The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane

Chapter X. The anxiety and cares which at first disturbed the repose of the Count-Duke, and the happy tranquility by which they were succeeded. The occupations of the minister in his retreat.

536 The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane into his Majesty’s apartment. Concluding then, that there were no farther hopes for him, he determined in good earnest, to retire. He examined his papers, a great quantity of which he very prudently committed to the flames; then naming the officers of his houshold and valets who he intended should follow him, he gave orders for his departure , which was fixed for next day. As he was afraid of being insulted by the populace , in coming out of the palace, he slipt away early in the morning, by the kitchin door, and getting into a sorry coach, with his confessor and me, safely proceeded for Loeches, a village belonging to him, where his lady had built a magnificent convent of nuns of the Dominican order. Thither he repaired in less than four hours, and all his attendants arrived soon after. chapter x. The anxiety and cares which at first disturbed the repose of the Count-Duke, and the happy tranquility by which they were succeeded. The occupations of the minister in his retreat. Madam d’Olivares let her husband set out for Loeches, and staid a few days after him at court, with a design to try, if by her tears and intreaties, she could not effect his being recalled: but in vain did she prostrate herself before their Majesties; the King had no regard to her remonstrances, tho’ artfully prepared; and the Queen, who hated her mortally, beheld her tears with pleasure. The minister’s wife was not repulsed for all that, she humbled herself so far as to implore the good offices of the Queen’s ladies; but the fruit which she reaped from her meanness, was to perceive that it excited contempt rather than compassion. Vexed at having taken such humbling steps to no purpose, she went and joined her husband, to grieve with him for the loss of a place, which, under a reign like that of Philip the fourth, was perhaps the first of the monarchy.1 This lady’s report of the condition in which she left Madrid, redoubled the affliction of the Count-Duke: “Your enemies, (said she weeping) the Duke of Medina Celi,2 and the other grandees who hate you, incessantly praise the King for having deprived you of the ministry; and the people celebrate your disgrace with an insolence of joy, as if the end of the national misfortunes was attached to that of your administration.” “Madam, (said my master to her,) follow my example, and stifle your sorrow; we must yield to the tempest which we cannot divert. I thought, indeed, that I could have perpetuated my favour, even to the end of my life; the ordinary illusion of ministers and favourites, who forget that their fate depends upon their sovereign: has not the Duke of Lerma been mistaken as well as I, tho’ he imagined that his purple3 was the sure guarantee of the eternal duration of his authority?” Volume Four: XII.10 537 In this manner, did the Count-Duke exhort his spouse to arm herself with patience; while he himself was in an agitation, which was daily increased by the dispatches which he received from Don Henry, who having remained at court, to observe, took care to inform him exactly of every thing that happened: it was Scipio who brought the letters from that young nobleman, whom he still served, I having quitted him upon his marriage with Donna Juana. The dispatches of this adopted son, were always filled with bad news, and unhappily, no others were expected from him. Sometimes, he wrote that the grandees, not contented with rejoicing publickly, at the retreat of the Count-Duke, were again re-united to turn all his creatures from the posts and employments which they possessed, to replace them with his enemies: another time, he observed that Don Lewis de Haro began to come into favour, and would, in all probability, be made primeminister . Of all the disagreeable news which my master received, that which seemed to affect him most, was the change made in the viceroyalty of Naples, which the court, solely to mortify him, took from the Duke of Medina de las Torres, whom he loved, and gave it to the admiral of Castille,4 whom he had always hated. I may venture to say, that during three months, his Grace felt nothing in his solitude , but trouble and chagrin; but...