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In the Toledo Street all the tailors seem congregated together, for the shops on each side of the way are uniformly occupied by the votaries of this trade, who sit at work half in their houses and half in the street. The coffee-houses and shops are all open, so that the passers-by can obtain a full view of the wares and of the buyers and sellers. The regal palace is the handsomest in the town.
The city spread out around the Cathedral, the houses disappearing in the crowd of towers, cupolas and absides. It was impossible to look on any side without meeting with chapels, churches, convents and ancient hospitals. Religion had absorbed the industrious Toledo of old, and still guarded the dead city beneath its hood of stone.
M. d'Avaux obliged me to assure Don Gabriel de Toledo, in private, that if the Spaniards would but come to reasonable terms, we would conclude a peace with them in two days' time.
Upon the walls hung weapons of every kind from a polished dagger of Toledo to a Damascus blade, suits of chain armour, long-handled, two-edged Arab swords, pistols which had been used in the Syrian wars of Ibrahim, lances which had been taken from the Druses at Palmyra, rude battle-axes from the tribes of the Soudan, and neboots of dom-wood which had done service against Napoleon at Damietta.
The condition precedent to those marriages had long been known. It was the renunciation of the alliance between France and Holland. It was the condemnation to death, so far as France had the power to condemn her to death, of the young Republic. Had not Don Pedro de Toledo pompously announced this condition a year and a half before? Had not Henry spurned the bribe with scorn?
Donna Florinda had supplied him with a plain but handsome cavalier's suit, including mantle, hat, and plume, and in addition to these, a good sword. Landon hailed this latter gift with joy, and buckled the belt with trembling eagerness. He drew the weapon, and found it to be a Toledo blade of the best temper. He kissed the sword with ecstasy. "Welcome!" he cried, "old friend!
You would die of ennui at the end of two hours and of cold at the end of eight days." "Die of cold in Spain?" "There is a cold of the soul," the duke replied with a significant smile. "That I have travelled so much, is probably due to my desire to escape from that place! But you at Toledo, at Fuentecarral, that is the name of my castle, a Parisian like you! It would be cruel.
It is made of silver, and is so heavy that it requires thirty strong men to lift it. The Archbishop of Toledo has three hundred thousand duros a year, and his clergy have four hundred thousand, amounting to two million francs in French money.
When not in armour his costume was modelled upon that of the Duke of Alva, consisting of a slashed doublet of green silk, with an enormously wide-brimmed and high conical hat adorned with a large red ostrich feather. In his girdle he carried a long dagger and a Toledo sword of immense length.
On the octave of the Holy Ghost, our Lord was gracious unto me, and gave me hopes of this house, that it would go on improving I mean the souls that are in it. On the feast of the Magdalene, our Lord again confirmed a grace I had received in Toledo, electing me, in the absence of a certain person, in her place.
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