He went next to Besancon, where he was received by Franciscus Bonvalutus, a scholar of some note, and then by Berne to Zurich. He must have crossed the Alps by the Splugen Pass, as Chur is named in his itinerary, and he also describes his voyage down the Lake of Como on the way to Milan, where he arrived on January 3, 1553. Cardan was a famous physician when he set out on his northward journey; but now on his return he stood firmly placed by the events of the last few months at the head of his profession. Writing of the material results of his mission to Scotland, he declares that he is ashamed to set down the terms upon which he was paid, so lavishly was he rewarded for his services. The offers made to him by so many exalted personages to secure his permanent and exclusive attention would indeed have turned the heads of most men. There was the offer from the King of Denmark; another, in 1552, from the King of France at a salary of thirteen hundred crowns a year; and yet another made by the agents of Charles V., who was then engaged in his disastrous attack upon Metz. All of them he refused: he had no inclination to share the perils of the leaguer of Metz, and his sense of loyalty forbad him to join himself to the power which was at that time warring against his sovereign. He speaks also of another offer made to him by the Queen of Scotland of a generous salary if he would settle in Scotland; but the country was too remote for his taste. There is no authority for this offer except the _De Vita Propria_, and it is there set down in terms which render it somewhat difficult to identify the Queen aforesaid.[163] As soon as he entered Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga, the Governor, desired to secure his services as physician to the Duke of Mantua, his brother, offering him thirty thousand gold crowns as honorarium; but, in spite of the Governor's persuasions and threats, he would not accept the office. When the news had come to Paris that Cardan was about to quit Britain, forty of the most illustrious scientists of France repaired to Paris in order to hear him expound the art of Medicine; but the disturbed state of the country deterred him from setting foot in France. He refers to a letter from his friend Ranconet as a testimony of the worship that was paid to him, and goes on to say that, in his journeying through France and Germany, he fared much as Plato fared at the Olympic games.