So the Republicans retain their seats and bloodshed is averted. The mercy is due, not to the goodness of the cause, nor to the persuasive pleadings of its advocates, but to the intimidation of the mob. The Radical majority were the judges, and the judges were cowed by the rabble of the streets and their spokesmen in the Chamber. The Radical majority had it in their power to put the Republicans off the coveted blue benches of the Treasury; but the Radical majority, feeling that there were no strong arms outside to back them, "caved in." That is the plain way of putting it. Five members out of every six in the house were Radicals, six out of seven of the sections of the house were Radical. Those sections, or standing committees, are drawn by lot on the first of every month, and all members must belong to one or other of them. Every bill that is presented must be referred to a committee composed of seven members, one selected by each section. Six of the members of the committee to report on the bill of dissolution presented by Señor Figueras were Radicals; one solitary member, General Primo de Rivero, recalled from fighting the Carlists in Guipúzcoa, favoured the Government. The Opposition stood to the Ministry as six to one. And the Opposition being thus strong, the Ministry had beaten it! The wonder ceases when it is recollected that the hands of the majority were tied; every plan was tried to influence them into not ousting the Ministry—coaxing and cajolery, appeals to their love of peace and country, and ultimately threats. As result, when it came to the "who shall?" they did not sustain the convictions they had openly expressed on all previous occasions. Peradventure this was patriotism, peradventure it was prudence.
The debate was over. It was ten o'clock. The crowd raised exultant shouts and dispersed to their homes, to the clubs, or to the coffee-houses, where there was soon a file-fire of hand-claps to summon the waiters and a Babel of voluble jabber. The five ghostly cavaliers outside the Palace of the Congress started to life, sheathed their sabres, caught up their bridles, and returned to their stables.
The Republic had been reprieved. What a sigh of relief San Isidro Labrador, patron of Madrid, must have heaved.
CHAPTER IX.
The Inventions of Don Fulano de Tal—Stopping a Train—"A Ver Fine Blaggar"—The Legend of Santa Cruz—Dodging a Warrant—Outlawed—Chased by Gendarmes—A Jack Sheppard Escape—The Cura becomes Cabecilla—Sleeping with an Eye Open—Exploits and Atrocities—Dilettante Carlists in London—The Combat of Monreal—Ibarreta's Relics—A Tale for the Marines—The Carlists Looking-up.
EVERY other day—every other hour, I might almost say—a new rumour was born in Madrid. These rumours were usually figments, always exaggerations. If one were to inquire into their origin Don Fulano de Tal, the Man in the Street, was certain to have assisted as accoucheur. Alas! truth in Spain is coyest of sparrows, and to be caught must have not a grain but a whole bushel of salt shaken over its tail. Don Carlos was always turning up somewhere like a bad shilling. Were he to be where he was said to be, he must have been a supernatural Don Carlos—must have inherited the seven-leagued boots of fairy tale, as his brother had the invisible cloak, for he was here, there, everywhere, and nowhere, at one and the same time. But wherever hovered the Pretender, or the "heir presumptuous," as a Spanish acquaintance, not well up in English as "she is spoke," persisted in calling him, or whatever he may have been doing, there could be no doubt that some of his followers were in the field and alarmingly active. On the 13th of March, the capital was furious at the official news that communication with France and the rest of Europe by the north had been cut. Vitoria was the limit of Spain now; beyond it was the troublous No Man's Land, where the legends of Manuel Santa Cruz and his desperadoes abounded. He it was who had ripped up the rails near Tolosa, and waited for the accident which was sure to occur when the first train travelling towards the frontier would arrive. Four inoffensive passengers were hurled into eternity. The excuse for the conduct of this minister of peace was that these trains carried troops. If the railway company would pay him a tribute and engage to carry no troops, Santa Cruz, who is accommodating, would let them pass freely. The company was willing, for these interruptions were killing the dividends, but the Government objected. In common justice to the more intelligent members of the party this soldier-priest disgraced, it should be admitted that they cursed him loudly and deeply. His conduct was bringing his order into disrepute. For instance, in Vitoria, near his own hunting-ground, when the Republic was proclaimed, the Civil Governor dropped a hint that it would be necessary to "exterminate the highwaymen of the black soutane." The priests of the town got so frightened that they did not dare to show themselves in the streets. But they were in no danger, though the merciless Manuel was doing what he could to make the priests' garb unpopular. A Carlist paper in Madrid, with some conscience left, had the honesty to say Manuel was not a credit to his cloth, and that Don Carlos did not approve of the many savage acts he had committed. Manuel sent the editor a letter, with his compliments, promising to teach him better manners than to speak ill of the absent when he came to Madrid! The general anticipation, based on a fond hope, was that if Manuel ever did come to Madrid, it would be strapped on a hurdle. But he had his admirers, nevertheless. My friend, the Duke de Fitzpepper, swore in his execrable execrating English that he was a "cottam ver fine blaggar—oh, ye-es! tous qu'il y avait de plus crâne, mon cher!" From one of these admirers who knew his family, I obtained an interesting epitome of his career.
Santa Cruz was born at Elduayen in Guipúzcoa in 1842. An aged uncle gave him some lessons in Latin, and placed him in an ecclesiastical seminary, where he seems to have principally devoted himself to the practice of athletic exercises. He came out in 1866 a clerk and a gymnasiarch rolled in one, and was appointed to the pastoral charge of Hernialde, a cluster of houses near Tolosa. He attended zealously to the duties of his ministry, leading a simple, frugal life with his sister; but when stories of the struggles of Zumalacárregui and Gonzales Moreno in the previous Carlist war were recounted by the wide hearth, it was noticed that the priest's eyes blazed like the faggots sputtering in flame-spikes towards the chimney-top. He was a Monarchist of the Basque stamp by race, by education, by conviction. He should have been a warrior, not a preacher of the Gospel; but if the circumstances which produce the man had not arisen, he might have vegetated and died in obscurity in his mountain village. The circumstances arose in August, 1870. A revolt of the four provinces of Alava, Guipúzcoa, and Biscay (the Basques or Vascongadas), and Navarre, was to take place in that month. At the outset it was rendered abortive by the treachery of a Colonel Escoda. It broke out on the 27th of August, and was suppressed on the following day. Santa Cruz, whose opinions were well known to the party, had been asked to watch over a depot of arms which had been collected for the insurgents at Hernialde. His share in the plot was betrayed, and one morning, as he was celebrating Divine Service, his church was entered by a party of soldiers who waited at the foot of the altar until he had finished the ceremony.
"In the name of the law, follow me," said the officer in command; "I have a warrant for your arrest from Madrid."
"Very well," said the Cura; "but surely you will allow me to breakfast first, unless they ordered you to take me captive on an empty stomach."
This was murmured in a tone so dulcet and injured that the officer hastened to assure the clergyman that he might breakfast, and accompanied him to the presbytery.