On Friday, May 3, 1521, a date never to be forgotten in my memory, quite early in the morning the Vicomte de Barras left Marburg with a portion of his company, on some hurried expedition, the precise object whereof he was not careful to announce. His niece with another portion of his cortège remained behind at the commodious _Blauer Engel_ Inn. It was understood at the inn that there also remained behind the unfortunate crazed gentleman, whom it was necessary to chain and, at times, lest his cries become highly distressing, even to gag, and whom the Vicomte was conveying to his kinsfolk in Gascony. It is possible that some one of the inn servants imagined that the Vicomte talked with his people in a strange dialect sounding more Italian than French, but after all foreigners were foreigners in a small German city, and certainly the Vicomte was charmingly free with his money. The good folk of Marburg would surely have marvelled much had they known how that nobleman rode out of Worms a few days before with a red cassock and a red hat, taking ceremonious leave of His Majesty’s courtiers, as being about to revisit France to exercise the good offices of the Vatican in behalf of peace. A few leagues his company had travelled straight westward, then at a solitary spot in the road the master of the party had given a sly laugh. The cavalcade had halted. He of the red robe had dismounted, had exchanged his red gown and hat for a very secular blue doublet and cloak, and a gray hat with a rakish heron’s feather. At his side he had girded a long Toledo. Presto! the Cardinale di Forli had vanished, the Vicomte de Barras took command. The retainers had given a shout of approval. The melancholy, crazed nobleman had been allowed to peer out of the windows of his closed coach. The beautiful niece of the Vicomte had clapped her hands, crying in admiration “_Voila, le galant gentilhomme!_” Then the leader had remounted, and briskly led the way, not westward now, but northward, passing close to Mainz but not entering that city, crossing the Rhine near Bingen, not on the regular ferry, but on the barge of some obscure water-man they hired towards evening. They had lain over that night at Rudesheim, then continued their travels very quietly, avoiding frequented roads, yet occasionally halting (so their most unfortunate prisoner could understand), to inquire of peasants and wayfarers, “Whether the famous Dr. Luther had returned from Worms that way?”