lend their countenance or support. On the name which should be applied
in Spain to the confederacy of the nobles it principally depended what
course they should follow for the future. If the petition should be
called rebellion no alternative would be left them but either to come
prematurely to a dangerous explanation with the court, or to aid it in
treating as enemies those with whom they had both a fellow-feeling and a
common interest. This perilous alternative could only be avoided by
withdrawing entirely from public affairs; this plan they had once before
practically adopted, and under present circumstances it was something
more than a simple expedient. The whole nation had their eyes upon
them. An unlimited confidence in their integrity, and the universal
veneration for their persons, which closely bordered on idolatry, would
ennoble the cause which they might make their own and ruin that which
they should abandon. Their share in the administration of the state,
though it were nothing more than nominal, kept the opposite party in
check; while they attended the senate violent measures were avoided
because their continued presence still favored some expectations of
succeeding by gentle means. The withholding of their approbation, even
if it did not proceed from their hearts, dispirited the faction, which,
on the contrary, would exert its full strength so soon as it could
reckon even distantly on obtaining so weighty a sanction. The very
measures of the government which, if they came through their hands, were
certain of a favorable reception and issue, would without them prove
suspected and futile; even the royal concessions, if they were not
obtained by the mediation of these friends of the people, would fail of
the chief part of their efficacy. Besides, their retirement from public
affairs would deprive the regent of the benefit of their advice at a
time when counsel was most indispensable to her; it would, moreover,
leave the preponderance with a party which, blindly dependent on the
court, and ignorant of the peculiarities of republican character, would