"Shall I leave it?" asked the secretary. "It is, as usual, very foolish."
"Leave it," replied his master. "You know I make a collection of them."
The priest's dark figure returned through the sunshine, and Granvelle sipped his wine, bright as a diluted jewel in the opal clouded glass, while his serene eyes rested on the sheet of coarse paper roughly printed with picture and verses in smeared black.
Presently he set down the wine and took up the paper delicately in his fine, capable fingers. It contained a hideous caricature of himself in the likeness of a hen seated on a nest of eggs, each of which was labelled with the name of one of the new dioceses; the shells of several were already broken, and newly fledged bishops were hopping out of them.
Granvelle was well used to such jests; the Netherlanders were famous for their pasquils, their pamphlets, their medals, and their rhetoric plays, and Granvelle had been the butt of all in turn; not even the terrors of the dreaded Inquisition itself could restrain the sharp and lively wits of the people from ridiculing their enemy.
Often enough they hit him on the raw, sometimes too they went wide of the mark, as in the coarse pasquil he held now; for, despite the general opinion to the contrary, the Cardinal was not responsible for the creation of the new bishoprics. He remained leaning back on his silk cushions gazing musingly at the caricature; the sense of some one approaching caused him to look up. Even his perfect control could scarcely repress a start; the Prince of Orange was coming across the grass. William made his salutation with smiling apology for his intrusion. The Cardinal dismissed the half-doubtful secretary, who was behind the Prince, and motioned his guest to the seat opposite his own.
"I come without permission," said William, smiling, "but I felt a great desire for a little speech with Your Eminence."
Granvelle's sumptuously liveried attendants were bringing the Prince cushions, a footstool, and setting before him wine, cakes, and fruit.
Granvelle, with a laugh, flicked the pasquil on to the marble table.
"The people become extraordinarily daring," he remarked, accepting the Prince's presence as if it was the usual thing for him to behold his arch-enemy at his table. "There is a general defiance, a lawlessness abroad, very displeasing to the servants of His Majesty."