The following day he arrived at Lerma, and went to see the magnificent mansion which that old rascal the Cardinal Duke de Lerma had recently built for himself with a portion of the immense sums of which he had robbed his unfortunate country. He afterwards went to hear Mass at a convent which had also been built by Lerma, where the music, he tells us, was excellent. On the 8th, Bassompierre reached Alcovendas, a few miles to the north of Madrid. Here he received a visit from Du Fargis, who came to inform him of the arrangements for his entry into Madrid. Du Fargis’s staff and servants, and those of his friend the Venetian Ambassador, were still in prison, but they were to be set at liberty next day, in time to assist at Bassompierre’s reception. On the following afternoon, Bassompierre made his entry into the capital of Spain, and had no cause to complain of the way in which he was received:-- “The Ambassador [Du Fargis] and all the families of the other Ambassadors came to meet me. The Count of Barajas[138] came to receive me with the carriages of the King, in one of which I seated myself. He was accompanied by many of the nobility; and a very great number of women in carriages came out of the town to see my arrival. I alighted at the house of the Count of Barajas, which had been sumptuously prepared for my accommodation. There I found the Duke of Monteleone, Don Fernando Giron, Don Carlos Coloma and a great number of other noblemen whom I had known in France or elsewhere, waiting to greet me. I went to pay my respects to the Countess of Barajas,[139] who had invited a number of ladies to assist her in receiving me, and afterwards I supped at a table where fifty covers were laid, which was kept for me all the time I was at Madrid. In the course of the evening, the Duke of Uceda sent one of his gentlemen to greet me on his behalf.” Bassompierre spent the following day in receiving the visits of a great number of distinguished persons. An early arrival was the wife of the heir to the throne (Élisabeth of France) who was accompanied by a large party of ladies of the palace, “both old and young.” She was followed by grandees and their wives, dignitaries of Church and State, members of the Corps Diplomatique, and so forth, whom we need not particularise, though Bassompierre’s account of the arrival of one of the chief grandees in Spain at that time cannot be omitted:--