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He summoned Gondomar in the morning, told him, with a show of conferring a favor, of what had occurred, and bade him to tell Olivares that Buckingham had arrived, but to say nothing about the prince. That Gondomar consented need not be said. He had already told all there was to tell. In the afternoon Buckingham and Olivares had a brief interview in the gardens of the palace.
Yet, though their voices were silent, their hearts were full of triumph in the belief that the future king of England had come with the purpose of embracing the national faith of Spain. At the end of the procession Olivares joined the prince and told him that his royal master was dying to speak with him, and could scarcely restrain himself.
But there was still no sign of the hoped-for intervention on the part of Spain. At last the pressure of Charles on the subject of the Palatinate brought about a disclosure of the secret of Spanish policy. "It is a maxim of state with us," the Count of Olivares confessed, as the Prince demanded an energetic interference in Germany, "that the King of Spain must never fight against the Emperor.
No, you are the enviable man, you, who have only one grief in the world, and that so absurd a one that I will make you blush by disclosing it. Hear, O sage Austin! O sturdy Roland! Olivares was haunted by a spectre, and Sedley Beaudesert by the dread of old age!"
When the object was not before him, he falls short of his superlative standard. The figures of Philip IV., of Olivares, and of Prince Baltazar Carlos in the three great equestrian portraits are as finely drawn as man could make them.
Sir W. Stirling Maxwell asserts of Velasquez's portrait painting, that no artist 'ever followed nature with more catholic fidelity; his cavaliers are as natural as his boors; he neither refined the vulgar, nor vulgarized the refined, and goes on to quote this among other criticism: 'his portraits baffle description and praise; he drew the minds of men; they live, breathe, and are ready to walk out of the frames. Sir William winds up with the enthusiastic declaration, 'Such pictures as these are real history; we know the persons of Philip IV, and Olivares, as familiarly as if we had paced the avenues of the Pardo with Digby and Howell, and perhaps we think more favourably of their characters.
She governed absolutely in all things; the ministers became instruments in her hands; the King and Queen agents to work out her will. She was at the highest pinnacle of power. Together with Orry she enjoyed a power such as no one had ever attained since the time of the Duke of Lerma and of Olivares.
It was at length decided that he should return, the 2d of September being the day fixed upon for his departure. He and the king enjoyed a last hunt together, lunched under the shadows of the trees, and bade each other a seemingly loving farewell. Buckingham's good-by was of a different character. It took the shape of a violent quarrel with Olivares, the Spanish minister of state.
In these pardon and penalty are meted out in a spirit of pure opportunism. I was discussing Zurdo Olivares one day with Emiliano Iglesias in the office of El Radical, when I asked him: "How was it that Zurdo Olivares could save himself after playing such an active role in the tragic week at Barcelona?" "Zurdo's salvation was indirectly owing to me," replied Iglesias. "But, my dear sir!"
Francis, who was then at Assisi, appeared to him, and induced him to embrace his Institute, foretelling him what would happen. The Friars Minor of the convent of St. Anthony of Olivares, near Coimbra, having come to the Canons Regular of Santa Cruz to quest, Ferdinand could not control his zeal, but taking them aside, he opened to them the wish he had to enter their community.
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