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Théophraste Renaudot was born at Loudon, a small town in Western France, picturesquely situated on a high hill about thirty miles northwest of Poitiers. His parents, who were wealthy Protestants, died while he was still a mere lad. Théophraste, who inherited the entire fortune left by his parents, developed at a remarkably early age strong humanitarian ideas, and it was under the stimulus of these that he shaped his course in life. With a clear idea of the kind of training that would best fit him for the work which he proposed to undertake, he decided to study medicine, as this career, better than any other, would enable him to accomplish his purpose. Accordingly he went to Montpellier, took the regular course of instruction in the university, and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1606, before he had reached his twentieth year. Recognizing the fact that a physician should be of a certain age before he can reasonably expect to command the confidence of his fellowmen, he decided to utilize the time following his graduation in visiting some of the more important capitals of Europe. The first country which he visited was Italy, where he undoubtedly gained some familiarity with the manner in which the monts-de-piété (the prototypes of our modern pawnbrokers’ shops) were managed under the guiding control of the popes. It is also highly probable that he visited in turn the universities of Holland and Belgium as well as the two great English universities—Oxford and Cambridge. Then, upon his return to France, he went to Paris and began the study of chemistry at the Collège de Saint-Côme. During his stay in the French metropolis, he was made painfully aware of the prevalence of poverty, the streets being filled everywhere with shameless beggars, and Hôtel-Dieu, the great city hospital, being overcrowded with the sick, among whom were large numbers of children affected with contagious diseases and infants starving to death from lack of wet-nurses. The first thought that occurred to the practical mind of Renaudot was to find work for many of these poor people; but when he set about doing this he at once encountered many obstacles; and finally, in despair over his lack of success, was forced to abandon further efforts in this direction and return to his home in Loudon. While there, he frequently met the influential Capucin Monk Leclerc du Tremblay, commonly known as his “Gray Eminence,” and through him he was brought to the notice of Cardinal Richelieu, then or soon afterward, Secretary of State of Marie de Médicis, the queen-mother of Louis XIII. Although the cardinal, for political reasons, antagonized the Huguenots, he personally entertained no unfriendly feelings toward men of the Protestant faith, and consequently he was quite prepared to aid Renaudot when he laid before him, as he did shortly after his return to Paris, his schemes for the betterment of the poor in that great city. One of these schemes called for the establishment of a “bureau d’adresse ou de rencontre,” an office depot where, by the payment of three sous, anybody was entitled to have the address of his place of business entered upon the registers of the bureau; and where also employer and employee might meet for arranging terms. If any person wished to learn the address of any given place of business, the desired information would be furnished upon the payment of a fee of the same value; but no charge whatever was to be made in the case of a poor person. This scheme proved a complete success in a very short time. Then, as a further step in the development of his bureau, Renaudot joined what he termed “ventes à grâce troque ou rachapt”—that is, “sales with the privilege of exchange or redemption.” This was the first step toward the establishment of his “mont-de-piété,” an institution which was not fully organized by him at Paris until 1637. The tax upon loans was fixed at 3 per cent—just enough to pay the expenses of running the bureau. His motto was: “Loan money without expectation of profit.” His solution of the social problem was summed up in the following aphorism: “In every organized community or state the rich shall afford aid to the poor, all harmony between the two classes ceasing when one of them grows richer at the expense of the other.”