In 1634, he was married; but his wife soon died, and left him to contend alone with the troubles of life that still pursued him. In 1639, some satirical verses were placed under the king’s napkin at dinner-time; and, without proper inquiry, they were attributed to Quevedo. In consequence of this he was seized, late at night, with great suddenness and secrecy, in the palace of the Duke of Medina-Cœli, and thrown into rigorous confinement in the royal convent of San Márcos de Leon. There, in a damp and unwholesome cell, his health was soon broken down by diseases from which he never recovered; and the little that remained to him of his property was wasted away till he was obliged to depend on charity for support. With all these cruelties the unprincipled favorite of the time, the Count Duke Olivares, seems to have been connected; and the anger they naturally excited in the mind of Quevedo may well account for two papers against that minister which have generally been attributed to him, and which are full of personal severity and bitterness.[464] A heart-rending letter, too, which, when he had been nearly two years in prison, he wrote to Olivares, should be taken into the account, in which he in vain appeals to his persecutor’s sense of justice, telling him, in his despair, “No clemency can add many years to my life; no rigor can take many away.”[465] At last, the hour of the favorite’s disgrace arrived; and, amidst the jubilee of Madrid, he was driven into exile. The release of Quevedo followed as a matter of course, since it was already admitted that another had written the verses[466] for which he had been punished by above four years of the most unjust suffering. [464] The first is the very curious paper entitled “Caida de su Privanza y Muerte del Conde Duque de Olivares,” in the Seminario Erudito (Madrid, 1787, 4to, Tom. III.); and the other is “Memorial de Don F. Quevedo contra el Conde Duque de Olivares,” in the same collection, Tom. XV. [465] This letter, often reprinted, is in Mayans y Siscar, “Cartas Morales,” etc., Valencia, 1773, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 151. Another letter to his friend Adan de la Parra, giving an account of his mode of life during his confinement, shows that he was extremely industrious. Indeed, industry was his main resource a large part of the time he was in San Márcos de Leon. Seminario Erudito, Tom. I. p. 65. [466] Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. IV. p. xxxi. But justice came too late. Quevedo remained, indeed, a little time at Madrid, among his friends, endeavouring to recover some of his lost property; but failing in this, and unable to subsist in the capital, he retired to the mountains from which his race had descended. His infirmities, however, accompanied him wherever he went; his spirits sunk under his trials and sorrows; and he died, wearied out with life, in 1645.[467]