But ere long he found the difficulty of reconciling his private sentiments and conviction with his duty to a king who had become the tool of France. Abispal proved the Talleyrand of Spain, and lost all favour by his indecision and vacillation; for, after receiving the Grand Cordon of the Order of Carlos III. from the hands of Ferdinand VII., he passed over to the Constitutionalists. From that day his power declined, and he was glad to seek shelter from the fury and clamour of the people at Montpelier in France, where he lived in retirement and much reduced in circumstances.
His son, Leopold Count O'Donnel, remained in Spain, and had attained the rank of colonel when the civil war broke out between the Carlists and Christinos, a step in which the children of the four elder O'Donnels were strangely divided, brother against brother, and cousin against cousin.
Thus, on the 2nd May, 1835, when Quesada was attacked by Don Tomas Zumalacarregui (the Claverhouse of Spanish loyalty), his division would have been annihilated but for the timely succour he received from Colonel Leopold O'Donnel de Abispal, who unfortunately was taken prisoner by the Navarrese while vainly struggling to rally the Loyal Guards. All who were captured were barbarously shot by the Carlists, and of all who perished none was more regretted than the young, handsome, and chivalric O'Donnel. Though a colonel in the service, he was merely accompanying Quesada to profit by his escort so far as Pampeluna, where he was about to celebrate his nuptials with a beautiful Spanish girl of high rank, and the heiress of an old and wealthy family. A noble ransom was offered, but Don Tomas was inexorable.
His father, Henry O'Donnel, then in his old age, died of a broken heart at Montpelier, on hearing of his son's disastrous fate.
Colonel John O'Donnel (a cousin of Leopold's) commanded the 2nd regiment of Castilian infantry, while his brother Charles led the insurgent cavalry of Don Tomas, and at the head of his own corps, the heavily-armed and ferocious lancers of Navarre, performed in his twenty-fifth year the most brilliant feats of the Constitutional war. For his romantic victory over Lopez, in fair battle on one of the immense plains of Old Castile, he was made Knight of San Ferdinando. Soon after, he was mortally wounded in action near Pampeluna, and as he expired in agony, he exclaimed: "I wish some one would send a bullet through me and end this misery!—I have but a short time to live. Already four O'Donnels have perished in this war; and their blood has been shed on the right side as well as on the wrong!"
He referred to Leopold, who was shot in cold blood at Alsassua; to his second brother, who lost a leg at Arguijas, and died under the amputation; to Charles, who lay on a bed of sickness from which he never rose; and to John, who was wounded in battle at Mendigorra; and being dragged from bed by a mob at Barcelona, was cruelly murdered in the streets and literally cut into ounce pieces. He and Charles left wives and children in France.
Leopold, the Conde de Lucena, and his brother Colonel Henry O'Donnel, who in the Spanish affairs of the present time have borne so prominent a part, are of the same warlike stock; but their adventures are too recent to require a record here.
FOOTNOTES: