In the country he "consoled himself by taking every day a heron in the clouds." His falconers alone cost him annually fifteen hundred florins, after he had reduced their expenses to the lowest possible point.

He was much in debt, even at this early period and with his princely fortune.

"We come of a race," he wrote carelessly to his brother Louis, "who are somewhat bad managers in our young days, but when we grow older, we do better, like our late father: 'sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper et in secula seculorum'.

My greatest difficulty," he adds, "as usual, is on account of the falconers." His debts already amounted, according to Granvelle's statement, to 800,000 or 900,000 florins.

He had embarrassed himself, not only through his splendid extravagance, by which all the world about him were made to partake of his wealth, but by accepting the high offices to which he had been appointed.