power to do what he had
promised in regard to Burgundy, offered to pay the emperor two millions of
crowns instead. In short, Charles had overreached himself through his
stringency to a captive rival, and lost all through his eagerness to
obtain too much.

Ten years afterwards the relations between the two monarchs were in a
measure reversed. A rebellion had broken out in Flanders which needed the
immediate presence of Charles, and, for reasons satisfactory to himself,
he wished to go through France. His counsellors at Madrid looked upon such
a movement as fatally rash; but Charles persisted, feeling that he knew
the character of Francis better than they. The French king was ready
enough to grant the permission asked, and looked upon the occasion as an
opportunity to show his rival how kings should deal with their royal
neighbors.

Charles was received with an ostentatious welcome, each town entertaining
him with all the magnificence it could display. He was presented with the
keys of the gates, the prisoners were set at liberty, and he was shown all
the honor due to the sovereign of the country itself. The emperor, though
impatient to continue his journey, remained six days in Paris, where all
things possible were done to render his visit a pleasant one. Had Francis
listened to the advice of some of his ministers, he would have seized and
held prisoner the incautious monarch who had so long kept him in
captivity. But the confidence of the emperor was not misplaced; no
consideration could induce the high-minded French king to violate his
plighted word, or make him believe that Charles would fail to carry out
certain promises he had made. He forgot for the time how he had dealt with
his own compacts, but Charles remembered, and was no sooner out of France
than all his promises faded from his mind, and Francis learned that he was
not the only king who could enter into engagements which he had no
intention to fulfil.

THE INVASION OF AFRICA.

As Italy was invaded by Gonsalvo de Cordova, the Great Captain, so Africa
was invaded by Cardinal Ximenes, the Great Churchman, one of the ablest
men who ever appeared in Spain, despite the fact that he made a dreadful
bonfire of thousands of Arabian manuscripts in the great square of
Granada. The greater part of these were copies of the Koran, but many of
them were of high scientific and literary value, and impossible to
replace. Yet, while thus engaged in a work fitted