ABSTRACT
By my last letter I told you, dear Cousin, that we were going to kiss the Queen-Mother’s hand. I have had this honour, but before I conduct you thither, give me leave to tell you of something else. I would not go from Madrid till I had seen the entry of the Marquis de Villars: he made it on horse-back, which is the custom here, and if a man be handsome it is very advantageous for him. When the Venetian ambassador made his, it was happy for him that he was not in his coach: he had one that was worth twelve thousand crowns, which in going from his house was overturned and, as it was in winter, the marée (which is that nasty black dirt that Stands in great puddles in the Streets and through which a horse goes up to his girths) so spoiled the velvet with a gold ground and the rich embroidery it was set off with that it could never serve again. I thought it strange that for such usual sights as these entrées are the ladies should all be in their balconies, in their rich apparel, and with the same earnestness as if it was to see the greatest king upon earth; but they have so little liberty that they are glad to embrace all occasions to show themselves. And as their lovers and gallants hardly ever speak to them, so they take care to place their coaches as near their mistresses’ balcony as they can, that so they may the more easily discourse with them by their eyes and their fingers. This is a practice that is very useful to them for the understanding one another’s minds, and they do it more readily than with their voice. This silent language seems to me very difficult unless one were long used to it, but they are early acquainted with it, and but two dap since I saw a girl of about six years old and a boy of the same age which understood by this way to tell one another a thousand pretty things. Don Frederic de Cardonne, who observed them as well as I, but understood them far better, explained to me everything they said, and if he did not add to the discourse of these two children one must needs confess that in this country they are born for love and courtship.
