Erasmus going to Basle.
Erasmus had decided upon going to Basle, and in writing to Beatus Rhenanus[684] to inform him that he intended to do so in the course of the summer, ‘if it should be safe to travel through Germany,’ he spoke of the condition of Germany as ‘worse than that of the infernal regions,’ on account of the numbers of robbers; and asked what princes could be about to allow such a state of things to exist.
‘All sense of shame,’ he wrote, ‘has vanished altogether from human affairs. I see that the very height of tyranny has been reached. The Pope and kings count the people not as men, but as cattle in the market.’
Erasmus leaves Louvain for Basle.
Once more, on May 1, Erasmus wrote to Colet before leaving for Basle, to tell him that he really was going, in spite of the dangers of travel through a country full of disbanded ruffians; to complain of the cruel clemency of princes who spare scoundrels and cut-throats, and yet do not spare their own subjects, to whom those who oppress their people are dearer than the people themselves; and to reiterate his intention to fly back to his English friends as soon as his work at Basle should be accomplished. And then he ventured on the journey.[685]
CHAPTER XV.
I. ERASMUS ARRIVES AT BASLE—HIS LABOURS THERE (1518).