on the dreary apparatus of death. But whatever be thought of the account of the mock funeral of Charles, it appears that on the thirtieth of August he was affected by an indisposition which on the following day was attended with most alarming symptoms. Here also we have some particulars from his Jeronymite biographers which we do not find in the letters. On the evening of the thirty-first, according to their account, Charles ordered a portrait of the empress, his wife, of whom, as we have seen, he had more than one in his collection, to be brought to him. He dwelt a long while on its beautiful features, "as if," says the chronicler, "he were imploring her to prepare a place for him in the celestial mansions to which she had gone."[333] He then passed to the contemplation of another picture,--Titian's "Agony in the Garden," and from this to that immortal production of his pencil, the "Gloria," as it is called, which is said to have hung over the high altar at Yuste, and which, after the emperor's death, followed his remains to the Escorial.[334] He gazed so long and with such rapt attention on the picture, as to cause apprehension in his physician, who, in the emperor's debilitated state, feared the effects of such excitement on his nerves. There was good reason for apprehension; for Charles, at length, rousing from his reverie, turned to the doctor, and complained that he was ill. His pulse showed him to be in a high fever. As the symptoms became more unfavorable, his physician bled him, but without any good effect.[335] The Regent Joanna, on learning her father's danger, instantly despatched her own physician from Valladolid to his assistance. But no earthly remedies could avail. It soon became evident that the end was approaching.[336] Charles received the intelligence, not merely with composure, but with cheerfulness. It was what he had long desired, he said. His first care was to complete some few arrangements respecting his affairs. On the ninth of September, he executed a codicil to his will. The will, made a few years previous, was of great length, and the codicil had not the merit of brevity. Its principal object was to make provision for those who had followed him to Yuste. No mention is made in the codicil of his son Don John of Austria. He seems to have communicated his views in regard to him to his major-domo, Quixada, who had a private interview of some length with his master a few days before his death. Charles's directions on the subject appear to have been scrupulously regarded by Philip.[337] [Sidenote: HIS LAST ILLNESS.]