mother, by which they were deprived of a pension they before enjoyed from the crown of Spain; but this was fortunately repaired by the interest of a nobleman at court, who procured the duchess’s two sisters to be minuted down for Maids of Honour to the Queen of Spain, whenever a vacancy should happen, but to enter immediately upon the salary of these places.  Her Majesty likewise took the duchess to attend her person.

There have been many instances of people, who have sustained the greatest shocks which adversity can inflict, through a whole life of suffering, and yet at last have yielded to the influence of a trifling evil:  something like this was the case of the duke of Wharton, which the following story will illustrate.

He was in garrison at Barcelona, and coming from a ball one night, in company with some ladies, a man in a masque, whom he did not know, was guilty of some rudeness to him.  The duke enquired who he was, and being informed that he was valet de chambre to the marquis de Risbourg, governour of Catalonia, he suffered himself to be transported by the first motions of his passion, and caned him.  The fellow complained of this usage to his master, who at first took no notice of it, imagining his grace would make some excuse to him for such a procedure, but whether the duke thought it beneath his quality to make any apology for beating a menial servant, who had been rude to him, or would not do it upon another account, he spoke not a word about it.  The marquis resenting this behaviour, two days after ordered the duke to prison.  He obeyed, and went to Fort Montjuich:  as soon as he arrived there, the marquis sent him word, he might come out when he pleased; the duke answered, he scorned to accept liberty at his hands, and would not stir without an order from the court, imagining they would highly condemn the governour’s conduct; but the marquis had too much credit with the minister, to suffer any diminution of his power on that account; he received only a sharp rebuke, and the duke had orders to repair to his quarters, without entering again into Barcelona.  This last mortification renewed the remembrance of all his misfortunes; he sunk beneath this accident, and giving way to melancholy, fell into a deep consumption.  Had the duke maintained his usual spirit, he would probably have challenged the marquis, and revenged the affront of the servant upon the master, who had made the quarrel his own, by resenting the valet’s deserved correction.

About the beginning of the year 1731 he declined so fast, being in his quarters, at Lerida, that he had not the use of his limbs, so as to move without assistance; but as he was free from pain, he did not lose all his gaiety.  He continued in this ill state of health for two months, when he gained a little strength, and found some benefit from a certain mineral water in the mountains of Catalonia; but his constitution was too much spent to recover the shocks it had received.