Before leaving Granada, a favourable opportunity presenting itself, I will enable my readers to form some idea of the taste and style in which the Spanish aristocracy fit up their country houses, taking as my pattern that of the Marques de Montijo, which, combining the comforts of the English with the classic taste of the French, I was assured I should find a very choice specimen. It is situated on a slightly elevated hill, rising from and commanding a lovely view over the wide vega. For the selection of the site, small praise is due, however, to the Marquis, as he would have had difficulty in fixing on any spot within the same distance of the city, that did not afford equally as fine a view. But the embellishments of the house and grounds are “all his own;” to these, therefore, I shall confine my description.
The grounds are laid out in stiff parterres, intersected with twisting footpaths, “à la Inglesa,” as they call it; a portion being hedged off as a labyrinth, which is thickly studded with rustic arbours, furnished with modern sofas. On the summit of an artificial hillock is a shallow fish-pond, from the centre of which rises a cave, or grotto (built, I believe, in imitation of the Giant’s Causeway), composed of fragments of stalactites, brought at a great expense from a cavern in a distant mountain.
A whirligig, with two horses and two coches—such as may be seen at Bartholomew fair—weathercocks of all sizes and devices, sun-dials innumerable, hedge-rows of zoophytes, &c. are scattered tastefully about, and in fact nothing is wanting but “the sucking pig in lavender,” and “Adam and Eve in juniper,” of the inimitable Mr. Drugget, to complete the long catalogue of absurdities.
The show-suite of apartments consists of a succession of small carpetless rooms on the ground-floor, each furnished with a bed, a few shabby gilt chairs, a sofa, some yet more Monmouth-street-looking chintz window curtains, a profusion of miserly little mirrors, and two or three old family pictures.
In the library, which contained some hundreds of ill-bound books, chiefly French, sat the Marquis himself—the genius of the place—a grandee of Spain of the first class, a reputed scholar, dilettante, and patron of the fine arts; a distinguished statesman, and at one time a pretender to the regency of Spain; now, alas! the victim of paralysis, disappointed intrigues, inordinate vanity, and insane ambition.[148]
Whilst at Malaga I had become slightly acquainted with the Marquis’s brother, the Conde de Teba, who, by turns, a violent Legitimista, Afrancesado, and Exaltado, was then, in the latter character, doing duty as corporal in the City Light Horse, and bore about on his crippled person the just reward of his treason to his country, having received a wound which disfigured him for life, whilst serving in the French ranks.
The Conde married a Miss K——, “the beautiful and accomplished daughter” (as the newspapers say) of one of the first British merchants of Malaga. His union with this lady had been forbidden by the late king of Spain, on the grounds that the pure blood of a Spanish grandee was not to be contaminated by admixture with the grosser current flowing in plebeian veins. To overcome this objection, reference was made to the heraldic records of Scotland (the country of the lady’s family), and a genealogical tree was shipped off to Spain, which proved without flaw, cross-bar, or blemish, that the family of K—— was an offset from the great Fingal himself. Ferdinand, who, morose as he has usually been represented, enjoyed a joke as much as most people, burst into a hearty laugh on this document being placed before him, exclaiming at length, “In God’s name, let Teba marry the Scotch king’s daughter!”
This speech, though made in perfect good humour, was not soon forgotten by the lady, who, when I had the pleasure of meeting her, wore round her king-hating person (forgetting her high descent) the terrific words, constitucion ò muerte, embroidered on a green sash ribbon.
Granada, by the way, is reckoned a most constitutional city. I first visited it a few months previous to the invasion of the Duc d’Angoulême, when every one breathed the most deadly hate against the French, and every thing promised a most sanguinary struggle. The streets of Granada, if the vile Gavachos ever got so far, were to be their burial place; the city was to be another Zaragoza; the contest another “guerra hasta el cuchillo.”[149] I pictured to myself the beauteous groves of the Generalife formed into abattis to defend the town; the pure streams of the Darro and Genil reddened with the gore of its brave inhabitants; the tottering towers of the elevated Alhambra pounded into dust; the venerable deputy-governor[150] of the royal palace exposed to the insults of a licentious soldiery! Happily, however, all my anticipated fears were groundless. The French troops marched quietly into the city long after the garrison had left it by an opposite gate, and the invaders were received by the inhabitants with every outward mark of neighbourly esteem and affection.
During the first days of the constitutional portion of the reign of Ferdinand “the beloved,” military schools were established in most of the principal cities of the kingdom. That of Granada was on a scale proportioned to the “exaltacion” of the place, 90 students being maintained at it. A large monastery, which, ever since the expulsion of the Moslems, had been under the protecting care of St. Jerome, was handed over to the more bellicose Santiago,[151] for the purpose of training up the youthful Granadinos to deeds of arms; and if the saint-militant attended to their studies as well as he did to their feeding and clothing, no complaint could possibly be brought against him.