We cannot help wondering why Bruno chose that city for his refuge.  Toulouse, the only town in France where the Inquisition took firm root and flourished, Toulouse so perilous to Muret, so mortal to Dolet and Vanini, ought, one might have fancied, to have been avoided by an innovator flying from a charge of heresy.[87] Still it must be remembered that Toulouse was French.  Italian influence did not reach so far.  Nor had Bruno committed himself even in thought to open rupture with Catholicism.  He held the opinion, so common at that epoch, so inexplicable to us now, that the same man could countermine dogmatic theology as a philosopher, while he maintained it as a Christian.  This was the paradox on which Pomponazzo based his apology, which kept Campanella within the pale of the Church, and to which Bruno appealed for his justification when afterwards arraigned before the Inquisitors at Venice.

[Footnote 87:  On the city, university and Inquisition of Toulouse in the sixteenth century see Christie’s Etiennne Dolet—­a work of sterling merit and sound scholarship.]

It appears from his own autobiographical confessions that Bruno spent some six months at Toulouse, lecturing in private on the peripatetic psychology; after which time he obtained the degree of Doctor in Philosophy, and was admitted to a Readership in the university.  This post he occupied two years.  It was a matter of some moment to him that professors at Toulouse were not obliged to attend Mass.  In his dubious position, as an escaped friar and disguised priest, to partake of the Sacrament would have been dangerous.  Yet he now appears to have contemplated the possibility of reconciling himself to the Church, and resuming his vows in the Dominican order.  He went so far as to open his mind upon this subject to a Jesuit; and afterwards at Paris he again resorted to Jesuit advice.  But these conferences led to nothing.  It may be presumed that the trial begun at Naples and removed to Rome, combined with the circumstances of his flight and recusant behavior, rendered the case too grave for compromise.  No one but the Pope in Rome could decide it.

There is no apparent reason why Bruno left Toulouse, except the restlessness which had become a marked feature in his character.  We find him at Paris in 1579, where he at once began to lecture at the Sorbonne.  It seems to have been his practice now in every town he visited, to combine private instruction with public disputation.  His manners were agreeable; his conversation was eloquent and witty.  He found no difficulty in gaining access to good society, especially in a city like Paris, which was then thronged with Italian exiles and courtiers.  Meanwhile his public lectures met with less success than his private teaching.  In conversation with men of birth and liberal culture he was able to expound views fascinating by their novelty and boldness.  Before an academical audience it behoved him to be circumspect; nor could he transgress the formal methods of scholastic argumentation.