“The Infanta Eulalia, of whom I have often heard a good deal through the Cuban and Spanish colonies here, is herself one of the most remarkable examples of the simple life. And many unjust and untrue things have been said of her on that very account. The princess, on the contrary, while being most simple and unaffected in her ways, is a generous, highly intellectual and resolute personality. She read to me the chapter on the cultivation of the will and one’s own personal individuality, and interrupted to tell me:
“‘I shall conquer. I believe that the most necessary thing in life is to have a personal, properly developed will of one’s own. I have always been resolute myself. I have all my life done my own will when I thought it was proper. I reflected well beforehand, and then no one could stop me; and I always conquered, and I shall conquer again.’
“This last was said with a certain amount of defiance. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I am quite prepared for anything they may now do. I know that there has always been an antipathy between me and the Court life. I hate Court life, anyway, because it is so absurd in many of its stiff formalities. It puts a barrier between you and persons of the intellectual world.
“‘You may mix with only a certain set of people, who may be the most opposed to you, whom you feel to be unintellectual, and who are incapable of attracting your sympathy. I hate the barrier that would prevent you from free association with men of merit and of understanding just because they are not in Court circles. At Court they have also known for long that I did not care for them. I love my own simple life. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than my little home here in the Boulevard Lannes, facing the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. When I feel like it, I take a ride on my bicycle in the allées of the Bois. I frequently take a ride round the lakes all by myself, and come back with a healthy feeling of pleasure after my exercise. I like simple meals and no great fuss about my table. I like to converse with persons of intellect or artistic taste. I love my children and my grandchildren.’”
Probably no one was more surprised than the Infanta herself that her book—which she described to the above-mentioned interviewer as representing “merely my own experience in life”—should so disturb the Court of Madrid. On the 2nd December, 1911, she received in Paris a telegram from her nephew, King Alfonso, couched in the following terms:
“I am astonished to learn from the newspapers that you are publishing a book as the Countess of Avila, and from other information I suppose this will cause a great sensation. I order you to suspend publication till I have seen the book and till you have received my permission to publish it.”
The following telegram in reply was sent by the Infanta:
“I am much surprised that the book should be judged before the contents are known. That is a thing which only happens in Spain. Having never liked Court life, from which I have always kept aloof, I take this opportunity to say good-bye to it, for after this proceeding, worthy of the Inquisition, I consider myself free to act in my private life as I think proper.”
The text of these telegrams was communicated by the princess to the Paris Temps, and, judging from what she said at an interview which she granted to a representative of that journal, there can be no doubt that the bitterness created by the unjust treatment which she declared her soldier son had been subjected to was largely responsible for the definite renunciation of the Court of Madrid to which the telegram gives expression.
The rupture thus created between the King and the Infanta was officially admitted on the 5th of December in the Council of Ministers at Madrid. Throughout early December it formed the paramount topic of conversation in the Spanish capital. The peremptory tone of the Infanta’s reply to the King’s telegram evoked varied opinions. It was felt by some that her attitude had been unnecessarily defiant, but others regarded it as justifiable resentment of an act of unwarranted interference. The Spanish newspapers were also divided in opinion, but, judging by the number of telegrams and letters of approval and congratulation which arrived at the Infanta’s Paris residence, there must have been a very large body of people in her native country who were aroused to enthusiasm by her action.