Some monks were drinking together at Cologne, a city where Erasmus had many bigoted enemies. One of the fraternity of preaching friars brought to them the news that Erasmus was dead at Louvain! The intelligence was received with applause by the convivial monks, and again and again was the applause repeated, when the preacher added, in his monkish Latin, that Erasmus had died, like a heretic as he was, ‘sine lux, sine crux, sine Deus.’[717]
CHAPTER XVI.
I. ERASMUS DOES NOT DIE (1518).
The monks of Cologne were disappointed. Erasmus did not die. His illness turned out not to be the plague. After four weeks’ nursing at the good printer’s house, he was well enough to be removed to his own lodgings within the precincts of the college. Thence he wrote to Beatus Rhenanus in these words:—
Erasmus to Beatus Rhenanus.[718]
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Erasmus describes his illness.