Erasmus had never before felt so alarmed; he tried to stop Berquin in his ‘mad’ undertaking. The eulogies which this faithful christian lavished upon him particularly filled him with terror; he would a thousand times rather they had been insults. ‘The love which you show for me,’ he wrote to Berquin, ‘stirs up unspeakable hatred against me everywhere. The step you have taken with the king will only serve to irritate the hornets. You wish for a striking victory rather than a sure one; your expectations will be disappointed; the Bedists are contriving some atrocious plot.[632] ... Beware!... Even should your cause be holier than that of Christ himself, your enemies have resolved to put you to death. You say that the king protects you ... do not trust to that; the favour of princes is short-lived. You do not care for your life, you add; good! but think at least of learning, and of our friends who, alas! will perish with you.’ Berquin was grieved at this letter. In his opinion the moment was unparalleled. If Erasmus, Francis I., and Berquin act in harmony, no one can resist them; France, and perhaps Europe, will be reformed. And it is just when the King of France is stretching out his hand that the scholar of Rotterdam draws his back!... What can be done without Erasmus?... A circumstance occurred, however, which gave some hope to the evangelist. The Sorbonne, little heeding the king’s opposition, persevered in their attacks upon learning. They forbade the professors in the colleges to read the ‘Colloquies’ of Erasmus with their pupils, and excommunicated the king of the schools in the schools themselves.... Erasmus, who was a vain, susceptible, choleric man, will now unite with Berquin: the latter had no doubt of it. ‘The time is come,’ wrote Berquin to the illustrious scholar; ‘let us pull off the mask behind which these theologians hide themselves.’ But the more Berquin urged Erasmus, the more Erasmus shrank back; he wished for peace at any cost. It was of no use to point to the blows which the Sorbonne were aiming at him; it pleased him to be beaten, not from meekness, but from fear of the world. The wary man, who was now growing old, became impatient, not against his slanderers, but against his friend. His ‘son’ wanted to lead him as if he were his master. He replied with sadness, almost with bitterness: ‘Truly I admire you, my dear Berquin. You imagine, then, that I have nothing else to do than spend my days in battling with theologians.... I would rather see all my books condemned to the flames than go fighting at my age.’ Unhappily, Erasmus did not abandon his books only, he abandoned truth; and there he was wrong. Berquin did not despair of victory, and undertook to win it unaided. He thought to himself: ‘Erasmus admires in the Gospel a certain harmony with the wisdom of antiquity, but he does not adore in it the foolishness of the cross; he is a theorist, not a reformer.’ From that hour Berquin wrote