war. They are reserved of speech, very proud and haughty in their manners and carriage, with little love toward their neighbors, and of an envious disposition.

Other Italians, believing in their own intellectual superiority and the greater civilization of their own country, were more critical. Francesco Guicciardini, of Florence, looked severely out of his cold, shrewd, distrustful eyes (1513). He reports to his government:

Spaniards are saturnine in disposition, of swarthy complexion, and small of stature; proud, and full of the conviction that no nation equals theirs. They are boastful in speech, and take pains to make all the impression they can. . . . They are much inclined to arms, more perhaps than any other nation in Christendom, and well fitted so to do, for they are very dexterous, agile and quick of limb. They make a great point of honor, and had rather die than suffer a stain. . They are considered intelligent and shrewd, and yet they are not good in liberal arts or mechanical matters; almost all the artists and artisans at the king's court are Frenchmen, or from some other country. They think it beneath them to become merchants, for they all affect the humours of persons of quality, and would rather go soldiering even with poor prospects, or take service with some great noble and put up with a thousand discomforts, or (in earlier days) betake themselves to the road as highwaymen. There are of course certain manufactures that they take up, but as a rule they are averse to such things. . . In public worship they affect great religious behaviour, but they are not so in reality. They are very formal in their manners, and ceremonious, and make a fine display of obeisance, with handkissings and expatiation of titles, "Sir, I am yours to command"; however, it is better to fight shy and trust them but little. They are great dissemblers, in every rank you will find past masters; it is this quality-Punic ingenuity-that has got them their reputation of smartness and ability; it underlies their ceremonious ways and make-believe.

The Flemings, who came to line their pockets in the train of Charles V, also recorded various impressions. The Spaniards were poor. In Asturias for instance, most of them went barelegged and the young women, on workdays, barefoot; and in some places the poverty was so great that villages were underground, the dwellings, on account of the scarcity of timber, were mere cellars or caves dug in the earth, like a rabbit warren. And to this day (it may be said) lack of energy has left a small region of Spain, occupied by people called Jurdes, in a very similar plight. Laurent Vital, whom I am quoting, attributes their poverty to pride and laziness. If the men chose to work they might be rich and have well-appointed houses; but they esteemed themselves all noble, and were above unnecessary industry. Perhaps it was their pride that rendered them, as he thought, ill bred. (But it must be remembered that there was much bad feeling between the Flemings and the Spaniards.) Vital gives this instance of what he means: When the king went to Valladolid, although it was the custom, sanctioned by law, that his retinue should be billeted about in houses, occupying if need were half the rooms, some ecclesiasts refused to grant admittance. When the magistrates forced the doors open, the priests retorted by excommunications and by refusal to conduct divine service in the churches.

Possibly Vital was one of those to whom admittance was refused. At any rate, he noticed-horrescit referens-other fallings below the standards of the Low Countries. Babies were left out of doors, to die of exposure, or be eaten by wild beasts. And in Valladolid, even while royalty was there, robbers and robberies abounded. And, what shocked him even more, housewives and chambermaids made a practice of emptying slops from upper windows into the streets. He introduces his description of what takes place, which reads like a passage from Rabelais, with a careful "sauf vos révérences," and protests that at least a warning cry should be given. He also draws a comparison between the treatment of servants and horses in Germany and that in Castile, greatly to the advantage of the Germans, in spite of the

fact that they are "ruides et rebelles" and the Castilians "assez courtois"; for both man and beast are well cared for in Germany, while in Castile servants are obliged to run on foot after their mounted masters in the country as well as in town, and at night, tired, hungry, thirsty, and often wet, get poor fare, being lucky to find a bench or table to lie upon, and their wages are paltry. The horses are treated in like fashion, and become lean, weak, and emaciated, and at that they are belabored with blows. But in spite of these shortcomings Monsieur Vital asserts that in other respects with his mind on the gentry and prosperous merchants-he much prefers the ways of the Castilians to those of the Germans, for the former accept with good grace what God sends them, and make good cheer without wassailing, wastefulness, or gluttony, as people do in Germany and the Low Countries, "de quoy Dieu est souvent grandement offensé."

To dwell further on this subject would take us too far out of our way. Enough has been quoted to show that Spaniards were proud, sober, observant of Christian ritual, and poor-neglecting, as they have done ever since, the economic development of the country, in their quest of glory and empire.

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CHAPTER II

CONVERSION (1521)

THE year 1521 is the turning point, the master year, in Loyola's life/ Up to that time he had followed the common road of common men; but in that year there befell him the mysterious religious experience which men call conversion, and he surrendered himself to a dominating influence that led him all his life. From that time he could well say, "I go to prove my soul"; and he proved it heroic.

His conversion was not of the kind that can point back to one overwhelming moment, such as St. Paul experienced on the road to Damascus, or St. Augustine under the fig tree, when he heard the voice say Tolle lege; nevertheless, Loyola's turn-about was as complete as theirs. From a selfindulgent boy seeking his own pleasure, he became an austere and steadfast man, following the gleam that lighted up the path of grievous self-denial. The child of the world became a child of the spirit. The cause of his conversion is ascribed by Catholic tradition to the grace of God. So be it; but without derogation to the explanation, we may look about to find what educational influences were at work to prepare the ground in which divine seeds might lodge and germinate.

In his youth Loyola did not go to college, and had, as it will appear hereafter, but scanty schooling; he lived the life of a young gentleman, doing his duty while in service, and amusing himself with escapades and women in times of leisure, and, so far as he had any use for books, in reading tales of knights errant, especially the very popular Amadis of Gaul. These occupations would make unlikely conduits for the flow of spiritual grace. But an educational force was abroad of great potency, a moral tonic was in the air, that affected young men of finer sensibilities, and educated

them as the universities of Salamanca or Alcalá de Henares could not do. During the formative years in Loyola's life, the tide of Spanish fortune was mounting to the flood; the spirits of young men were swept up on the crest of an exultant wave of national pride and self-confidence. So it had been in the Athenian democracy under Pericles, and was to be in Elizabethan England. This was the beginning of what the Spanish call El siglo de Oro. Let me remind the reader of what happened then.

Some twenty years before Ignatius was born, Aragon and Castile had been united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. These Reyes Católicos, as they are called, were able rulers; and from their marriage and the consequent virtual administrative union, great advantages, economic, political, and social, accrued to their kingdoms. Stirring events soon followed hard on one another's heels. The national crusade against the Moors, which after seven hundred years of dispossession, liberated the last plot of Spanish soil from the shame of Mohammedan dominion, ended in a desperate campaign for the capture of Granada; that campaign lasted ten long years, and was more memorable for its fierce and chivalric episodes than any struggle for a city since the fall of Troy. The Spaniards did not rest content with driving out the Moors. The primate of Spain, Cardinal Ximenes, equipped an expedition out of his ecclesiastical revenues, transported his army to Morocco, and blessed it as it rushed to its victorious onslaught upon Oran. Gonsalvo de Cordoba, el gran capitán, fought the French for the possession of southern Italy, won battle after battle, and added the kingdom of Naples to the Spanish dominions. Two of Loyola's brothers were killed in these wars. The duke of Alva wrested the southern portion of Navarre from its native sovereign and ran the northern boundary of Spain along the Pyrenees. Ignatius was just seventeen at the time and may possibly have taken some part in the campaign.

But stirring as were these events in Spain and across the waters of the Mediterranean, far more adventurous and romantic success befell the bold spirits that sailed out over