lept at Agreda, a small and ugly
town, or rather village. There Sister Marie d'Agreda became so crazy as
to write a life of the Virgin, which she affirmed to have been dictated
to her by the Mother of the Lord. The State Inquisitors had given me this
work to read when I was under the Leads, and it had nearly driven me mad.

We did ten Spanish leagues a day, and long and weary leagues they seemed
to me. One morning I thought I saw a dozen Capuchins walking slowly in
front of us, but when we caught them up I found they were women of all
ages.

"Are they mad?" I said to Senior Andrea.

"Not at all. They wear the Capuchin habit out of devotion, and you would
not find a chemise on one of them."

There was nothing surprising in their not having chemises, for the
chemise is a scarce article in Spain, but the idea of pleasing God by
wearing a Capuchin's habit struck me as extremely odd. I will here relate
an amusing adventure which befell me on my way.

At the gate of a town not far from Madrid I was asked for my passport. I
handed it over, and got down to amuse myself. I found the chief of the
customs' house engaged in an argument with a foreign priest who was on
his way to Madrid, and had no passport for the capital. He skewed one he
had had for Bilbao, but the official was not satisfied. The priest was a
Sicilian, and I asked him why he had exposed himself to being placed in
this disagreeable predicament. He said he thought it was unnecessary to
have a passport in Spain when one had once journeyed in the country.

"I want to go to Madrid," said he to me, "and hope to obtain a chaplaincy
in the house of a grandee. I have a letter for him."

"Shew it; they will let you pass then."

"You are right."

The poor priest drew out the letter and skewed it to the official, who
opened it, looked at the signature, and absolutely shrieked when he saw
the name Squillace.

"What, senor abbe! you are going to Madrid with a letter from Squillace,
and you dare to skew it?"

The clerks, constables, and hangers-on, hearing that the hated Squillace,
who would have been stoned to death if it had not been for the king's
protection, was the poor abbe's only patron, began to beat him violently,
much to the poor Sicilian's astonishment.

I interposed, however, and after some trouble I succeeded in rescuing the
priest, who was then allowed to pass, as I believe, as a set-off against
the blows he had received.

Squillace was sent to Ven