One device was to ear-mark for the University chest all the fines imposed upon law-breakers. Those who gave short measure in the market, and those who spoke evil of the magistrates, were alike mulcted in the interests of learning; the heaviest contribution was that exacted from a bookseller convicted of having charged an excessive price for a copy of the Psalms of David. A second method consisted in summoning all the notaries of the town before the Council, and instructing them, when any citizen called them in to make his will, to impress upon the testator the desirability of bequeathing something to the University; the result was a total gain of 1,074 florins, including 312 florins from Robert Estienne, the printer, and 5 sous from a poor woman in the baking business. A third contrivance was to suppress a public banquet, and require the cost, estimated at 100 florins, to be handed to the University authorities. In this way the University--such as it was--was started, with class-rooms for the scholars and apartments for the professors, who were allowed to supplement their incomes by taking boarders. Everything was poorly done, however, and nobody appears to have been comfortable. Complaints of one sort and another are recorded, in large numbers, in the Register of the Council. For one thing, there was no heating apparatus, but ‘the teachers used to keep up charcoal fires at their own expense, and require every pupil to pay something towards them.’ For another thing, there was no glass in the windows, and we read that ‘as to the request of the Principal that glass windows shall be placed in the class-rooms, it is decided that this shall not be done, but that the scholars may, if they like, fill up the apertures with paper.’ The teachers, too, were constantly expressing dissatisfaction with the accommodation provided for them. As early as 1559 we have one of them applying for a more commodious lodging, on the ground that ‘God has called him to the estate of matrimony.’ A little later we come upon this note: ‘Claude Bridet requested permission to lodge above the Tower, where M. Chevalier, lecturer in Hebrew, used to live, for the sake of his health, and because the lower ground is damp. Decided that he must be satisfied with his present apartment, and that the place to which he refers shall be kept for someone else.’ In spite of discomfort, however, hard work was the order of the day. A letter has been preserved from M. de Bèze, the Rector of the University, to the parent of a pupil, in which he says: ‘I fear I shall be able to make nothing of your son, for, in spite of my entreaties, he refuses to work more than fourteen hours a day.’ The ordinary curriculum did not call for quite such persistent application as that, but was, none the less, sufficiently severe.