hile Francis I. was already a victorious king and a famous
knight. But the young archduke's able governor, William de Croy, Lord of
Chievres, "had early trained him," says M. Mignet, "to the understanding
and management of his various interests; from the time that he was
fifteen, Charles presided every day at his council; there he himself read
out the contents of despatches which were delivered to him the moment
they arrived, were it even in the dead of night; his council had become
his school, and business served him for books. . . . Being naturally
endowed with superior parts, a penetrating intellect and rare firmness of
character, he schooled himself to look Fortune in the face without being
intoxicated by her smiles or troubled at her frowns, to be astonished by
nothing that happened, and to make up his mind in any danger. He had
even now the will of an emperor and an overawing manner. 'His dignity and
loftiness of soul are such,' says a contemporary writer, 'that he seems
to hold the universe under his feet.'" Charles's position in Germany was
as strong as the man himself; he was a German, a duke of Austria, of the
imperial line, as natural a successor of his grandfather Maximilian at
Frankfort as of his grandfather Ferdinand at Madrid. Such was the
adversary, with such advantages of nationality and of person, against
whom Francis I., without any political necessity, and for the sole
purpose of indulging an ambitious vision and his own kingly self-esteem,
was about to engage in a struggle which was to entail a heavy burden on
his whole life, and bring him not in triumph to Constantinople, but in
captivity to Madrid.

Before the death of Maximilian, and when neither party had done more than
foresee the struggle and get ready for it, Francis I. was for some time
able to hope for some success. Seven German princes, three
ecclesiastical and four laic, the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and
Troves, and the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Count
Palatine of the Rhine, and the King of Bohemia, had the sole power of
electing the emperor. Four of them, the Archbishops of Troves and of
Cologne, the Count Palatine of the Rhine and the Margrave of Brandenburg,
had favorably received the overtures of Francis I., and had promised him
their suffrages. His devoted servant, Robert de la Marck, Lord of
Fleuranges, had brought to him at Amboise a German gentleman from the
Palatinate, Franz von Sickingen, "