The large spaces occupied by the frowning religious houses, whilst adding to the gloom of the city, must have increased its salubrity, in consequence of the large shady gardens that they usually enjoyed. At twelve o'clock, when the angelus sounded, the monastery gates opened, and there came forth a lay brother with an immense cauldron of soup and a basket of bread, which formed the principal meal of many hundreds of poor people and idlers all the year round. The students, real or pretended, who in token of their dependence on these eleemosynary meals wore a wooden spoon tucked into the brim of their hats, formed a considerable portion of those who attacked the garlic { 192} broth with avidity. Broken soldiers and led captains, gamblers out of luck and varlets out of place, fought too for the food with the maimed and diseased beggars who crowded the most frequented streets at fashionable hours.[14] In addition to these charity meals given by the religious houses, there were numerous lay brotherhoods established to relieve the sick and impotent; and one particular brotherhood, which went its rounds at night, especially in the outer districts of the capital, was called by the people the "bread and egg watch," because the brethren carried with them baskets of bread and eggs to distribute to the needy whom they found exhausted and homeless by the way.
It may be asked if Madrid was so forbidding in appearance, as it was certainly difficult of access and lacking in comfort and convenience, what was the attraction that drew to it at the time not only the enriched Spaniards from the Indies, and the ambitious and idle of the Peninsula itself, but the immense number of foreign visitors who now frequented it. So far as the Spaniards were concerned, it has already been explained that by the time of which we are writing the Court had, in fact, drawn to itself all that was left of available wealth in the country. There alone could the Spanish love of ostentation be indulged; there alone could bravery of dress and demeanour find the attention and emulation it always seeks; there alone could advancement in any unlaborious career be found, for where all the patronage, wealth, and taste were, { 193} there also must be those who sought patronage or provided things that taste and wealth alone could buy, and so the Court--"_la Corte_" as Madrid was always called--shone brightly, like the last phosphorescent spot in a decaying body, and attracted by its brilliancy when all the rest of Spain was dark.