“That is not true,” said the Marquis; “I have watched you; you have not approached the bed, and the King has said nothing to you.”

The Cardinal insisting, and without success, took him by the arm to make him go.  The Marquis said he was very insolent to wish to hinder him from seeing the King, and perform his duties.  The Cardinal, stronger than his adversary, turned the Marquis round, hurried him towards the door, both talking the while, the Cardinal with measure, the Marquis in no way mincing his words.  Tired of being hauled out in this manner, the Marquis struggled, called Alberoni a “little scoundrel,” to whom he would teach manners; and in this heat and dust the Marquis, who was weak, fortunately fell into an armchair hard by.  Angry at his fall, he raised his little stick and let it fall with all his force upon the ears and the shoulders of the Cardinal, calling him a little scoundrel—­a little rascal—­ a little blackguard, deserving a horsewhipping.

The Cardinal, whom he held with one hand, escaped as well as he could, the Marquis continuing to abuse him, and shaking the stick at him.  One of the valets came and assisted him to rise from his armchair, and gain the door; for after this accident his only thought was to leave the room.

The Queen looked on from her chair during all this scene, without stirring or saying a word; and the privileged few in the chamber did not dare to move.  I learned all this from every one in Spain; and moreover I asked the Marquis de Villena himself to give me the full details; and he, who was all uprightness and truth, and who had conceived some little friendship for me, related with pleasure all I have written.  The two gentlemen of the chamber present also did the same, laughing in their sleeves.  One had refused to tell the Marquis to leave the room, and the other had accompanied him to the door.  The most singular thing is, that the Cardinal, furious, but surprised beyond measure at the blows he had received, thought only of getting out of reach.  The Marquis cried to him from a distance, that but for the respect he owed to the King, and to the state in which he was, he would give him a hundred kicks in the stomach, and haul him out by the ears.  I was going to forget this.  The King was so ill that he saw nothing.

A quarter of an hour after the Marquis had returned home, he received an order to retire to one of his estates at thirty leagues from Madrid.  The rest of the day his house was filled with the most considerable people of Madrid, arriving as they learned the news, which made a furious sensation through the city.  He departed the next day with his children.  The Cardinal, nevertheless, remained so terrified, that, content with the exile of the Marquis, and with having got rid of him, he did not dare to pass any censure upon him for the blows he had received.  Five or six months afterwards he sent him an order of recall, though the Marquis had not taken the slightest