"In the same way that I was then hiding, I afterward ran away! For six whole months I was getting ready for my journey to Basel and that openly before all men. Why, the emperor's treasurer paid over my pension before it was due, because I told him I was going to Basel! Nor was the reason for my journey unknown, it being the same for which I had already so often gone to Basel before I became afraid of those heroes!... I was all ready to start, waiting only to decide upon the road and to have a safe escort. Meanwhile I had to collect money in divers places and for this purpose spent six days at Louvain,--hiding there too, of course, as my custom was,--at an inn where no guests ever came, so that it is a most retired place! It is at the sign of The Savage. By the purest accident there was there at the time Jerome Aleander, with whom I lived on the most friendly terms, sometimes sitting with him over literary talk until far into the night. We agreed that if a safe escort should offer, we would journey together. Returning after a few days I found Aleander getting ready to start, just as I was.... It was my birthday and that of the apostles Simon and Jude." Having thus proved that up to the very moment of his departure he was on the best of terms with everyone in the Low Countries from whom he could have anything to fear, even with Aleander, the archfiend of the Lutherans, Erasmus goes on to describe his journey. There is nothing especially noteworthy in this description. It is the same old story of dangers and wearinesses by the way, of German inns and German stoves and the troubles they brought him. Yet in the little notes of persons whom he met and how they received him we get some of the most significant and attractive glimpses of the widespread relations of Erasmus with every grade of scholarly activity. In these accounts of journeys occur frequently the words _sodalitium_ and _fraternitas_. At Strassburg Jacob Spiegel, an imperial secretary, presented him to "the fraternity." From Schlettstadt "certain of the fraternity" escorted him to Colmar. These words seem to refer to the group of scholars in any city and give us a pleasant suggestion of the growing comradeship of learning all through the northern centres of culture. He tells us how warmly he was received at Basel by the bishop, the magistrates, and other chief men of the church and the university. Everybody knew that he was there, and yet "those fools were spreading the story that I had gone over to Wittenberg. Is there anything they would be ashamed of? My health was fairly good at Basel until the rooms began to be cold. When I found that this cold was unbearable to others, I suffered a moderate fire to be built now and then, but this good-nature cost me dear. Soon a vile rheum broke out and thereupon followed the gravel."