The Comte de Peralada was a young man with a pleasant face but with an ill-proportioned body.  He was a great debauchee and lover of bad company, an enemy of religion, morality, and law.  He was directly descended from the Comte de Peralada, who served Philip II. so well that this king declared him “count by the grace of God.”  The original patent of nobility was the first thing I saw in his antechamber, where it was framed and glazed so that all visitors might see it in the quarter of an hour they were kept waiting.

The count received me with an easy and cordiale manner, which seemed to say that he renounced all the dignities of his rank.  He thanked Don Diego for introducing me, and talked a good deal about Colonel Royas.  He asked me if I had seen the English girl he was keeping at Saragossa, and on my replying in the affirmative, he told me in a whisper that he had slept with her.

He took me to his stables, where he had some splendid horses, and then asked me to dine with him the next day.

The viceroy received me in a very different manner; he stood up so that he might not have to offer me a chair, and though I spoke Italian, with which language I knew him to be well acquainted, he answered me in Spanish, styling me ‘ussia’ (a contraction of ‘vuestra senoria’, your lordship, and used by everyone in Spain), while I gave him his proper title of excellence.

He talked a good deal about Madrid, and complained that M. de Mocenigo had gone to Paris by Bayonne instead of Barcelona, as he had promised him.

I tried to excuse my ambassador by saying that by taking the other route he had saved fifty leagues of his journey, but the viceroy replied that ‘tenir la palabra’ (keeping to one’s words) comes before all else.

He asked me if I thought of staying long at Barcelona, and seemed surprised when I told him that, with his leave, I hoped to make a long stay.

“I hope you will enjoy yourself,” he said, “but I must warn you that if you indulge in the pleasures which my nephew Peralada will doubtless offer you, you will not enjoy a very good reputation at Barcelona.”

As the Comte de Ricla made this observation in public, I thought myself justified in communicating it to Peralada himself.  He was delighted, and told me, with evident vanity, that he had gone to Madrid three times, and had been ordered to return to Catalonia on each occasion.

I thought my best plan would be to follow the viceroy’s indirect advice, so I refused to join in any of the little parties of pleasure which Peralada proposed.

On the fifth day after my arrival, an officer came to ask me to dinner at the viceroy’s.  I accepted the invitation with much pleasure, for I had been afraid of the viceroy’s having heard of my relations with Nina, and thought it possible that he might have taken a dislike to me.  He was very pleasant to me at dinner, often addressing his observations to me, but always in a tone of great gravity.