Baciocchi lay near his death, worn out by a horrible nervous disorder
which would not let him sleep, the empress told the doctors, with great
mystery, that she would cure him. After a few preliminary masses, she
came into his room and hung on his bedpost a little gold-embroidered
sachet containing (if the evidence of holy men is to be believed) a few
threads of the swaddling-clothes of John the Baptist. Her simple
childlike faith wrung the last grim smile from the tortured lips of the
dying courtier.

The very names of the Spanish women are a constant reminder of their
worship. They are all named out of the calendar of saints and virgin
martyrs. A large majority are christened Mary; but as this sacred name
by much use has lost all distinctive meaning, some attribute, some
especial invocation of the Virgin, is always coupled with it. The names
of Dolores, Mercedes, Milagros, recall Our Lady of the Sorrows, of the
Gifts, of the Miracles. I knew a hoydenish little gypsy who bore the
tearful name of Lagrimas. The most appropriate name I heard for these
large-eyed, soft-voiced beauties was Peligros, Our Lady of Dangers. Who
could resist the comforting assurance of "Consuelo"? "Blessed," says my
Lord Lytton, "is woman who consoles." What an image of maiden purity
goes with the name of Nieves, the Virgin of the Snows! From a single
cotillon of Castilian girls you can construct the whole history of Our
Lady; Conception, Annunciation, Sorrows, Solitude, Assumption. As young
ladies are never called by their family names, but always by their
baptismal appellations, you cannot pass an evening in a Spanish
_tertulia_ without being reminded of every stage in the life of the
Immaculate Mother, from Bethlehem to Calvary and beyond.

The common use of sacred words is universal in Catholic countries, but
nowhere so striking as in Spain. There is a little solemnity in the