A short period of peace ensued, but the Carlist conflict has been continued intermittently until the present day. The first Don Carlos died in 1855, and his eldest son, the Count of Montemolin, fell heir to the feud, making an unsuccessful attempt at revolution in Valencia in 1860; but died in 1861. A brother succeeded to the claims as Juan III, and he, in 1863, renounced them in favour of his son, grandson of the first Don Carlos, or Charles V. He is the present Don Carlos, or Charles VII, known as the Duke of Madrid, and was born in 1848. He was implicated in Carlist uprisings in 1869, 1870, and 1872, and personally instituted his greatest campaign in 1873, which was suppressed, while the Basques, his devoted adherents, were deprived of many privileges. As a French “legitimist,” he has also a claim to the throne of France, and was at one time expelled from that country; but has since been permitted to return, whence he has conducted clandestine operations against the Spanish crown. And now, with a child sovereign and a queen regent again in Spain, the conditions are similar to what they were in 1833. There is still, after more than sixty years, a Don Carlos as claimant to the throne; but to-day, even more than then, the moral influence of Europe is against the “pretender,” and in favour of the “legitimate” sovereign.
The present queen regent, Christina of Austria, mother of the boy king Alfonso XIII, possesses—what Queen-Regent Christina of Naples did not have—the respect and confidence of her people. Christina of Naples, the mother of Isabella, forfeited the good opinion of all her subjects by her gross immorality, and in 1840 she was compelled to renounce her regency in favour of the prime minister, Espartero, who as general of her armies had won the victories over the Carlists, and leave the country. Her daughter, as Isabella II, was early declared to have reached her majority, and in 1846 was married to her cousin, Don Francisco de Bourbon, while her sister, the infanta, was married to the Duke of Montpensier, son of Louis Philippe of France. These were the infamous “Spanish marriages” arranged by Louis Philippe in the hope of securing the succession to his house.
The story of her reign is not an inviting one, revealing as it does the instability of the Spanish character and the corruption of the court and queen. Spain’s foreign relations had been strengthened by the “Quadruple Alliance” between England, France, Portugal, and Spain, and liberal statesmen were numerous who would have served her faithfully. Under Burgos, in Christina’s time, wise plans were made for the development of commerce, internal improvements, and the regulation of church and state. Blindly cognizant that the church had in some way possessed itself of a vast portion of the nation’s wealth, many advocated confiscation of church properties. In 1835 the cry was, “Down with the monks!” and hundreds of these helpless though useless persons were massacred. The country’s resources seemed at the last ebb, when the able banker Mendizabel came to the rescue; but he accomplished no more than the several “Constitutions” (of which at least three were put forth in twenty-five years) to remedy the existing troubles. The reason was that the real secret of their troubles lay in the people themselves: the masses, complacent in self-sufficient ignorance; the intelligent portion without patriotism, self-seeking politicians.
Espartero was overthrown and went into exile in 1843. In 1844 arose a strong military government under the veteran Narvaez, who kept order and sustained the throne until 1851. Meanwhile the French Revolution of 1848, though it unsettled Spain not a little, was safely tided over. In 1854 insurrections broke out in various parts of the country, and to appease the people a national “Junta” was formed, with the recalled Espartero and O’Donnell at its head. The latter continued to direct affairs more or less until 1858; in 1859 he created a diversion of public sentiment by a short war in Morocco, and in 1861 the island of Santo Domingo was annexed.
Between this time and 1866 the changes in the ministry were numerous, from O’Donnell to Miraflores, and back again to Narvaez and O’Donnell; but in 1866 a serious insurrection under General Prim broke out, which was suppressed and the leaders exiled. A more successful rebellion was inaugurated in 1868 by the naval fleet under Admiral Topete, at Cadiz. Prim and Serrano, the exiles, returned; the rebels and royal troops fraternized, and Queen Isabella, then at the baths of San Sebastian, was sent over the frontier, never to return.
Without being specific in charges against her, it may be mentioned that her subjects, debased as many of them were, yet demanded a queen with higher moral purpose—more like the Isabella of old, less like the disreputable queen-mother Christina. She had reigned, in a fashion, for thirty-five years, including the regency. She was banished in 1868, since which time she has lived in Paris, where she made her home after her exile, ever true to the traditions of Ferdinand VII and his times.
CHAPTER XXII.
FROM ISABELLA II TO ALFONSO XIII.