Book-worm authorities, addicted to "dry bones" of letters, are prone just now to doubt this visit of Countess d'Aulnoy to the capital of Spain. But if such patient doubters will compare her narrative with those of other foreigners, _e.g._ Bertaut de Rouen, or the manuscript description of Valladolid, written by a Portuguese, and now in the British Museum library, their scepticism will--or should--be done away with on the moment. The letters of the countess make it plain by copious inner testimony that she actually performed her Spanish visit; and though from time to time she over-colours or misreads the truth, it was the very usages of Spain that were absurd and out of joint, and not, except in isolated instances, the sprightly and observant Frenchwoman's account of them.[57] [57] But on the other hand I much suspect that the following passage in Alvarez de Colmenar's _Annales d'Espagne et de Portugal_ (vol. iii. p. 326) is stolen from Countess d'Aulnoy. "Elles ne portent point de colier, mais en échange elles ont des bracelets, des bagues, et des pendans d'oreille, plus gros que tous ceux qu'on voit en Hollande. Telle est la diversité des gouts des nations différentes, en matière de beauté. Il y en a même quelques-unes, qui attachent quelque beau joli bijou à leurs pendans d'oreilles, quelque ornement de pierreries, par exemple, ou d'autres choses semblables, selon leur quantité ou leur pouvoir." Elsewhere the Countess says: "Utensils of common metal are not employed here, but only those of silver or of ware. I hear that a little while ago, upon the death of the Duke of Alburquerque, six weeks were needed to make out an inventory of his gold and silver services. His house contained fourteen hundred dozen plates, five hundred large dishes, and seven hundred of a smaller size, with all the other pieces in proportion, and forty silver ladders for climbing his sideboard, made in grades like an altar in a spacious hall." These statements have been proved in later years. Dating from 1560, an inventory of the ducal house of Alburquerque was found not many years ago. In it we find the detailed list of gold and silver; cups and dishes, bowls and basins, plates and salt-cellars, trenchers, wine and water flagons, sauce-spoons, salad-spoons, conserve-spoons, and innumerable other articles. Here, too, we find, upon the mighty sideboard mounted by its forty silver stairs, such objects as the following:-- "A gold cup with festoon-work above and beneath, wrought with leaves in relief. At the top of the foot there issue some leaves that fall down over a small gold staple, and below this, about the narrowest part of the foot, are leaves in relief and several dolphins. The broad part of the foot is decorated with festoons. The lid of this cup is wrought with leaves in relief, and on the crest thereof is a lion, crowned. The cup weighs three hundred and fifty-one _castellanos_ and a half."