nts carried the litter; in bad parts of the way the
emperor was transferred to his chair; in very perilous places the vigorous
peasants carried him in their arms.

Several hours of this hard toil passed before they reached the summit. As
they emerged from the dark defiles of the _Puerto Nuevo_--now known as "The
Emperor's Pass"--Charles exclaimed, "It is the last pass I shall go through
in this world, save that of death."

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 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, while leaving
his power behind him, he brought this enemy with him into his retirement.

[Illustration: CHARLES V. APPROACHING YUSTE.]

CHARLES V. APPROACHING YUSTE.

We are told by a Venetian envoy at his court, in the latter part of