That seems to have been the whole story of Erasmus' "call" to Paris: a report by one man of a conversation with others, moderate expressions of good will on the part of the Parisian scholars, but hardly a definite promise of anything. At best, the proposal was that he should take a church living, and to this he was, more or less to his credit, always disinclined. His reply to Budæus is interesting. He says: "I had hardly got myself well out of that very wordy letter, which I guess will be as tedious to you in the reading as it was to me in the writing, when another letter of yours came to me in which you express the kind intentions of the Most Christian King towards me. I will answer briefly, not to bore both you and myself to death with verbosity and also because I have to write to many others. The king's purpose is worthy of a prince and even of such a prince as he. I approve it most highly. "His splendid plans for me I owe chiefly to you, my friend, who have pictured me, not as I am, but as you would wish me to be;--and that at your own risk as much as mine. The same subject was most eagerly pressed in the king's name by that most illustrious advocate, the bishop of Paris, whom you describe in your letter no less truly than graphically. It would be a long story to compress into one letter all the pros and cons. I see what your advice is, and I value it the more because it is given by a man at once very cautious, and very friendly to me. For if ever there is a place for the Greek proverb: 'The gifts of the unfriendly are no gifts at all,' I think it is in matters of advice. But while I confess that I am deeply indebted, not only to you all, but especially to your most excellent and generous king, I cannot make any definite answer until I have discussed the plan with the Chancellor of Burgundy, who has gone on a journey to Cambrai.... I will only say at present that France was ever dear to me on many accounts [we remember his affection for the Collége Montaigu, and his reference to that 'dunghill of a Paris'] and is now attractive to me for no reason stronger than that Budæus is there. Indeed there is no reason to make me out a stranger as you do for, if we may believe the map-makers, Holland too is a part of France." Nor does Erasmus commit himself any more decidedly in the personal letter which he sent at the same time to King Francis.[113] The letter is filled with adulation, but expresses also the writer's honest approval of the king's momentary policy of peace. The final phrase, "to whom I wholly give and dedicate myself," must not be construed as having any meaning whatever. The offer was neither accepted nor repeated. We may well doubt whether in the year 1516 Erasmus would really have cared to attach himself to the French court or to any other on any terms. [113] iii., 185.