Olivares understood the signs of the times too. Summoning his brother-in-law Carpio, he tried to reconcile him, but in vain, and complained bitterly that all the gentlemen of the King's chamber had turned his enemies. He talked, indeed, about retiring; but Philip never moved a muscle of his face, and the minister knew that the course which had served him so often was powerless to help him now. The Countess was strong and resourceful, and undertook to bring Philip round. When she met him in the palace that evening, she spoke much of her husband's services and efforts, and of the excellent arrangements he was making for carrying on a successful war in the following spring. Philip bowed gravely, but made no reply. The day afterwards (14th January 1643) a courier came from the Emperor, bringing more bad news to Philip and bitterly attacking Olivares, and this also sank into the King's mind.
Moodily the King walked to his wife's apartment that afternoon. There, to his surprise, he found with her the heir Baltasar Carlos, now aged fourteen. Casting herself at the King's feet with her son by her side, the Queen solemnly exhorted him, for the sake of what remained of their child's inheritance, to cast aside the evil councillor who was dragging them all to ruin. The King was troubled, for everything with him was a case of conscience, and he felt that he could trust no one. On his way from his wife's apartment he traversed a passage where he was intercepted by an old woman, his foster-mother, Ana de Guevara, who had been banished by Olivares and had returned without leave. Kneeling, she in her turn implored Philip to listen to those who loved him best; and then with a torrent of impassioned eloquence she impeached the favourite and all his acts: spoke of the national ruin, of the people's misery, of fields untilled, of looms idle, of the foreigner reigning over Spanish land, and of people who once were the soul of loyalty now in revolt against their King, all, all through Olivares. Philip was overwhelmed, and could only raise her, saying, "You have spoken truly."
But still one more blow was to be struck that night at the falling favourite. The Duchess of Mantua, secretly summoned by the Queen, had fled from Ocaña, and as fast as post-horses could draw her carriage through the winter storm she had come to Madrid. Suddenly appearing in the office of Olivares, she said she had come to see the King, and required lodging and food. The minister treated her with great rudeness, and made her wait for four hours before he provided a bad lodging for her in the house of the Treasury. But she was the King's cousin; and the next day the Queen introduced her into Philip's presence, where, this time with documentary proofs, she brought home to him the responsibility of Olivares and his creatures for the loss of Portugal.
That night Philip wrote to his minister, saying that the leave to retire he had so often craved was now accorded him, and that he might go where and when he pleased. Olivares, we are told by one who saw him, stood as if turned to stone as he read the letter; but at length, recovering his serenity, he turned to his wife and told her that he needed rest and change, and would shortly leave for a stay at Loeches, his seat some twelve miles from Madrid, if she would start at once and prepare the place for his coming. Guessing the truth, she resisted as much as possible, but was at last forced to obey. On the following morning, according to his invariable custom for so many years, the minister entered the King's room early, and knelt before him for a time in silence. Then he launched forth an eloquent denunciation of those who had slandered him in the eyes of his master, and in justification of his efforts. He had failed, he acknowledged; circumstances and the venom of his enemies had wrecked his best laid schemes for the exaltation of Spain and the glory of his Sovereign; but at least he prayed that his loyalty should be recognised, and that, in the retirement to which he willingly went at the King's behest, he might carry with him the regard of the master he had so strenuously tried to serve.
No word of reply came from the King, whose long sallow face remained as expressionless as if moulded in putty, and Olivares left the presence for the moment defeated; but still revolving in his mind other expedients to regain Philip's favour, or at least to delay his own fall. First he wrote to his energetic and spirited wife at Loeches, telling her the whole truth; for where he had failed he thought she might succeed. When her husband's letter reached the Countess, she was just taking her seat at table for dinner, "and on reading it not only did her natural colour fly from her face, but the rouge with which she covered it, as is the fashion in the palace, paled and left her like a corpse."[[41]] Leaving her dinner untouched, the afflicted woman hurried back to Madrid; and after an interview with her husband tried her blandishments upon the King as he was on his way through the corridors to visit his children as usual. She found him unmoved and silent, and then, rushing to the Queen's apartment, she threw herself at her feet. But Isabel had suffered under her hard rule too long, and answered coldly: "What God, the people, and evil happenings have done, Countess, neither the King nor I can undo."
Then Olivares summoned to the Retiro his nephew, Don Luis de Haro, Carpio's son, who he knew was in high favour with the King. He had, he told him, been a bad uncle to him; but he had brought his father and him from their remote grange at Carpio, and had made them rich and powerful; and he begged him, notwithstanding later jealousy, to be a good nephew to him and plead his cause. Haro saw the King, and gave him account of several secret points of politics on behalf of the fallen minister, and asked in his name many and expensive favours for his servant, all of which Philip granted,[[42]] but kept silent with regard to Olivares himself.
Soon the news was whispered in Madrid; and Liars' Walk was like a swarming hive. At first men were incredulous. It was all a sham, they declared; just another trick to squeeze more money out of them on the pretext that the hated Olivares had gone. But by and by the happy truth gradually forced itself upon them. The nightmare that had sat for all these years upon the heart of Spain had been shaken off at last! And then there burst out such a frantic flood of rejoicing as Madrid had rarely seen before. We have a King again! cried the crowds that stood in the great square before the palace; and squibs and pasquins were handed from hand to hand by the score.[[43]] But still day followed day and yet Olivares tarried in the vain hope of averting his fate. A hundred excuses were found by him for delay: the difficulty of transport, the condition of his health, his desire to see all those who had served him well provided for, and much else. Hints reached him in plenty that his absence was desirable, though he admitted no one to see him. His keys were demanded, and he sent them; once he saw the King in public audience, and talked to him of affairs for a quarter of an hour, but those who stood by remarked that Philip's eyes never once rested upon him; and again he retired discomfited, with tears coursing down his cheeks. As the King and Queen, with the Duchess of Mantua in their coach, went on St. Anthony's day (17th January 1643) to the Convent of Discalced Carmelites, the people, who now knew everything, impulsively surged around them with joyous cries: "Our King is King at last!—God save the King!"
At length Philip grew impatient at the delay, for he would appoint no new officers until he was clean quit of Olivares and his crew, and he decided to hunt for two days at the Escorial in order that measures might be taken in his absence. No sooner had he left than the Countess of Olivares made another tearful appeal to the Queen, who dismissed her promptly; and on the second day (20th January 1643), when Philip was approaching Madrid on his way back, a great gathering of nobles came out to meet him. Through Melchior Borja they said that they wished to place themselves and their possessions at the disposal of their King once more. Hitherto they had stood aloof, for reasons now known to him; but so soon as that evil cause was removed they were willing to stand by him to the death. Then they urged him to change all his councils and administrative officers, and begin a new régime.
When Philip entered the palace, he turned to Don Luis de Haro and asked, "Has he gone?" "No, Sire," was the reply. "Is he waiting for us to use force?" grumbled the King; and soon the hint was conveyed to Olivares, and, convinced now of the hopelessness of his case, the man who had ruled Spain over the King for two-and-twenty disastrous years slunk out of the capital by unfrequented ways, accompanied by only four attendants in a coach with closely drawn curtains, in mortal fear of assassination; for, as his spiteful biographer says, the very children in the streets would have stoned him to death if they had known of his flitting.[[44]]
Not until the fallen favourite had left Madrid well behind him did Philip feel himself safe. Summoning to his workroom in one of the corner towers of the old palace, Cardinals Borja and Spinola, and a number of the nobles who had opposed Olivares, he addressed a long speech to them. He was, he said, ardently determined to take the details of Government into his own hands in future. The Count-Duke had served him long, well, and zealously; but his health had broken down and he needed repose. Thenceforward he (the King) would have no confidential minister, but would work himself as minister, with the aid and counsel of his hearers, from whom he asked now reports and suggestions for future remedial action. Oñate, an old man and vain, hoped for some days that he was to replace Olivares as sole minister, but the King promptly undeceived him, and declared publicly that in future he would have no other minister but his wife, whose energy, wisdom, patriotism he now understood for the first time.