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As a natural result of this increase in the Bureau’s popularity the celebrity of Renaudot also increased, until it extended to every part of the kingdom; and, as a further result, the institution itself now began to take on the character of a school for clinical instruction—an entirely new feature; for at that period no facilities of this kind were provided by the Paris Faculty of Medicine. When Renaudot observed this new and unexpected development of the work carried on at the Bureau he petitioned the King for permission to erect, at his own expense, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, the most populous quarter of the City of Paris, a “Hostel des Consultations Charitables”—in other words, a free hospital for the poor.

Statue of Théophraste Renaudot at Loudun, France. (Courtesy of Monsieur le Pasteur Paul Barnaud, of Sainte Foy la Grande [Gironde], France.)

Up to the year 1638 Renaudot had got along very amicably with the Paris Faculty. He had often consulted with them and he had entered the names of his two sons, Isaac and Eusebius, as students at the medical school. Furthermore, there could not have existed any prejudice against him on religious grounds as—upon the advice of Richelieu and Father Joseph (Leclerc du Tremblay, or “His Gray Eminence”)—his two sons had been educated in the Roman Catholic faith. It appears, however, that these favorable considerations were not strong enough to prevent professional jealousy, on the part of the Paris physicians, from setting to work to undermine all Renaudot’s good work. The real truth—viz., that the newcomer’s success was robbing them of some of their paying practice—was not confessed by these men openly, but instead they objected to his having, with the King’s permission (granted in 1640), established furnaces for the manufacture of chemical remedies. They also claimed that he was injuring the profession of medicine through his doctrine that good effects were obtainable from the employment of both opium and antimony as internal remedies, and also through his maintenance of the new doctrine (1616) of the circulation of the blood. Were not these professional sins, they claimed, sufficiently heinous to justify them in summoning him before the magistrates as an impostor? They believed that they were fully justified in so doing; and accordingly they proceeded without further delay to bring suit against Renaudot.