need of a priest.  The fame of his exploits and his sword were enough for him, but as death drew near he thought of his heirs, who would be unable to dispose of glory and fear to make themselves respected as he had done, and he drew near to the priest, taking God as a mysterious ally who would watch over the preservation of the throne.  The founder of a dynasty reigned ’by the grace of strength’ but his descendants reigned ‘by the grace of God.’  The king and the Church were everything for the Spanish people.  Faith had made them slaves by a moral chain that no revolutions could break; its logic was indisputable—­the belief in a personal God, who busied Himself with the most minute concerns of the world, and granted His grace to the king that he might reign, obliged them to obey under pain of going to hell.  Those who were rich and well placed in the world grew fat, praising the Lord who created kings to save men the trouble of governing themselves; those who suffered consoled themselves by thinking that this life was but a passing trial, after which they would be sure to gain a little niche in heaven.  Religion is the best of all auxiliaries to the kings; if it had not existed before the monarchs these last would have invented it.  The proof is that in these times of doubt they are firmly anchored to Catholicism, which is the strongest prop of the throne.  Logically the kings ought to say, ’I am king because I have the power, because I am supported by the army.’  But no, senor, they prefer to continue the old farce and say, ’I, the king, by the grace of God.’  The little tyrant cannot leave the lap of the greater despot; it is impossible to them to maintain themselves by themselves.”

Gabriel was silent for some time; he was suffocating, his chest was heaving with the spasms of his hollow cough.  The Chapel-master drew near alarmed.

“Do not be uneasy,” said Luna, recovering himself; “it is so every day.  I am ill and I ought not to talk so much, but these things excite me, and I feel irritated by the absurdities of the monarchy and religion, not only in this country, but all over the world.  But, notwithstanding, I have felt real pity, profound commiseration for a being with royal blood.  Can you believe it?  I saw him quite close in one of my journeys through Europe.  I do not know how the police who guarded his carriage did not drive me away, fearing a possible attempt, but what I felt was compassion for the kings who have come so late into a world that no longer believes in the divine right; and these last twigs, sprouting from the worm-eaten and rotten trunk of a dynasty, carry in their poor sap the decay of the rotten branches.  It was a youth, as sick as I am, not by the chances of life, but weakly from his cradle, condemned before his birth to suffer from the malady that came to him with his life.  Just imagine, Don Luis, if at this time for the preservation of my own interests I begot a son, would it not be a coldly premeditated attempt against the future?”