"R-o-t, rot, my dear sir," said Mentor, with an irritating coolness. "Of game-cocks I know nothing; but as far as your horse argument goes, I am prepared to meet you. Care is taken that the mare shall be mated with the proper sire, so that the qualities long worked up to, by judicious crossing, shall not be lost or deteriorated; but there is no such selection in the case of a lord; he follows his own figary, and his figary is usually money, to regild a faded shield. Blood, sir, has less to do with those things than education and the associations of childhood. Send an earl's son to St. Giles', and he will grow up a saucy gutter-boy; send a burglar's son to Eton, and he may develop into what is conventionally recognised as a gentleman."
There was no arguing down our Mentor on this point, so the subject was changed, and he tried to disintegrate the ingredients in the very mixed dish of Spanish parties—a complete olla podrida. There were five factions in the distracted State, two schools of Monarchists and three of Republicans. These were—1st, the Alfonsists, or those who wished that the son of the deposed Queen should be raised to the throne; 2nd, the Legitimists or Carlists (embracing a large body of the clergy); 3rd, the Republicans of long standing, who were actually in power; 4th, the ex-Monarchists—the neo-Republicans or Radicals, who sometimes called themselves Progresistas, and favoured the United Republic; and 5th, the Intransigentes, or the Irreconcilables, the extreme of the extreme, who clamoured for a Federal Republic.
"As example of that ignorance of the masses of which I spoke," said Mentor, "the mob of Madrid is fiercely Federal, which proves that it does not know what Federalism is; for one of the first results of Federalism would be to reduce this capital to the plane of a third-rate provincial town. Federalism is Spanish dismemberment. If such a system were adopted, you would have a Royalist North, a Red Republican Catalonia, and a pauperized Castile, politically piebald. Catalonia is Federal, in which Catalonia writes itself down ass, for that province is manufacturing, and with the downfall of protection its prosperity must depart."
"Is there any chance of Amadeus being coaxed back?"
He laughed a laugh that embarrassed me.
"A kick is not soon forgotten, for it is always an insult even when administered with an embroidered slipper."
"What do you think of the situation at the moment?" (This was in the first week of March.)
"Madrid," he answered, "is a hot-bed of political intrigue, and a complicated intrigue is in act of being developed at present. This, I take it, is a fair estimate of the situation. The men in office are controlled by fears of the violent Republicans outside, whom they are powerless to keep under; and the Radicals are anxious to get into office to restrain these same violent Republicans, but hesitate because of the apprehension that they have not sufficient material force behind them. They would fain climb, but that they fear to fall. Thus, as you perceive, the disorganization of the army is at the bottom of all the difficulties, for that it is which leaves the mastery with the dreaded Intransigents. Those, the 'partisans of action' as they are aptly called sometimes, have more energy than either the Ministry or the Radicals, and if this dilly-dallying goes on much longer they may make a bold attempt to get the reins into their own hands. The Radicals are opposed to a dissolution of the Assembly because they fear the Reds would command the polls at the new elections, and go in for sweeping changes on the model of their predecessors in Paris. The present Ministers have not the vigour to check the manœuvring that would bring about such an occurrence, and the Radicals believe that they only could oppose and beat down the fanatics of Communistic proclivities. There are cynics, however, who sneer at patriotic affirmations, and whisper that loaves and fishes have more to do with them than love of country."
I reflected that patriotism of that order was not an exclusively Iberian production, but that possibly the cynics were disappointed politicians themselves.
"The state of the army," resumed Mentor, "is the question after all. A great portion of the rank and file are violently Republican, and one cause of insubordination is that the privates do not believe in the Republicanism of their officers. Of course, the object of the Ministry in raising the proposed battalions of volunteers, is less to put down Carlism than to have a force to fall back upon in case of the army giving itself furlough. I have reason to know that one Minister at least is very uneasy on account of the want of discipline of the troops, and urges upon his colleagues that their first labour should be devoted to repressing all signs of disorder. But the fight for place at Madrid has more interest for them, and the army is melting away. When Ministers make up their minds to a rigorous supervision of the soldiery, there may be no soldiers to supervise."