An anecdote of Avila and his master, though not falling within the period of their retirement to Estremadura, may be related here, as serving to show the characters of the two men. Some years before his abdication, Charles had amused the leisure of his sick-room by making a prose translation of Olivier de la Marches' forgotten allegorical poem, _Le Chevalier deliberé_. He then employed Fernando de Acunha, a man of letters attached to the Saxon court, to turn his labors into Castillian verse, and he finally handed it over to William Van Male, one of the gentlemen of the chamber, telling him that he might publish it for his own benefit. Avila and the other Spaniards, hearing of the concession, wickedly affected the greatest envy at the good fortune of the Fleming; the historian, in particular, in his quality of author, assuring the emperor that the publication could not fail to realize a profit of five hundred crowns. That desire to print, which, more or less developed, exists in every man who writes, being thus stimulated by the suggestion, that to gratify that desire, would be to confer a favor which should cost him nothing, Charles became impatient to see his lucubrations in type. Insisting that his bounty should be accepted at once, he turned a deaf ear to the timid hints of Van Male, as to the risk and expense of the speculation; and the end was, that the poor man had to pay Jean Steels for printing and publishing two thousand copies of a book which is now scarce, probably because the greater part of the impression passed at once from the publisher to the pastry-cook. The waggery on the part of Avila was the more wicked, because the victim had translated his Commentaries into Latin for him. It forms, however, the subject of an agreeable letter, wherein Van Male complains of the undue expectations raised in the emperor's mind by his "windy Spaniards," and ruefully looks forward to reaping a harvest of mere straw and chaff. It was not only by calling at Yuste that the noble lieges of the emperor testified their homage. Mules were driven to his gate laden with more substantial tokens of loyalty and affection. The Count of Oropesa kept his table supplied with game from the forest and the hill; and the prelates of Toledo, Mondoñedo, Segovia, and Salamanca, offered similar proofs that they had not forgotten the giver of their mitres. The Jeromites of Guadalupe, rich in sheep and beeves, sent calves, lambs fattened on bread, and delicate fruits; and from his sister Catharine, queen of Portugal, there came every fortnight a supply of conserves and linen.