In the great portrait of Innocent X, in Rome, the sitter is looking to his right and up, meeting the painter's gaze and ours. We like Velazquez are standing.This seems to make the Pope uncomfortible, but he holds his tongue.

Velazquez at The Grand Palais.
My original reason for the trip.

"So, too, our Collegiate Gothic, which may be seen in its most resolutely picturesque (and expensive) phase at Yale, is more relentlessly Gothic than Chartres, whose builders didn't even know they were Gothic and missed so many chances for quaint effect."
MacDonald.

Velazquez knew at some level that he was an avatar of bourgeois democracy, and so did his greatest patrons. That's how it fucking works. 

Quibbling with MacDonald, not contradicting him. He'd get the fucking joke.