Emperor A sufficient
explanation, if explanation were required, of his descent from the
throne. Moreover, it is well known that the resolution to abdicate before
his death had been long a settled scheme with him. It had been formally
agreed between himself and the Empress that they should separate at the
approach of old age, and pass the remainder of their lives in a convent
and a monastery. He had, when comparatively a young man, been struck by
the reply made to him by an aged officer, whose reasons he had asked for,
earnestly soliciting permission to retire from the imperial service. It
was, said the veteran, that he might put a little space of religious
contemplation between the active portion of his life and the grave.

A similar determination, deferred from time to time, Charles had now
carried into execution. While he still lingered in Brussels, after his
abdication, a comet appeared, to warn him to the fulfilment of his
purpose. From first to last, comets and other heavenly bodies were much
connected with his evolutions and arrangements. There was no mistaking
the motives with which this luminary had presented itself. The Emperor
knew very well, says a contemporary German chronicler, that it portended
pestilence and war, together with the approaching death of mighty
princes. "My fates call out," he cried, and forthwith applied himself to
hasten the preparations for his departure.

The romantic picture of his philosophical retirement at Juste, painted
originally by Sandoval and Siguenza, reproduced by the fascinating pencil
of Strada, and imitated in frequent succession by authors of every age
and country, is unfortunately but a sketch of fancy. The investigations
of modern writers have entirely thrown down the scaffolding on which the
airy fabric, so delightful to poets and moralists, reposed. The departing
Emperor stands no longer in a transparency robed in shining garments. His
transfiguration is at an end. Every action, almost every moment of his
retirement, accurately chronicled by those who shared his solitude, have
been placed before our eyes, in the most felicitous manner, by able and
brilliant writers. The Emperor, shorn of the philosophical robe in which
he had been conventionally arrayed for three centuries, shivers now in
the cold air of reality.

So far from his having immersed himself in profound and pious
contemplation, below the current of the world's events, his thoughts, on
the contrary, never