From the first, he prepared to conform, as far as his health would permit, to the religious observances of the monastery. Not that he proposed to limit himself to the narrow circumstances of an ordinary friar. The number of his retinue that still remained with him was at least fifty, mostly Flemings;[289] a number not greater, certainly, than that maintained by many a private gentleman of the country. But among these we recognize those officers of state who belong more properly to a princely establishment than to the cell of the recluse. There was the major-domo, the almoner, the keeper of the wardrobe, the keeper of the jewels, the chamberlains, two watchmakers, several secretaries, the physician, the confessor, besides cooks, confectioners, bakers, brewers, game-keepers, and numerous valets. Some of these followers seem not to have been quite so content as their master with their secluded way of life, and to have cast many a longing look to the pomps and vanities of the world they had left behind them. At least such were the feelings of Quixada, the emperor's major-domo, in whom he placed the greatest confidence, and who had the charge of his household. "His majesty's bedroom," writes the querulous functionary, "is good enough; but the view from it is poor,--barren mountains, covered with rocks and stunted oaks; a garden of moderate size, with a few straggling orange-trees; the roads scarcely passable, so steep and stony; the only water, a torrent rushing from the mountains; a dreary solitude!" The low, cheerless rooms, he predicts, must necessarily be damp, boding no good to the emperor's infirmity.[290] "As to the friars," observes the secretary, Gaztelu, in the same amiable mood, "please God that his majesty may be able to tolerate them,--which will be no easy matter; for they are an importunate race."[291] It is evident that Charles's followers would have been very willing to exchange the mortifications of the monastic life for the good cheer and gaiety of Brussels. The worthy prior of the convent, in addressing Charles, greeted him with the title of _paternidad_, till one of the fraternity suggested to him the propriety of substituting that of _magestad_.[292] Indeed, to this title Charles had good right, for he was still emperor. His resignation of the imperial crown, which, as we have seen, so soon followed that of the Spanish, had not taken effect, in consequence of the diet not being in session at the time when his envoy, the prince of Orange, was to have presented himself at Ratisbon, in the spring of 1557. The war with France made Philip desirous that his father should remain lord of Germany for some time longer. It was not, therefore, until more than a year after Charles's arrival at Yuste, that the resignation was accepted by the diet, at Frankfort, on the twenty-eighth of February, 1558. Charles was still emperor, and continued to receive the imperial title in all his correspondence.[293]