It was this over-indulgence in the pleasures of the table that brought the emperor to Yuste. His physician warned him in vain. His confessor wasted admonitions on his besetting sin. Sickness and suffering vainly gave him warning to desist. Indigestion troubled him; bilious disorders brought misery to his overworked stomach. At length came gout, the most terrible of his foes. This enemy gave him little rest day or night. The man who had hunted in the mountains for days without fatigue, who had kept the saddle day and night in his campaigns, who had held his own in the lists with the best knights of Europe, was now a miserable cripple, carried, wherever he went, in the litter of an invalid. One would have thought that, in his monastic retreat, Charles would cease to indulge in gastronomic excesses, but the retired emperor, with little else to think of, gave as much attention to his appetite as ever. Yuste was kept in constant communication with the rest of the world on matters connected with the emperor’s table. He was especially fond of fish and all the progeny of the water,—eels, frogs, oysters, and the like. The trout of the neighborhood were too small for his liking, so he had larger ones sent from a distance. Potted fish—anchovies in particular—were favorite viands. Eel pasty appealed strongly to his taste. Soles, lampreys, flounders reached his kitchen from Seville and Portugal. The country around supplied pork, mutton, and game. Sausages were sent him from a distance; olives were brought from afar, as those near at hand were not to his liking. Presents of sweetmeats and confectionery were sent him by ladies who remembered his ancient tastes. In truth, Charles, tortured with gout, did everything he well could to favor its attacks. The retired emperor, though he made a monastery his abode, had no idea of living like a monk. His apartments were richly furnished and hung with handsome tapestry, and every attention was paid to his personal comfort. Rich carpets, canopies of velvet, sofas and chairs of carved walnut, seats amply garnished with cushions for the ease of his tender joints, gave a luxurious aspect to his retirement. His wardrobe contained no less than sixteen robes of silk and velvet, lined with ermine, eider-down, or the soft hair of the Barbary goat. He could not endure cold weather, and had fireplaces and chimneys constructed in every room, usually keeping his apartments almost at furnace heat, much to the discomfort of his household. With all this, and his wrappings of fur and eider-down, he would often be in a shiver and complain that he was chilled to the bone.