I was obliged to agree with my minister's reasons, and at the same time recommended the wounded soldier to be preferred by him, which he faithfully promised he would; but I met the poor wretch since in Elysium, who informed me he was afterwards starved to death.
"None who hath not been himself a prince, nor any prince till his death, can conceive the impositions daily put on them by their favorites and ministers; so that princes are often blamed for the faults of others.
The count of Saldagne had been long confined in prison, when his son, D.
Bernard del Carpio, who had performed the greatest actions against the Moors, entreated me, as a reward for his service, to grant him his father's liberty.

The old man's punishment had been so tedious, and the services of the young one so singularly eminent, that I was very inclinable to grant the request; but my ministers strongly opposed it; they told me my glory demanded revenge for the dishonor offered to my family; that so positive a demand carried with it rather the air of menace than entreaty; that the vain detail of his services, and the recompense due to them, was an injurious reproach; that to grant what had been so haughtily demanded would argue in the monarch both weakness and timidity; in a word, that to remit the punishment inflicted by my predecessors would be to condemn their judgment.

Lastly, one told me in a whisper, 'His whole family are enemies to your house.' By these means the ministers prevailed.

The young lord took the refusal so ill, that he retired from court, and abandoned himself to despair, whilst the old one languished in prison.

By which means, as I have since discovered, I lost the use of two of my best subjects.
"To confess the truth, I had, by means of my ministers, conceived a very unjust opinion of my whole people, whom I fancied to be daily conspiring against me, and to entertain the most disloyal thoughts, when, in reality (as I have known since my death), they held me in universal respect and esteem.