here. To Hall, indeed, the outward life of men, their exploits in war, and their pageantries in peace, alone had meaning or interest; and the back-stairs secrets of Vatican diplomacy, the questionings of opinion, and all the brood of mental-sicknesses then beginning to distract the world, were but impertinent interferences with the true business of existence. But the healthy objectiveness of an old English chronicler is no longer possible for us; we may envy where we cannot imitate; and our business is with such features of the story as are of moment to ourselves.
The political questions which were to be debated at the conference, were three; the Turkish Invasion, the General Council, and King Henry's divorce.
On the first, it was decided that there was no immediate occasion for France and England to move. Solyman's retreat from Vienna had relieved Europe from present peril; and the enormous losses which he had suffered, might prevent him from repeating the experiment. If the danger became again imminent, however, the two kings agreed to take the field in person the following year at the head of eighty thousand men.
On the second point they came to no conclusion, but resolved only to act in common.
On the third and most important, they parted with a belief that they understood each other; but their memories, or the memory of one of them, proved subsequently treacherous; and we can only extract what passed between them out of their mutual recriminations.
