There is nothing of court society at Madrid: the secluded habits of the king and queen, I have spoken of already; and there is scarcely any visiting among the courtiers. The persons of distinction in Madrid lead a most monotonous life: one lady only, the Duchess of Benevente, opens her house once a week,--this is on Sunday evening, and she receives, among others, those of the foreign ministers who choose to visit her. Her parties, however, are far from being agreeable: the Spaniards of distinction who frequent her _tertulia_, generally withdraw when the foreign ministers are announced. This disinclination on the part of the Spanish grandees, and others holding high court preferment, to associate with the foreign ambassadors, is notorious in Madrid. At the tertulia, of the wife of Don Manuel Gonsalez Salmon, the foreign ministers used formerly to be present, but they discovered that they were regarded in a light little different from that of spies; and they are now never seen at these tertulias. In Madrid there are no ministerial, no diplomatic dinners; and among the persons of most distinction, entertainments are extremely rare. There is, in fact, nothing like gaiety among the upper ranks in the Spanish metropolis. And yet, if you remark to a Spanish lady that there is little society among the higher classes in Madrid, she will express the utmost astonishment that you should have imbibed so false a notion of Madrid and its society; but her idea of society and yours differ widely. If a dozen houses are open, into which a Spanish lady may go when she pleases, sit down on the sofa with her friend, fan herself, and talk till she is tired; this she considers society,--and this is the only form of society to be found among the highest classes in Madrid,--gaiety there is none. Previous to travelling into Spain, I had heard much of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of obtaining access to Spanish society; and before I had the means of judging for myself, I received frequent corroboration of this opinion. One of his majesty’s consuls, whom I accidentally met in the Pyrenees, and whose appointment lies in the largest city of Spain, next to Madrid; a man too, who, both by his rank, for he is the nephew of a peer, and by the affability of his manners, would be likely to be every where well received, told me that I should probably leave Spain with no greater knowledge of Spanish society than when I entered it; that it was more than probable I should never see the inside of a Spanish house: and he concluded by saying, that he had been four years in Spain, and actually _did not know if the Spaniards dined off a table cloth_. This was rather disheartening: and when I waited upon the British minister upon my arrival in Madrid, I received from him no greater encouragement. He told me that Spanish houses were closed against foreigners; and that, for his own part, he knew nobody, and visited no where.