But his ardent spirit could not long be content with monastic life. He brought his attainments somehow to the notice of Henry of Bergen, bishop of Cambrai, the leading prelate at the court of Brussels; and about 1494 permission was obtained for him to leave Steyn and become Latin secretary to the bishop, who was then preparing for a visit to Rome. But the journey was abandoned, and after some months Erasmus found that even with occasional chances to read at Groenendael, the life of a court was hardly more favourable to study than that of Steyn. At the suggestion of a friend, James Batt, he applied to his patron for leave to go to Paris University. The bishop consented and promised a small pension; and in August 1495 Erasmus entered the "domus pauperum" of the college of Montaigu, which was then under the somewhat rigid rule of the reformer Jan Standonck. He at once introduced himself to the distinguished French historian and diplomatist Robert Gaguin (1425-1502) and published a small volume of poems; and he became intimate with Johann Mauburnus (Mombaer), the leader of a mission summoned from Windesheim in 1496 to reform the abbey of Chateau-Landon. But the life at Montaigu was too hard for him. Every Lent he fell ill and had to return to Holland to recover. He continued to read nevertheless for a degree in theology, and at some time completed the requirements for the B.D. After a year or two he left Montaigu and eked out his money from the bishop by taking pupils. One of these, a young Englishman, William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy (d. 1534), persuaded him to visit England in the spring of 1499. Being without a benefice, he had no settled income to look to, and apart from the precarious profits of teaching and writing books, could only wait on the generosity of patrons to supply him with the leisure he craved. The faithful Batt had sought a pension for him from his own patroness, Anne of Borsselen, the Lady of Veere, who resided at the castle of Tournehem near Calais, and whose son Batt was now teaching. But as nothing promised at once, Erasmus accepted Mountjoy's offer, and thus a tie was formed which led Mountjoy then or a few years later to grant him a pension of L20 for life. Otherwise the visit to England gave no hope of preferment; and in the summer Erasmus prepared to leave. He was delayed, and used the interval to spend two or three months at Oxford, where he found John Colet lecturing on the Epistle to the Romans. Discussions between them on theological questions soon convinced Colet of Erasmus' worth, and he sought to persuade him to stay and teach at Oxford. But Erasmus could not be content with the Bible in Latin. Oxford could teach him no Greek, so away he must go.