The Presses Universitaires de France and Frémeaux & Associés offer this biography of Charles V by Jérôme Hélie, associate professor of history, professor at the Henry IV high school and lecturer at Sciences-Po Paris. A model of the megalomaniac conqueror for Rabelais, disturbed spirit for Voltaire, romantic hero for Hugo, Charles V has always haunted the French imagination. Ambivalent figure, great rival of Francis I, he is also the first and the last monarch to bring together so many territories under his sovereignty: from Spain to Germany, from Mexico to Peru, his Empire was the one over which the " sun never sets ". His project - unity of the Christian world, war against the infidels - was intended to be commensurate with the terrible moral and geopolitical upheavals of the nascent 16th century. Jérôme Hélie retraces, in a living story, the journey of a humanist, deeply Christian king and emperor, who brought to the heart of the modern era the very ancient dreams of empire, crusade and chivalry.