Budé is a brilliant example of the intellectual development of many men of his generation. Come of a line of high officials, he went through the usual experiences: a tutor, fashionable masters, a special Greek tutor, one George Hermonymos, brought direct from Lacedaemonia to teach him to lisp the Greek alphabet at the remuneration of five hundred crowns monthly; but Lefèvre d’Etaples[217] did not succeed in making a philosopher of him, nor Fra Giocondo[218] a mathematician. Then, after lolling for a while on the long-suffering benches of the Orleans University of Law, Budé resigned himself to run in the paternal grooves; apart from hunting, he was not known to have any accomplishment or passion except fishing. So he went to Rome as secretary to an embassy at the time of the election of Julius II. This proved the turning-point of his life. The aesthetic splendour of Rome struck him and held him spellbound; he experienced the electric shock, the complete change of view which the sudden revelation of the spirit of beauty has from all time occasioned in choice minds. He came back a changed man. He became an apostle of beauty; he resigned his diplomatic appointments, and his office as secretary to the king; he even refused a comfortable retreat on the bench, in order to devote himself to that noble intellectual life, the radiance of which had filled his soul. He gave up everything except hunting. And it was then that he had to face the trying problem that rose in his mind with peculiar intensity—how to spiritualise the chase. The solution he arrived at was of the most original kind. He has communicated it to us in the form of a conversation, real or imaginary, between himself and King Francis I. This dialogue attained a measure of popularity; written in Latin (following the Roman fashion), it had the honour of being translated by the great court translator, Louis Le Roy, and in our time has been re-published by M. Chevreul. Budé’s idea was wonderfully simple, and nicely calculated, he thought, to make an impression on Francis I. The king was not very clever, but he was very willing to learn, and had great confidence in the new ideas, particularly those of his friend. Budé merely suggested the adoption of Latin as the language of venery. At first sight, Francis did not quite catch the piquancy of this proposal; however, he made no opposition; and discovered on reflection, indeed, that it hit the mark admirably. Certain persons were agitating for the suppression of Latin in law proceedings, with the professed object of rendering them more comprehensible: here was an excellent means of silencing the agitators, by showing them that Latin, if it can serve for the slang of the turf, can serve for anything.