never known to change color except upon two occasions:  after the fatal destruction of his fleet at Algiers, and in the memorable flight from Innspruck.  He was of a phlegmatic, stoical temperament, until shattered by age and disease; a man without a sentiment and without a tear.  It was said by Spaniards that he was never seen to weep, even at the death of his nearest relatives and friends, except on the solitary occasion of the departure of Don Ferrante Gonzaga from court.  Such a temperament was invaluable in the stormy career to which he had devoted his life.  He was essentially a man of action, a military chieftain.  “Pray only for my health and my life,” he was accustomed to say to the young officers who came to him from every part of his dominions to serve under his banners, “for so, long as I have these I will never leave you idle; at least in France.  I love peace no better than the rest of you.  I was born and bred to arms, and must of necessity keep on my harness till I can bear it no longer.”  The restless energy and the magnificent tranquillity of his character made him a hero among princes, an idol with his officers, a popular favorite every where.  The promptness with which, at much personal hazard, he descended like a thunderbolt in the midst of the Ghent insurrection; the juvenile ardor with which the almost bedridden man arose from his sick-bed to smite the Protestants at Muhlberg; the grim stoicism with which he saw sixty thousand of his own soldiers perish in the wintry siege of Metz; all ensured him a large measure of that applause which ever follows military distinction, especially when the man who achieves it happens to wear a crown.  He combined the personal prowess of a knight of old with the more modern accomplishments of a scientific tactician.  He could charge the enemy in person like the most brilliant cavalry officer, and he thoroughly understood the arrangements of a campaign, the marshalling and victualling of troops, and the whole art of setting and maintaining an army in the field.

Yet, though brave and warlike as the most chivalrous of his ancestors, Gothic, Burgundian, or Suabian, he was entirely without chivalry.  Fanaticism for the faith, protection for the oppressed, fidelity to friend and foe, knightly loyalty to a cause deemed sacred, the sacrifice of personal interests to great ideas, generosity of hand and heart; all those qualities which unite with courage and constancy to make up the ideal chevalier, Charles not only lacked but despised.  He trampled on the weak antagonist, whether burgher or petty potentate.  He was false as water.  He inveigled his foes who trusted to imperial promises, by arts unworthy an emperor or a gentleman.  He led about the unfortunate John Frederic of Saxony, in his own language, “like a bear in a chain,” ready to be slipped upon Maurice should “the boy” prove ungrateful.  He connived at the famous forgery of the prelate of Arras, to which the Landgrave Philip owed his long imprisonment; a villany worse than many for which humbler rogues have suffered by thousands upon the gallows.  The contemporary world knew well the history of his frauds, on scale both colossal and minute, and called him familiarly “Charles qui triche.”