eatened him and all
his friends with excommunication, and whatever place he might go to with
an interdict; he had a mandate from the Pope to that effect already in
his hands. He then dismissed him with the words, "Revoke, or do not come
again into my presence." Nevertheless he spoke in quite a friendly
manner after this to Staupitz, urging him to try his best to convert
Luther, whom he wished well. Luther, however, wrote the same day to his
friend Spalatin, who was with the Elector, and to his friends at
Wittenberg, telling them he had refused to yield. Luther added further
that an appeal would be drawn up for him in the form best fitted to the
occasion. He further hinted to his Wittenberg friends at the possibility
of his having to go elsewhere in exile; indeed, his friends already
thought of taking him to Paris, where the university still rejected the
doctrine of papal absolutism. He concluded this letter by saying that he
refused to become a heretic by denying that which had made him a
Christian; sooner than do that, he would be burned, exiled, or cursed.
The appeal, of which Luther here spoke, was "from the Pope ill-informed
to the same when better informed." On October 16th he submitted it,
formally prepared, to a public notary.

Luther even addressed, on October 17th, a letter to Cajetan, conceding
to him the utmost he thought possible. Moved, as he said, by the
persuasions of his dear father Staupitz and his brother Link, he offered
to let the whole question of indulgences rest, if only that which drove
him to this tragedy were put a stop to; he confessed also to having been
too violent and disrespectful in dispute. In after-years he said to his
friends, when referring to this concession, that God had never allowed
him to sink deeper than when he had yielded so much. The next day,
however, he gave notice of his appeal to the legate, and told him he did
not wish longer to waste his time in Augsburg. To this letter he
received no answer.

Luther waited, however, till the 20th. He and his Augsburg patrons began
to suspect whether measures had not already been taken to detain him.
They therefore had a small gate in the city wall opened in the night,
and sent with him an escort well acquainted with the road. Thus he
hastened away, as he himself described it, on a hard-trotting hack, in a
simple monk's frock, with only knee-breeches, without boots or spurs,
and unarmed. On the first day he rode eight miles, as far as