I wish to have done with the monstrous heap of scandal, which the state of our Court has unavoidably forced into my narrative. Much, indeed, I leave untold; but I cannot omit an original and perfectly authentic story, which, as it explains the mystery of the King’s otherwise inexplicable blindness respecting his wife’s conduct, justice requires to be made public. The world shall see that his Majesty’s apathy does not arise from any disgraceful indifference for what is generally considered by men as a vital point of honour; but that the peace and tranquillity of his mind is grounded on a philosophical system--I do not know whether physical or moral--which is, I believe, peculiar to himself. The old Duke del I---- (on the authority of whose lady I give you the anecdote) was once, with other grandees, in attendance on the King, when his Majesty, being in high gossiping humour, entered into a somewhat gay conversation on the fair sex. He descanted, at some length, on fickleness and caprice, and laughed at the dangers of husbands in these southern climates. Having had his fill of merriment on the subject of jealousy, he concluded with an air of triumph--“We, _crowned heads_, however, have this chief advantage above others, that our honour, as they call it, is safe; for suppose that queens were as much bent on mischief as some of their sex, where could they find kings and emperors to flirt with? Eh?” LETTER XI. _Madrid, ---- 1807._ In giving you a sketch of private life at Madrid, I shall begin by a character quite peculiar to the country, and well known all over Spain by the name of _Pretendientes_, or place-hunters. Very different ideas, however, are attached to these denominations in the two languages. Young men of the proudest families are regularly sent to Court on that errand, and few gentlemen destine their sons either for the church or the law, without calculating the means of supporting them three or four years at Madrid, as regular and professed _place-hunters_. The fact is, that, with the exception of three stalls in every cathedral, and in some collegiate churches, that are obtained by literary competition, there is not a single place of rank and emolument to which Court interest is not the exclusive road. Hence the necessity for all who do not possess an independent fortune, in other words, for more than two thirds of the Spanish gentry, to repair to the capital, there to procure that interest, by whatever means their circumstances may afford.