Note 27 — MÉRIMÉE'S HISTORY OF PETER THE CRUEL. [20]
Reading edition
The enchantment of Don Pedro by Maria Padilla is a popular tradition in Andalusia, where the memory of both is vividly preserved. It is further added, that Maria Padilla was a queen of the gipsies—their bari crallisa—consequently consummate mistress of the art of concocting philters. Unfortunately, the gipsies were scarcely seen in Europe till a century later. The author of the Première Vie du Pape Innocent VI. gravely relates that Blanche, having made her husband a present of a golden girdle, Maria Padilla, assisted by a Jew, a notorious sorcerer, changed it into a serpent, one day that the king had it on. The surprise of the king and his court may be imagined, when the girdle began to writhe and hiss; whereupon the Padilla easily succeeded in persuading her lover that Blanche was a magician bent upon destroying him by her arts.—Mérimée, p. 120.