their armed servants to seek for bread in the suburbs of
Madrid.

"And amidst all this the innumerable convents, masters of more than
half the country and the sole possessors of wealth, showed their
charity by distributing soup to those who had strength to fetch it,
and by founding asylums and hospitals, where the people died of misery
though they were certain of reaching heaven. The ancient manufactures
had all disappeared. Segovia, so famous for its cloth, that had
employed over 40,000 persons in its manufacture, only held 15,000
inhabitants, and these had so completely forgotten the art of weaving
wool that when Philip V. wished to re-establish the industry, he was
obliged to import German weavers.

"And it was the same thing in Seville, in Valencia, and in Medina del
Campo, so famous for their fairs and their manufactures," continued
Gabriel. "Seville which in the fifteenth century had 16,000 silk
weavers, at the end of the seventeenth could only produce 65. Though
it is true in exchange its Cathedral clergy numbered 117 canons, and
it had 78 convents, with more than 4,000 friars and 14,000 priests
in the diocese. And Toledo? At the close of the fifteenth century
it employed 50,000 artisans in its silk and wool weaving and in its
factory of arms, to say nothing of curriers, silversmiths, glovers,
and jewellers; at the end of the seventeenth century it had hardly
15,000 inhabitants. Everything was decayed, everything was ruined;
twenty-five houses belonging to illustrious families had passed into
the hands of the convents, and the only rich people in the town were
the friars, the archbishop and the Cathedral. Spain was so exhausted
at the end of the Austrian rule that she saw herself nearly divided
among the different powers of Europe, like Poland, another Catholic
country like ours. The quarrels among the kings were the only thing
that saved her."

"If those times were so bad, Gabriel," said Silver Stick, "how was
it the Spaniards showed such unanimity? How was it there were no
'pronunciamientos' and risings in these deplorable times?"

"What could they do? The despotism of the Caesars had imposed on the
Spaniards a blind obedience to the kings as the representatives
of God, and the clergy had educated them in this belief from the
community of interests between the Church and the throne. Even the
most illustrious poets corrupted the people, exalting servility to the
monarchy in their plays. Calderon affirmed th