Chapter VII: Basel and Louvain--The "institutio Principis Christiani" (2)

Somewhat less apocryphal than these stories is the report of an offer from King Francis I. of France. It comes to us in a letter written by the French scholar, William Budæus, to Erasmus while he was in the Low Countries. Budæus says that William Parvus (Guillaume Petit), an ecclesiastic who stood very near the king, had told him that one day in the course of a conversation about literary men, the king had expressed his determination[112]

[112] iii.¹, 169-A.

"to gather the choicest spirits into his kingdom by the most
ample rewards and to found in France a seminary, if I may so
call it, of scholars. Parvus had long been watching for such an
opportunity, being not merely a supporter of all learning, but
also a special admirer of yours, and said that in his opinion
Erasmus ought to be invited the very first one, and that this
could most properly be done by Budæus ... and finally, that the
king, moved by some noble impulse, was brought to the point of
saying that this offer should be made to you by me in his name:
that if you could be persuaded to come here to live and devote
yourself to literary work here as you are wont to do over there,
he would promise to give you a living worth a thousand francs
and more. Now you understand that my influence comes in only
so far as I assume the part of a mediator, not of a sponsor,
and simply pass on to you in good faith what I have heard from
Parvus."

Budæus then goes on to say that he has little to do with court affairs, but that if Erasmus likes it, he may well promise himself a fine position in Paris.

"Immortal gods! what an honour for you! what a splendid fortune
in the judgment of all learned men, to be summoned into a
distant land by the greatest and most illustrious of kings on
the sole recommendation of your learning!... As far as one can
guess, he desires to be the founder of a splendid institution,
so that in the future, quite otherwise than in the past, liberal
learning may seem to be a thing of profit."

Lest Erasmus should fancy this wish of the king to be "a whim, rather than a carefully considered and settled judgment," he refers to the very favourable opinion of Erasmus held by Stephen Poncher, bishop of Paris, and quotes him as saying that the king had at heart the cause of elegant learning and had conversed with him on the subject of bringing together men eminent in scholarship.

"I said to him at the time, that you might be called into
France with an honourable provision and promised that I would
take it upon myself and bring it to pass. I said that you had
studied in Paris and knew France as well as the place of your
birth. I think he will be most favourable to you.... I expect
that William Cop, the king's physician, a man learned in both
tongues, a friend and well-wisher of yours, will write to you
about this and, others perhaps by the king's order; or even the
king himself."

Cop did write, in contrast with the intolerable verbosity of Budæus, a very brief note, in which he says that the king, persuaded by Parvus and others, had ordered him to write and sound Erasmus as to the conditions under which he would be willing to come to Paris.

That seems to have been the whole story of Erasmus' "call" to Paris: a report by one man of a conversation with others, moderate expressions of good will on the part of the Parisian scholars, but hardly a definite promise of anything. At best, the proposal was that he should take a church living, and to this he was, more or less to his credit, always disinclined. His reply to Budæus is interesting. He says:

"I had hardly got myself well out of that very wordy letter,
which I guess will be as tedious to you in the reading as it was
to me in the writing, when another letter of yours came to me
in which you express the kind intentions of the Most Christian
King towards me. I will answer briefly, not to bore both you and
myself to death with verbosity and also because I have to write
to many others. The king's purpose is worthy of a prince and
even of such a prince as he. I approve it most highly.

"His splendid plans for me I owe chiefly to you, my friend,
who have pictured me, not as I am, but as you would wish me
to be;--and that at your own risk as much as mine. The same
subject was most eagerly pressed in the king's name by that most
illustrious advocate, the bishop of Paris, whom you describe in
your letter no less truly than graphically. It would be a long
story to compress into one letter all the pros and cons. I see
what your advice is, and I value it the more because it is given
by a man at once very cautious, and very friendly to me. For if
ever there is a place for the Greek proverb: 'The gifts of the
unfriendly are no gifts at all,' I think it is in matters of
advice. But while I confess that I am deeply indebted, not only
to you all, but especially to your most excellent and generous
king, I cannot make any definite answer until I have discussed
the plan with the Chancellor of Burgundy, who has gone on a
journey to Cambrai.... I will only say at present that France
was ever dear to me on many accounts [we remember his affection
for the Collége Montaigu, and his reference to that 'dunghill
of a Paris'] and is now attractive to me for no reason stronger
than that Budæus is there. Indeed there is no reason to make me
out a stranger as you do for, if we may believe the map-makers,
Holland too is a part of France."

Nor does Erasmus commit himself any more decidedly in the personal letter which he sent at the same time to King Francis.[113] The letter is filled with adulation, but expresses also the writer's honest approval of the king's momentary policy of peace. The final phrase, "to whom I wholly give and dedicate myself," must not be construed as having any meaning whatever. The offer was neither accepted nor repeated. We may well doubt whether in the year 1516 Erasmus would really have cared to attach himself to the French court or to any other on any terms.

[113] iii., 185.

He mentions in several places, as a sign of the great favour shown him by Francis I., the fact that he had received a most friendly autograph letter from the king. Such a letter has indeed been found among papers relating to Erasmus at Basel. How much it may have meant the reader may judge for himself:

"Cher et bon amy. Nous avons donne charge a notre cher et bien
ame messire Claude Cantiuncula, present porteur, de vous dire
et declairer aucunes choses de par nous, desquelles vous prions
tres affectueusment le croyre, et y adjouster entiere foy, comme
feriez a notre propre personne. Cher et bon amy, notre Seigneur
vous ait en sa garde.

"Escript a Sainct Germain en Laye le 7me jour de juillet.

[In Erasmus' hand], "Je vous avertys que sy vous
"_Hec rex scripsit pro- voules venyr que vous seres le
pria manu._" byen venu
"FRANCOYS.
"ROBERTET."

It has been usual to explain his reluctance to attach himself anywhere at this time, by certain obligations towards the young King Charles I. of Spain, later the Emperor Charles V., arising from his appointment to a counsellor's position in the royal household. That some such office was given him in or about the year 1516 is quite certain; but that he was ever asked for his advice may be doubted, and his own complaints would indicate that he never received any considerable emoluments from his office. A letter to the imperial counsellor Carondiletus in 1524 throws light upon both the French call and the imperial pension.[114]

[114] iii.¹, 794.

"To reply at once to your letter and that of the Lady Margaret,
I will say in few words that it is not merely smoke that the
French are showing. On the contrary, some time ago, when
Poncher, Bishop of Paris, was the French ambassador at Brussels,
before Charles was emperor, he offered me in his own name, over
and above the king's bounty, four hundred crowns besides all
expenses, promising me also that my leisure and my freedom of
movement should be undisturbed.... The reason why the king of
France called me so many times he explained by his messenger.
He had determined to establish at Paris a College of the Three
Languages, such as there is at Louvain, and he wanted me to be
the head of it. I excused myself, however, remembering how
much enmity and trouble I had borne there from some theologians
on the score of the Busleiden College. Yet my servant, when he
came back from France, reported on certain information that a
treasury order for a thousand pounds was ready and waiting for
me there.

"I have not so far been much of a burden on the treasury of my
prince, for my pension has only once been paid therefrom. It
has been procured by another process, without any expense to
the treasury. It costs me a great deal to live here, especially
on account of my frequent illnesses--though indeed I am in
other ways not at all a good manager with money. I have already
contracted a good many debts, so that, even if my health would
permit me to leave, perhaps my creditors would not. I should,
therefore, be very glad, if it can be done, to have the pension
for at least one year paid over to this messenger, to relieve my
immediate necessity. I send a letter of the emperor, making the
same request."

Again in 1525 he writes[115]:

[115] iii.¹, 874-F.

"By the first of September there will be due me eight hundred
gold florins, the payment, that is, of four years. I don't see
what good I am to get out of this delay unless perchance I am to
need money in the Elysian Fields."

And once more in 1527 to Laurinus[116]:

[116] iii.¹, 1009-F.

"I have written to your brother as you wished, but I see no hope
of the emperor's pension unless I return thither. For the matter
was once for all brought up in council and the reply was made me
in the name of the Lady Margaret that both the pension and other
things worthy of me were ready for me if I would come back. So
I do not think that your brother, eloquent and earnest patron
as he is, ought to be wearied with this affair. The emperor has
twice ordered the pension to be paid to me out of course, but he
is more easily obeyed when he orders a tax than when he commands
a payment."

We cannot for a moment believe that the holding of this honourary title required any personal attendance at the royal court which hindered Erasmus' freedom of motion when he desired to move. The principal fruit of his appointment was the little treatise called the _Institutio Principis Christiani_,[117] written, probably, in acknowledgment of the honour and dedicated to the young prince. This very amiable bit of advice is a companion-piece to the panegyric upon the prince's father written about twelve years before. It is unlike that early performance in being almost entirely free from exaggerated personal adulation; it is like it in the freedom with which it lays down for the guidance of the prince rules of conduct similar to those which ought to govern the individual Christian man in his dealings with the world of his fellow-men. Yet the principles are not the mere commonplaces of morality. The prince ought to be a good man in the Christian meaning of that term, but not merely good, as any private man might be. Erasmus has at every point a reason for the particular exercise of virtue he may be commending, and his illustrations, drawn chiefly from the best rulers of antiquity, are pertinent and show, of course, the widest and readiest command of the ancient literatures. To estimate aright the significance and value of Erasmus' declarations on public policy, we must remember that we are dealing with a contemporary of Macchiavelli, whose _Principe_, with its total indifference to the moral point of view, was already written and undoubtedly in circulation in manuscript, though not printed until 1532. Whether it was known to Erasmus we cannot say. If it was, he could hardly have made a more complete reply to it than this. Macchiavelli took the world as it was, especially that Italian part of it which he knew best, and, assuming that the process of state-building which he saw going on all about him was to continue along similar lines, he simply laid down the principles of success in that process. Erasmus, on the other hand, assuming that human society was a moral organism, was not concerned chiefly with outward or momentary success, but rather with the higher moral function of the ruler. He believed that success founded upon morality would be higher and more enduring than that which rested upon mere expediency. The central point of view with Macchiavelli was the person of the prince; Erasmus thought of the prince only as the servant of his people. Both drew, or thought they drew, their inspiration from classic tradition; but Macchiavelli sought for his illustrations at those points of ancient history where his principles seemed to be worked out into great and enduring political structures, while Erasmus drew from the decay of precisely the same institutions his lesson of the permanence of moral obligation and of that alone.

[117] iv., 593-612.

Perhaps the best and most pertinent example of his method of treatment is found in the chapter on taxation. It will be evident that the questions which were disturbing his mind have not yet ceased to agitate the world. Substitute for "prince" the word "government," and it will appear that most of the financial problems of our present day were burning questions in the days of Erasmus and Thomas More; for in More's Utopia we have in the main the same moral elevation applied to the same questions as in the _Institutio_. Erasmus says[118]:

[118] iv., 593-594.

"The ancient writers tell us that many rebellions have arisen
from immoderate taxation. The good prince ought therefore to
see to it that the minds of his people should be as little
as possible disturbed by these matters. Let him if possible
govern without expense to them. The office of the prince is too
lofty to be used for money-making. The good prince has for his
own whatever his loving subjects have. There have been many
heathen who put nothing into their treasuries from serving
the state save glory alone; and some, like Fabius Maximus and
Antoninus Pius, despised even this. How much more, then, ought
the Christian prince to be satisfied with the consciousness
of rectitude, especially since he serves a Master who leaves
no good deed without ample reward. There are men who busy
themselves with nothing but finding out new devices for cheating
the people, and think they are best serving the prince by
making themselves the enemies of his subjects. Let him who
listens to them know that he is far from the true ideal of a
prince.

"The very best way to increase the revenue is to cut off
unnecessary expense, doing away with burdensome service,
avoiding wars and journeys that are like wars, checking the
greed of officials, and trying rather to govern well what the
prince has, than to get more. Otherwise, if he is to measure
his taxes by his greed or his ambition, what limit or end of
taxation will there be? For desire is infinite and is always
pressing and straining at what it has once begun until,
according to the old proverb, the overdrawn rope will break and
the exhausted patience of the people burst forth into rebellion,
whereby the most powerful empires have been ruined.

"But, if necessity demands that something shall be exacted
of the people, then it is the part of a good prince to do it
in such a way that the least burden may fall upon those who
have least. For it may be a good thing to summon the rich to
frugality, but to compel the poor to hunger and the gallows
is not merely inhuman, but dangerous as well.... Let him well
ponder this, that an expense once incurred at some emergency as
pertaining to the advantage of the prince or the nobility, can
never be abolished. When the emergency is past, not only ought
the burden to be taken from the people, but the outlay of that
former period ought, as far as possible, to be remedied and made
good. Let him who cares for his people beware of the corrupt
precedent. If he rejoices in the calamity of his own citizens
or gives no thought to it, he is as far as can be from being a
prince, no matter by what name he is called.

"It ought to be provided for that there be not too great
inequality of wealth;--not that I would have anyone deprived
of his goods by force, but that care should be taken lest the
wealth of the whole community be limited to a certain few. For
Plato would have his citizens neither too rich nor too poor,
because the poor man cannot be of profit to the state, and the
rich man, after his kind, does not want to profit it. Nor do
princes even gain wealth by exactions of this sort. If anyone
would prove this, let him consider how much less his ancestors
took from their subjects, how much more they gave, and yet how
much more of everything they had, because a great part of these
present taxes slips between the fingers of those who collect and
receive them, but only a very small part ever gets to the prince
himself.

"Then, whatever things are in common use by the mass of the
people, these a good prince will tax as lightly as possible, as
for example, corn, bread, beer, wine, clothing, and other things
without which human life cannot go on. But now these things are
especially burdened, and that in many different ways: first, by
the very heavy exactions of the contractors which the people
call assizes, then by duties which have also their contractors,
and finally by monopolies which bring little to the prince, but
crush the poor by higher prices.

"So then, as I have said, let the income of the prince be
increased by economy, according to the old proverb: 'Thrift is
a great revenue.' But if some duties cannot be avoided and the
interest of the people demands it, then let the burden fall upon
foreign and outlandish wares, which have to do rather with the
luxury and refinements of life than with necessity, and which
are used by the rich alone, as for example, fine linen, silks,
purple, perfumes, unguents, gems, and everything of that sort.
For this burden is felt only by those whose fortunes can bear
it and who by these payments are not reduced to want, but
perchance are rendered more frugal, so that by loss of money,
good morals are improved."

It would be going too far to say that these economic and financial views of Erasmus are purely original; they are doubtless gathered from his reading of the ancients, especially from Plato and Aristotle; they are, however, addressed with perfect directness to evils of his own time and they show us that his mind was working upon matters of large public import, as well as upon his more purely scholarly interests.

It would be impossible for Erasmus to go through any treatise on public affairs without saying something about the wickedness and folly of fighting, and so we find him concluding his _Institutio_ with a chapter on the undertaking of war. It is his familiar argument, but especially follows the point that war should not be undertaken until all other methods of composing differences shall have failed. "If we were of this mind there would hardly ever be a war anywhere." He shows very clearly how seldom the alleged cause of war affects the people of a country. Such causes are usually the private affair of princes.

"Because one prince offends another in some trifle, and that
a private matter, about relationship by marriage or some such
thing, what is this to the people as a whole? The good prince
measures all things by the advantage of the people, otherwise he
were not even a prince. The law is not the same towards men and
towards beasts.... But if some dissensions arise between princes
why not rather resort to arbiters? There are so many bishops,
so many abbots, scholars, serious magistrates, by whose judgment
such a matter might far more decently be composed than by so
much murder, pillage, and misfortune throughout the world."

Here is international arbitration, pure and simple, a doctrine not appearing in the Utopia, and, so far as I know, not to be found in any modern writer before Erasmus; a dream as yet in his time and long to remain so, but, in the vast ebb and flow of human affairs, coming ever nearer to some definite realisation.

Perhaps the most striking argument of Erasmus against war is the utter hopelessness of it as a means of gaining the ultimate good of the state.

"'But,' they say, 'what safety will there ever be, if no one
pursues his right?' By all means let right be pursued, if
this be of advantage to the state, but let not the right of
the prince be too costly to the people. And pray what safety
is there now, when everyone is pursuing his right to the very
death? We see wars arising from wars, war following upon war,
and no limit or end to the confusion. So it is clear enough that
by these means nothing is accomplished. Therefore other remedies
ought to be tried. Even between friends there would be no bond
unless they sometimes made concessions, one to the other. The
husband often pardons certain things to his wife, that harmony
between them may not be broken. What does war breed, but war?
while gentleness calls forth gentleness and equity invites
equity."

The closing paragraph has almost a ring of irony in view of the future course of the young prince, for whose edification all this wisdom was put forth.

"I doubt not, most illustrious Prince, that you are of the same
mind; for so you were born and so you have been taught by the
best and most sincere teachers. As for the rest, I pray that
_Christus optimus maximus_ may prosper your noble efforts. He
has given you an empire without bloodshed; his will is that
you preserve it ever free from blood. May it come to pass that
through your goodness and wisdom we may at last have a rest from
these mad wars. Peace will be made precious to us by the memory
of evils past and our gratitude to you will be doubled by the
misfortunes of other times."

All this to Charles of Burgundy, already Most Catholic King of Spain, within a year to be elected Holy Roman Emperor, and destined for the next generation to turn Europe into a battle-field for objects in which no one of his numerous subject peoples had the remotest interest! Evidently the man who could give only such counsel as this was not likely to be sought as an intimate adviser of the prince. In fact we have no reason to suppose that Erasmus' settlement at Louvain had more than a nominal connection with his appointment as imperial councillor. He was a councillor much in the sense of the modern German "Geheimrath."

Erasmus took up his residence at Louvain in 1516, not, so far as we know, in the capacity of a regular teacher, though he occupied a room in the university. There is the usual uncertainty as to his motives and feelings about the change. Writing to Ammonius from Brussels in the autumn of 1516,[119] he says, "I am most eager to hear how our business is getting on." Such passages of mysterious meaning occur in almost every letter to this fellow-scholar and indicate clearly that Ammonius was continually working in Erasmus' interest. They are now made somewhat clearer by the discoveries of W. Vischer at Basel. The reference is probably to the negotiations with the papacy in regard to the dispensations which bear date a few months later. It is probable also that Ammonius was putting in a word as he could in England to secure the regular payment of his friend's allowances. The letter goes on:

[119] iii., 137 E-F.

"I am going to winter in Brussels. Whatever you may send to
Tunstall [the English ambassador at Brussels] will be handed
to me at once; I am in continual relations with him. I am not
disposed to go to Louvain. There I should have to be paying my
duty to the scholastics at my own cost. The young men would be
yelping at me all the time: 'correct this ode; or this epistle,'
one will be calling for this author, one for that. There is
no one there who can be either a help or an attraction to me.
Besides all this I should have to listen sometimes to the
snarlings of the pseudo-theologians, the most unpleasant kind
of men. Lately there has arisen one of these who has stirred up
almost a tumult against me, so that I am now holding the wolf by
the ears, able neither to kill him nor to get away. He flatters
me to my face and bites behind my back, promises me a friend and
offers me an enemy. Would that mighty Jove would smash up this
whole class of men and make them over again; for they contribute
nothing to make us better or wiser, but are always making
trouble with everyone."

But having had his grumble, Erasmus made up his mind to go. During the next four years Louvain was more his home than any other place. He left it, as we have seen, often and for months together, but it seems to have suited him as well as he was willing to be suited anywhere. His accounts of his relations with the place and the people are as apparently inconsistent as his utterances on other subjects. Within a short time after his settlement he writes to Tunstall:

"I find the theologians at Louvain men of high character and
culture, especially John Atensis, Chancellor of this University,
a man of incomparable learning and endowed with rare refinement.
There is here no less theological learning than at Paris, but it
is of a less sophistical and arrogant sort."

Again, in the autumn of 1518, he writes:

"The air thus far remains pure; there have been few cases of
illness, and those of disease imported from elsewhere."

As to the individual scholars, he found himself on the best of terms with Martin Dorpius, the critic of his _Moria_, of whom he said in 1520, "on account of his distinguished talents for learning and eloquence I could not hate him even when he was made use of against me by evil managers." Dorpius continued to be his friend and admirer, as appears from the letter to Beatus, in which he is described as one of Erasmus' chief comforters during his tedious illness after the Rhine journey.

During Erasmus' residence at Louvain occurred the foundation of the College of the Three Languages by Jerome Busleiden, brother of a former archbishop of Besançon, and himself a councillor of the King of Spain. Erasmus writes in 1518 to a third brother, Ægidius, referring to his attempts at making an epitaph for Jerome:

"How many attractions have we lost in this one man! I can
easily imagine your feelings at the loss of your brother, when
the whole chorus of good and learned men is breaking into one
lament. But why these empty regrets, why these useless tears? We
are all born to this fate."

He is not well satisfied with his epitaphs and evidently has some fear that the bequest will not be carried out.

"As to founding the college, see that you are not led away from
that purpose. Believe me, this thing will not only contribute
more than I can say to every branch of learning but will also
add to the name of Busleiden, already so distinguished in many
ways, no little increase of honour and splendour."

These fears were not justified; the college was founded and the advice of Erasmus was sought in the difficult matter of finding suitable teachers to fill the new chairs. We have several of the letters written by him in the discharge of this commission. One of these, to John Lascaris, a native Greek scholar, is interesting in several ways. It is one of the clearest illustrations of Erasmus' power of direct statement when a matter of business was in hand. He first states the terms of Busleiden's bequest to found a college

"in which shall be taught publicly and without expense
the three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, with the
sufficiently splendid salary of about seventy ducats, which may
be increased according to the value of the person. The Hebrew
and Latin teachers are on hand. Many are competing for the
Greek professorship, but it has always been my opinion that a
native Greek should be procured, so that the hearers may get
the correct pronunciation at once. All the trustees of this
undertaking agree with me and have commissioned me to invite,
in their behalf, whomever I should judge suitable for this
position. I therefore beg you, both by your wonted kindness
to me and your devotion to the cause of learning, if you know
anyone who you think would do honour to yourself and to me, to
send him hither as soon as you can. He will have money for the
journey, his salary, and his lodgings. He will have to do with
men of honour and refinement. He may have the same confidence in
my letter as if the affair were sealed with a hundred contracts.
Between good men a bargain may be as well made without bonds.
You select the proper man, and I will see to it that he shall
not regret coming."

The Hebrew teacher referred to was a Jew named Adrian, chosen, it would appear, on the same principle of employing native teachers. It must have required a steady nerve to recommend the appointment of a Jew, even a converted one, at a time when the affair of Reuchlin, turning on just this question of respect for Hebrew learning, had barely ceased to agitate the world of scholars. Erasmus commends Adrian to Ægidius Busleiden in a letter[120] of sound practical sense. Fortune has just thrown him in their way;

[120] iii., 353-A.

"he is a Hebrew by birth but long since a Christian by religion,
a physician by profession, and so skilled in the whole Hebrew
literature that in my judgment there is no one at this day to be
compared with him. But if my opinion has not sufficient weight
with you, all whom I have known in Germany or in Italy who were
versed in that language, have borne the same testimony. He not
only knows the language perfectly, but is thoroughly acquainted
with the mysteries of the authors and has them all at his
fingers' ends.... Pray command me if there is anything in which
you think I can assist you."

The Latin professor mentioned was Conrad Goclenius, the man of all others whom Erasmus selected some few years later, when he thought he was going to die, as the confidant of his most intimate thoughts and wishes.