The Councillor Viglius, whom Barbara looked directly in the face, did not exactly profit by the contrast with Granvelle, for the small figure of the Frieslander barely reached to the chin of the distinguished native of tipper Burgundy, but his head presented a singular and remarkably vivid colouring.  The perfectly smooth hair and thick beard of this no longer young man were saffron yellow, and his plump face was still red and white as milk and blood.  It was easy to perceive by his whole extremely striking appearance that he was rightly numbered among the Emperor’s shrewdest councillors.  Barbara had heard marvellous tales of his learning, and it was really magnificent in compass and far more important than his keen but narrow mind.  This time the loquacious man was allowing the Bishop of Arras to speak, and Barbara listened to his words and the councillor’s answers with eager attention.

They were talking about the approaching abdication, and who knew the Emperor Charles better than these far-seeing men, who were so near his person?

If only she had not been obliged to believe this, for what she heard from them showed in sombre lines what her heart had clothed with golden radiance.

Everything Wolf had told her concerning the motives which induced Charles to devote himself for the remainder of his life to quiet contemplation seemed to her as credible as to the knight himself.  But he had received what he knew from Queen Mary of Hungary, who interpreted her royal brother’s conduct like an affectionate sister, or thought it advisable to represent it in the most favourable light.

It had not occurred to the warm-hearted, straightforward Wolf to doubt the royal lady’s statement; but Barbara had regarded her friend’s explanation of the Emperor’s wonderful act of renunciation as she would have gazed at a citadel founded on a rock with towers rising to the clouds, and in imagination had followed to his solitude the world-weary philosopher, the father yearning for the child he had missed so long.  But how pitilessly what she heard here overthrew the proud edifice! how cruelly it destroyed what she had deemed worthy of the greatest admiration, what had rendered her happy and reanimated her wishes and her hopes!

The wise Granvelle foresaw how the world would judge his master’s abdication, and described it to the Frieslander.  It bore a fateful resemblance to the regent’s interpretation, her friend’s opinion, and her own, and the shrewd Viglius accompanied this narrative with so scornful a laugh that it made her heart ache.

“This is what will be said,” concluded the Bishop of Arras, summing up his previous statements, “of the wise scorner of the world upon the throne, who cast aside sceptre and crown in order, as a pious recluse, to secure the salvation of his soul and, like a second Diogenes, to listen to the wealth of his thoughts and investigate the nature of things.”

“If only the pure spring from which the Greek dipped water in the hollow of his hand was not changed to a cellar full of fiery wine, his hermit fare to highly seasoned pasties, stuffed partridges, frozen fruit juices, truffled pheasants, and such things!  But everybody to his taste!  The world will be deceived.  Unless you wish to blind yourself, your Eminence, you will admit that I have seen correctly the most powerful motives for this unequalled act.”