No. 2
A country-house.—The Château of Marrac. Marbot had stayed there in 1803 with Augereau. Bausset informs us that this château had been built either for the Infanta Marie Victoire engaged to Louis XV., or for the Dowager Queen of Charles II., “the bewitched,” when she was packed off from Madrid to Bayonne (see Hume’s Spain, 1479-1788).
Everything is still most primitive.—Nevertheless he enjoyed the pamperruque which was danced before the château by seven men and ten maidens, gaily dressed—the women armed with tambourines and the men with castanets. Saint-Amand speaks of thirteen performers (seven men and six maidens) chosen from the leading families of the town, to render what for time immemorial had been considered fit homage for the most illustrious persons.