The tortures of the gout would not allow him to mount on horseback, neither could he bear the jolting in a carriage over the rough roads.

It was a dark and stormy night, the 20th of May, 1552.

The rain fell in torrents, and the wind howled through the fir-trees and around the crags of the Alps.

Some attendants wrapped the monarch in blankets, took him out into the court-yard of the palace, and placed him in a litter.

Attendants led the way with lanterns, and thus, through the inundated and storm-swept defiles of the mountains, they fled with their helpless sovereign through the long hours of the tempestuous night, not daring to stop one moment lest they should hear behind them the clatter of the iron hoofs of their pursuers.