Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/357

344 disposed of, Don Carlos took his violin, which was as dear to him as his gun,—although in playing he gave himself no trouble to keep time with the other musicians, but played faster or slower, without apparent consciousness. After music he sat down to cards, and played ombre with two old courtiers, who for fifteen years had been required to perform this daily service; and he regularly went to sleep with the cards in his hand. Almost as regularly the other players, as well as the lookers-on, went to sleep also, and aroused themselves only when the major-domo came to announce supper. This meal at an end, the King gave his orders for the next day, and at eleven o'clock went to bed.

Such, word for word, was the official account of the Spanish court given by the French minister at Madrid to his Government in the year 1800; but it told only half the story. Charles was a religious man, and strictly observed all the fasts of the Church. To rouse in his mind an invincible repugnance against any individual, one had only to say that such a person had no religion. He held the priesthood in deep respect; his own character was open and frank; he possessed the rare quality of being true at any cost to his given word; he was even shrewd in his way, with a certain amount of common-sense; but with all this he was a nullity, and his career was that of a victim. Far above all distinctions of rank or class, the King was alone in Spain, as isolated as an Eastern idol; even the great nobles who in the feudal