still in his teens, he became lecturer on the Humanities at the University of Douai. After a short stay, he returned to Paris, to take his degree of doctor of Canon law. Itinerant professor Dempster's first position as a doctor was a regent, or full professor, of the Collège de Navarre, at age 17. He soon left Paris for Toulouse, which in turn he was forced to leave by the hostility of the city authorities, aroused by his violent assertion of university rights. He was than elected professor of eloquence at the academy of Nîmes. A murderous attack upon him by one of the defeated candidates and his supporters was followed by a libel case, which, though he ultimately won, forced him to leave the town. A short stay in Spain, as tutor to the son of Marshal de Saint Luc, was terminated by another quarrel; and Dempster returned to Scotland in 1608 with the intention of claiming his father's estates. Finding his relatives unsympathetic, and falling into heated controversy with the Presbyterian clergy, he returned to Paris in 1609, where he remained for seven years, becoming professor in several colleges. In the end, his temporary connection with the Collège de Beauvais was ended by a fight, in which he defeated officers of the king's guard, forcing him once again to change his place of residence. The story is told in Latin by Gian Vittorio Rossi, a contemporary. He begins with a characterisation of Dempster that has been much repeated: "But, I don't know by what pact, those most mild-mannered sisters (the Muses) ... have embraced Thomas Dempster, a Scot, a man made for war and contention ... he allowed almost no day to go by empty of strife ... but that he should fight another by sword, or, if he had no sword, with fists ...." In the story, Dempster whips a student on the bare back for dueling, but the student, unable to bear the insult, brings in three relatives who happen to belong to the custodes corporis Regis, the king's own bodyguard. In response Dempster arms the other students, surrounds the guardsmen and puts them in chains in the bell tower. In the resulting inquiry, "such a storm arose" that Thomas departed for England. The story says distinctly that England was a "safe refuge", meaning between the lines that Catholic prosecutors could not extradite him or threaten