His "deserted Paris," "that Gallic dung-heap," was calling to Erasmus, perhaps with the same siren voice that has drawn thither so many another homeless genius, and he went. He was, if we may believe his later wails, pretty well supplied with money, which he had turned into French coin. He is very careful to insist that he had not received this money in England, but if not, it is difficult to imagine where it could have come from. He was aware of a law forbidding the exportation of gold from the realm, but had been advised by his friends that this law applied only to English coin and so felt safe. The customs officers at Dover, however, took another view of the matter and left him nothing but the small amount allowed by law, nor could his connections in high quarters ever avail him to make good his loss. An account of the affair, written, so Erasmus says, "unless he is mistaken," twenty-seven years afterward, brings this incident into direct connection with the earliest piece of writing in which Erasmus presented himself to the world in his true character. Speaking[49] of his mishap from the lofty position of a famous scholar before whose biting satire the great ones of the earth might well tremble a little, he gives himself great praise for not having taken immediate vengeance on the king and the country which had used him so badly, by writing something against them. He refrained partly because it seemed an unworthy thing to do, and partly because he would not be the means of bringing down the royal wrath upon his dear friends in England; and so, having no resources, he determined to publish something that might pay. He had nothing on hand, but by reading hard for a few days he "got together in haste quite a 'forest' of adages, thinking that a book of this sort, whatever its quality, would, by its very usefulness, go into the hands of students." [49] _Catalogus lucubrationum_, _op._ i.