Many other instances of a like character might be given from the _Paralipomena_; but the foregoing will suffice to show that the natural inclination of Cardan's temper towards the marvellous had been aggravated by his recent troubles. Also the belief that all men's hands were against him never slumbered, but for this disposition there may well have been some justification. Scarcely had he settled in Bologna before an intrigue was set in motion against him. "After the events aforesaid, and after I had gone to teach in Bologna, my adversaries, by a trick, managed to deprive me of the use of a class-room, that is to say they allotted to me an hour just about the time of dinner, or they gave the class-room at the very same hour, or a little earlier, to another teacher. When I perceived that the authorities were unwilling to accede to three distinct propositions which I made to them, namely, that this other teacher should begin his lecture sooner and leave off sooner: or that he should teach alternately with me: I so far got my own way at the next election that the other lecturer had to do his teaching elsewhere."[216] It would appear that the intrigues, of which Cardan gives so many instances, must have been the work of certain individuals, jealous of his fame and perhaps smarting under some caustic speech or downright insult, rather than of the authorities; the Senate of Bologna showed no hostility to him, but on the other hand procured for him the privileges of citizenship. While the negotiations were going on at Bologna for the further regulation of his position as a teacher, he tells a strange story how, on three or four different occasions, certain men came to him by night, in the name of the Senate and of the Judicial officers, and tried to induce him to recommend that a certain woman, who had been condemned for blasphemy, and for poisoning or witchcraft as well, should be pardoned, both by the temporal and spiritual authorities, bringing forward specially the argument that, in the sight of philosophers, such things as demons and spirits did not exist. They likewise urged him to procure the release from prison of another woman, who had not yet been condemned, because a certain sick man had died under the hands of some other doctors. They brought also a lot of nativities for him to read, as if he had been a soothsayer, and not a teacher of medicine, but he would have nothing to say to them.[217]