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 in the world only to fall, after a very short time, into disaster and ignominy. With regard to himself he had felt since his exile that if the position in which he now found himself was beyond that to which he was properly entitled, this was only fate's kind compensation for the indignities to which in his early life he had suddenly been exposed. But now the debt which fortune owed him was fully discharged and he could not believe that he was far from the brink of some fresh disaster. He would have liked to shut himself away in some retired corner and devote himself to meditations upon the life to come; he did indeed choose a quiet site on a hill near the City and build a hermitage there, which he even went so far as to furnish with images and holy books. But so many questions arose concerning the education of his children and their future at Court, that there could be no question of his actually taking his vows, at any rate for some considerable time; and what exactly he had in mind when he began building this hermitage it would be hard to say.