If it had been possible, even now, for the whole truth to be told to Philip as to the real causes of the poverty and wretchedness that afflicted the country, a prompt reversal of the policy that caused it might have arrested the ruin. But, in any case, it was unlikely that such change should be made; for Philip himself failed to see, as did the friends as well as the foes of Olivares, that only by a frank acceptance of the fact that Spain must abandon all her old flighty notions and impossible claims, could prosperity be brought back to the country. To prevent the danger of Philip's either discovering for himself or being told by others how deep and growing the discontent of the country was, Olivares plunged the idle young King more completely than ever in the pleasures and distractions that occupied most of his time and thoughts. Hunting, {230} play-going, religious ceremonies, literary amusements, and other entertainments left no opportunity for investigation and sustained application to business by the King. It is evident that now, whatever may have been the case at the beginning of the reign, the minister deliberately promoted this waste of time for his own ends; and his efforts to distract the King increased as the discontent in the country and Court grew. [Sidenote: A sumptuous feast] On the 1st June 1631, for instance, the Countess of Olivares gave a sumptuous entertainment to the sovereigns, as she was in the habit of doing on every possible pretext, in the gardens of her brother, the Count of Monterey;[13] and this is represented by the contemporary chronicler, who describes both fetes to have aroused the emulation of her husband to give another entertainment to the King and Queen on the night of St. John, three weeks later, that should eclipse all similar occasions. The document from which I am quoting, written by a whole-souled admirer of Olivares, is too long and tedious for reproduction entire here, but a few extracts from it may be interesting as showing now desperately the Olivares tried to please. "Although there were but few days to arrange everything, the Count-Duke was determined to show the extreme love and care with which he serves our Lord the King, and how easily he conquers the most difficult tasks by means of it. As a beginning of the preparations for the feast, which {231} was, amongst many other things, to include two new comedies not yet even thought of, much less written, his Excellency ordered Lope de Vega to write one, which he did in three days, and D. Francisco de Quevedo and D. Antonio de Mendoza the other, which they wrote in a single day, and the comedies were handed to the companies of Avendaño and Vallejo, the two best now on the boards, to study and rehearse."