THE KING’S CARRIAGE.
ARRIVAL AT THE CONGRESS.
PROCESSION OF THE CORONATION BULL-FIGHT.
On the following day the formal enthronement of Alfonso XIII. as King of Spain was accomplished; a chapter in the history of the Spanish Monarchy was closed and a fresh epoch was begun. The young Monarch made his appearance before his subjects under the happiest conditions. Madrid looked its best beneath the bright sun and cloudless skies which fortunately attended the whole course of the city’s festivities. The procession was one of those picturesque and impressive displays in which the Spanish as a people know how to excel. The young King’s demeanour was an engaging mixture of boyish self-possession and boyish delight, together with traces of a maturer air of resolution, which were especially apparent when he recited the oath of enthronement before his Congress. From that body he had a magnificent and remarkable reception. The crowds in the streets vied with their Parliamentary representatives in their acclamations as the King left the Congress, and these unmistakable signs of a loyalty deep and true were received by the King with manifest pleasure. The whole day of rejoicing was one which must live long in the memory of both subjects and Sovereign.
So, amid sounds of universal rejoicing, the young King entered upon his task with all the promise of youth and under fair auspices, and nowhere than in this country was the hope more cordially felt that the unbounded enthusiasm with which he had been proclaimed would be the prelude to a long, ever-brightening record of loyal co-operation between the Sovereign and his subjects, of re-awakened national energies, of solid and enduring gains of domestic unity and progress, and of the attainment of the indomitable aspiration of a noble people.
In every respect these high hopes are being realised. The King’s popularity, based on the solid foundation of respect for wise authority and administration, of his frank, generous, and engaging personality, is growing daily. He has gained the confidence as he won the hearts of his subjects, and it is safe to assert that at no period of recent history has the throne of Spain been more secure, or the future of the country more full of promise. The renaissance of the Spanish nation has commenced; her commercial prosperity is steadily and surely increasing; and with the ever-lessening evil of domestic friction, the expansion of her trade, and the development of her natural and mineral resources, the boundless possibilities before Spain are assuming definite and tangible form.
