llustration: PLATE 12

LEON.

CASA DE LOS GUSMANES

MDW. 1869]

PLATE XII.

_LEON._

PATIO OF THE CASA DE LOS GUSMANES.

PALACES, such as supply our twelfth illustration, are now rarely
occupied in Spain by one family only. Instead of serving as the place of
general rendezvous for the dependants and intimate friends only of the
aristocratic proprietor, the Patios are now usually peopled with men,
women and children belonging to the numerous families, between whom the
occupation of the Palace, sadly fallen from its high estate, is divided.
Instead of the mansions being guarded by a grand inquisitor in the shape
of a porter, with armed servants within hail, with almost more than
Oriental jealousy, as in the old days, he who will, may usually find
entrance or exit unheeded, passing but as one more or one less of the
hundreds who go to and fro in the course of the day to the various
apartments which are frequently let and sublet, at ridiculously low
rents, to poor occupants who can afford to pay no other. Poverty, in
fact, revels in halls where magnificence once reigned supreme.

It is no easy task for the imagination to repeople such grand old
residences with the stately Hidalgoes and Senoras, who once occupied and
maintained them with scrupulous care and princely dignity. Happily, the
Countess d'Aulnois comes to our aid with her lively account of the
dwelling at Madrid of the Duchess of Terra Nueva, appointed
Camerera-Mayor to the young Queen, in 1679; and her picturesque sketch
may be freely accepted as expressing the general style in which families
of dignity, such as the Guzmanes, magnates of Leon, lived during the
plenitude of Spanish wealth and power.

"One can hardly see anything," says she,[11] "that looks more splendid
than this house of theirs; they use the upper apartments, which are hung
with tapestry, all done with raised work of gold. In one great chamber,
which is longer than it is broad, you may see several glass doors, which
go into closets, or little cells; the first of which is the Duchess of
Terra Nova's, hung with grey, and a bed of the same, and all other
things very plain. On one side lodges her daughter, the Duchess of
Monteleon, who is a widow, and has her room furnished like her mother's.
Afterwards you come to the Princess of Monteleon's chamber, which is not
larger than the others; but her bed is of gold and green damask, lined
with silver brocade, and trimmed with Point-de-S