Well! enough said on this matter. I could wish from my heart that not a few evil tongues in this our land of France could be chastened and refrain them from their scandal-making, and comport them more after the Spanish fashion. For no man there durst, on peril of his life, to make so much as the smallest reflection on the honour of ladies of rank and reputation. Nay! so scrupulously are they respected that on meeting them in any place whatsoever, an if the faintest cry is raised of _lugar a las damas_, every man doth lout low and pay them all honour and reverence. Before them is all insolence straitly forbid on pain of death. Whenas the Empress,[82] wife of the Emperor Charles, made his entry into Toledo, I have heard tell how that the Marquis de Villena, one of the great Lords of Spain, for having threatened an alguasil, which had forcibly hindered him from stepping forward, came nigh being sore punished, because the threat was uttered in presence of the Empress; whereas, had it been merely in the Emperor’s, no such great ado would have been made. The Duc de Feria being in Flanders, and the Queens Eleanor and Marie taking the air abroad, and their Court ladies following after them, it fell out that as he was walking beside them, he did come to words with an other Spanish knight. For this the pair of them came very nigh to losing their lives,—more for having made such a scandal before the Queen and Empress than for any other cause. The same befell Don Carlos d’Avalos at Madrid, as Queen Isabelle of France was walking through the town; and had he not sped instantly into a Church which doth there serve as sanctuary for poor unfortunate folk, he had been straightway put to death. The end was he had to fly in disguise, and leave Spain altogether; and was kept in banishment all his life long and confined in the most wretched islet of all Italy, Lipari to wit. Court jesters even, which have usually full license of free speech, an if they do assail the ladies, do get somewhat to remember. It did so fall out one time to a Fool called Legat, whom I once knew myself. Queen Elizabeth of France[83*] once in conversation speaking of the houses at Madrid and Valladolid, how charming and agreeable these were, did declare she wished with all her heart the two places were so near she could e’en touch one with one foot and the other with the other, spreading her legs very wide open as she said the words. The Fool, who heard the remark, cried, “And I should dearly wish to be in betwixt, _con un carrajo de borrico, para encarguar y plantar la raya_,”—that is, “with a fool’s cudgel to mark and fix the boundary withal.” For this he was soundly whipped in the kitchens. Yet was he well justified in forming such a wish; for truly was she one of the fairest, most agreeable and honourable ladies was ever in all Spain, and well deserving to be desired in this fashion,—only of folk more honourable than he an hundred thousand times.