The descent was much more easy, and soon the gray walls of Yuste, half hidden in chestnut-groves, came in sight. Yet it was three months before the traveller reached there, for the apartments preparing[pg 206] for him were far from ready, and he had to wait throughout the winter in the vicinity, in a castle of the Count of Oropesa, and in the midst of an almost continual downpour of rain, which turned the roads to mire, the country almost to a swamp, and the mountains to vapor-heaps. The threshold of his new home was far from an agreeable one.
Charles V. had long contemplated the step he had thus taken. He was only fifty-five years of age, but he had become an old man at fifty, and was such a victim to the gout as to render his life a constant torment and the duties of royalty too heavy to be borne. So, taking a resolution which few monarchs have taken before or since, he gave up his power and resolved to spend the remainder of his life in such quiet and peace as a retired monastery would give. Spain and its subject lands he transferred to his son Philip, who was to gain both fame and infamy as Philip II. He did his best, also, to transfer the imperial crown of Germany to his fanatical and heartless heir, but his brother Ferdinand, who was in power there, would not consent, and he was obliged to make Ferdinand emperor of Germany, and break in two the vast dominion which he had controlled.
Charles had only himself to thank for his gout. Like many a man in humbler life, he had abused the laws of nature until they had avenged themselves upon him. The pleasures of the table with him far surpassed those of intellectual or business pursuits. He had an extraordinary appetite, equal to that of any royal gourmand of whom history speaks, and,[pg 207] while leaving his power behind him, he brought this enemy with him into his retirement.
CHARLES V. APPROACHING YUSTE.
We are told by a Venetian envoy at his court, in the latter part of his reign, that, while still in bed in the morning, he was served with potted capon, prepared with sugar, milk, and spices, and then went to sleep again. At noon a meal of various dishes was served him, and another after vespers. In the evening he supped heartily on anchovies, of which he was particularly fond, or some other gross and savory food. His cooks were often at their wits' end to devise some new dish, rich and highly seasoned enough to satisfy his appetite, and his perplexed purveyor one day, knowing Charles's passion for timepieces, told him "that he really did not know what new dish he could prepare him, unless it were a fricassée of watches."
Charles drank as heartily as he ate. His huge repasts were washed down with potations proportionately large. Iced beer was a favorite beverage, with which he began on rising and kept up during the day. By way of a stronger potation, Rhenish wine was much to his taste. Roger Ascham, who saw him on St. Andrew's day dining at the feast of the Golden Fleece, tells us: "He drank the best that I ever saw. He had his head in the glass five times as long as any of us, and never drank less than a good quart at once of Rhenish."
It was this over-indulgence in the pleasures of the table that brought the emperor to Yuste. His physician warned him in vain. His confessor wasted admonitions on his besetting sin. Sickness and suffering[pg 208] vainly gave him warning to desist. Indigestion troubled him; bilious disorders brought misery to his overworked stomach. At length came gout, the most terrible of his foes. This enemy gave him little rest day or night. The man who had hunted in the mountains for days without fatigue, who had kept the saddle day and night in his campaigns, who had held his own in the lists with the best knights of Europe, was now a miserable cripple, carried, wherever he went, in the litter of an invalid.
One would have thought that, in his monastic retreat, Charles would cease to indulge in gastronomic excesses, but the retired emperor, with little else to think of, gave as much attention to his appetite as ever. Yuste was kept in constant communication with the rest of the world on matters connected with the emperor's table. He was especially fond of fish and all the progeny of the water,—eels, frogs, oysters, and the like. The trout of the neighborhood were too small for his liking, so he had larger ones sent from a distance. Potted fish—anchovies in particular—were favorite viands. Eel pasty appealed strongly to his taste. Soles, lampreys, flounders reached his kitchen from Seville and Portugal. The country around supplied pork, mutton, and game. Sausages were sent him from a distance; olives were brought from afar, as those near at hand were not to his liking. Presents of sweetmeats and confectionery were sent him by ladies who remembered his ancient tastes. In truth, Charles, tortured with gout, did everything he well could to favor its attacks.
The retired emperor, though he made a monastery his abode, had no idea of living like a monk. His apartments were richly furnished and hung with handsome tapestry, and every attention was paid to his personal comfort. Rich carpets, canopies of velvet, sofas and chairs of carved walnut, seats amply garnished with cushions for the ease of his tender joints, gave a luxurious aspect to his retirement. His wardrobe contained no less than sixteen robes of silk and velvet, lined with ermine, eider-down, or the soft hair of the Barbary goat. He could not endure cold weather, and had fireplaces and chimneys constructed in every room, usually keeping his apartments almost at furnace heat, much to the discomfort of his household. With all this, and his wrappings of fur and eider-down, he would often be in a shiver and complain that he was chilled to the bone.