rmany was still agitated by the great religious contest between the
Catholics and the Protestants, which divided the empire into two nearly
equal parties, bitterly hostile to each other. Various fruitless
attempts had been made to bring the parties together, into _unity of
faith_, by compromise. Neither party were reconciled to cordial
_toleration_, free and full, in which alone harmony can be obtained. In
all the States of the empire the Catholics and the Protestants were
coming continually into collision. Charles, though a very decided
Catholic, was not disposed to persecute the Protestants, as most of his
predecessors had done, for he feared to rouse them to despair.

England, France, Austria and Spain, were now involved in an inextricable
maze of diplomacy. Congresses were assembled and dissolved; treaties
made and violated; alliances formed and broken. Weary of the conflict of
arms, they were engaged in the more harmless squabbles of intrigue, each
seeking its own aggrandizement. Philip V., who had fought so many bloody
battles to acquire the crown of Spain, now, disgusted with the cares
which that crown involved, overwhelmed with melancholy, and trembling in
view of the final judgment of God, suddenly abdicated the throne in
favor of his son Louis, and took a solemn oath that he would never
resume it again. This event, which surprised Europe, took place on the
10th of February, 1724. Philip retired to St. Ildefonso.

The celebrated palace of St. Ildefonso, which became the retreat of the
monarch, was about forty miles north of Madrid, in an elevated ravine
among the mountains of Gaudarruma. It was an enormous pile, nearly four
thousand feet above the level of the sea, and reared by the Spanish
monarchs at an expense exceeding thirty millions of dollars. The palace,
two stories high, and occupying three sides of a square, presents a
front five hundred and thirty feet in length. In this front alone there
are, upon each story, twelve gorgeous apartments in a suite. The
interior is decorated in the richest style of art, with frescoed
ceilings, and splendid mirrors, and tesselated floors of variegated
marble. The furniture was embellishcd with gorgeous carvings, and
enriched with marble, jasper and verd-antique. The galleries were filled
with the most costly productions of the chisel and the pencil. The
spacious garden, spread out before the palace, was cultivated with the
utmost care, and ornamented with fountains sur