Note 787 — Chapter XXVI

Mad. d’Aulnoy, fresh from the stage of Racine and Molière, then the most refined and best appointed in Europe, speaks with great admiration of the theatres in the Spanish palaces, though she ridicules those granted to the public. (Voyage, etc., ed. 1693, Tom. III. p. 7, and elsewhere.) One way, however, in which the kings patronized the drama was, probably, not very agreeable to the authors, if it were often practised; I mean that of requiring a piece to be acted nowhere but in the royal presence. This was the case with Gerónimo de Villayzan’s “Sufrir mas por querer mas.” Comedias por Diferentes Autores, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1633, f. 145. b.