of the scholars offering to put himself into the ring to partake of
that sport, the foresaid lubberly fellows would not permit him the
admittance into their society, he, taking the scholar's part, so belaboured
them with blows, and laid such load upon them, that he drove them all
before him, even to the brink of the river Rhone, and would have there
drowned them, but that they did squat to the ground, and there lay close a
full half-league under the river. The hole is to be seen there yet.

After that he departed from the