The minister was no weakling, and his hand fell heavily upon those who dared to oppose him. Quevedo's trenchant pen had scarified the vices and weaknesses of Madrid in a dozen satires: he had scourged the slothful, vain, pretentious crew that filled the gutters of the slums and the galleries of the Buen Retiro; but so long as he was friendly to Olivares none dared to touch him. The moment he turned his glib verse and bitter prose, addressed to the poet-king himself,[34] to an exposure of the {356} evils arising from the policy of the favourite, then isolation in a dark and filthy dungeon was Quevedo's reward. There, until the favourite's fall, the poet, loaded with chains, was kept, whilst the vices he had scourged grew greater with impunity. The streets of Madrid became more scandalous even than before. Bravos and assassins almost openly stood for hire; murder and robbery were so common in broad daylight as to attract only passing notice, and in one fortnight at this period (1641) there were 110 murders in Madrid alone, many of them of persons of position.[35] Devout in form as were the people, even sanctuary was now no protection, and the most hideous sacrilege went hand in hand with grovelling sanctimoniousness. Fresh pragmatics, with penalties ferocious in their severity, denounced evil living, but little notice was taken of them after the first few days. Women still clattered up and down the Prado and the Calle Mayor on high jingling pattens, and with great swelling farthingales, their faces covered and their breasts exposed; cape snatchers still plied their trade at the street corners, and ruffling bullies picked quarrels for gain with peaceful citizens. {357} [Sidenote: Disintegration] In Catalonia the Spanish armies and fleet were being beleaguered and beaten hopelessly (1641). The French King had received the oath of allegiance from Barcelona, whilst powerful French armies under Schomberg, De la Motte, and Meilleraie, with Richelieu behind them, held the principality firmly, cordially seconded by the Catalans themselves. All Spain, even Madrid, now almost at the end of its resources, saw that the country was upon the rapid slope that led to utter ruin. Portugal gone, with hardly as yet a pretence of winning it back. Catalonia gone, apparently as hopelessly, Andalucia almost in revolt,[36] and Naples simmering in discontent: a great empire of formerly loyal people falling into impotent disintegration, and all fingers pointed at the heavy, frowning, yellow-visaged man, who worked night and day doing everybody's work, and desperately keeping the King immersed in trifling pleasures, as the author of all this ruin and disgrace.