King's secretary, Gonzalo Perez; but he was not aware that Perez, whom he
thought himself deceiving as ingeniously as he had done all the others,
had himself drawn up the letter of recall, which the King had afterwards
copied out in his own hand and marked "secret and confidential." Yet
Granvelle might have guessed that in such an emergency Philip would
hardly depend upon his own literary abilities.

Granvelle remained month after month in seclusion, doing his best to
philosophize. Already, during the latter period of his residence in the
Netherlands, he had lived in a comparative and forced solitude. His
house had been avoided by those power-worshippers whose faces are rarely
turned to the setting sun. He had, in consequence, already, before his
departure, begun to discourse on the beauties of retirement, the fatigues
of greatness, and the necessity of repose for men broken with the storms
of state. A great man was like a lake, he said, to which a thirsty
multitude habitually resorted till the waters were troubled, sullied,
and finally exhausted. Power looked more attractive in front than in the
retrospect. That which men possessed was ever of less value than that
which they hoped. In this fine strain of eloquent commonplace the
falling minister had already begun to moralize upon the vanity of human
wishes. When he was established at his charming retreat in Burgundy,
he had full leisure to pursue the theme. He remained in retirement till
his beard grew to his waist, having vowed, according to report, that he
would not shave till recalled to the Netherlands. If the report were
true, said some of the gentlemen in the provinces, it would be likely to
grow to his feet. He professed to wish himself blind and deaf that he
might have no knowledge of the world's events, described himself as
buried in literature, and fit for no business save to remain in his
chamber, fastened to his books, or occupied with private affairs and
religious exercises. He possessed a most charming residence at Orchamps,