Philip himself addressed a private letter to Granvelle, of course that others might see it, in which he affected to have just learned that the Cardinal had obtained permission from the Regent “to make a visit to his mother, in order to arrange certain family matters,” and gravely gave his approbation to the step.  At the same time it was not possible for the King to resist the temptation of adding one other stroke of dissimulation to his own share in the comedy.  Granvelle and Philip had deceived all the world, but Philip also deceived Granvelle.  The Cardinal made a mystery of his departure to Pollwiller, Viglius, Morillon, to the Emperor, to his own brother, and also to the 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, where he spent a great portion of his time.  In one of his letters to Vice-Chancellor Seld, he described the beauties of this retreat with much delicacy and vigor—­“I am really not as badly off here,” said he, “as I should be in the Indies.  I am in sweet places