It Was As Profligate A Court In Reality, With All Its
Masses And Monks, As The Gay And Atheist Circle Of The Regent Of
Orleans.
Even Philip, the Inquisitor King, did not confine his royal
favor to his series of wives.
A more reckless and profligate young
prodigal than Don Carlos, the hope of Spain and Rome, it would be hard
to find to-day at Mabille or Cre-morne. But he was a deeply religious
lad for all that, and asked absolution from his confessors before
attempting to put in practice his intention of killing his father.
Philip, forewarned, shut him up until he died, in an edifying frame of
mind, and then calmly superintended the funeral arrangements from a
window of the palace. The same mingling of vice and superstition is seen
in the lessening line down to our day. The last true king of the old
school was Philip IV. Amid the ruins of his tumbling kingdom he lived
royally here among his priests and his painters and his ladies. There
was one jealous exigency of Spanish etiquette that made his favor fatal.
The object of his adoration, when his errant fancy strayed to another,
must go into a convent and nevermore be seen of lesser men. Madame
Daunoy, who lodged at court, heard one night an august footstep in the
hall and a kingly rap on the bolted door of a lady of honor. But we are
happy to say she heard also the spirited reply from within, "May your
grace go with God!
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