toicism with which he saw sixty
thousand of his own soldiers perish in the wintry siege of Metz; all
ensured him a large measure of that applause which ever follows military
distinction, especially when the man who achieves it happens to wear a
crown. He combined the personal prowess of a knight of old with the more
modern accomplishments of a scientific tactician. He could charge the
enemy in person like the most brilliant cavalry officer, and he
thoroughly understood the arrangements of a campaign, the marshalling and
victualling of troops, and the whole art of setting and maintaining an
army in the field.

Yet, though brave and warlike as the most chivalrous of his ancestors,
Gothic, Burgundian, or Suabian, he was entirely without chivalry.
Fanaticism for the faith, protection for the oppressed, fidelity to
friend and foe, knightly loyalty to a cause deemed sacred, the sacrifice
of personal interests to great ideas, generosity of hand and heart; all
those qualities which unite with courage and constancy to make up the
ideal chevalier, Charles not only lacked but despised. He trampled on the
weak antagonist, whether burgher or petty potentate. He was false as
water. He inveigled his foes who trusted to imperial promises, by arts
unworthy an emperor or a gentleman. He led about the unfortunate John
Frederic of Saxony, in his own language, "like a bear in a chain," ready
to be slipped upon Maurice should "the boy" prove ungrateful. He connived
at the famous forgery of the prelate of Arras, to which the Landgrave
Philip owed his long imprisonment; a villany worse than many for which
humbler rogues have suffered by thousands upon the gallows. The
contemporary world knew well the history of his frauds, on scale both
colossal and minute, and called him familiarly "Charles qui triche."

The absolute master of realms on which the sun perpetually shone, he was
not only greedy for additional dominion, but he was avaricious in small
matters, and hated to part with a hundred dollars. To the soldier who
brought him the sword and gauntlets of Francis the First, he gave a
hundred crowns, when ten thousand would have been less than the customary
present; so that the man left his presence full of desperation. The three
soldiers who swam the Elbe, with their swords in their mouths; to bring
him the boats with which he passed to the victory of Muhlberg, received
from his imperial bounty a doublet, a pair of stockings, and four crowns
a