Contrary to the popular tradition about Courts, there was very little of the scandal of which the “secret memoirs” of ladies-in-waiting have so much. Conditions in Spain did not encourage such stories, particularly among the aristocracy that came to Court. A Spanish lady would not even receive a call from a man if her husband were not at home; she could not walk alone in the streets; and, there being no divorce possible--and the jealousy of the Spanish husband so deadly--if she were foolish enough to engage in any love intrigues, the act would have to be too secret ever to become a matter of gossip. And there was nothing but such aristocracy at Court. We did not see--as one would at a French Court, for example--judges, or lawyers, or academicians, or artists, or professors, or great engineers of public works, or even many military or naval officers, except the King’s aides. Such men might be presented at audiences, but did not enter into our social life. Nothing but aristocracy. These had few interests, and therefore few topics of conversation. They shot rabbits and partridges, but did not hunt. They did not talk of sports, since they played no games--except card games that went on interminably, afternoons and evenings. Sport, in those days in Spain, was an affair of the lower classes wholly. They were fond of music, so we had _musicales_--and, of course, dances. When we had clever foreign visitors who talked entertainingly, the aristocrat was bored; the expression of ideas wearied him. He had manners, presence, dignity, but no activity either of body or mind. The diplomats we had always with us, and they make one of the traditionally brilliant circles of Court life; but I found, of all men in modern Courts, the diplomats the most absurd. If the kings have had their powers curtailed, the Court diplomats have lost theirs altogether. They are a useless survival of the days when the relations between nations depended on the feelings between Sovereigns, and the diplomats intrigued and flattered to some purpose, by smoothing over misunderstandings or exasperating offence. Nowadays, a Court diplomat has no power except to deliver the message of his home Government. He is not entrusted with secrets, any more than an errand-boy. And he is usually stupid. If a family of position has a son who is not quite bright, they say, “Put him in the diplomatic service.” He goes to a foreign Court and devotes himself to attending royal funerals and christenings and weddings and church services and Court functions, as the “representative” of his Government--and, if he is a Russian or a Southerner, he spends the rest of his time flattering the ladies whose husbands have Government authority, in an attempt to obtain information from them which their husbands have let fall.