Tauler is away on a visit to Basle, where the state of parties is precisely similar to our own, the citizens there, as in Friburg, joining our league for Louis and for Germany; and the bishop against them, tooth and nail.[104] My eldest boy (God bless him, he is fifteen this day, and a lad for a father to be proud of) hath accompanied the Doctor thither, having charge of sundry matters of business for me there. Had word from him last week. They have somehow procured a year’s remission of the Interdict for Basle. He says Suso came to see Tauler, and that they had long talk together for two days. Henry of Nördlingen is there likewise, and now that the pope hath kennelled his barking curse for a twelvemonth, preaches, to the thronging of the churches, wherever he goes. A.D. 1339. _January._—The new year opens gloomily. Without loss of time, fresh-forged anathemas are come, and coming, against the outspoken emperor and this troublesome Germany. Some of the preachers, and the bare-footed friars especially, have yet remained to say mass and perform the offices; now, even these are leaving the city. Some cloisters have stood for now two or three years quite empty. Many churches are deserted altogether, and the doors nailed up. The magistracy have issued orders to compel the performance of service. The clerks are fairly on the anvil; the civil hammer batters them on the one side, and the ecclesiastical upon the other with alternate strokes.