Mentor shook his head in a decisive negative. "No," he said; "outside the northern and a portion of the eastern provinces, Carlism has no solidity."
"But may not the name of Dorregaray, who has crossed the frontier again, turn out to be a spell-word? They tell me he distinguished himself in the war with Morocco."
"Yes," assented Mentor, "he commanded a regiment of galley-slaves there."
"And," I continued, "in Cuba at the outbreak of hostilities he was to the fore."
"True, true; but I would not give that," and he snapped his fingers, "for the fidelity of such as Dorregaray. He served under Don Carlos in the civil war from 1836 to 1840, and that did not hinder him from donning a uniform under Isabella. Cosas de España! Have you never heard of Piquero? His action is a pretty fair criterion of the political morality of your ordinary ambitious Spanish soldier."
No, the man's name was new to me.
"Well, he commanded the regiment of Malaga when Ferdinand VII. returned from France and was made absolute monarch. General Piquero, as soon as he got wind of the decree of absolutism, thought he would be first to curry favour at Court, and sent an address to the palace, praying that his regiment might have the honour of wearing chains emblazoned on the colours in testimony of attachment to the King. The prayer was magnanimously acceded to, and the chains were absolutely borne on the colours for years. Yet not very long afterward this Piquero, this mean, fawning cur, changed front and became a yelping hungry mastiff of democracy. I don't anticipate Dorregaray would play that part."
"Anyhow," I persisted, "the Carlist General has sent forth a manifesto in his self-assumed capacity of commander-in-chief of the Vascongadas and Navarre to the soldiers of the Spanish army. He calls upon them to lay down their arms, promising them free discharges if they desire it, but promotion, decorations, and rewards if they join his standard. What do you think of that?"
"I do not blame him," said Mentor. "In thus tempting the army, he is only doing as every military chief who has ever lifted himself to power by a pronunciamiento has done. The sergeants and corporals are invariably lured with the bait that they shall be made captains and lieutenants, the common soldiers that their pay and rations shall be increased. Such men as go over to Dorregaray only act as too many of their predecessors have acted. In this instance they have an excuse; they can say, 'We were Royalist soldiers a few weeks ago; we are transformed into Republican soldiers now. Our will was never consulted. We are Royalist still, therefore we rally to Don Carlos, who represents the principle of Monarchy.' They could say this, but I am far from thinking they will. Spaniards of the rank and file do not chop logic; it is the non-commissioned officers who initiate mutinies for purposes of personal advancement; the private is a machine, not a thinking bayonet."
In response to my inquiry as to the influence which remained to the Church, my Mentor shook his head, and said outside the hilly regions where Carlism prevailed, and the remote rural districts, it was next to null, save among the more comfortable class of women. The common Spaniard took his faith as he would his heritage; he was a Christian because his fathers were so before him—it was an affair of family—and his calling himself a Christian, which signifies Christian exclusively of the Roman Catholic persuasion, is a survival of the thoughts bequeathed by the Saracenic occupation. He who was not a Christian was a "Moro," and to this day the Jew or the Protestant is a Moor, tarred with the same brush as the turbaned Islamite.