n his conduct, on more
than one occasion, while there, which is near akin to it. Such, for
example, was the morbid relish which he discovered for performing the
obsequies, not merely of his kindred, but of any one whose position
seemed to him to furnish an apology for it. Not a member of the _toison_
died, but he was prepared to commemorate the event with solemn funeral
rites. These, in short, seemed to be the festivities of Charles's
cloister life. These lugubrious ceremonies had a fascination for him,
that may remind one of the tenacity with which his mother, Joanna, clung
to the dead body of her husband, taking it with her wherever she went.
It was after celebrating the obsequies of his parents and his wife,
which occupied several successive days, that he conceived, as we are
told, the idea of rehearsing his own funeral,--a piece of extravagance
which becomes the more credible when we reflect on the state of morbid
excitement to which his mind may have been brought by dwelling so long
on the dreary apparatus of death.

But whatever be thought of the account of the mock funeral of Charles,
it appears that on the thirtieth of August he was affected by an
indisposition which on the following day was attended with most alarming
symptoms. Here also we have some particulars from his Jeronymite
biographers which we do not find in the letters. On the evening of the
thirty-first, according to their account, Charles ordered a portrait of
the empress, his wife, of whom, as we have seen, he had more than one in
his collection, to be brought to him. He dwelt a long while on its
beautiful features, "as if," says the chronicler, "he were imploring her
to prepare a place for him in the celestial mansions to which she had
gone."[333] He then passed to the contemplation of another
picture,--Titian's "Agony in the Garden," and from this to that immortal
production of his pencil, the "Gloria," as it is called, which is said
to have hung over the high altar at Yuste, and which, after the
emperor's death, followed his remains to the Escorial.[334] He gazed so
long and with such rapt attention on the picture, as to cause
apprehension in his physician, who, in the emperor's debilitated state,
feared the effects of such excitement on his nerves. There was good
reason for apprehension; for Charles, at length, rousing from his
reverie, turned to the doctor, and complained that he was ill. His pulse
showed him to be in a high fever. As the symp