Isabel’s children were many, five who died at, or soon after, their births having preceded the looked-for heir of Spain, Don Baltasar Carlos, that chubby, sturdy little Prince (born in October 1629) who prances his fat pony for ever upon the canvas of Velazquez. The fastuous taste of the King and Court was satisfied to the full in the baptism of Baltasar Carlos. The Countess of Olivares, who was as supreme in the palace as her husband was in the country, held the babe at the font, seated, as we are told by an eyewitness, upon ‘a seat of rock crystal, the most costly piece of furniture ever seen in Europe’; and presents were showered upon the midwife to the value of thirteen thousand ducats. As soon as the Queen was able to appear, her birthday (21st November) was celebrated on this occasion as it had never been before. Masquerades on horseback, torchlight parades, cane contests and bullfights succeeded each other, in all of which the King made a sumptuous appearance with his brother, Don Carlos; and the Queen, who had given an heir to the crown, was honoured to the full. This splendid Court, strutting and posturing in rich garments upon the brink of the slope which was leading to Spain’s overthrow, had the advantage of being immortalised upon canvas by the greatest master of portraiture that ever lived, and laid bare to the very soul by some of the keenest satirists who ever wielded pen. The battue parties, in which Philip and his wife delighted, for the killing of stags in an enclosure, are brought before us as if we were present by the great picture in which Velazquez has portrayed the scene.[216] In the park of Aranjuez, with the afternoon sun glinting through the trees, dark against a cloudless sky, the white canvas enclosure is erected. Into its gradually narrowing limits the frightened deer have been driven by mounted beaters, and at the only exit through the neck of the funnel are stationed the gentlemen, beneath a sort of platform of leafy boughs decked with red cloth, in which the ladies sit. The central figure of the twelve ladies, seated upon a crimson cushion, the better to see the sport, is the Queen, Isabel of Bourbon, dressed in a yellow robe, and wearing a white bow upon her head. Beneath the platform there await, mounted, the onrush of the deer, Philip and his two brothers, Carlos and Ferdinand, and, of course, Olivares. With their hunting knives, they slash at the deer as they fly past underneath the ladies’ bower, killing some, ham-stringing others, and leaving the rest that escape to be dealt with by the hounds awaiting them beyond. The ground beneath the bower is drenched with the warm blood of the butchered beasts, and the ladies smile approval at the sickly spectacle, whilst groups of courtiers, servants, and beaters, crowd the foreground and discuss the King’s prowess.