Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/512

496 Tyndall, bearing upon this subject, lately appeared in the London Times:

The University of Montpellier, to the deans and faculties of which the above notification is addressed, is one of the oldest and most honored universities of Europe. It was founded in the twelfth century, its medical faculty by the Spanish Arabs. Situated in what was formerly called Languedoc, one of the southern portions of France, it has a botanical garden, the first that was established in Christendom. Its Observatory has for ages been in repute, its Museums of Natural History and Fine Art have long been celebrated. It has made its city one of the intellectual centres of France.

In this university was first translated into Latin Ptolemy's great Greek work, the "Alma Gest." One of the regents was the first European to make tables of the moon, and to determine the obliquity of the ecliptic. He is honorably mentioned by Copernicus. In literature it is distinguished by being the seat of the earliest cultivation of a modern language. From the romance literature of Langue d'Oc, Petrarch and Dante took their inspirations.

But in another respect it has a memorable celebrity. Here the Inquisition was first organized, and Languedoc was the seat of the most dreadful persecutions that the world has ever witnessed. Thousands of persons were put to death, whole cities were burnt. The French Protestantism of the middle ages was extinguished by fire and sword. The professors and doctors of the university were expelled from the country.