For the space of seventeen years they maintained themselves in this precarious condition, without advancing one step in their popularity, and even without exhibiting any of the qualities which had given confidence to their rule in former times. Far from captivating the will of the people, they exasperated it to such a degree, that in 1834, after the death of the king, the people of Madrid, in one of those moments of madness and irritation so frequent after the scourge of the cholera, penetrated the establishment of those holy fathers, and inhumanly sacrificed them to their fury. Even to this day the mystery which covered that sanguinary catastrophe has never entirely been revealed. One thing is certain, that in spite of the religious ideas of Spaniards, and of the superstitious veneration with which they beheld a religious habit, the Jesuits were immolated without causing one murmur of fanaticism or one tear of compassion.
It is but a few years ago that the Spanish government had the inexpressible condescendence to allow a community of Jesuits to establish itself in the magnificent convent of Loyola, the country of their founder. The last revolution which happened in that country
offered them an opportunity of putting in practice those absolute principles which have always governed their conduct. The government of Espartero, informed of their secret intrigues, by which they contrived to agitate the public mind in the Basque provinces in favour of Don Carlos, ordered them to be expelled to the Balearic Islands; but they, fearful perhaps of severer measures being adopted against them, and convinced of the general hatred in which they were held by the people, fled to France, from whence it is probable they will not attempt to recross the frontier.
Monachism, then, has entirely disappeared from Spain, where only two convents remain for the instruction of those who are destined for the priesthood in the Philippine Islands. These men live within the cloisters according to the ancient regime; but they are forbidden to appear in public in the costumes of their respective orders. The preservation of those two establishments was considered indispensable for the preparation of materials for the government of those remote possessions, where the Indians are accustomed to obey the priest, and look upon him with more respect than that shown to the civil authority, and where their influence is sufficient, according to general opinion, to put down that revolutionary spirit which has despoiled Spain of her splendid dominions in South America. All this, however plausible, may arise out of a mistaken policy. New political ideas and legislation, under constitutional rule, have respected the convents of the nuns. One can scarcely conceive of this inconsistency on the part of governments which, under the name of
liberty, have ruled Spain in these latter times. If the abolition of the convents of friars had for its chief ground the uselessness of those who inhabited them, it must be admitted that infinitely more useless is the life of a nun, consecrated to perpetual idleness, and without further occupation than that of assisting in the choir and in devotional practices, to which duties she could equally resign herself in the bosom of her own family.
The religious communities of women have the same denominations as the convents of friars, and they call themselves Augustines, Franciscans, Benedictines, &c. The respective rules of their organization do not exact from them, in any case, more duties than those of a contemplative life; and, in reality, there are now but few of those convents of nuns whose inmates dedicate themselves to the task of giving to persons of their own sex even the imperfect and limited education which, after all, forms no part of that useful knowledge required by modern civilization.
The Spanish nuns are, absolutely, some of the most insignificant of beings. There is nothing recorded of them either good or bad, and for many centuries we have no account of any Spanish nun distinguished for her talents, her writings, or even for her eminent virtues. In their conversation, they display a childish simplicity and an unwearied curiosity, together with an extraordinary deficiency of knowledge as it respects the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The amusements with which they while away their secluded lives are reduced to those of making sweets (dulces),
dressing images of saints, embroidering scapularies, [71a] and other such-like frivolities. A celebrated living poet has characterised them with great propriety and truth in the following epitaph:—
“Aqui yace Sor Belen,
Que hizó almibares mui bien,
Y pasó la vida entera
Vistiendo niños de cera.” [71b]
Except the convents of nuns of the mendicant orders, the greater part of them, in Spain, possessed, prior to the constitutional regime, considerable inheritances. These, however, having been, by a decree of the Cortes, converted and sold as national property, all their means are reduced to a bare subsistence on a small pension which ought now to be paid from the public treasury; but as that obligation has frequently been neglected in consequence of the repeated disturbances which have interrupted the peace of the monarchy, those unhappy women have often been overwhelmed with the greatest privations and misery. In such cases Christian charity has lent its succour, and all classes of the state have contributed to their relief. The government, on different occasions, has prohibited the admission of novices to these convents of nuns, in order that death itself might, without violence,