too Heredity. 



and slowly, and bis words were disconnected. ' His voice 

 is thin and shrill; he is embarrassed when he begins to 

 speak, and the words come with difficulty. He pronounces 

 his r's and his fs badly.' At the age of twenty-one he had 

 his tongue-string cut He had little desire for women, but 

 was a glutton, like his grandfather. In his prison, he brought 

 on his own death by his excess in eating. He took to a 

 diet consisting of partridge pie, pie-crust, spiced meats, and 

 iced drinks. And he began these excesses very early in the 

 day. ' He eats so much, and with such ravenousness,' writes 

 the imperial ambassador, 'as to surpass belief; scarcely has 

 he finished one meal when he is ready for another.' 



The reader will observe that in the foregoing comparison we 

 have not mentioned Don Carlos's violence of temper, which, 

 also, we incline to think hereditary. As an infant, he would 

 bite the breast of his nurse ; there were three of them bitten 

 so severely by him as to have their lives endangered. His 

 short life is full of cruel acts. He used to beat his servants ; 

 he made an unskilful shoemaker eat a pair of boots ; he 

 wanted to burn down a house because a drop of water fell 

 from it on his head. Later, while in prison, he would have 

 the floor of his chamber flooded with water, and then would 

 walk about barefooted and almost naked on the icy boards. 

 Several times during the night he would have a pan full of ice 

 and snow brought to his bed, keeping it there for hours. 

 (Prescott, vii. 12.) 



These, and sundry other acts, show mental derangement If 

 now, the reader will bear in mind that Charles V.'s mother 

 was Juana the Mad, 1 Queen of Castille, he will see in Don 



1 According to recent investigations, the restraint of Juana was in a great 

 measure due to political reasons ; but even if her insanity has been exaggerated, 

 it must be admitted that she had a strange disposition, and a morbid sensibility. 

 She was subject to ' frightful hallucinations.' (See Hildebrand, Revue desDetix 

 Mondes, 1 866, June I.) Diseased, trembling with fever, and crippled by gout, 

 he (Charles V.) nevertheless dragged his bones from place to place, disquieting 

 the whole world by his own unrest, till an evil trick of fortune drove so wise 

 a man into the convent of San Yuste, and afflicted him with the madness of 

 Jane the Mad and Charles the Bold. Michelet, Hisioire de France, voL vii. 



