--"

"If," interrupted the favourite, "the Prince of Asturias and his consort
will give up their bad counsellors, I hope Their Majesties will forget
and forgive everything with myself."

"Whether Their Royal Highnesses," replied the Duke of Montemar, "have
done anything that deserves forgiveness, or whether they have any
counsellors, I do not know, and am incompetent to judge; but I am much
mistaken in the character of Their Royal Highnesses if they wish to
purchase favour at the expense of confidence and honour. An order from
His Majesty may immediately clear up this doubt."

The Prince of Peace was then ordered to write, in the name of the King,
to his children in the manner he proposed, and to command an answer by
the messenger. In half an hour the messenger returned with a letter
addressed to the favourite, containing only these lines:

"A King of Spain is well aware that a Prince and Princess of Asturias can
have no answer to give to such proposals or to such questions."

After six days' arrest, and after the Prince of Peace had in vain
endeavoured to discover something to inculpate Their Royal Highnesses,
they were invited to Court, and reconciled both to him and their royal
parents.

LETTER VIII.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--I will add in this letter, to the communication of the
gentlemen mentioned in my last, what I remember myself of the letter
which was circulated among our diplomatists, concerning the intrigues at
Madrid.

The Prince of Peace, before he listened to the advice of Duke of
Montemar, had consulted Beurnonville, who dissuaded all violence, and as
much as possible all noise. This accounts for the favourite's pretended
moderation on this occasion. But though he was externally reconciled,
and, as was reported at Madrid, had sworn his reconciliation even by
taking the sacrament, all the undertakings of the Prince and Princess of
Asturias were strictly observed and reported by the spies whom he had
placed round Their Royal Highnesses. Vain of his success and victory, he
even lost that respectful demeanour which a good, nay, a well-bred
subject always shows to the heir to the throne, and the Princes related
to his Sovereign. He sometimes behaved with a premeditated familiarity,
and with an insolence provoking or defying resentment. It was on the
days of great festivities, when the Court was most brilliant, and the
courtiers most numerous, that he took occasion to be most a