The king has always been absolute here, and the monk has
been the conscience-keeper of the king. The whole life of the Escorial
has been unwholesomely pervaded by a flavor of holy water and burial
vaults. There was enough of the repressive influence of that savage
Spanish piety to spoil the freshness and vigor of a natural life, but
not enough to lead the court and the courtiers to a moral walk and
conversation. It was as profligate a court in reality, with all its
masses and monks, as the gay and atheist circle of the Regent of
Orleans. Even Philip, the Inquisitor King, did not confine his royal
favor to his series of wives. A more reckless and profligate young
prodigal than Don Carlos, the hope of Spain and Rome, it would be hard
to find to-day at Mabille or Cre-morne. But he was a deeply religious
lad for all that, and asked absolution from his confessors before
attempting to put in practice his intention of killing his father.
Philip, forewarned, shut him up until he died, in an edifying frame of
mind, and then calmly superintended the funeral arrangements from a
window of the palace. The same mingling of vice and superstition is seen
in the lessening line down to our day. The last true king of the old
school was Philip IV. Amid the ruins of his tumbling kingdom he lived
royally here among his priests and his painters and his ladies. There
was one jealous exigency of Spanish etiquette that made his favor fatal.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219