THE COUNT OF VILLAMEDIANA
393
His biography, then, resembles Don Juan's. But its donjuan–
esque flavor is most pronounced in his love affairs. Villamediana
married while very young. It was a marriage of social convenience.
His wife was an insignificant lady to whom he paid no further at–
tention. Her name does not figure in any of the other episodes of
his life. The earth might have swallowed her up, as she walked
out of church after her wedding.
He had innumerable love affairs with women of all ages and
classes. All were sterile, all more or less brief; none of them gave
rise to any lasting tenderness. Just the sort of aggressive conquests
..which characterize Don Juan. We know he brutally assaulted one
of his mistresses, in a carriage. The only one of them whom he
treated with affectionate devotion was Dona Francisca de Tavara,
the last of them all. We can now decipher the real significance of
his
exceptional romance with her, and it provides us with the solu–
tion to several of the enigmas of
his
psychology and his death.
Dona Francisca does not figure at all among Villamediana's
legendary love affairs. The Count's supreme amorous exploit, the
one which made him universally famous, was his suspected affair
with the Queen, Dona Isabela de Bourbon. Posterity persists in re–
garding Dona Isabela as the love of his life. Yet, in spite of the
mystery which always obscures what really passes between men and
women, we can positively say that their liaison existed solely
in
the
popular imagination. It was a figment which the Count himself
encouraged.
Dona Isabela, the daughter of Henry IV, was surely one of
the most interesting women of that period, both as a queen and
as a person. She has claims of her own to historical consideration.
She was extremely beautiful, with dark pensive eyes and a wide
sensuous mouth. She was exceptionally charming and attractive, and
combined the
esprit
of her native France with the Spanish graces
which she quickly learned. In fact, a perfect heroine for all sorts
of adventures and stories. And Isabela carried gaiety and frivolity
as far as was permissible, but never any further. She inherited the
talents and charm of her father, the great king of France, but not
his amorous disposition. Her virtue, amid the general licentiousness
of Madrid, in a home where the king had a new mistress nearly
every day, was like a pearl in the mud.
