t a single seat in the whole salon, not
even at the back, except those I have specified.

In Spain, men and women of all ages wear all sorts of colours, and dance
if they like, even when more than sixty years old, without exciting the
slightest ridicule or astonishment. I saw several examples of this among
men and women.

Amongst the company present was Madame Robecque, a Frenchwoman, one of
the Queen's ladies, whom I had known before she went to Spain. In former
days we had danced together at the Court. Apparently she said so to the
Queen, for after having danced with one of the children, she traversed
the whole length of the salon, made a fine curtsey to their Catholic
Majesties, and came to dislodge me from my retreat, asking me with a
curtsey and a smile to dance. I replied to her by saying she was
laughing at me; dispute, gallantries; finally, she went to the Queen, who
called me and told me that the King and she wished me to dance.

I took the liberty to represent to her that she wished to divert herself
at my expense; that this order could not be serious; I alleged my age, my
position, the number of years since I had danced; in a word, I did all I
could to back out. But all was useless. The King mixed himself in the
matter; both he and the Queen begged me to comply, tried to persuade me
I danced very well; at last commanded me, and in such a manner that I was
obliged to obey. I acquitted myself, therefore, as well as I could.

The ball being finished, the Marquis de Villagarcias, one of the
majordomos, and one of the most honest and most gracious of men I ever
saw (since appointed Viceroy of Peru), would not let me leave until I had
rested in the refreshment-room, where he made me drink a glass of
excellent neat wine, because I was all in a sweat from the minuets and
quadrilles I had gone through, under a very heavy coat.

This same evening and the next I illuminated my house within and without,
not having a moment's leisure to give any fete in the midst of the many
functions I had been so precipitately called upon to fulfil.

CHAPTER CIX

On Thursday, the 27th of November, the King and Queen were to depart from
Madrid to Lerma, a pretty hamlet six leagues from Burgos, where they had
a palace. On the same day, very early in the morning, our ambassador,
Maulevrier, came to me with despatches from Cardinal Dubois, announcing
that the Regent's daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, had departed on
the 1