I suppose that the Duc had a strong influence on both my brother and me--on our opinions and our points of view--yet it must have been the influence of personality unconsciously exerted, for he always refrained from giving opinions about public affairs, even when he was asked for them. “No,” he would say, “I have learned not to express my opinions. They are always brought back to me--so transformed that I can not recognise them--and presented to me as my own. Look at the revolution.” He conformed in matters of religion to comfort his wife, who was very devout; but he never went to confession, and he required that when he attended Mass the priests should not take more than twenty minutes for it. He would keep an eye on the clock, and when the twenty minutes had elapsed he would say, “Watch him now,” and cough with peremptory impatience. The priest would immediately begin to race through to the conclusion of the service, and every one would be anxious for him to finish, as if the Due’s impatience were some terrible threat to be placated. Yet, for a man so feared, I never knew any one less fearsome. He was very patriarchal-looking when I knew him--white-bearded, heavily-fleshed, and benign. To his receptions in the evening came all the clever people, of whatever opinion, and whenever bores arrived he pretended that they had come to see his wife, and had them ushered to her apartments, and said, contentedly, “There now. They will pray together and enjoy themselves.” It was the one thing that he asked of life--not to be bored. Imagine how that would appeal to one in the atmosphere of a Court. For the plague of Courts is ennui. Princesses are peculiarly subject to it. A king or a prince has usually some work to do, some power to exercise. A princess is as much more idle than a young lady as a young lady is more idle than a working girl. In an attempt to keep up an exercise of my brain, I continued my studies during the whole ten years of my unmarried lite in Spain--studying languages, the piano, singing, the harp, painting--and keeping myself occupied with reading and writing as well as I could. People tell me that princesses are stupid. I wonder that we are not all idiots. During my life in Madrid, almost my only public duty was to help lay corner-stones. I helped lay enough to pave the city. Whenever nothing else could be found to justify our existence, the authorities would say, “Come, let them lay a corner-stone.” I can not believe that any other stones were put on top of them. It is not possible. There were too many. If the buildings had all been completed, there would not be room now, in the town, to walk. And the Te Deums that I listened to were numerous enough to exhaust the ears of Heaven.