“The Ambassador [Du Fargis] and all the families of the other Ambassadors came to meet me. The Count of Barajas[138] came to receive me with the carriages of the King, in one of which I seated myself. He was accompanied by many of the nobility; and a very great number of women in carriages came out of the town to see my arrival. I alighted at the house of the Count of Barajas, which had been sumptuously prepared for my accommodation. There I found the Duke of Monteleone, Don Fernando Giron, Don Carlos Coloma and a great number of other noblemen whom I had known in France or elsewhere, waiting to greet me. I went to pay my respects to the Countess of Barajas,[139] who had invited a number of ladies to assist her in receiving me, and afterwards I supped at a table where fifty covers were laid, which was kept for me all the time I was at Madrid. In the course of the evening, the Duke of Uceda sent one of his gentlemen to greet me on his behalf.”
Bassompierre spent the following day in receiving the visits of a great number of distinguished persons. An early arrival was the wife of the heir to the throne (Élisabeth of France) who was accompanied by a large party of ladies of the palace, “both old and young.” She was followed by grandees and their wives, dignitaries of Church and State, members of the Corps Diplomatique, and so forth, whom we need not particularise, though Bassompierre’s account of the arrival of one of the chief grandees in Spain at that time cannot be omitted:—
“The Duke of Ossuña[140] was the next who came to greet me, with extraordinary pomp; for he was carried in a chair; he wore an Hungarian robe furred with ermine and a number of jewels of great value; and was followed by more than twenty carriages, filled with Spanish nobles, his relations and friends, or Neapolitan nobles; while his chair was surrounded by more than fifty captain-lieutenants or alferes reformados, Spanish or Neapolitan. He embraced me with great affection and cordiality, and, after calling me Excellency three or four times, he reminded me that, at a supper at Zamet’s, at which the King[141] was present, we had made an alliance, and that I had promised to call him father and that he should call me son; and he begged me to continue to do this. So that we afterwards treated one another without any ceremony. After this he was pleased to greet all who had accompanied me from France, speaking to them in French and saying so many extravagant things that I was not astonished at the disgrace into which he shortly afterwards fell.”
Next day came more grandees, more ladies, more prelates, and more ambassadors, including those of England and the Emperor; and no sooner had the unfortunate Bassompierre got rid of one batch, than another appeared upon the scene, until by the time the last of his visitors had taken his departure he was quite worn out. However, he was not to be allowed much rest, for in the evening he received a visit from the auditor of the Nuncio, who was conducting the affairs of the Holy See at Madrid during the absence of his chief, who had gone to Rome to receive a cardinal’s hat. This ecclesiastic came to talk politics, and showed Bassompierre the copy of a brief which he had received from Gregory XV on the subject of the Valtellina, in which his Holiness demanded the restitution of the country, “for the sake of the freedom of Italy,” and threatened his Catholic Majesty with the employment of both spiritual and temporal weapons if the latter’s troops were not promptly withdrawn. Altogether, it was quite a courageous letter for a new Pope to write to a King of Spain, and pleased Bassompierre mightily; and he was still more gratified to learn that the demands of France and the Vatican were to be supported by the representatives of England, Venice, and Savoy. However, when once the Spaniard of those days got his claws into anything he coveted, it was no easy matter to induce him to release his prey; and, though very ready to promise, he was exceedingly slow to perform.
The Papal representative was followed by Don Juan de Serica, one of the Secretaries of State, who came to visit Bassompierre on behalf of Philip III, and who informed him, “after several flattering observations, touching the satisfaction that the King felt at his arrival and the good opinion that he entertained of him,” that he would be accorded an audience so soon as his Majesty’s health would permit.
“He was indeed ill,” says Bassompierre, “though everyone believed that he feigned to be so, in order to delay my audience and my despatches.”
And then he goes on to relate how the unfortunate monarch had fallen a victim to those inexorable rules of Spanish Court etiquette, of which he was the central object:
“His illness began on the first Friday in Lent (February 26). He was engaged on some despatches, and the day being cold, an excessively hot brazier had been put in the room where he was working. The reflection of this brazier fell so strongly on his face, that drops of sweat poured from it; but, as he was of a character never to find fault or complain of anything, he said nothing. The Marquis of Povar,[142] from whom I heard this, told me that, perceiving how the heat of the brazier was annoying him, he told the Duke of Alba,[143] who, like himself, was one of the Gentlemen of the Chamber, to take it away. But since they are very punctilious about their functions, he replied that it was the duty of the sommeiller du corps, the Duke of Uceda. Upon that the Marquis de Povar sent for him; but, unhappily, he had gone to look at a house which he was having built. And so, before the Duke of Uceda could be brought, the poor King was so broiled, that on the morrow he fell into a fever. The fever brought on an erysipelas, and the erysipelas, sometimes subsiding and sometimes increasing, at length ended in a petechial fever, which killed him.”
During the next three days Bassompierre continued to receive visits from distinguished persons of the Court, the most important of whom was the old Duke del Infantado,[144] the mayor-domo mayor,[145] who came to see him in great state, with the four mayor-domos walking before. This old grandee, Bassompierre tells us, took a great fancy to him and rendered him many services while he was at Madrid.
If poor Philip III was too unwell to grant Bassompierre an audience, he seemed anxious to make his stay in his capital as agreeable as possible. For, not only did he obtain from the Patriarch of the Indies, “who was like a Legate at the Court,” a Bull permitting him and one hundred members of his suite to eat meat in Lent, but authorised him to have plays performed at his house by the two companies of Royal players, which were amalgamated, in order to secure a stronger cast. The King paid the actors 300 reals for each performance, to which the munificent Frenchman added 1,000 out of his own pocket.