existence. Some thirty colleges made up this great uni
versity, and through the Middle Ages it exercised a great
influence not only on literature and religion but on politics
also. The scholarly Abelard taught for a time at Paris, as
did also the great mediaeval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas,
and many others hardly less famous. The great humanist
Erasmus was a student there, but never had a word to say
for its teaching. As a matter of fact, like many another
European university, Paris did not appreciate the full sig
nificance of the Renaissance. The new learning and the
newer methods were not welcomed in her university halls
and she gradually fell behind the times. The fierce religious
wars in France in the sixteenth century aided in her degen
eration, and at the accession of Henry IV., in 1589, the for
tunes of the university had reached their lowest ebb. Henry,
with the assistance of his able minister Sully, sought to
rehabilitate the moribund institution and was for a' time
successful. Under Louis XIV., however, a relapse occurred.
The Sorbonne, or school of theology, alone showed vitality
and progressiveness and gradually usurped many of , the
functions of the larger body. Being a conservative institu
tion the university incurred the animosity of the French
republicans, and in 1793 was suppressed by the Revolutionary
party then in power. They did away with the four great
faculties of law, theology, medicine, and letters, and for over
a century there was no university, with a title as such, at
Paris.
After it had ceased to exist as an independent institu
tion the university, under the name of the Sorbonne, became
one of the academies of the great University of France,
established by Napoleon I. It was not until 1896 that the
University of Paris, along with other institutions, regained
an independent existence and title. Now, however, the
various faculties and schools are reunited under the control
of the council of the university and give instruction in Pro-