Biography in Early Modern France, 1540-1630

"When the famous Royal Professor of Philosophy and Eloquence Petrus Ramus (1515-1572) gave a lecture, one of his most promising pupils stood by, ready to tug on his coat if he made a mistake. That pupil was Ramus''s future biographer, the much less famous Nicolas de Nancel (1539-1610), who recounted this anecdote in hisVita Rami (1599). Nancel''s insertion of himself into his life of Ramus is typi...