shed. To quote Hume, it was "the nun Maria de Agreda who,
alone of all his fellow-creatures, could sound the misery of Philip's
soul as we can do who are privileged to read the secret correspondence
between them." Pleasures of all sorts were beginning to pall now upon
the jaded monarch. Court festivities became a hollow mockery, the
glitter of the stage had vanished, only to leave its queens all daubed
with paint and powder in the garish light of reality, and the
broken-hearted Philip, bereft of wife and heir, was induced to marry for
a second time, in the hope that another son might come to inherit his
throne.

Philip's second wife was his niece Mariana, another Austrian
archduchess, but this marriage was a vain hope so far as his earthly
happiness was concerned. The wished-for son was born, and duly
christened Charles, but he was ever a weakling; and when the father died
in 1665, preceding Maria de Agreda to the tomb by a few months only, the
government was left in charge of Mariana as regent, and all Spain was
soon in a turmoil as the result of the countless intrigues which were
now being begun by foreign powers who hoped to dominate the peninsula.
Mariana, who was a most ardent partisan, began to scheme for her
Austrian house as soon as she arrived in Spain, and did everything in
her power to counteract the French alliance which had been favored by
Philip. Upon her husband's death, she promptly installed her German
confessor, Nithard, as inquisitor-general, gave him a place in the
Council of State, and in all things made him her personal
representative. Her whole course of action was so hostile to the real
interests of Spain, that murmurs of discontent were soon heard among the
people; and Don Juan, the illegitimate son, won power and popularity for
himself by espousing the cause of the nation. The weakling boy-king
Charles was a degenerate of the worst type, the result of a long series
of intermarriages; and so long as Mariana could keep him within her own
control, it was difficult to question her authority to do as she
pleased. For greater protection to herself and to her own interests,
Mariana had installed about her in her palace a strong guard of
foreigners, who attended her when she went abroad and held her gates
against all unfriendly visitors when she was at home. But the opposition
grew, and finally, after some ill-timed measures of Nithard, there was
open revolt, and Don Juan appeared at the head of a body