At A Short Distance From It
Stands The Hotel Cujas, One Of The Curiosities Of Bourges
And The Habitation For
Many years of the great juris-
consult who revived in the sixteenth century the study
of the Roman law, and
Professed it during the close
of his life in the university of the capital of Berry.
The learned Cujas had, in spite of his sedentary pur-
suits, led a very wandering life; he died at Bourges in
the year 1590. Sedentary pursuits is perhaps not
exactly what I should call them, having read in the
"Biographie Universelle" (sole source of my knowledge
of the renowned Cujacius) that his usual manner of
study was to spread himself on his belly on the floor.
He did not sit down, he lay down; and the "Biographie
Universelle" has (for so grave a work) an amusing pic-
ture of the short, fat, untidy scholar dragging himself
_a plat ventre_ across his room, from one pile of books
to the other. The house in which these singular gym-
nastics took place, and which is now the headquarters
of the gendarmerie, is one of the most picturesque at
Bourges. Dilapidated and discolored, it has a charm-
ing Renaissance front. A high wall separates it from
the street, and on this wall, which is divided by a
large open gateway, are perched two overhanging
turrets. The open gateway admits you to the court,
beyond which the melancholy mansion erects itself,
decorated also with turrets, with fine old windows, and
with a beautiful tone of faded red brick and rusty
stone.
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