the Protestants of Germany, and in other important fields.  War being his element, he considered peace as undesirable, although he could recognize its existence.  A truce he held, however, to be a senseless parodox, unworthy of the slightest regard.  An armistice, such as was concluded on the February following the abdication, was, in his opinion, only to be turned to account by dealing insidious and unsuspected blows at the enemy, some portion of whose population might repose confidence in the plighted faith of monarchs and plenipotentiaries.  He had a show of reason for his political and military morality, for he only chose to execute the evil which had been practised upon himself.  His father had been beggared, his mother had died of spite and despair, he had himself been reduced from the rank of a sovereign to that of a mercenary soldier, by spoliations made in time of truce.  He was reputed a man of very decided abilities, and was distinguished for headlong bravery.  His rashness and personal daring were thought the only drawbacks to his high character as a commander.  He had many accomplishments.  He spoke Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian with equal fluency, was celebrated for his attachment to the fine arts, and wrote much and with great elegance.  Such had been Philibert of Savoy, the pauper nephew of the powerful Emperor, the adventurous and vagrant cousin of the lofty Philip, a prince without a people, a duke without a dukedom; with no hope but in warfare, with no revenue but rapine; the image, in person, of a bold and manly soldier, small, but graceful and athletic, martial in bearing, “wearing his sword under his arm like a corporal,” because an internal malady made a belt inconvenient, and ready to turn to swift account every chance which a new series of campaigns might open to him.  With his new salary as governor, his pensions, and the remains of his possessions in Nice and Piedmont, he had now the splendid annual income of one hundred thousand crowns, and was sure to spend it all.

It had been the desire of Charles to smooth the commencement of Philip’s path.  He had for this purpose made a vigorous effort to undo, as it were, the whole work of his reign, to suspend the operation of his whole political system.  The Emperor and conqueror, who had been warring all his lifetime, had attempted, as the last act of his reign, to improvise a peace.  But it was not so easy to arrange a pacification of Europe as dramatically as he desired, in order that he might gather his robes about him, and allow the curtain to fall upon his eventful history in a grand hush of decorum and quiet.  During the autumn and winter of 1555, hostilities had been virtually suspended, and languid negotiations ensued.  For several months armies confronted each other without engaging, and diplomatists fenced among themselves without any palpable result.  At last the peace commissioners, who had been assembled at Vaucelles since the beginning of the year 1556, signed a treaty