Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/34

 l8 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES The vineyard he seems to have lost at the death of his father, but the hotel of the Lamprey remained to him, and he reserved in it a modest room for himself, which was respected long after his death. In the editions of Le Duchat, we are told, there are several engravings showing the hotet and the room as they were at the end of the seventeenth century. But he lived most of all with one or other of the brothers Du Bellay, his old and leal comrades of the convent of I^ Basmette, and all distinguished men. Besides the cardinal, there were Martin du Bellay, Lieutenant- General of Normandy (and real King of Yvetot, by his marriage with Elizabeth Chenu, proprietor of that principality), who was then writing memoirs of his negotiations and campaigns ; Rene du Bellay, Bishop of Mans, the youngest, an ardent student of the phy- sical sciences ; and Guillaume du Bellay, Seigneur de Langey, a great captain and diplomatist, who also was writing memoirs in Latin. Li this work it has been supposed that he w^s assisted by Rabelais, who in his own name printed a work on the same subject (of which not a copy is known to exist), as appears by a quoted title : " Stratagems, that is to say Prowesses and Ruses of War of the Valiant and very Celebrated Chevalier Langey, &c. Translated from the I>atin of Fr. Rabelais by Claude Massuan. (Lyons, 1542.)" Jean du Bellay, the cardinal, was not only a real statesman and powerful orator, but an elegant poet in Latin, and a large-minded man, interested in all matters of literature, science, and philosophy, and so liberal in his ideas that. Churchman and cardinal as he was, he corresponded with Melancthon on the most cordial terms. The beneficent genius of Panta-