for the duke to accomplish in person, received
his fees, sold and dispensed his interviews, distributed his bribes. In
so doing, as might be supposed, he did not neglect his own interest. It
was a matter of notoriety, no man knowing it better than the king, that
no business, foreign or domestic, could be conducted or even begun at
court without large preliminary fees to the secretary of the council, his
wife, and his children. He had, in consequence, already accumulated an
enormous fortune. His annual income, when it was stated, excited
amazement. He was insolent and overbearing to all comers until his dues
had been paid, when he became at once obliging, supple, and comparatively
efficient. Through him alone lay the path to the duke's sanctuary.

The nominal sovereign, Philip III., was thirty years of age. A very
little man, with pink cheeks, flaxen hair, and yellow beard, with a
melancholy expression of eye, and protruding under lip and jaw, he was
now comparatively alert and vigorous in constitution, although for the
first seven years of his life it had been doubtful whether he would live
from week to week. He had been afflicted during that period with a
chronic itch or leprosy, which had undermined his strength, but which had
almost entirely disappeared as he advanced in life.

He was below mediocrity in mind, and had received scarcely any education.
He had been taught to utter a few phrases, more or less intelligible, in
French, Italian, and Flemish, but was quite incapable of sustaining a
conversation in either of those languages. When a child, he had learned
and subsequently forgotten the rudiments of the Latin grammar.

These acquirements, together with the catechism and the offices of the
Church, made up his whole stock of erudition. That he was devout as a
monk of the middle ages, conforming daily and hourly to religious
ceremonies, need scarcely be stated. It was not probable that the son of
Philip II. would be a delinquent to church observances. He was not
deficient in courage, rode well, was fond of hunting, kept close to the
staghounds, and confronted, spear in hand, the wild-boar with coolness
and success. He was fond of tennis, but his especial passion and chief
accomplishment was dancing. He liked to be praised for his proficiency in
this art, and was never happier than when gravely leading out the queen
or his daughter, then four or five years of age--for he never danced with
any one else--to perform a