He seemed made of a coarser
clay. The difference between them is well indicated by their
tastes at the table. Both were terrible gluttons, a fact which
puritanic criticism might set down as equally to the discredit of
each of them. But even in intemperance there are degrees of
refinement, and the impartial critic of life and manners will no
doubt say that if one must get drunk, let it be on Chateau
Margaux rather than on commissary whiskey. Pickled partridges,
plump capons, syrups of fruits, delicate pastry, and rare fish
went to make up the diet of Charles in his last days at Yuste.
But the beastly Philip would make himself sick with a surfeit of
underdone pork.
Whatever may be said of the father, we can hardly go far wrong in
ascribing the instincts of a murderer to the son. He not only
burned heretics, but he burned them with an air of enjoyment and
self-complacency. His nuptials with Elizabeth of France were
celebrated by a vast auto-da-fe. He studied murder as a fine art,
and was as skilful in private assassinations as Cellini was in
engraving on gems. The secret execution of Montigny, never
brought to light until the present century, was a veritable chef
d'oeuvre of this sort. The cases of Escobedo and Antonio Perez
may also be cited in point. Dark suspicions hung around the
premature death of Don John of Austria, his too brilliant and
popular half-brother.
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