Court Life From Within

by Infanta of Spain Eulalia

At midday we lunched with him, the whole household together, a score at table, with ladies and gentlemen-in-waiting, officers, and aides-de-camp; but, on account of the presence of the latter, conversation was always formal. It was different on the afternoon drives. Then we were alone, for he drove himself, and I sat beside him; there were just the two servants on the rear seat, and no one to overhear us. Best of all were the visits I paid him in his apartments, where it was not considered necessary that I should be followed by a lady-in-waiting, since I was under the protection of the King. The guards only took me across the public gallery in the centre of the palace—a soldier on each side of me and an officer in front, because in this gallery some attempts had been made to kill my mother when she was Queen—and the ushers, who led me down the halls, left me when I entered my brother’s antechamber. He had collected a large library for his own use, and he made me free of it on condition that I should not tell any one. At last I had books! And more than I could read.

What adventures! I was most eager for history and philosophy, because my mind had been denied access to facts, and I read all that I could find, indiscriminately. It was probably my brother who directed me to Kant, his own education having been chiefly German, in Vienna. But my personal favourite among the philosophers was Emerson. I suppose it was his sturdy doctrine of self-reliance that appealed to me—his insisting that nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of one’s own mind—and, although I have not read him for years, I still remember him with the glow of my pleasure in his words. For poetry I had no appetite. French poetry seemed to me very light, without ideas. And fiction, English fiction particularly, to which my sisters were devoted, interested me but little. I wanted things to be true. I could not read Balzac; I do not know why.

With Shakespeare I had an odd experience. We studied him with our governess to perfect our English, and of course I realised that his verse was beautiful; but when his kings and queens spoke their lines they seemed to me to be playing parts that had been written to make fun of the claims of Royalty. My governess was indignant when I told her that. She said it was not true; that the speeches were meant to be taken seriously. “But no!” I would cry. “Don’t you see? Shakespeare is making fun of us. He knew we were not so, but he could not tell it in those days. He is laughing at us. He knew it was absurd.”

And when we read Hamlet I argued with her: “There! He has made a mad prince who talks foolishness. If he had respected Royalty as much as you say, he would not have written it. If you have an idiot in your family, you do not let people see him. No; he is laughing at his pompous kings.” And my governess scolded in vain. I still feel the same about Shakespeare’s Royalties.

Outside of my books I began to be most interested to understand the conditions in Spain itself. Why had there been a revolution? And why had my brother been called to the throne? I was told that my mother’s rule had been too “clerical”—that the priests had had too much power—and that when the Republicans had failed to provide a stable Government my brother had been welcomed as a liberal King. But the story of the way in which he came to be proclaimed seemed to contradict this reasonable explanation.

The ladies of the Court, it appeared, had merely given money to soldiers in the army to cry “Viva el Rey Alfonso!” when General Martinez Campos called out to them one morning, “Viva el Rey!” General Campos had then telegraphed to my brother that the army had proclaimed him King. My brother admitted to me that he had received the telegram as an invitation to an adventure, and, being fond of adventures, he had accepted it.

He rode into Madrid, a boy of seventeen, on a spirited horse, followed by the general and his officers. The horse, excited by the crowds, pranced and curveted; the crowd cheered his riding, and the more they cheered the more he made the animal caper. Every one admired him. He had—what is a valuable asset for a King—a very winning smile, and he smiled and rode his way into the hearts of the people. From the palace he announced to the Parliament that he had been proclaimed King, and the Parliament accepted him on behalf of the country. The only opposition came from the Carlist rebellion, led by Don Carlos, a rival claimant to the throne. My brother went at once to the war, and the rebellion was put down. General Campos and his family were rewarded with lands and titles, and my brother remained securely on the throne.

I thought it was a strange thing that a King could be made in Spain on the strength of a shout from a few soldiers; but it was the only explanation that any one could give me. When my mother had been dethroned, the Republicans had first chosen as King a Prince Amadeo of Savoy, son of Victor Emmanuel. But after a brief reign Amadeo resigned the crown and left the country. He told me himself that he had never found out why the throne had been offered to him, nor why his rule had been rejected. It was all a mystery to him.

Similarly, I found that the way in which my mother herself had come to the succession was as peculiar as all the rest. When her father, Ferdinand VII. was taken with his final illness, there was a Salic Law in Spain by which his brother Carlos would be his heir and successor. But an old enmity existed between Don Carlos and my mother’s aunt, the Infanta Luisa Carlota. She had said to him, “You’ll never reign.” And he had laughed at her. But when the King was plainly dying of paralysis, she put before him a paper that she had prepared, abolishing the Salic Law; and, placing a pen in his hand, she took hold of his fingers and began to sign his name to the decree. The Prime Minister, Calomarde, seeing what she was doing, put his hand over hers to stop her. She stopped long enough to strike him a blow on the head that dazed him. When he recovered himself the document had been signed and King Ferdinand was dead. Calomarde bowed gallantly and said to her, in the words of a Spanish proverb, “A fair hand can do no wrong.” She