The king expressed the hope that this humiliation of his body would, in some degree, be accepted by the Deity in atonement for the sins of his soul.
How universal the instinct that sin needs an atonement! Having finished these directions the emperor observed that some of his attendants were in tears.

"Do you weep," said he, "because you see a mortal die?
Such tears become women rather than men." The emperor was now dying.

As the ecclesiastics repeated the prayers of the Church, the emperor gave the responses until his voice failed, and then continued to give tokens of recognition and of faith, by making the sign of the cross.

At three o'clock in the morning of the 11th of January, 1519, the Emperor Maximilian breathed his last.

He was then in the sixtieth year of his age.
Maximilian is justly considered one of the most renowned of the descendants of Rhodolph of Hapsburg.