The seven years which he spent at Paris were of the greatest importance in the life of Ignatius. Of his studies little need be said. He now took the university courses in proper succession, and won his degree in 1534. But these studies were only a means to an end, and he never became a scholar. He discarded books, wrote a very poor Latin, and took long to master Italian. For secular knowledge he had a pious disdain. His followers were to be learned just in so far as it was needed to capture and retain the control of youth and promote the authority of the Pope. The chief interest of the long stay in Paris is that he there founded his Society, and the manner of its foundation is of great importance. He had not been long at the University before his strange ways set up the usual conflict of opinion. Was he a hypocrite, or a fool, or a saint? From the youths who took the more complimentary view of his ways he picked out a few to form the little band of disciples he was always eager to have, and put them through the Spiritual Exercises. They came out of this fiery ordeal in heroic temper, sold their little possessions, and began to beg their bread; to the extreme indignation of their friends in the Spanish colony. In order to save time for study, Ignatius used to go to the Low Countries in the holidays and beg funds for his "poor students" among the Spanish merchants. One year--the year before Henry VIII. set up the Church of England--he went to London, but we know only that the city was very generous to him. On these alms Ignatius and his disciples maintained their life of prayer, austerity, and philanthropy, living in one of the colleges among the other students and angling prudently for souls. The irritation against Ignatius among the Spaniards became so great that the Rector was persuaded to inflict on him a public flogging, the last disgrace of an unpopular student. He was not flogged, however; nor is there anything really miraculous, as some think, in the Rector's change of mind. Ignatius feared the effect on his disciples and had a private talk with the Rector before the appointed hour. He had a marvellous power of persuasion and penetration. These earlier followers seem in time to have fallen away, or never been admitted to his secret designs, and it was not until 1530 that he began to gather about him the men whose names have been inscribed in the history of Europe. In 1530 Ignatius shared his room with a gentle and deeply religious youth from Savoy, Peter Favre, a peasant's son who had already won the doctor's cap and priestly orders, as pious as he was clever. He had made a vow of chastity in his thirteenth year, and was now, in his twenty-fifth year, as eager to keep a clean conscience as to advance in learning. He acted as philosophical coach to Ignatius. From Aristotle and Aquinas they passed, in their nightly talk, to other matters, and Favre presently made the Exercises.