greater magnanimity than the retreat of Charles. Born in the purple,
having exercised unlimited authority from his boyhood, and having worn
from his cradle so many crowns and coronets, the German Emperor might
well be supposed to have learned to estimate them at their proper value.
Contemporary minds were busy, however, to discover the hidden motives
which could have influenced him, and the world, even yet, has hardly
ceased to wonder. Yet it would have been more wonderful, considering the
Emperor's character, had he remained. The end had not crowned the work;
it not unreasonably discrowned the workman. The earlier, and indeed the
greater part of his career had been one unbroken procession of triumphs.
The cherished dream of his grandfather, and of his own youth, to add the
Pope's triple crown to the rest of the hereditary possessions of his
family, he had indeed been obliged to resign. He had too much practical
Flemish sense to indulge long in chimeras, but he had achieved the Empire
over formidable rivals, and he had successively not only conquered, but
captured almost every potentate who had arrayed himself in arms against
him. Clement and Francis, the Dukes and Landgraves of, Clever, Hesse,
Saxony, and Brunswick, he had bound to his chariot wheels; forcing many
to eat the bread of humiliation and captivity, during long and weary
years. But the concluding portion of his reign had reversed all its
previous glories. His whole career had been a failure. He had been
defeated, after all, in most of his projects. He had humbled Francis,
but Henry had most signally avenged his father. He had trampled upon
Philip of Hesse and Frederic of Saxony, but it had been reserved for one
of that German race, which he characterized as "dreamy, drunken, and
incapable of intrigue," to outwit the man who had outwitted all the
world, and to drive before him, in ignominious flight, the conqueror of
the nations. The German lad who had learned both war and dissimulation
in the court and camp of him who was so profound a master of both arts,
was destined to eclipse his teacher on the most august theatre of