marie seong-hak kim concerned about young Michel’s infatuation with literature, especially poetry, had warned him of the dismal poverty that doomed the majority of poets. Perhaps that warning swayed Michel to study law at the University of Toulouse. But his education was interrupted in 1523 when the constable of Bourbon rebelled against Francis I. Jean de L’Hôpital, having faithfully joined his master in the abortive scheme, was among those who fled the country with the constable to serve Emperor Charles V. Jean was subsequently sentenced in absentia to death. Young Michel was briefly thrown into jail in Toulouse. Upon release, he left for Italy in 1526 to study law at the universities of Padua and Bologna. L’Hôpital received the degree of doctor in law in Bologna. His studies in Italy influenced him deeply to form his humanist perspective. In 1533, Francis I granted amnesty to the constable’s followers, including Jean de L’Hôpital.Michel soon returned to France, but was completely devoid of any family connections, burdened with the stigma attached to his family name. His marriage proposal to the daughter of Jean Morin, a longtime councilor to the Hôtel de ville de Paris, was at first resisted by Morin who balked at the idea of marrying his daughter to a traitor’s son. Eventually the wedding took place in 1537. Marie Morin brought as dowry the office of conseiller at the Parlement of Paris, which L'Hôpital duly acknowledged in his testament.16 It was a post he could not have purchased on his own. L’Hôpital occupied the judgeship for seventeen years and became a highly-respected magistrate, but evidence shows that he tired of presiding over endless disputes between parties. He once compared his work as a judge to the labor of Sisyphus “rolling the eternal rock of disputes from dawn to dusk and watching a father suing his son-in-law or spouses suing each other.”17 L’Hôpital was not immersed in theparlementaire culture and remained relatively distant in the connected world of the judicial corps in the capital.18 He naturally had little appreciation for inherited privileges preva16 See Kim, Seong-Hak 1997 p. 11-16. 17 Epistle to Tournon, in Nalèche, Louis Bandy de 1857 p. 13. 18 L’Hôpital had one daughter, Madeleine, who married Robert Belesbat, maître des requêtes. His grandchildren held only minor offices. 137
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