"It was, however, necessary to get rid of her old confessor, and this was not an easy matter; a spiritual guide cannot be thrown off like a lover; a devotee would not like to be thought a coquette, or to lose the esteem of the director whom she abandons; so what did the duchess? She sought Don Jerome, and with an air of sorrow which spoke a real affliction, said to him: 'Father, I am in despair: you see me in amazement;--in a grief,--in a perplexity of mind which I cannot depict.' 'What ails you then, Madam?' replied d'Aguilar. 'Would you believe it?' she replied; 'my husband, who has ever had the most perfect confidence in my virtue, after having seen me for so long a time under your guidance, has, without appearing in the least suspicious of myself, become suddenly jealous of you, and desires that you may no longer be my confessor. Did you ever hear of a similar caprice? In vain have I objected that by his suspicions he insulted not only myself, but a man of the strictest piety, freed from the tyranny of the passions; I only increased his jealous fears by my vindication of your sacred honour.'
"Don Jerome, despite his shrewdness, was taken in by this story: it is true that it was told with such demonstrations of candour as would have deceived all the world. Although sorry to lose a penitent of such importance, he did not fail to exhort her to obey her husband's will; but the eyes of his Reverence were opened at last, and the trick discovered, when he learned that the lady had chosen brother Placidus as his successor.
"After the grand chamberlain and his cunning spouse," continued the Devil, "comes a more modest tomb, which has only recently received the ill-assorted remains of a president of the council of the Indies and his young wife. This president, in his sixty-third year, married a girl of twenty: he had by a former wife two children, whom he was about to leave penniless, when a fit of apoplexy carried him off; and his wife died twenty-four hours after him from vexation at his not having lived three days longer.
"And now we have arrived at the most respectable monument this church contains. For it every Spaniard has as much veneration, as the Romans had for the tomb of Romulus." "Of what great personage, then, does it contain the ashes?" asked Leandro Perez. "Of a prime minister of Spain," replied Asmodeus; "and never did that monarchy possess his equal. The king left, with confidence, the cares of government to this great man; who so worthily acquitted himself of the charge, that monarch and subjects were equally contented. Under his ministry the state was ever flourishing, and its people happy; for his maxims of government were founded on the sure principles of humanity and religion. Still, although his life was blameless, he was not free from apprehension at his death,--the responsibility of his office might indeed make the best of mortals tremble.