was pale, and that he seemed dying of overwork.  He discharged his duties cheerfully, however, for in the service of Philip he knew no rest.  “After God,” said Badovaro, “he knows no object save the felicity of his master.”  He was already, as a matter of course, very rich, having been endowed by Philip with property to the amount of twenty-six thousand dollars yearly, [at values of 1855] and the tide of his fortunes was still at the flood.

Such were the two men, the master and the favorite, to whose hands the destinies of the Netherlands were now entrusted.

The Queen of Hungary had resigned the office of Regent of the Netherlands, as has been seen, on the occasion of the Emperor’s abdication.  She was a woman of masculine character, a great huntress before the Lord, a celebrated horsewoman, a worthy descendant of the Lady Mary of Burgundy.  Notwithstanding all the fine phrases exchanged between herself and the eloquent Maas, at the great ceremony of the 25th of October, she was, in reality, much detested in the provinces, and she repaid their aversion with abhorrence.  “I could not live among these people,” she wrote to the Emperor, but a few weeks before the abdication, “even as a private person, for it would be impossible for me to do my duty towards God and my prince.  As to governing them, I take God to witness that the task is so abhorrent to me, that I would rather earn my daily bread by labor than attempt it.”  She added, that a woman of fifty years of age, who had served during twenty-five of them, had a right to repose, and that she was moreover “too old to recommence and learn her A, B, C.”  The Emperor, who had always respected her for the fidelity with which she had carried out his designs, knew that it was hopeless to oppose her retreat.  As for Philip, he hated his aunt, and she hated him—­although, both at the epoch of the abdication and subsequently, he was desirous that she should administer the government.

The new Regent was to be the Duke of Savoy.  This wandering and adventurous potentate had attached himself to Philip’s fortunes, and had been received by the King with as much favor as he had ever enjoyed at the hands of the Emperor.  Emanuel Philibert of Savoy, then about twenty-six or seven years of age, was the son of the late unfortunate duke, by Donna Beatrice of Portugal, sister of the Empress.  He was the nephew of Charles, and first cousin to Philip.  The partiality of the Emperor for his mother was well known, but the fidelity with which the family had followed the imperial cause had been productive of nothing but disaster to the duke.  He had been ruined in fortune, stripped of all his dignities and possessions.  His son’s only inheritance was his sword.  The young Prince of Piedmont, as he was commonly called in his youth; sought the camp of the Emperor, and was received with distinguished favor.  He rose rapidly in the military service.  Acting always upon his favorite motto, “Spoliatis