Philip the Fair was a notorious lady-killer; and his wife Joanna, like a genuine Spaniard, loved him to distraction. On one occasion when he was travelling in the Netherlands, she worried herself into a sort of prostration. One wild, bitter night, as November nights are in Navarre, this poor Joanna, seized with a sudden hallucination, rushed out half-clad into the courtyard of the castle of Medina del Campo. People hurried up to her, and the governor stopped her and ordered the gate to be shut; but the unhappy woman, her eyes starting from her head, clung to the gate, and no human strength could tear her away. When morning came she was still there, panting and shivering, with wild, sunken eyes. Her mother, Queen Isabella, who was lying ill at Segovia, despatched an admiral and an archbishop in hot haste to the castle, but neither the archbishop nor the admiral succeeded in getting the poor mad thing away from her gate. They only managed, with great difficulty, to induce her to enter an adjacent shelter for the following night. Only the Queen was able to put an end to this distressing scene, the memory of which thrills Spain to this day. Yes, La Bruyère has well said: “Women go to extremes! They are better or worse than we.” There lies their danger. They would assuredly do well to beware of their ecstasies, and to keep above or below the husband with whom it is their lot to live. If they are reasonable and resigned, like those of whom we have to speak, not believing in the necessity of a matrimonial passion, then the humanists resume their dulcet strains. They have no intention of bringing about a violent rupture, but make their appeal to finesse.