Alfonso immediately turned a part of his ships towards the Genoese, and directed his missiles upon the harbour, to cut off their entrance. The Genoese ships, however, would not venture to attack the Spanish till the young Giovanni Fregoso, Rafael Negro, and other leading men insisted on their risking an engagement. But especially Jacopo Benesia, the most valorous and daring of them all, decided for the battle. For seven hours the struggle lasted at the entrance of the harbour and before the rock—a fearful struggle—ship lying close to ship, as the confined space rendered it quite impossible to move about; the Bonifazians, meanwhile, hurled down missiles and torches on the Spaniards. At last the Genoese burst through the chain, and forced a passage into the harbour; and indescribable was the joy of the starving people, when seven ships full of grain were moored in the harbour, and discharged their freight. Then Alfonso of Arragon perceived that he could not reduce the town of Bonifazio, and accordingly he raised the siege, taking the hostages with him; and, deeply ashamed and vexed at heart, he set sail for Italy in January 1421. CHAPTER VIII. OTHER REMINISCENCES OF BONIFAZIO, AND A FESTIVAL. My locanda stood opposite an old and gloomy house, the marble entablature of whose door attracted my attention. There were old sculptures on it—the arms of Genoa, and Gothic initials. It gave me great pleasure to learn that the Emperor Charles V. had spent two days and a night in this house. It affected me as deeply as if I had suddenly met a countryman and friend on this foreign rock. The house speaks German to me; and when I look at the window where Charles V. stood, there crowd upon my mind many epochs of German history, and many great names rise before me—Luther, Worms, Augsburg, Wittenberg, Maurice of Saxony, Philip of Hesse, Schiller and _Don Carlos_, Goethe and _Egmont_. Charles V. was a striking phenomenon. He was the last Emperor in the full sense of the word; for there arose against the Emperor, on whose dominions the sun never set, a little man, in a gray capote and cowl, and let fall a word which, like a bomb, shattered all the magnificence of the empire of the Cæsars. Yet are those men foolish who abuse Charles V. because he did not comprehend the Reformation, and put himself at the head of that movement. He was Emperor, and nothing else. He grew weary; and the man whose stormy life had been a perpetual struggle with powers which ruined Germany—with France, and with the Reformation—gave his kingdoms away, and, recognising the all-changing hand of time, became an anchorite, and laid himself in a coffin. I am much pleased that I have seen Titian's splendid portrait of Charles V. My neighbour at the window there is now no image of my fancy, but a creature of flesh and blood.