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The Regent not only connived at these proceedings, which would have been base enough, but she was full partner in the disgraceful commerce. Through the agency of the Secretary, she, too, was amassing a large private fortune. "The Duchess has gone into the business of vending places to the highest bidders," said Morillon, "with the bit between her teeth."
Viglius, Berlaymont, Morillon, and all the lesser cardinalists were entirely taken in by the letters which were formally despatched to the Duchess in reply to her own and the Cardinal's notification.
Even Berlaymont began to listen to overtures from the leading nobles, who, among other inducements, promised to supply his children with bishoprics. There were none truly faithful and submissive to the Cardinal but such men as the Prevot Morillon, who had received much advancement from him.
Viglius, Berlaymont, Morillon, and all the lesser cardinalists were entirely taken in by the letters which were formally despatched to the Duchess in reply to her own and the Cardinal's notification.
"He talks like a King," said Morillon, spitefully, "negotiates night and day, and makes all bow before him." His house was more thronged with petitioners, courtiers, and men of affairs, than even the palace of the Duchess.
He besieged her chamber door almost daily, before she had risen, insisting upon audiences which, notwithstanding her repugnance to the man, she did not dare to refuse. "May I perish," said Morillon, "if she does not stand in exceeding awe of Titelmann."
"He talks like a King," said Morillon, spitefully, "negotiates night and day, and makes all bow before him." His house was more thronged with petitioners, courtiers, and men of affairs, than even the palace of the Duchess.
The wrongs of which he was the daily witness, the absolutism, the cruelty, the rottenness of the government, had marked his face with premature furrows. "They say that the Prince is very sad," wrote Morillon to Granvelle; "and 'tis easy to read as much in his face. They say he can not sleep."
Placed in the midst of a nation which hated him, exposed to the furious opposition of the most powerful adversaries, having hardly a friend, except the cowardly Viglius and the pluralist Morillon, secretly betrayed by Margaret of Parma, insulted by rude grandees, and threatened by midnight assassins, he never lost his self-possession, his smooth arrogance, his fortitude.
She was made to see and, seeing, she became indignant the cipher which she had really been during his administration. "One can tell what's o'clock," wrote Morillon to the fallen minister, "since she never writes to you nor mentions your name." As to Armenteros, with whom Granvelle was still on friendly relations, he was restless in his endeavors to keep the once-powerful priest from rising again.
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