Meanwhile, the fame of the beauty and voice of the young actress reached Madrid, and hither she was removed from Seville by royal command.

To Madrid, then, I hastened, on the pretence of demanding promotion.

You, as you have stated, were absent in Portugal on some state mission.

I sought the Duke de Lerma.

I implored him to give me some post, anywhere--I recked not beneath what sky, in the vast empire of Spain--in which, removed from the prejudices of birth and of class, and provided with other means, less precarious than those that depend on the sword, I might make Beatriz my wife.