his cradle, with mankind of all ranks.

It may be supposed that this train of living was attended with expense.
Moreover, he had various other establishments in town and country;
besides his almost royal residence in Brussels. He was ardently fond of
the chase, particularly of the knightly sport of falconry. In the
country he "consoled himself by taking every day a heron in the clouds."
His falconers alone cost him annually fifteen hundred florins, after he
had reduced their expenses to the lowest possible point. He was much in
debt, even at this early period and with his princely fortune. "We come
of a race," he wrote carelessly to his brother Louis, "who are somewhat
bad managers in our young days, but when we grow older, we do better,
like our late father: 'sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper et in
secula seculorum'. My greatest difficulty," he adds, "as usual, is on
account of the falconers."

His debts already amounted, according to Granvelle's statement, to
800,000 or 900,000 florins. He had embarrassed himself, not only through
his splendid extravagance, by which all the world about him were made to
partake of his wealth, but by accepting the high offices to which he had
been appointed. When general-in-chief on the frontier, his salary was
three hundred florins monthly; "not enough," as he said, "to pay the
servants in his tent," his necessary expenses being twenty-five hundred
florins, as appears by a letter to his wife. His embassy to carry the
crown to Ferdinand, and his subsequent residence as a hostage for the
treaty in Paris, were also very onerous, and he received no salary;
according to the economical system in this respect pursued by Charles and
Philip. In these two embassies or missions alone, together with the
entertainments offered by him to the court and to foreigners, after the
peace at Brussels, the Prince spent, according to his own estimate,