"Some time afterward it happened that he went into a far country for the purpose of study. There, according to the French custom, he wore a linen scarf above his gown, supposing that this was not unusual in that country.[73] But from this he twice was in danger of his life, for the physicians there who serve during a plague, wear a white linen scarf on their left shoulder, so that it hangs down in front and behind, and in this way they are easily recognised and avoided by the passers-by. Yet, unless they go about by unfrequented ways they would be stoned by those who meet them, for such is the horror of death among those people, that they go wild at the very odour of incense because it is burned at funerals. At one time when Florentius was going to visit a learned friend, two blackguards fell upon him with murderous cries and drawn swords and would have killed him, if a lady fortunately passing had not explained to them that this was the dress of a churchman and not of a doctor. Still they ceased not to rage and did not sheathe their swords until he had pounded on the door of a house near by and so got in. [73] In another place he says that he changed his dress in Italy to conform to the custom of the country, iii., 1527. "At another time he was going to visit certain countrymen of his when a mob with sticks and stones suddenly got together and urged each other on with furious shouts of 'Kill the dog! Kill the dog!' Meanwhile a priest came up who only laughed and said in Latin in a low voice: 'Asses! Asses!' They kept on with their tumult, but as a young man of elegant appearance and wearing a purple cloak came out of a house, Florentius ran to him as to an altar of safety, for he was totally ignorant of the vulgar tongue and was only wondering what they wanted of him. 'One thing is certain,' said the young man: 'if you don't lay off this scarf, you'll some day get stoned; I have warned you, and now look out for yourself.' So, without laying aside his scarf, he concealed it under his upper garment." Such is the cock-and-bull story with which Erasmus, we know not how many years later, amused the excellent Grunnius as a preface to his petition for a papal dispensation from the duty of wearing the monastic dress. It is too silly even for Mr. Drummond, who very properly says that it is quite too much to believe either that Erasmus would be in a plague-stricken city when he could get out of it, or that any Italian could be so blind as not to know a monk from a doctor! Certainly Erasmus would never wait to be pounded in the street before finding out what dress he might safely wear. The reply of Grunnius shows how the whole matter looked at Rome.