His royal master, however, became impatient for his return, and he hurried back to Madrid, after giving commissions to all the leading artists then at Rome. On his return he was given fresh honours and offices--especially that of Marshal of the Court, whose duty it was to superintend the personal lodgment of the king during excursions. It was the duties of this office which were the immediate cause of his death. He accompanied the king to the conference at Irun--on the "Island of the Pheasants"--which led to the marriage of Louis XIV. with the Infanta Maria Teresa. There is a picture of him at Versailles by the French artist Lebrun, which was painted on this occasion. The portrait, sombre and cadaverous-looking, was no doubt true to life; and when Velazquez returned to Madrid, it was found that his exertions in arranging the royal journey had sown the seeds of a fever, from which after a week's illness he died. Seven days later his wife died of grief, and was buried at his side. Though Velazquez spent all his life, as we have seen, amongst the great ones of the earth, no trace of vanity or meanness is discernible in his character. Ruskin (_The Two Paths_, §§ 62, 65) connects his sweetness of disposition with the truthfulness which was characteristic of his art. "The art which is especially dedicated to natural fact always indicates a peculiar gentleness and tenderness of mind, and all great and successful work of that kind will assuredly be the production of thoughtful, sensitive, earnest, kind men, large in their views of life, and full of various intellectual power ... (One instance is Reynolds). The other painter whom I would give you as an instance of this gentleness is a man of another nation, on the whole I suppose one of the most cruel civilised nations in the world,--the Spaniards. They produced but one great painter, only one; but he among the very greatest of painters, Velazquez. You would not suppose, from looking at Velazquez's portraits generally, that he was an especially kind or good man; you perceive a peculiar sternness about them; for they were as true as steel, and the persons whom he had to paint being not generally kind or good people, they were stern in expression, and Velazquez gave the sternness; but he had precisely the same intense perception of truth, the same marvellous instinct for the rendering of all natural soul and all natural form that our Reynolds had. Let me, then, read you his character as it is given by Mr. Stirling (afterwards Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell): 'Certain charges, of what nature we are not informed, brought against him after his death, made it necessary for his executor to refute them at a private audience