e business of the cabinet; a
toil to which even night seemed to afford no respite. He sometimes
employed five secretaries at once, dictating to them in as many
different languages.[422] The same thing, or something as miraculous,
has been told of other remarkable men, both before and since. As a mere
_tour de force_ Granvelle may possibly have amused himself with it. But
it was not in this way that the correspondence was written which
furnishes the best key to the events of the time. If it had been so
written, it would never have been worth the publication.

Every evening Granvelle presented himself before the emperor, and read
to him the programme he had prepared of the business of the following
day, with his own suggestions.[423] The foreign ambassadors who resided
at the court were surprised to find the new minister so entirely in the
secrets of his master; and that he was as well instructed in all their
doings as the emperor himself.[424] In short, the confidence of Charles,
given slowly and with much hesitation, was at length bestowed as freely
on the son as it had been on the father. The two Granvelles may be truly
said to have been the two persons who most possessed the confidence of
the emperor, from the time that he took the reins of government into his
own hands.

When raised to the see of Arras, Granvelle was but twenty-five years
old. It is rare that the mitre has descended on a man of a more
ambitious spirit. Yet Granvelle was not averse to the good things of the
world, nor altogether insensible to its pomps and vanities. He affected
great state in his manner of living, and thus necessity, no less than
taste, led him to covet the possession of wealth as well as of power. He
obtained both; and his fortunes were rapidly advancing when, by the
abdication of his royal master, the sceptre passed into the hands of
Philip the Second.

Charles recommended Granvelle to his son as every way deserving of his
confidence. Granvelle knew that the best recommendation--the only
effectual one--must come from himself. He studied carefully the
character of his new sovereign, and showed a wonderful flexibility in
conforming to his humors. The ambitious minister proved himself no
stranger to those arts by which great minds, as well as little ones,
sometimes condescend to push their fortunes in a court.

Yet, in truth, Granvelle did not always do violence to his own
inclinations in conforming to those of Philip. Like the kin