In January 1500 he returned to Paris, which though it could offer no Greek teacher better than George Hermonymus, was at least a better centre for buying and for printing books. The next few years were spent still in preparation, supported by pupils' fees and the dedications of books; the _Collectanea adagiorum_ in June 1500 to Mountjoy, and some devotional and moral compositions to Batt's patroness and her son. When the plague drove him from Paris, he went to Orleans or Tournehem or St Omer, as the way opened. From 1502 to 1504 he was at Louvain, still declining to teach publicly; among his friends being the future Pope Adrian VI. In January 1504 the archduke Philip gave him fifty livres for the Panegyric which "_ung religieux de l'ordre de St Augustin_" had composed on his Spanish journey; and in October, ten more, for the maintenance of his studies. He had been working hard at Greek, of which he now felt himself master, at the Fathers (above all at Jerome), and at the Epistles of St Paul, fulfilling the promise made to Colet in Oxford, to give himself to sacred learning. But the bent of his reading is shown by the manuscript with which he returned to Paris at the close of 1504--Valla's _Annotations on the New Testament_, which Badius printed for him in 1505. Shortly afterwards Lord Mountjoy invited him again to England, and this visit was more successful. He found in London a circle of learned friends through whom he was introduced to William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Foxe, bishop of Winchester and other dignitaries. John Fisher (bishop of Rochester), who was then superintending the foundation of Christ's College for the Lady Margaret, took him down to Cambridge for the king's visit; and at length the opportunity came to fulfil his dream of seeing Italy. Baptista Boerio, the king's physician, engaged him to accompany his two sons thither as supervisor of their studies. In September 1506 he set foot on that sacred soil, and took his D.D. at Turin. For a year he remained with his pupils at Bologna, and then, his engagement completed, negotiated with Aldus Manutius for a new edition of his _Adagia_ upon a very different scale. The volume of 1500 had been jejune, written when he knew nothing of Greek; 800 adages put together with scanty elucidations. In 1508 he had conceived a work on lines more to the taste of the learned world, full of apt and recondite learning, and now and again relieved by telling comments or lively anecdotes. Three thousand and more collected justified a new title--_Chiliades adagiorum_; and the author's reputation was now established. So secure in public favour did the book in time become, that the council of Trent, unable to suppress it and not daring to overlook it, ordered the preparation of a castrated edition.