Catholic cause in Germany seemed again to be gaining ground rapidly.

Erasmus would not or could not keep his departure a secret. He sent the
most precious of his possessions in advance, and when this had drawn
attention to his plan, he purposely invited Oecolampadius to a farewell
talk. The reformer declared his sincere friendship for Erasmus, which
the latter did not decline, provided he granted him to differ on certain
points of dogma. Oecolampadius tried to keep him from leaving the town,
and, when it proved too late for that, to persuade him to return later.
They took leave with a handshake. Erasmus had desired to join his boat
at a distant landing-stage, but the Council would not allow this: he had
to start from the usual place near the Rhine bridge. A numerous crowd
witnessed his embarkation, 13 April 1529. Some friends were there to see
him off. No unfavourable demonstration occurred.

His reception at Freiburg convinced him that, in spite of all, he was
still the celebrated and admired prince of letters. The Council placed
at his disposal the large, though unfinished, house built for the
Emperor Maximilian himself; a professor of theology offered him his
garden. Anthony Fugger had tried to draw him to Augsburg by means of a
yearly allowance. For the rest he considered Freiburg by no means a
permanent place of abode. 'I have resolved to remain here this winter
and then to fly with the swallows to the place whither God shall call
me.' But he soon recognized the great advantage which Freiburg offered.
The climate, to which he was so sensitive, turned out better than he
expected, and the position of the town was extremely favourable for
emigrating to France, should circumstances require this, or for dropping
down the Rhine back to the Netherlands, whither many always called him.
In 1531 he bought a house at Freiburg.

The old Erasmus at Freiburg, ever more tormented by his painful malady,
much more disillusioned than when he left Louvain in 1521, of more
confirmed views as to the great ecclesiastical strife, will only be
fully revealed to us when his correspondence with Boniface Amerbach, the
friend whom he left behind at Basle--a correspondence not found complete
in the older collections--has been edited by Dr. Allen's care. From no
period of Erasmus's life, it seems, may so much be gleaned, in point of
knowledge of his daily habits and thoughts, as from these very years.
Work went on without a break in that gre