“This is the age of upstarts,” said Talleyrand to his cousin, Prince de Chalais, who reproached him for an unbecoming servility to low and vile personages; “and I prefer bowing to them to being trampled upon and crushed by them.”  Indeed, as far as I remember, nowhere in history are hitherto recorded so many low persons who, from obscurity and meanness, have suddenly and at once attained rank and notoriety.  Where do we read of such a numerous crew of upstart Emperors, Kings, grand pensionaries, directors, Imperial Highnesses, Princes, Field-marshals, generals, Senators, Ministers, governors, Cardinals, etc., as we now witness figuring upon the theatre of Europe, and who chiefly decide on the destiny of nations?  Among these, several are certainly to be found whose superior parts have made them worthy to pierce the crowd and to shake off their native mud; but others again, and by far the greatest number of these ‘novi homines’, owe their present elevation to shameless intrigues or atrocious crimes.

The Prime Minister—­or rather, the viceroy of Spain, the Prince of Peace—­belongs to the latter class.  From a man in the ranks of the guards he was promoted to a general-in-chief, and from a harp player in antechambers to a president of the councils of a Prince; and that within the short period of six years.  Such a fortune is not common; but to be absolutely without capacity as well as virtue, genius as well as good breeding, and, nevertheless, to continue in an elevation so little merited, and in a place formerly so subject to changes and so unstable, is a fortune that no upstart ever before experienced in Spain.

An intrigue of his elder brother with the present Queen, then Princess of Asturia, which was discovered by the King, introduced him first at Court as a harp player, and, when his brother was exiled, he was entrusted with the correspondence of the Princess with her gallant.  After she had ascended the throne, he thought it more profitable to be the lover than the messenger, and contrived, therefore, to supplant his brother in the royal favour.  Promotions and riches were consequently heaped upon him, and, what is surprising, the more undisguised the partiality of the Queen was, the greater the attachment of the King displayed itself; and it has ever since been an emulation between the royal couple who should the most forget and vilify birth and supremacy by associating this man not only in the courtly pleasures, but in the functions of Sovereignty.  Had he been gifted with sound understanding, or possessed any share of delicacy, generosity, or discretion, he would, while he profited by their imprudent condescension, have prevented them from exposing their weaknesses and frailties to a discussion and ridicule among courtiers, and from becoming objects of humiliation and scandal among the people.  He would have warned them of the danger which at all times attends the publicity of foibles and vices of Princes, but