Court Life From Within

by Infanta of Spain Eulalia

Courtesy of Collier’s

Alfonso XIII of Spain

we had really accepted the thought that he was an invalid, he was taken with a hæmorrhage of the lungs, cried out that he was choking, and died almost with the words.

He was buried in the Escurial—where we had laughed together at the tombs of the Infantas—among all the kings, who had become now only the names of kings—no longer brothers, husbands, fathers—just dead kings—as he had become.

His death was, I think, a great loss to the country, for the King of Spain has much power under the Constitution, if he has the ability to handle the instruments of his authority in a way to have his orders carried out. And my brother had that suavity of will that wins its way almost affectionately and puts stubbornness firmly aside when it can not be won. Such a king, placed above the temptations of wealth, could protect the poor from an industrial oppression from which they are too often unable to protect themselves. And being of a liberal mind in his religion, he could prevent the religious orders in Spain from using their pulpit and sacred office for political ends.

His death seemed like the end of my own life to me. I had no longer any interest or happiness in Spain. I had no friends there, except the Duc de Montpensier and our little family. I found myself always a foreigner when I went outside the palace. I could not understand the popular religion, which is not Catholicism as it is known in other countries, but only the outward form and name of Catholicism filled with superstitions and fetishisms divorced from the moral purposes of religion.

They have, for example, in Madrid, a popular feast called “La Cara de Dios” (“The Face of God”), when there is exposed under glass, to be kissed by the people, the handkerchief with which Christ is supposed to have wiped the bloody sweat from His face on His way to Calvary, and thereby to have imprinted on the fabric a portrait of His features, which has been miraculously preserved. In front of the church where this relic is set out, booths are erected and an all-night debauch of drinking and dancing and brawling is begun. Between carouses the people go to kiss “the Face of God,” return to their excesses, and only interrupt them to make another pilgrimage to the relic. It seemed to me that the whole religion of the common people was a sort of feast of “La Cara de Dios,” that profited nobody but the keepers of the shrine. I could not turn to such a religion for consolation in my grief. I could not look forward to any happiness in a Court where only my love for my brother had made the stupidities of our days endurable. I wanted to get away.

But I could not get away unmarried. That was impossible. I was still engaged informally to the Duc de Montpensier’s son, Antoine d’Orléans; but now that my brother was gone I wished to break the engagement, because I had only entered into it with the idea that such a marriage would keep me near to him. My determination aroused an amazing alarm. Members of the Government came to plead with me to hold the Duc’s interest to the throne by marrying his son; if I refused, they were afraid that he would enter politics again, to the extent even of making another revolution. That was absurd. But it was not absurd that I was as fond of the Duc as if he had been my father, and he wanted me for a daughter-in-law. It was considered a necessity of State that I should marry at once in order to protect the succession. I felt as my brother had felt after the death of his first wife. I did not care.

In December, 1885, just a month after his death, the date of my wedding was fixed, by Royal decree, for the following February. I remember that soon afterwards I received a visit from a girl friend of my own age who had come to say good-bye to me because she was entering a convent; and I thought, as I spoke to her, how much happier she was than I. I felt very sad, very depressed. I declared that I would only be married in mourning. They cried out against it, that it would bring me bad luck. What worse luck was left for me, I asked, except to die?—and I should not mind that. They yielded to me; February 26th was set for my wedding-day; but in the middle of the month I was taken ill of a fever that proved to be diphtheria, and on the 26th I had been for several days at the point of death; so I had a reprieve. It was a brief one. On March 5th, I was well enough to be taken into the big sitting-room in the evening, to sign the marriage contract before the necessary witnesses; and on the following day, still very weak, I was married in the Royal Chapel, with all the company dressed in deep mourning, and the church draped in black as for a funeral. I went away on our honeymoon, miserable, to the palace of Aranjuez; and, for once, I welcomed the Court etiquette that required us to be accompanied by a lady and a gentleman-in-waiting, since their presence saved me from a tête-à-tête with my husband, for which neither of us had any inclination.