Royal Palace, Madrid
replied, “No; but it can strike, eh?” And the law against the succession of a woman having been thus repealed, my mother came to the throne, an infant, under the regency of her mother, Queen Maria Cristina, and protected by her aunt. Don Carlos made war upon her, but he was unsuccessful.
This story my mother told me herself. I was puzzled to know why no one but Don Carlos had objected to such a manner of changing the succession. I got no explanation. Like the proclaiming of my brother and the summons to King Amadeo to rule, it was a mystery. Did it all mean, then, that no one but the Royal claimants cared who was King in Spain? Was it that the apparent Government in Spain, as in most countries, was not the real Government, and that the actual rulers of the country did not worry about who was in power in Madrid, since the power was impotent?
I found in talking with my brother that he was very interested in his work and the problems of government—but puzzled to know how to do anything to help the people—and saddened by conditions that he could not improve. He used to say, “I do not understand this country yet, but I shall find a way to do something with it after I have reigned over it a little longer.” He had no faith in the politicians, and when one party lost office and another came to authority, and I asked him if this would improve matters, he replied: “No. It makes no difference. They are the same dog with different collars.”
He was apparently very popular, and no one openly opposed him; but one could see that much of the common show of loyalty was a pleasant make-believe, designed to flatter. Once when we were visiting a town together, driving in a carriage with the mayor, the boys in the street kept screaming “Viva el Rey!” so shrilly that my brother, who was trying to talk with the mayor, could not make himself heard. “It is too bad,” he said to the mayor. “They scream so loudly that I cannot talk with you as I wish.” The mayor replied, with simplicity, “Ah, your Majesty, if I had known that you would wish to talk with me, I would not have paid them so much.” And thereafter, whenever I saw a people very enthusiastic in welcoming a king, I wondered how much they were being paid.
At another time my sisters and I were making an excursion in the mountains, and we were accompanied by a mayor who had provided us with the donkeys on which we rode. Whenever we came to a village, the children first, and then the older people would come out and cheer us. And they cheered us by name. “See!” the mayor would say. “See how popular you are! They know you all.” As there were four of us, and we had never been in the district before, we were astonished and very much flattered! And the mayor beamed. At every village it was the same. “Viva la Infanta Isabel! Viva la Infanta Pilar! Viva la Infanta Paz! Viva la Infanta Eulalia!”—each as we came. And the mayor, delighted and smiling and bowing, kept repeating: “But see! It is really wonderful! You are all known. You are so popular!”
After a time I wished to try my sister Pilar’s donkey, and I asked her to change with me. The mayor objected. No, no; I must not do it. It would not be right. “What?” I said. “Is it forbidden by Spanish etiquette that I ride my sister’s donkey?” And I insisted. Then the mayor, seeing that I was determined, explained, in angry confusion that we could not change donkeys because our names had been clipped on their tails, so that the people might know who we were! And at the next village I watched the boys come behind us and read our names on the donkeys’ tails before they set up their shouting!
I thought it very clever—though such a joke on us—and I soon found that it was typically Spanish. They were very ingenious at playing such little tricks of deception. One of the oddest happened when we were making an official visit to another town, and driving again with another mayor. As we proceeded slowly through a crowded street, suddenly a boy ran into the roadway and dived between the wheels of our carriage. We were afraid that he would be killed, and we shouted to the driver, who pulled up his horses. The boy crawled out between the opposite wheels and ran away, but before we could start on again another boy did the same thing. This alarmed me so—with the fear of running over some one—that I wanted to stop altogether. How could one drive through a town where the children did such mad things? I would not go. The mayor assured me that it would not occur again, but I refused to believe him. How did he know? If these two boys would do it, why not others? Finally, to calm me, he admitted that he had hired these two boys to throw themselves under our wheels. But why? Because we were in front of his house, and his wife and family had wished to have a good look at us, and he had devised this charming plan to stop the carriage under their windows.