His only fatigue was at his writing-table.

But even here his merit was of a subordinate description.
He sat a great while at a time.

He had a genius for sitting; but he now wrote few letters himself.

A dozen words or so, scrawled in hieroglyphics at the top, bottom, or along the margin of the interminable despatches of his secretaries, contained the suggestions, more or less luminous, which arose in his mind concerning public affairs.

But he held firmly to his purpose: He had devoted his life to the extermination of Protestantism, to the conquest of France and England, to the subjugation of Holland.
These were vast schemes.