The Abbe Alberoni, having risen by the means I have described, and
acquired power by following in the track of the Princesse des Ursins,
governed Spain like a master. He had the most ambitious projects. One
of his ideas was to drive all strangers, especially the French, out of
the West Indies; and he hoped to make use of the Dutch to attain this
end. But Holland was too much in the dependence of England.
At home Alberoni proposed many useful reforms, and endeavoured to
diminish the expenses of the royal household. He thought, with reason,
that a strong navy was the necessary basis of the power of Spain; and to
create one he endeavoured to economise the public money. He flattered
the King with the idea that next year he would arm forty vessels to
protect the commerce of the Spanish Indies. He had the address to boast
of his disinterestedness, in that whilst working at all manner of
business he had never received any grace from the King, and lived only
on fifty pistoles, which the Duke of Parma, his master, gave him every
month; and therefore he made gently some complaints against the
ingratitude of princes.
Alberoni had persuaded the Queen of Spain to keep her husband shut up,
as had the Princesse des Ursins. This was a certain means of governing a
prince whose temperament and whose conscience equally attached him to his
spouse. He was soon completely governed once more--under lock and key,
as it were, night and day. By this means the Queen was jailoress and
prisoner at the same time. As she was constantly with the King nobody
could come to her. Thus Alberoni kept them both shut up, with the key of
their prison in his pocket.
One of the chief objects of his ambition was the Cardinal's hat. It
would be too long to relate the schemes he set on foot to attain his end.
He was opposed by a violent party at Rome; but at last his inflexible
will and extreme cunning gained the day. The Pope, no longer able to
resist the menaces of the King of Spain, and dreading the vengeance of
the all-powerful minister, consented to grant the favour that minister
had so pertinaciously demanded. Alberoni was made Cardinal on the 12th
of July, 1717. Not a soul approved this promotion when it was announced
at the consistory. Not a single cardinal uttered a word in praise of the
new confrere, but many openly disapproved his nomination. Alberoni's
good fortune did not stop here. At the death, some little time after,
of the Bishop of Malaga, that rich see, worth thirty thousand ecus a
year, was given to him. He received it as the mere introduction to the
grandest and richest sees of Spain, when they should become vacant.
The King of Spain gave him also twenty thousand ducats, to be levied upon
property confiscated for political reasons. Shortly after, Cardinal
Arias, Archbishop of Seville, having died, Alberoni was named to this
rich archbishopric.
In the middle of his grandeur and good luck he met with an adventure that
must have strangely disconcerted him.
I have before explained how Madame des Ursins and the deceased Queen had
kept the King of Spain screened from all eyes, inaccessible to all his
Court, a very palace-hermit. Alberoni, as I have said, followed their
example. He kept the King even more closely imprisoned than before, and
allowed no one, except a few indispensable attendants, to approach him.
These attendants were a small number of valets and doctors, two gentlemen
of the chamber, one or two ladies, and the majordomo-major of the King.
This last post was filled by the Duc d'Escalone, always called Marquis de
Villena, in every way one of the greatest noblemen in Spain, and most
respected and revered of all, and justly so, for his virtue, his
appointment, and his services.
Now the King's doctors are entirely under the authority of the majordomo-
major. He ought to be present at all their consultations; the King
should take no remedy that he is not told of, or that he does not
approve, or that he does not see taken; an account of all the medicines
should be rendered to him. Just at this time the King was ill. Villena
wished to discharge the duties attached to his post of majordomo-major.
Alberoni caused it to be insinuated to him, that the King wished to be at
liberty, and that he would be better liked if he kept at home; or had the
discretion and civility not to enter the royal chamber, but to ask at the
door for news. This was language the Marquis would not understand.
At the end of the grand cabinet of the mirrors was placed a bed, in which
the King was laid, in front of the door; and as the room is vast and
long, it is a good distance from the door (which leads to the interior)
to the place where the bed was. Alberoni again caused the Marquis to be
informed that his attentions were troublesome, but the Marquis did not
fail to enter as before. At last, in concert with the Queen, the
Cardinal resolved to refuse him admission. The Marquis, presenting
himself one afternoon, a valet partly opened the door and said, with much
confusion, that he was forbidden to let him enter.
"Insolent fellow," replied the Marquis, "stand aside," and he pushed the
door against the valet and entered. In front of him was the Queen,
seated at the King's pillow; the Cardinal standing by her side, and the
privileged few, and not all of them, far away from the bed. The Marquis,
who, though full of pride, was but weak upon his legs, leisurely
advanced, supported upon his little stick. The Queen and the Cardinal
saw him and looked at each other. The King was too ill to notice
anything, and his curtains were closed except at the side where the Queen
was. Seeing the Marquis approach, the Cardinal made signs, with
impatience, to one of the valets to tell him to go away, and immediately
after, observing that the Marquis, without replying, still advanced, he
went to him, explained to him that the King wished to be alone, and
begged him to leave.
"That is not true," said the Marquis; "I have watched you; you have not
approached the bed, and the King has said nothing to you."
The Cardinal insisting, and without success, took him by the arm to make
him go. The Marquis said he was very insolent to wish to hinder him from
seeing the King, and perform his duties. The Cardinal, stronger than his
adversary, turned the Marquis round, hurried him towards the door, both
talking the while, the Cardinal with measure, the Marquis in no way
mincing his words. Tired of being hauled out in this manner, the Marquis
struggled, called Alberoni a "little scoundrel," to whom he would teach
manners; and in this heat and dust the Marquis, who was weak, fortunately
fell into an armchair hard by. Angry at his fall, he raised his little
stick and let it fall with all his force upon the ears and the shoulders
of the Cardinal, calling him a little scoundrel--a little rascal--
a little blackguard, deserving a horsewhipping.
The Cardinal, whom he held with one hand, escaped as well as he could,
the Marquis continuing to abuse him, and shaking the stick at him. One
of the valets came and assisted him to rise from his armchair, and gain
the door; for after this accident his only thought was to leave the room.
The Queen looked on from her chair during all this scene, without
stirring or saying a word; and the privileged few in the chamber did not
dare to move. I learned all this from every one in Spain; and moreover I
asked the Marquis de Villena himself to give me the full details; and he,
who was all uprightness and truth, and who had conceived some little
friendship for me, related with pleasure all I have written. The two
gentlemen of the chamber present also did the same, laughing in their
sleeves. One had refused to tell the Marquis to leave the room, and the
other had accompanied him to the door. The most singular thing is, that
the Cardinal, furious, but surprised beyond measure at the blows he had
received, thought only of getting out of reach. The Marquis cried to him
from a distance, that but for the respect he owed to the King, and to the
state in which he was, he would give him a hundred kicks in the stomach,
and haul him out by the ears. I was going to forget this. The King was
so ill that he saw nothing.
A quarter of an hour after the Marquis had returned home, he received an
order to retire to one of his estates at thirty leagues from Madrid. The
rest of the day his house was filled with the most considerable people of
Madrid, arriving as they learned the news, which made a furious sensation
through the city. He departed the next day with his children. The
Cardinal, nevertheless, remained so terrified, that, content with the
exile of the Marquis, and with having got rid of him, he did not dare to
pass any censure upon him for the blows he had received. Five or six
months afterwards he sent him an order of recall, though the Marquis had
not taken the slightest steps to obtain it. What is incredible is, that
the adventure, the exile, the return, remained unknown to the King until
the fall of the Cardinal! The Marquis would never consent to see him, or
to hear him talked of, on any account, after returning, though the
Cardinal was the absolute master. His pride was much humiliated by this
worthy and just haughtiness; and he was all the more piqued because he
left nothing undone in order to bring about a reconciliation, without any
other success than that of obtaining fresh disdain, which much increased
the public estimation in which this wise and virtuous nobleman was held.