not how I
could help leaving the monastery, and taking the remedy into my own
hands."[326] Thus did Charles make his voice heard from his retreat
among the mountains, and by his efforts and influence render himself
largely responsible for the fiery persecution which brought woe upon the
land after he himself had gone to his account.

[Sidenote: HE CELEBRATES HIS OBSEQUIES.]

About the middle of August, the emperor's old enemy, the gout, returned
on him with uncommon force. It was attended with symptoms of an alarming
kind, intimating, indeed, that his strong constitution was giving way.
These were attributed to a cold which he had taken, though it seems
there was good reason for imputing them to his intemperate living; for
he still continued to indulge his appetite for the most dangerous
dishes, as freely as in the days when a more active way of life had
better enabled him to digest them. It is true, the physician stood by
his side, as prompt as Sancho Panza's doctor, in his island domain, to
remonstrate against his master's proceedings. But, unhappily, he was not
armed with the authority of that functionary; and an eel-pie, a
well-spiced capon, or any other savory abomination, offered too great a
fascination for Charles to heed the warnings of his physician.

The declining state of the emperor's health may have inspired him with a
presentiment of his approaching end, to which, we have seen, he gave
utterrance some time before this, in his conversation with Gaztelu. It
may have been the sober reflections which such a feeling would naturally
suggest that led him, at the close of the month of August, to conceive
the extraordinary idea of preparing for the final scene by rehearsing
his own funeral. He consulted his professor on the subject, and was
encouraged by the accommodating father to consider it as a meritorious
act. The chapel was accordingly hung in black, and the blaze of hundreds
of wax-lights was not sufficient to dispel the darkness. The monks in
their conventual dresses, and all the emperor's household, clad in deep
mourning, gathered round a huge _catafalque_, shrouded also in black,
which had been raised in the centre of the chapel. The service for the
burial of the dead was then performed; and amidst the dismal wail of the
monks, the prayers ascended for the departed spirit, that it might be
received into the mansions of the blessed. The sorrowful attendants were
melted to tears, as the image of their mas