would tell in the midst of grave consultations to the scandal of his rivals, of course. enough in the kingdom for all and to spare. And he always wound up his harangues by calling upon his hearers to help to put a stop to such an abominable state of things. sima, for he had brought back from his travels an endless supply of new ideas and good stories, things dear to the hearts both of the old statesman and Although his regular profession was his guests. A warm friendship soon medicine, his favorite study was socisprang up between him and Scévole, ology. He held strong views as to the who took him under his special protec- | duties those who have owe to those tion, and never wearied of extolling who have not; and he would often his skill alike as a doctor and a racon- startle his wealthy patients by depictteur. Before long no dinner was held ing to them in vivid colors the sufferto be complete unless Renaudot was ings of the poor. Men, women, and there; no question to be decided until | children were dying of starvation at he had expressed his views. It was their very gates, he would tell them; not to his personal appearance that he yes, dying, though there was food owed his popularity, for his ugliness was quite abnormal; his contemporaries, friends and foes alike, unite in declaring that he was incomparably the ugliest man in Europe. So repulsivelooking was he, indeed, that the ques- Among the persons whom Renaudot tion was once raised in Parliament as met at Scévole's was Leclerc du Tremto whether he should not be prohibited blay, the famous Father Joseph, who from practising on the score that he ruled Richelieu when Richelieu ruled gave his patients bad dreams. Nor did France. The father, who had a keen his fascination lie in courteous man- scent for useful instruments, at once Ders; for even in those early days we struck up a friendship with the brilfind him laughing to scorn most ruth-liant young doctor, and straightway set lessly the cherished prejudices of those to work to "form" him. The two whom he met. He was essentially un- passed whole nights together discussconventional; why men should trouble ing politics, ethics, and- as the one their heads about forms and ceremo- was a Capucin monk and the other a nies, etiquette and tradition, was sim- Protestant- of course theology. The ply beyond his comprehension. He studied surgery with a barber-he would have studied with the devil himself if he had known how to arrange it -and was amazed to find that by so doing he had outraged the dignity of his profession. When other doctors were swearing by the omniscience of Galen, he pronounced him an ignorant old heathen with no thought in his head beyond bleeding. Galen's system, he said, might have been all very well in the second century, but it did not do in the seventeenth; and he loadly denounced the folly of his colleagues in adhering to his precepts. He himself used to prescribe quinine, opium, antimony, and many other drugs which were under the ban of the medical faculty of Paris. And patients focked to him from all parts, eager to ty his new remedies, eager too, perhaps, to listen to the piquant stories he old man gave lessons in worldly wisdom and statecraft; and the young one, who prided himself on being a practical reformer, unfolded schemes for improving the condition of the poor. Sometimes Richelieu, then quite an unimportant individual, would come to listen to him; for he, too, was keenly interested in social questions, holding that the discontent of the populace was a dangerous factor in politics. Most of Renaudot's schemes Father Joseph put aside with scant ceremony, as fit only for dreamers of dreams; but some two or three he singled out as worthy of consideration. The one he specially approved of was for helping the unemployed; for even in those days there were unemployed, it seems. Paris, Renaudot used to say, was a veritable criminal factory. Men went there from all parts of the country in search of work; and as there was no organized; for in it persons encroaching on Renaudot's monopoly by trying social experiments on their own account, are threatened with dire penalties. one to tell them where it was to be him the exclusive right of working this found, all they could do was to wander and all his other schemes. This charabout the streets in the hope of stum- ter throws an odd light on the spirit in bling across an employer. If, however, which charitable institutions were then they failed to do so within twenty-four hours, they were arrested as rogues and vagabonds. His plan was to establish a labor bureau, in which a list should be kept of masters seeking servants, and servants seeking masters. In his ignorance of court ways the Thus, he maintained, men who were doctor imagined he might open his buwilling to work would be provided with reau at once; but, as he soon found to work, and many an honest fellow his sorrow, nothing could be done until would be kept from evil ways. He his charter had been ratified by the had found some hints of such an institution, he said, in the writings of Aristotle, and also in one of Montaigne's essays. Once when Father Joseph was in Paris, he read to the queen-mother and her Council "Le Traité des Pauvres," a pamphlet by Renaudot, in which, among other things, there was an account of the way a labor bureau might be worked. This was in 1612, a time when Paris was thronged with men and women clamoring for food; and the highways were held by gangs of masterless varlets who levied toll on all passers-by. The royal councillors were sorely troubled in their minds; they were at their wits' end, in fact, to know what to do; for all classes were against them. The rich denounced them for not restraining the "insolence" of the poor; whilst the poor reproached them for leaving them to starve. They listened eagerly, therefore, to the Capucin's account of Renaudot's scheme; for schemes of social reform were not then, as now, at a discount. The doctor was summoned to Paris, where for weeks he was in close consultation with Marie de Medici's advisers, who were much impressed by his sturdy common sense. Honors were showered down on him, he was appointed royal physician and king's councillor; and he received a present of six hundred livres. Then, with a view of testing the practicability of his "inventions," as his projects were called in Paris, permission was given him to open a labor bureau; and a charter was granted which secured to Council of State, an assembly which never did anything in a hurry. While waiting for its permission to begin his work, he organized "l'employ de tous les pauvres valides de cette ville et faulxbourgs qui devaient entre autres choses nettoyer les rues et estre entretenus en partie des deniers qui se levaient pour les bouës." He spent some of his time, too, in the city hospitals, where he witnessed scenes which made him stamp with rage. People suffering from all sorts of diseases were massed together, twelve in a bed, the dead and dying as often as not side by side with those whose only ailment was a broken arm perhaps. When he declared it was a national shame that such things should be, the door was speedily shut in his face. He then turned his attention to the three workhouses which had just been opened in Paris as a shelter for vagrants. There, too, he found little to praise and much to blame. They had been established with the idea of helping the poor, but were a failure; for, as Renaudot maintains, those who went there honest men and women were rogues when they left. At length, losing all patience with the sluggish ways of the Council, he returned to Loudun and took up the thread of his old life. He devoted himself to his patients, and what leisure time he had, he gave to working out the details of his various inventions, and superintending the education of his sons. In 1616, the court came to Loudun, and the doctor at once seized the opportunity of reminding some of the shop, an exchange, a public auction, and a free dispensary. Its organization, although necessarily somewhat complex, was in its way perfect. Each department had its own special staff of officials, while the whole institution was under the personal direction of Renaudot. On him rested all responsibility, and in his hands was all power. And well he used it. If, as his enemies declare, he was a despot, he must at least have been a kindly one; for those with whom, and for whom, he worked all regarded him as a personal friend. exalted personages he had met in Paris, of his existence. He succeeded in interesting in his schemes the Prince de Condé, the Duchesse d'Eguillon, Madame de Chevreuse, and even Louis XIII. himself. They all promised to bring their influence to bear on the Council; and, what is more, they kept their word, with the result that in 1618 the charter was at length ratified. The king then appointed Renaudot commissaire général des pauvres du royaume, thus giving him a free hand to do what he liked for the poor, but no means whatever wherewith to do it. Just when he was starting for Paris to There is an oddly modern ring about undertake his new duties, Richelieu Renaudot's schemes. The Charity Orwas dismissed from office. This was a ganization Society itself is not more sore disaster for the doctor, who had bitterly opposed to indiscriminate almscounted on the minister's help to over-giving than was this seventeenth-cencome the obstacles which he knew tury reformer. Indeed, the relief would be thrown in his way. Riche- system he established was worked on lieu's account too of the state of things exactly the same lines as that which in Paris was most discouraging; the was tried last winter in connection with town was given up to anarchy, he said. the Polytechnic in London. He enRenaudot therefore decided to stay on tered into a sort of co-operative arrangeat Loudun, for he was determined not ment with a number of wealthy persons, to risk the success of his schemes by he undertaking to investigate cases of trying them under unfavorable circum- distress; they, to relieve such of these stances. It was not until after Riche- cases as he pronounced to be deservlieu's return to office in 1624, that he ing. He did not himself distribute established himself in the capital. Then alms; all he did was to point out to the a fresh difficulty arose. So long as he charitable fit objects for their charity. was at Loudun, his Protestantism, It was right, he insisted, that help which was of an eminently unaggres- should be given to the old and feeble; sive type, had never told against him; but as for the young and strong, the but in Paris it was otherwise. Person- only way of aiding them was to provide ally he had no strong feelings on the them with work. When, therefore, subject, and was probably inclined to the able-bodied applied to the Charity think that the chance of trying his in- Department, they were sharply told to Tentious was well worth a mass. Be go to the Labor Bureau. Notices, too, that as it may, he yielded to the pres- were posted up in all public places sure which Father Joseph and Riche- warning masterless varlets, in the name hieu brought to bear on him, and joined of the king, that if they did not prethe Catholic Church. sent themselves at the bureau within twenty-four hours of their arrival in Paris, they would be sent to the galleys. The Labor Bureau was managed precisely as such institutions are today. All applications for work were carefully classified and registered. Any master, therefore, who wished to engage a servant, could, by applying at the office, be put at once in communication with the persons most likely to Meanwhile he was toiling from early morning until late at night trying to this undertakings into working order. The Bureau d'Adresse which he Etablished at the Sign of the Cock, rue de la Calandre, was a colossal instituLion, one which, in many respects has to this day never had a rival. It was once an office for the relief of the poor, a labor bureau, a pawnbroker's suit him. At the end of the week a were heavy, and he had been obliged list was published of employers in want to borrow money to carry it on. He of servants, and servants in want of had, therefore, as he explains in a places. The very poor paid no regis- pamphlet which is deliciously ninetration fees, but those who could afford teenth century in tone, no resource but it were charged three sous. to levy tolls, at least until some millionaire should endow his bureau. The working of the Relief Office and the Labor Bureau was plain sailing The Bureau d'Adresse was from the compared with that of the pawnbroking first a great success; for whilst giving department. This was organized for a helping hand to the poor, it also prothe special benefit of the respectable vided the rich with amusement. The poor, though its doors stood open to all auctions soon vied with the theatre as who were in want of money, and their a place of public entertainment. Peo-t name is always Legion. Any one who ple of all classes crowded there to buy, had anything to dispose of, whether a sell, exchange, gossip, and generally i house, a diamond ring, or an old coat, enjoy themselves. So far, everything t betook himself straight to the Sign of had prospered with Renaudot, whose the Cock. There, for a commission of only troubles arose from certain atsix deniers the livre, the officials would tempts which were made to establish sell for him his property at a public private bureaux in different parts of a auction. Or he might, if he chose, the city. He pursued the persons who t pledge it. In that case it was, if possi- thus attempted to encroach on his priv-h ble, deposited at the bureau; and two-ileges most ruthlessly; but whether thirds of its value, as fixed by an through jealousy, or in fear lest they official appraiser, was advanced to its should bring his institution into disreowner, who paid for the loan interest pute, it would be difficult to decide. at the rate of six deniers the livre. If the article were not redeemed at the end of the time for which it was pledged, it was sold by auction; and if it realized more than the sum advanced upon it, the difference, after the deduction of the expenses of the sale, was handed over to the original owner. No sooner was the organization of the bureau complete, than Renaudot took on his shoulders a fresh burden, a heavy one too. In 1631, he started the Gazette, the first newspaper ever published in France. There is little doubt that he did so at the request of Richelieu, who, being sorely beset by pamRenaudot also came to the help of phleteers, was anxious to have an organ those who wished to exchange their of his own, in which he could refute possessions. If a man had a dog, but the slanders of his enemies. If Père was in want of a chair, he might take Griffet is to be believed, both the car-his dog to the bureau, where the offi- dinal and the king wrote articles concials, for three sous, would try to stantly for the Gazette; and in many procure for him what he wanted, in of the popular satires of the day, the exchange for what he had. Although former is depicted as holding councib all classes were cordially invited to with Renaudot in the editorial office. resort to the Bureau d'Adresse, Re- The prospectus of the Gazette, which naudot never forgot that its very raison was issued May 30th, 1631, is curious d'être was to help the poor. He and reading. In it the doctor declares that, his officials were always at their ser- although his paper will be le journal vice, and no matter what they did for des rois et des puissances de la terre, he them, it was done gratis. Personally counts upon its finding readers among Renaudot objected strongly to taking all classes. He promises that it shall fees, even from those who could afford supply the silent with conversation to pay them; for, as the bureau was give to those who have letters to write, for the convenience of all, it ought to something to write about; and above be free to all, he maintained. Still all, put a stop to gossip and slander. the working expenses of the institution" Newspapers," he says, “are a gen t eral boon, because elles empeschent plu- | adopting the modern system of treatsieurs faux bruits, qui servent souvent ment, whereas the Parisian school add'allumettes aux mouvements et séditions intestines." hered to the ancient. He soon gathered around him quite a brilliant staff of doctors, who undertook to be at the bureau on fixed days. A large room was set apart for their use, and there all the patients who presented themselves were carefully examined and prescribed for. No fees were charged, and medicine was given freely to those who had not the money wherewith to pay for it. Needless to say, the poor resorted gladly to these free consultations, where they were treated with a skill to which they were little accustomed. As time passed, rumors of wonderful cures effected by the bureau doctors spread through the town; and then the wealthy began to go to them for advice. This, of course, gave great offence to the medical faculty of Paris, which had long looked askance on Renaudot, because he prescribed poisons and was suspected of believing in Harvey's theory. A debating society, which he established in 1631, intensified their feelings against him. Every Monday afternoon he held at the bureau a conference for the discussion of subjects of general interest. Everything in heaven or on earth might be discussed, with two very significant exceptions — politics and religion. No. allusions to these subjects were · alJournals which pla-lowed, a necessary precaution if blows. were not to take the place of words in the debate. Renaudot, who had a clear and vigorous style, soon made his mark as an editor. He had practically all the materials for a journal ready to his hand, for Richelieu supplied the political intelligence; the crowds which assembled at the bureau provided the news; whilst the register and exchange lists served as advertisements. Then, in all important towns, and, as he boasts, jusques aux païs les plus éloignés, he secured agents who undertook to report to him all that passed in their special districts. These agents alone cost him more than the eight hundred livres a year which he received as a State subsidy. From the day it was issued the Gazette had a large circulation; but its editor, who by this time was well supplied with enemies, did not escape attack. He was accused of being Richelieu's tool, and of deliberately spreading false intelligence. Against this last charge he defended himself hotly. It was no fault of his, he said, if from time to time a false report crept into the Gazette, which after all was but le récit du bruit qui court. The king had granted him the exclusive right of publishing newspapers in Paris; but his monopoly was speedily invaded. giarized his unmercifully sprang up on all sides, and he was forced to appeal to Parliament for protection. He appealed in vain, however; for the Parliament liked neither him nor his new-fangled ways, and told him so. These conferences were a novelty many of those who took part in them - notably Renaudot and his staffwere brilliant, audacious, and a touch. In the midst of all his other occupa- irreverent; naturally, therefore, they tions, while directing the bureau and found favor in the eyes of the more editing the Gazette, Renaudot still frivolous of the Parisians. Such crowds. found time to practise as a doctor. flocked to them that there was often a Among the crowds who sought work or fight for seats. This was too much for charity at the bureau, were many who the city doctors; they resolved that at were ill. In early days he used to pre-any cost the Montpellier men, who scribe for them all himself; but after a were robbing them at once of their time he arranged for some young Mont- popularity and their fees, must be pellier doctors, who had more brains driven forth. They were fortunate than patients, to join him in the work. He chose Montpellier men because the School of Medicine there was gradually enough to induce Guy Patin, the most ruthless of ruthless satirists, to espouse their cause. With his help, they |