buying an interview.

When it is remembered that with this foremost power in the world affairs
of greater or less importance were perpetually to be transacted by the
representatives of other nations as well as by native subjects of every
degree; that all these affairs were to pass through the hands of Lerma,
and that those hands had ever to be filled with coin, the stupendous
opulence of the one man can be easily understood. Whether the foremost
power of the world, thus governed, were likely to continue the foremost
power, could hardly seem doubtful to those accustomed to use their reason
in judging of the things of this world.

Meantime the duke continued to transact business; to sell his interviews
and his interest; to traffic in cardinals' hats, bishops' mitres, judges'
ermine, civic and magisterial votes in all offices, high or humble, of
church, army, or state.

He possessed the art of remembering, or appearing to remember, the
matters of business which had been communicated to him. When a
negotiator, of whatever degree, had the good fortune to reach the
presence, he found the duke to all appearance mindful of the particular
affair which led to the interview, and fully absorbed by its importance.
There were men who, trusting to the affability shown by the great
favourite, and to the handsome price paid down in cash for that urbanity,
had been known to go away from their interview believing that their
business was likely to be accomplished, until the lapse of time revealed
to them the wildness of their dream.

The duke perhaps never manifested his omnipotence on a more striking
scale than when by his own fiat he removed the court and the seat of