"Here," said the royal alchemist, taking up a second scroll of yellow parchment, "is another formula which caused me much trouble and expense to procure. It tells how to make thunder and lightning."
The emperor, with his profound knowledge of the heavens and the secrets of the earth, was an object of too much awe to Le Glorieux to be joked with, as he was in the habit of doing, but he said to Philibert as they left their august host, "Of course, it may be a great pleasure to know how to make thunder and lightning, and a man who is fond of excitement and tired of a quiet life might do it sometimes just to amuse himself. But, speaking for myself, I do not think I should like to mix up such a mess, at least not often."
It was in that same year that the emperor died, leaving Maximilian ruler in name as he had been for some time in fact. He was in possession of the domains of the Hapsburgs, as well as those of the Dukes of Burgundy, and he was served by kings and electors. Still, in spite of his exalted position, he did not become cold and forbidding in his manner, remaining frank and affable as he had been before. Writers have criticised him for his friendly ways, but after all is it not better for a ruler to be the darling of his people than always to be on his dignity, afraid to show a little human friendliness and good feeling?
The year after Maximilian became emperor he was united in marriage to Bianca Sforza, an Italian lady. When this marriage was first mentioned Le Glorieux said to the Lady Marguerite, "I can learn nothing about your new mother save that she is high-tempered, and fond of a certain kind of shellfish. It seems to me there ought to be something more to say about a woman than just that!"
The princess accepted her new mother as a matter of course. This marriage was an affair of mere business; the emperor needed money with which to fight Charles the Eighth of France, and money he would obtain by his marriage with this lady, who was far inferior to her predecessor, Mary of Burgundy, both in education and beauty. Although Frederick had claimed to have discovered the secret of turning quicksilver into gold, he did not seem to have left the recipe behind him, for the purse of his son was always gaunt and longing to be filled.
The Lady Clotilde had not returned to France, as it had been her intention to do; she had found that the climate of Austria agreed with her health to a degree little short of marvelous. She said that there were certain viands that she would not dare to touch in Burgundy, Brittany, or France, but which in the German empire did her all the good in the world. Of course, she was going away soon, next month, or surely the month after; but still the Lady Clotilde lingered on.
Philibert, finding greater advantages here for a young gentleman of rank than in his own country, also remained. It seemed that the Count de Bresse, his father, absorbed in his own schemes—and they were not always innocent ones—had almost forgotten that he owned a son, and the boy was well contented to be thus neglected, being perfectly happy in his new surroundings. In those days nations were almost continually engaged in some kind of turmoil, either fighting each other or trying to make peace, and Austria had its share of such proceedings; but at this time the principal characters of this story saw only the pleasant side of life. Antoine became more and more proficient in his music; Philibert became quite scholarly at the court of this emperor, who surrounded himself with scholars; Le Glorieux amused himself and everybody else, while the princess was put under the care of her tutors, and, taking a leaf from her father's book, was always affable and gracious to her inferiors.