He was already, although but just turned of thirty years, vastly changed from the brilliant and careless grandee, as he stood at the hour of the imperial abdication.

He was becoming careworn in face, thin of figure, sleepless of habit.

The wrongs of which he was the daily witness, the absolutism, the cruelty, the rottenness of the government, had marked his face with premature furrows.

"They say that the Prince is very sad," wrote Morillon to Granvelle; "and 'tis easy to read as much in his face.
They say he can not sleep." Truly might the monarch have taken warning that here was a man who was dangerous, and who thought too much.
"Sleekheaded men, and such as slept o' nights," would have been more eligible functionaries, no doubt, in the royal estimation, but, for a brief period, the King was content to use, to watch, and to suspect the man who was one day to be his great and invincible antagonist.

He continued assiduous at the council, and he did his best, by entertaining nobles and citizens at his hospitable mansion, to cultivate good relations with large numbers of his countrymen.