did not prevent him from suggesting the famous ban by which a price was
set upon his head, and his life placed in the hands of every assassin in
Europe. It did not prevent him from indulging in the jocularity of a
fiend, when the news of the first-fruits of that bounty upon murder
reached his ears. It did not prevent him from laughing merrily at the
pain which his old friend must have suffered, shot through the head and
face with a musket-ball, and at the mutilated aspect which his "handsome
face must have presented to the eyes of his apostate wife." It did not
prevent him from stoutly disbelieving and then refusing to be comforted,
when the recovery of the illustrious victim was announced. He could
always dissemble without entirely forgetting his grievances. Certainly,
if he were the forgiving Christian he pictured himself, it is passing
strange to reflect upon the ultimate fate of Egmont, Horn, Montigny,
Berghen, Orange, and a host of others, whose relations with him were
inimical.

His extravagance was enormous, and his life luxurious. At the same time
he could leave his brother Champagny--a man, with all his faults, of a
noble nature, and with scarcely inferior talents to his own--to languish
for a long time in abject poverty; supported by the charity of an ancient
domestic. His greediness for wealth was proverbial. No benefice was
too large or too paltry to escape absorption, if placed within his
possible reach. Loaded with places and preferments, rolling in wealth,
he approached his sovereign with the whine of a mendicant. He talked of
his property as a "misery," when he asked for boons, and expressed his
thanks in the language of a slave when he received them. Having obtained
the abbey of St. Armand, he could hardly wait for the burial of the
Bishop of Tournay before claiming the vast revenues of Afflighem,
assuring the King as he did so that his annual income was but eighteen
thousand crowns. At the same time, while thus receiving or pursuing the