Note 13 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
The advice to which this refers is significant, and was evidently intended to be so by the nun, although the words she uses are very cautious and involved. "I supplicate your Majesty, as your servant, to make yourself thoroughly versed in everything touching you. This admonition is very important, and in order to adopt it with full knowledge of facts, your Majesty should choose, guided by your own sound judgment, someone whom you can depend upon, and listen to him with the fitting dissimulation. God will not deny this boon to your Majesty; and when you have learnt the truth, the execution should be rapid; for the evil is great and the remedy needs resolution. God assist your Majesty and rule your heart." This probably refers to the reform of the social and moral evils in Madrid, as that subject had been broached by the nun in her first interview with Philip.