The chivalrous Cardinal was another man in his residence of the Hotel de Cluny. Of this monastery he made a mansion, in which a Sybarite might have dwelt without complaining. It was embellished, decorated, and furnished with a gorgeousness that had its source at once in his blind prodigality, his taste for the arts, and his familiar patronage of artists. The only thing not to be found in this celebrated mansion was the example of a good life. But how _could_ this example be found in a prelate who assumed and executed the office of instructing the maids of honor in their delicate duties. Do Thou says it was an occupation for which he was pre-eminently fitted; and Brantome pauses, in his gay illustrations of the truth of this assertion, to remark with indignation, that if the daughters of noble houses arrived at court, endowed with every maiden virtue, Cardinal John was the man to despoil them of their dowry. He was, nevertheless, not deficient in tastes and pursuits of a refined nature. He was learned himself, and he loved learning in others. His purse, when there was anything in it, was at the service of poor scholars and of sages with great purposes in view. He who deemed the slaughter of Protestant peasants a thing to thank God for, had something like a heart for _clever_ sneerers at Papistry and also for Protestants of talent. Thus he pleaded the cause of the amphibious Erasmus, extended his protection to the evangelical Clement Marot, and laughed and drank with Rabelais, the caustic curé of Meudon. He was, moreover, the boon companion of Francis I., a man far less worthy of his intimacy than the equivocating Erasmus, the gentle Marot, or roystering Rabelais, who painted the manners of the court and church of his day, in his compound characters of Gargantua and Panurge. He was a liberal giver, but he gave with an ostentation for which there is no warrant in the gospel. At one period of his life he walked abroad with a game-bag full of crowns slung from his neck. On passing beggars he bestowed, without counting, a rich alms, requesting prayers in return. He was known as the “game-bag Cardinal.” On one occasion, when giving largesse to a blind mendicant in Rome, the latter was so astonished at the amount of the gift, that, pointing to the giver, he exclaimed, “If thou art not Jesus Christ, thou art John of Lorraine.”