The birth of the favourite of fortune was exceedingly obscure.

He had long affected to conceal it; but when he found curiosity had proceeded into serious investigation of his origin, he had suddenly appeared to make a virtue of necessity; proclaimed of his own accord that his father was a common soldier of Valladolid, and even invited to Madrid, and lodged in his own palace, his low-born progenitor.

This prudent frankness disarmed malevolence on the score of birth.

But when the old soldier died, rumours went abroad that he had confessed on his death-bed that he was not in any way related to Calderon; that he had submitted to an imposture which secured to his old age so respectable and luxurious an asylum; and that he knew not for what end Calderon had forced upon him the honours of spurious parentship.

This tale, which, ridiculed by most, was yet believed by some, gave rise to darker reports concerning one on whom the eyes of all Spain were fixed.