s to prove his final
resting-place.[288] The monks of Yuste had been much flattered by the
circumstance of Charles having shown such a preference for their
convent. As he entered the chapel, Te Deum was chanted by the whole
brotherhood; and when the emperor had prostrated himself before the
altar, the monks gathered round him, anxious to pay him their respectful
obeisance. Charles received them graciously, and, after examining his
quarters, professed himself well pleased with the accommodations
prepared for him. His was not a fickle temper. Slow in forming his
plans, he was slower in changing them. To the last day of his residence
at Yuste,--whatever may have been said to the contrary,--he seems to
have been well satisfied with the step he had taken and with the spot he
had selected.

[Sidenote: HIS MODE OF LIFE.]

From the first, he prepared to conform, as far as his health would
permit, to the religious observances of the monastery. Not that he
proposed to limit himself to the narrow circumstances of an ordinary
friar. The number of his retinue that still remained with him was at
least fifty, mostly Flemings;[289] a number not greater, certainly, than
that maintained by many a private gentleman of the country. But among
these we recognize those officers of state who belong more properly to a
princely establishment than to the cell of the recluse. There was the
major-domo, the almoner, the keeper of the wardrobe, the keeper of the
jewels, the chamberlains, two watchmakers, several secretaries, the
physician, the confessor, besides cooks, confectioners, bakers, brewers,
game-keepers, and numerous valets. Some of these followers seem not to
have been quite so content as their master with their secluded way of
life, and to have cast many a longing look to the pomps and vanities of
the world they had left behind them. At least such were the feelings of
Quixada, the emperor's major-domo, in whom he placed the greatest
confidence, and who had the charge of his household. "His majesty's
bedroom," writes the querulous functionary, "is good enough; but the
view from it is poor,--barren mountains, covered with rocks and stunted
oaks; a garden of moderate size, with a few straggling orange-trees; the
roads scarcely passable, so steep and stony; the only water, a torrent
rushing from the mountains; a dreary solitude!" The low, cheerless
rooms, he predicts, must necessarily be damp, boding no good to the
emperor's infirmity.[290]