night when these appalling tidings were brought to him. The tortures of
the gout would not allow him to mount on horseback, neither could he
bear the jolting in a carriage over the rough roads. It was a dark and
stormy night, the 20th of May, 1552. The rain fell in torrents, and the
wind howled through the fir-trees and around the crags of the Alps. Some
attendants wrapped the monarch in blankets, took him out into the
court-yard of the palace, and placed him in a litter. Attendants led the
way with lanterns, and thus, through the inundated and storm-swept
defiles of the mountains, they fled with their helpless sovereign
through the long hours of the tempestuous night, not daring to stop one
moment lest they should hear behind them the clatter of the iron hoofs
of their pursuers. What a change for one short month to produce! What a
comment upon earthly grandeur! It is well for man in the hour of most
exultant prosperity to be humble. He knows not how soon he may fall.
Instructive indeed is the apostrophe of Cardinal Wolsey, illustrated as
the truth he utters is by almost every page of history:

"This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening--nips his root,
And then he falls as I do."

The fugitive emperor did not venture to stop for refreshment or repose
until he had reached the strong town of Villach in Carinthia, nearly one
hundred and fifty miles west of Innspruck. The troops of Maurice soon
entered the city which the emperor had abandoned, and the imperial
palace was surrendered to pillage. Heroic courage, indomitable
perseverance always commands respect. These are great and noble
qualities, though they may be exerted in a bad cause. The will of
Charles was unconquerable. In these hours of disaster, tortured with
pain, driven from his palace, deserted by his allies, impoverished, and
borne upon his litter in humiliating flight before his foes, he was just
as determined to enforce his plans as in the most brilliant hour of
victory.

He sent his brother Ferdinand and other ambassadors to Passau to meet
Maurice, and mediate for a settlement of the difficulties. Maurice now
had no need of diplomacy. His demands were simple and reasonable. They
were, that the emperor should liberate his father-in-law from captivity,
tolerate the Prote