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Seven of these gentlemen had the good
luck to survive the treatment. They received the Order of the Golden
Vine, a coveted distinction. The remaining forty-three, what was left
of them, were cremated at night-time and posthumously ennobled.
He was the author of some mighty fine dissertations on falconry,
dancing and architecture. He wrote furthermore, in the flamboyant style
of his period, two dozen pastoral plays, as well as a goodly number of
verses addressed, for the most part, to ladies of his Court--a Court
which was thronged with poets, wits, philosophers and noble women. The
island was a gay place in those days! There was always something doing.
His Highness had a trick of casting favourites into dungeons, and
concubines into the sea, that endeared him to his various legitimate
spouses; and the rapidity with which these self-same spouses were
beheaded one after the other, to make room for what he mirthfully
called "fresh blood," struck his faithful subjects as an ever-recurring
miracle of statecraft.


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