When King Philip IV died, Charles II was still a child. The Regency thus went to his mother, Maria Anna. Incapable of governing the fate of the Kingdom on her own, Philip IV's widow appointed to the head of the government a Jesuit, her confessor Father Nidhard. Very soon, however, he was ejected by a conspiracy headed by Don John the Bastard. A few years later, the post was taken by Valenzuela, an unscrupulous adventurer whom Charles II, now an adolescent, had made a Grandee of Spain in order to make up for a banal hunting accident (when he had shot him in a buttock). But the Bastard instigated a second plot, exiled the Queen Mother and had Valenzuela arrested too. The latter's wife was arrested, incarcerated and raped. She ended her days begging and died mad. When, however, the Bastard died too, the Queen Mother returned and appointed a new Minister, the Duke of Medinaceli.
Medinaceli worked all day long, apparently exhausting himself in the process, but never achieved a thing. Despite this, he resigned because the task was too wearying. In the end, the Count of Oropesa took the reins. His health was delicate. He was tormented by constant attacks of Saint Anthony's fire and spent more time in bed than on his feet. After barely three years in office, he was thrown out by a palace coup and sent into exile. King Charles then appointed a new Junta without any chief minister. This, however, was soon nicknamed the "government of swindlers ". Its failure gave rise in turn to a quadrumvirate consisting of three noblemen and a Cardinal. They achieved absolutely nothing, so there was yet another change of government: the Duke of Montalto came to power, but he too was soon dismissed. The King then recalled Oropesa whom he particularly liked, but the people rose in revolt and swept him away: disguised as a monk, he made a miraculous escape with his wife and son when the rebels came for him.
The public accounts are so disastrous and confused that no one can manage to reconstruct the State budget. Taxes are kept high by public officials so that they can make money out of them, milking surreptitiously the entries in the Exchequer or else exacting bribes. The Royal finances are in such a parlous state that even the staff of the Alcazar go unpaid. At the same time, they increase the taxes on meat and oil for three weeks in order to pay the actors who celebrate the King's birthday.
The French burst into Catalonia. The Spanish army was routed on the river Ter; Palamos and Gerona are under occupation.
El Rey, who looks upon government as the Devil looks on holy water,
spends his days in the gardens of the Buen Retiro picking punnets of raspberries.
In the streets, the host of wretches, beggars, petty thieves and homeless people has grown out of all proportion. The people are on their knees. The humblest foodstuffs are paid for with their weight in gold. Thefts, homicides and rapine are the order of the day. Taxes on bakers' goods are raised and the bakers go on strike. Madrid, already famished, is breadless. Flour can be found nowhere. To obtain a little, the English Ambassador has had to send out a squad armed to the teeth, or else his servants would be attacked. To work as a baker means running a daily risk of being robbed and killed.
The only thing that the hungry people get for a reply is the latest in a long line of announcements that the Queen is with child and Spain will soon have an heir to the Throne, but no one believes the Palace's lies.
The darkest day was a year ago, on 29th April 1699, when the furious mob came to the Alcazar, under the windows of the Royal Family. The Sovereign had to come out onto the balcony in person and only by a miracle did he succeed in calming the insurgents. At Court, all is turning to catastrophe.
The King is paralysed by fear and ready to do anything he is told. But no one can or will offer him counsel. The factions into which the Court is divided are so many hornets' nests in which everyone, even good friends, can expect nothing but ruin from the others. France and Austria blow secretly on the fire of wrath, ambition and envy.
I broke off my reading: footsteps seemed to be approaching in the corridor. In a flash, I put everything back in its place and rushed to the door, ready to make my escape. Alas, I was too late: Atto Melani was returning. Fortunately, he was alone.
I took refuge in Buvat's little room, praying God that the secretary would not return too soon, and from there I watched through the half-closed door. The first thing that the Abbot did was to remove his heavy grey wig, which - seeing how little cool there was even at that late hour - he snatched off with a grunt of satisfaction. He placed it on the appropriate stand which he put on his bedside table. Then, moaning with fatigue, he rapidly undressed. The hectic day which had just come to an end had sapped the Abbot's strength: he had retired to his apartment without waiting until the end of dinner, and now he had not even called a valet de chambre to remove his shoes.
Hidden in the little room, I had perforce to witness Atto's undressing. When he had stripped, I was surprised to observe a body which was, it is true, extremely mature, yet in excellent condition. His skin sagged and in several places fell into folds; his shoulders, however, were straight, and his legs, which were tense and agile, seemed to belong to one twenty years younger. Nowhere on his lower limbs were there those bluish marks which old age inevitably brings. Well, I thought, were it not so, Abbot Melani could not have borne the strain of those intense days of action.
"The Abbot is afraid of dying forgotten. But if he goes on like this, he will live a great deal longer and will do much. Surely, he will have all the time he needs to go down in history," I concluded, laughing inwardly.
Atto extinguished the lamp and, bathed only in moonlight, went to bed without even scraping off the ceruse, the beauty spots and the carmine red on his cheeks. Very soon, he began to snore loudly.
I was about to go on my way when 1 remembered that I still had not managed to find the most important thing: Atto and Maria's two last letters. The Abbot must have kept them on his person. What better time to find them?
I searched his clothes from top to bottom, even the heels of his shoes, but found nothing. Melani's teachings, together with the many and singular experiences which I had lived through at his side, had, however, sharpened my senses and my wits. Thus it was that, looking attentively all around me, I noticed a curious detail. Atto had placed his foppish periwig, not on the dressing table, as he should normally have done, but on his bedside table; as though he meant to keep watch over it even in his sleep. . .
Straining to avoid making the slightest noise, an effort which caused me to break into a copious sweat, I succeeded in my undertaking: the letters were in an unlikely secret pocket inside the wig, in the starched web to which were attached the curled locks of artificial hair. The elaborate choice of hiding place left no room for doubt: the Abbot feared greatly that someone might get at these letters. Of course, said I to myself, how could one blame him after all the misadventures with the cerretani? So much care might, however, mean that the content of those letters was far more delicate than the previous messages, and perhaps even too hot to handle.
To my surprise, there were not two but five letters. At a snail's pace, cursing the creaking wooden floor, I at last moved away from the bed in which Abbot Melani was sleeping.
Three of the letters seemed rather old. Curious, I opened one of them. It was the ending of a letter written in Spanish, penned by a rather uncertain hand. Imagine my astonishment when I read the signature:
yo el Rey*
It was a letter from the King of Spain, poor Charles II. It was dated 1685, some fifteen years before. Despite the extreme similarity between the Spanish language and Italian, the Sovereign's contorted and tortured handwriting did not allow me to understand anything of what he had written. I opened the two other papers, in search of the beginning of the letter, in order to be able to understand to whom it was addressed. Instead, to my astonishment, I saw that each consisted of the ending of a letter written many years ago. Both were signed by the King of Spain, and here too I was unable to understand the contents.
What was the meaning of those truncated pages? And why ever were they in Abbot Melani's hands? They must
be very important if he kept them hidden in his periwig.
Alas, I had very little time in which to reflect. There was something far more urgent to be done: to skim through Atto and Maria's two epistles and put them back in their place before Buvat's return.
Hardly had my eyes settled on the first page than I gave a start.
My dearest Friend,
I have learned the most surprising news which I am sure will surprise
and interest you as much as it has me. His Holiness Pope Innocent XII has
set up a special congregation for consultation on the Spanish question. It
*"I the King". (Translator's note.)
seems that the Pontiff, after a long period of hesitation, has at last given in to the pressing requests of the Spanish Ambassador Uzeda to give his opinion on El Rey's request, and has charged the Secretary of State, our benign Fabrizio Spada, together with the Secretary for Breves, Cardinal Albani, and the Chamberlain, Cardinal Spinola di San Cesareo, to study the situation with a view to preparing the Papal reply.
My heart was beating hard. Spada, Albani and Spinola: the same three eminences who had for days and days been meeting secretly at the Vessel and whose trail I and Atto had been trying in vain to follow. So the Spanish succession was the real reason they were meeting, not the conclave!
I raised my eyes from the letter, frowning. Why had not Atto run to tell me as soon as he had learned the news from Maria?
Feverishly, I skimmed through the letter. I stopped a little further on:
Thus, His Holiness has yielded to spirits more tenacious than his own. Will he have the necessary clarity of mind to act effectively on the King's behalf? Here, my friend, I begin once more to have my doubts. What does the Holy Father mean when, as you wrote, he is heard to moan: "We are denied the dignity which is due to the Vicar of Christ and there is no care for us "?
I switched rapidly to Atto's reply, which gave me even more food for thought:
Most Clement Madame,
I have known for some time of the congregation of the three cardinals responsible for drawing up an opinion on the Spanish Question. The matter is common knowledge here in Rome, at least in well-informed circles. If you were among us here at the festivities, you would already have learned of it...
I doubted those words. Did Atto perhaps want to make Maria believe that he had prior knowledge of everything, so as not to lose face? Melani's letter continued:
In reality, His Holiness had originally chosen Cardinal Panciati instead of Spinola, which would have been better for France, since Spinola is openly in favour of the Empire; but then the former was obliged to decline on grounds of poor health, so much so that he has not even been able to attend the delightful wedding at Villa Spada.
You were however informed most promptly, since the assignment
will only be made officially tomorrow, on the 14th July.
No, Atto was pretending nothing to the Connestabilessa. He was telling the truth: to me, however, he had lied. From all these details, which he was setting forth with such confidence, it was clear that Atto had for some time been fully informed of the three cardinals' diplomatic manoeuvres following Charles of Spain's request for the Pope's assistance. But all this he had deliberately kept from me, and that, for a long time.
Then suddenly I remembered: what was it that I had heard those three spectators saying the evening before, just before the play began? The Spanish Ambassador, Count Uzeda, with the help of others, had at long last succeeded in convincing Pope Innocent XII. To do what, however, that they had not said. Nor had they mentioned the names of those who were supposed to have helped Uzeda by influencing His Holiness: they had only referred to "four sly foxes".
Now the Connestabilessa's letter made everything clear: plainly, Innocent XII did not wish to involve himself in the question of the Spanish succession, but he had in the end given in to pressure from the Spanish Ambassador. And who were the other "sly foxes" like him if not Albani, Spada and Spinola? That was why one of the trio, whom I had overheard the evening before, had silenced the others with the words "lupus in fabula" as soon as he had realised that Cardinal Spada was approaching.
In other words, the three eminences had used every means at their disposal to put pressure on the dying Pontiff to assign them the task of dealing with the question of the Spanish succession. But worst of all was the fact that when, on the day before - the 12th - Pope Pignatelli had let himself be convinced to set up the congregation, the three cardinals had already been meeting secretly at the Vessel for a week! Perhaps they were deciding on the tactics to adopt with the Holy Father.
To keep their meetings well hidden, what better cover than the wedding at Villa Spada? No one would become suspicious seeing them together, since Spada was the master of the house and both Albani and Spinola were among the guests. All that without counting the fact that they were so skilful in their manner of slipping away to the Vessel that the Abbot and I had never managed to catch them in flagrante during their meetings there.
All in all, it seemed that the poor old Pope no longer counted for anything, as the three guests had commented the evening before.
I felt bitter about this: alas, it meant that Spada, in his capacity as Secretary of State, was in all probability one of those (together with the Secretary for Breves, Albani, and the Chamberlain, Spinola di San Cesareo) about whom the Pontiff complained that he was denied the dignity due to the Vicar of Christ and treated inconsiderately, as the Connestabilessa had mentioned on no fewer than two separate occasions in her letters to Atto.
What was the Abbot's role in all this? Now that was clear: Melani's purpose was to spy on the trio, not with a view to the conclave but in order to know whether or not what they decided for the Spanish succession was favourable to France; and perhaps to hold himself at the ready to act on his King's behalf. Had I not read his correspondence with Maria, I would have remained in the dark about all this.
Discouraged and humiliated, I continued reading:
... and yet you must not think that His Holiness is in bad hands. From such information as I have been able to gather, he is perfectly and disinterestedly assisted by the Secretary of State, by the Secretary for Breves and by the Chamberlain, who look after all affairs of State with the greatest of care and solicitude. As I have already had occasion to write to you, they have in no way taken the crosier from His Holiness's hand but are only carrying out the difficult task with which the Pontiff has been so good as to entrust them, a task which they accepted humbly and with joy. Fear not.
So tense did I become at this juncture that I came close to crushing the letter between my fingers, leaving the mark of my clandestine reading. Such impudence! Not only did Atto know perfectly well what those three cardinals were up to during their secret meetings at the Vessel (despite the fact that he had never succeeded in finding them there) but he was speaking of it in unctuous, mellifluous terms. And this despite the fact that among the three was Cardinal Albani, in other words one of the Abbot's bitterest enemies: the one who, only the evening before, thanks to Ugonio's information, we had discovered to be in cahoots with Lamberg. The whole thing was really rather strange; what was Abbot Melani hiding?
Continuing my reading, however, I found that the subject changed suddenly:
But enough of this futile chatter! You know all too well how easily I immerse myself in vanities social and political when she who speaks (or writes) to me of such matters is the sweetest, noblest and most enchanting of Princesses one could ever desire to serve. You ought to amuse me with the most superficial of stratagems, even then you would effortlessly ensnare me, for all that issues forth from your mouth, as from your pen, is sublime, enchanting and worthy of love.
But now it is time to pass on to serious matters. Most clement and dearly beloved Madame, how much longer will you deny yourself the delights of Villa Spada? Barely two days remain before the withering away of the festivities, and still I have not been vouchsafed the Grace of kneeling
at your feet. Nor do you even tell me now whether you have been restored to health or when you will be arriving. Do you want my death?
But if, with your compassion
All the dear softness which was born with you
Be not extinguished quite, deny me not
This one request (although thy soul be cruel,
'Tis lovely too) to my last farewell sigh
Return but one, and then will death be pleasing.
What envious god causes you to turn your back on Lidio and disdain his requests? You know full well: if I am here, 'tis only because you promised Lidio that you would come.
Here was the truth. How could I have doubted it? He loved her and his love was mingled with that of his king, of whom Atto was but the old messenger. And when he returned to the subject of Eros, the Abbot betrayed the fact that all other things were merely a pretext for conversing, even if only on paper, with the object of his feelings.
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