Two examples may show the difficulty of learning the truth. In 1477 Charles the Bold was killed at Nancy. That great Duke of Burgundy was not a person to be hidden under a bed. Yet nearly six years later reports were current that he had escaped from the battle and was in concealment. Again, Erasmus, during his residence at Bologna in 1507, made many friends. One of these was Paul Bombasius, a native of that town, who became secretary to Cardinal Pucci, and lost his life at Rome in May 1527, when the city was sacked by Charles V's troops; another was the delightful John de Pins, afterwards diplomatist and Bishop of Rieux. To him in 1532 Erasmus wrote asking for news of Bombasius. The Bishop replied that he had heard a rumour of his death, but hoped it was not true. Not till May 1535 could Erasmus report the result of inquiries made through a friend visiting Bologna, that Bombasius had fallen a victim to the Bourbon soldiery eight years before. That the movements of the stars should affect human life is not easy to disprove even now, to any one who is determined to maintain the possibility of it; but under the training of modern science scarcely any one retains such a belief. Of the influence formerly attributed to the planets, traces survive in such epithets as mercurial, jovial, saturnine. Comets appearing in the sky caused widespread alarm, and any disasters that followed close were confidently connected with them. The most learned scientists observed the stars and cast horoscopes: Cardan, for instance, published a collection of the horoscopes of great men. The Church looked askance on astrology, suspecting it of connexion with forbidden arts; but it could not check the observance of lucky days and the warnings of the heavens. Even a Pope himself, Julius II, deferred his coronation until the stars were in a fortunate conjunction.