Villalonga, and other ministers, it is not necessary to speak. There was
one man in the council, however, who was of great importance, wielding a
mighty authority in subordination to the duke. This was Don Pietro de
Franqueza. An emancipated slave, as his name indicated, and subsequently
the body-servant of Lerma, he had been created by that minister secretary
of the privy council. He possessed some of the virtues of the slave,
such as docility and attachment to the hand that had fed and scourged
him, and many vices of both slave and freedman. He did much of the work
which it would have been difficult for the duke to accomplish in person,
received his fees, sold and dispensed his interviews, distributed his
bribes. In so doing, as might be supposed, he did not neglect his own
interest. It was a matter of notoriety, no man knowing it better than
the king, that no business, foreign or domestic, could be conducted or
even begun at court without large preliminary fees to the secretary of
the council, his wife, and his children. He had, in consequence, already
accumulated an enormous fortune. His annual income, when it was stated,
excited amazement. He was insolent and overbearing to all comers until
his dues had been paid, when he became at once obliging, supple, and
comparatively efficient. Through him alone lay the path to the duke's
sanctuary.

The nominal sovereign, Philip III., was thirty years of age. A very
little man, with pink cheeks, flaxen hair, and yellow beard, with a
melancholy expression of eye, and protruding under lip and jaw, he was
now comparatively alert and vigorous in constitution, although for the
first seven years of his life it had been doubtful whether he would live
from week to week. He had been afflicted during that period with a
chronic itch or leprosy, which had undermined his strength, but which
had almost entirely disappeared as he advanced in life.