them of considerable length, to relatives and friends. These letters
constituted the basis of the present book when they were collected and
published--with certain necessary omissions--simultaneously in London and
Boston in 1843, under the title of _Life in Mexico during a Residence of
Two Years in that Country_. The book was provided with a short but
substantial Preface by Prescott.

That same year saw Don Angel Calderon de la Barca transferred to
Washington as Spanish Minister, a post in which he not only discharged his
diplomatic duties with much ability, but also frequented the literary
circles and even found time to translate several works into Spanish.

In 1853 Calderon was recalled to Spain by his government and arrived at
Madrid on September 17th with his wife, who had recently become a
Catholic. A year later, he was appointed Minister of State in the Cabinet
of the Conde de San Luis, and thus became an actor in the troubled drama
of that period of Isabel II's reign. When finally the unpopularity of the
government culminated in a general rebellion, Calderon managed to escape
the unjust fury of the rabble by hiding first in the Austrian, and later
in the Danish Legation, until he was able to cross the frontier and take
refuge in France. The events that Madame Calderon had witnessed in Spain
moved her to write that entertaining book _The Attache in Madrid_, which,
pretending to be a translation from the German, appeared in New York in
1856.

The Calderons were able to return to Spain after an absence of two years,
but in 1861 Don Angel died at San Sebastian, just when he was expecting to
move to a small villa which was being built for him nearby in picturesque
Zarauz. Hard upon this event Madame Calderon retired to a convent across
the Pyrenees, but shortly afterwards Queen Isabel asked her to come back