Battus, his dear Battus, was pretty comfortably fixed at the castle of Tournehens on the island of Walcheren, the residence of the Marchioness of Veere. He was a good fellow and might be counted on to do his friend a good turn. We have Erasmus, then, in the Battus letters in an entirely new character,—as the flatterer of the great for his own personal advantage. The earliest indication of relations with the marchioness is in a Paris letter[32] to Battus, which begins:
"I can quite understand, Battus, best of men, how surprised you are that I don't fly to you at once, now that our affair has turned out so much better than either of us dared to hope. But when you know my reasons you will cease to wonder and will see that I have consulted your advantage no less than my own. I can hardly tell you how delighted I was at your letter. Already I am seeing visions of a happy life with you. What freedom to chatter away together! How we will live in common with our Muses! I just long to be free from this hateful slavery. 'Why then hesitate?' you say. You will see that I do so not without reason. I had not expected your messenger so soon. There are some little sums due me here, and you know very little is a great thing for me. I have unfulfilled obligations with certain persons, which I could not leave without injury. I am just beginning a month with the count; I have paid my room-rent," etc.
Then follows an account of some troubles about certain manuscripts and money lost by unsafe messengers, and then he returns to the subject of the marchioness.
"I don't need to urge you, dear Battus, for I know your loyalty and your affection, to consider at once my profit and my dignity. I am not a little in dread of a court and I am very conscious of my unlucky star. I rejoice greatly that the Lady is so favourably disposed towards me, but what says the antistes? what hope does he offer? Was ever anything colder? I would rather you had named a fixed sum than talked about a great one. I will not remind you of Vergil's line
"'... varium et mutabile semper,
Fœmina ...'
for I count her not among common women, but among those of manly quality (viragines). Yet how many are there in that place who care for my writings? or is there anyone who does not hate learning altogether? My whole fortune depends upon you. But if—which Jove forbid!—the affair should fall out contrary to both our wishes,—you, burdened with debt as you are, will be worse off in that respect, and what help, pray, can you be to me?
"I will not admit that your zeal for me is any hotter than mine for you; but I am sure we ought to take the greatest care not to be too eager in this matter. I write this not as having changed my opinion or as being fickle in my intentions, but to rouse your watchfulness; for we are both in the same position. Now if I hadn't so high an opinion of your loyalty, your prudence and your carefulness that, when I have turned the thing over to you I feel that I can sleep on both ears, I might be alarmed at this beginning of the business as at a very unfavourable omen. They have sent me a two-for-a-cent hired nag and an allowance for the journey that is just about nothing at all. Now, my dear James, if the beginning is so cold will the end be likely to boil? When will there be a more honourable or more fitting chance for you to ask a favour in my name than now, when they will have to get me away from this city and from such favouring circumstances? With such a pittance I could hardly come on foot; how should I manage it on horseback and with two companions? If the affair is to be paid for with my Lady's money, as I suppose, this beginning doesn't suit me; but if it is at your expense, I like it still less, for it would not only be unfair, but it would have to be done with borrowed money. What is more unlike the man you have always taken me for, than to come flying at the first nod and especially under such conditions? Who wouldn't think me either a greenhorn or a knave or at any rate in the last extremity? Who wouldn't despise me? If I weren't so awfully fond of you, Battus, my dear fellow, so that to live with you would repay me for any inconvenience, these things might turn me from my plans; but they don't move me in the least. I am only warning you to keep up my dignity with all diligence. Now you ask my opinion and here it is:—I will arrange my affairs here, collect my writings and settle up my business. Meanwhile you will be copying out what I send you. Write me, by the lad who they say is shortly coming hither to study, precisely how the land lies; then, when you have copied the Laurentius, send by the same lad who brings it—I mean Adrian—an allowance for the journey and some very definite statement; an allowance, mind you, suitable for me. I can't come at my own expense, dead broke as I am, and it is not right that I should leave my present fair enough position. Besides I want you to send me a better horse, if you can. I am not asking for a splendid Bucephalus, but one that a respectable man would not be ashamed to ride; and you understand that I need two horses, for I am determined to bring my servant and I intend this second horse for him. You will easily persuade my Lady of all this. You have an excellent case and I well know you are clever enough to make a good case out of the very worst. If she refuses to do this—well then, I pray you, how will she ever give a pension if she would refuse my travelling expenses? Now, then, you understand why I had to postpone our writing, as I said at the beginning, and I am sure you will approve it. I have told you how to keep up my dignity and all you have to do is to push the thing as fast as you can. I'll not be napping here; do you keep on the watch there."
This letter is one of the most important revelations of Erasmus' methods of providing for himself. Battus, his friend, had apparently held out to him a prospect of nothing less than a regular settlement at the court of the Marchioness Anna. Erasmus speaks especially of a settled life of study, with Battus as the chief attraction. But he is not going to give himself away too easily. He admits that he is at the end of his resources, but it would never do to let my Lady know this. His cue is to raise his own value in her eyes. So he delays, on the plea of important engagements; he reminds Battus that his stake in the affair is the same as his own—though one hardly sees why—and he urges him to caution lest he seem too eager in his suit. He flatters him with praise of his eloquence and with expressions of entire confidence. It is not a guileless youth whom we meet here, but a man of the world, conscious of himself to the point of morbidness, and yet willing to go pretty far along the road of sycophancy to the great.
The journey to Tournehens took place in the winter of 1497. In his account of it in a letter[33] to Mountjoy, Erasmus figures himself as the especial victim of hostile gods. He might have been Hannibal crossing the Alps, so magnificent is his language. Even the testimony of the oldest inhabitant is not omitted in proof of the terrors of the way. It is worth noticing that the gorgeous spectacle of trees encrusted with ice, the deep-drifted snow, the castle gleaming in a complete icy shroud, roused in Erasmus no sense of beauty or of grandeur. He was occupied solely with his own discomforts and describes all this as so much evidence of a malignant fate.