The battalions of cazadores of Mérida and Barcelona, in garrison at Valencia, exhibited symptoms of discontent; but the officers were on the alert, and checked them on the spot. That is the only plan—nip the evil in the bud. It is the custom in Spain to confine troops to barracks during times of popular commotion. The artillery quartered at Valladolid caught the contagion of mutiny, and would have broken their bounds but for the prompt arrival of the captain-general and military governor, who succeeded with some trouble in pacifying them. These unpleasant tokens are not confined to the land forces; they are said to have spread to the sailors and marines. A steamer was under orders to leave the port of Barcelona the other night, but the crew emphatically refused to go; they argued that they were entitled to be paid off, and enjoy liberty on shore, under the benign regulations of the Republic. To be brutally candid, the army has taken the bit between its teeth and bolted. I fear I am repeating a twice-told tale, but it is well that it should be impressed on the reader, that he may know what the cuckoo-cry of "No army" signifies. One of the leading points of the programme of the Spanish Republicans out of office was that a soldier was a machine, and that no soldier should exist in a free nation. Now that the Republicans are in office the soldiers take them at their word, and claim their discharges. The machinery is out of gear. The Republicans never contemplated that they would require soldiers to put down a civil war. Señor Figueras, in spite of all his eloquence and honesty, can hardly be more successful in pacifying turbulent Barcelona than General Contreras. Catalonia is as great a stickler for its usages as the Basque provinces are for their fueros. One of the fueros of the Basque provinces is exemption from the quinta, or conscription; their only soldiers are the Miqueletes, a body of men somewhat like the Irish constabulary, who are not bound to act beyond their own provinces. Thus the army which is serving against the Carlists in Biscay, Alava, and Guipúzcoa, is in the provinces, but not of them. Catalonia cries out against the conscription, too, and Barcelona—hot-blooded, troublesome Barcelona, which never loses a chance of standing up for independent opinions—encouraged her garrison in the demand for its discharge.
The regular troops were to be replaced by the highly-paid volunteers. That was the proposition. But how is the increased call on the Financial Ministry to be met? Where is the money to pay these volunteers to come from? And without regular troops, what was to become of Cuba? The gold that is brought back from the Pearl of the Antilles is dearly bought with Spanish blood. People in England little dream what a drain that everlasting little-thought-of Cuban insurrection was upon the Spanish army. Thousands of men perished in the island every year, not from the bullets of the insurgents, but from privations, fatigue, the torrid clime, and the deadly swamp fever.
In sum, the army has been petted; the army is spoiled; the army, like a wanton child, is naughty. Ministers have shown indecision in shifting generals, generals have set the example of indiscipline in tolerating mutinous officers, officers have thrown off their uniforms in dudgeon and despair, sergeants have waylaid the War Office, so to speak, with the cry of "Promotion or your life!" Can poor Pistolet of the rank and file be blamed if he sighs for freedom, his sweetheart, and his native village? The Republic promised him all these, and now he is wicked enough to ask for them. There is one way of bringing naughty children to their senses, but Pistolet is too big a boy to submit to the rod from a weakly master.
In the capital we were comparatively safe. Unless the garrison divided against itself or the ordinary troops and the Guardia Civil fell out, there was no danger of bloodshed in any quantity. The population is not singularly ferocious. The privates move quietly in the streets in pairs, and are particular to salute their officers, though there is one officer, on an average, to every fifteen men, and most of these officers lack the thoroughbred air of gentlemen, and apparently have risen from a low social level. The sergeants are self-controlled, and brighten the promenades with their green worsted gloves and the great laced V's on their sleeves. I never miss a chance of admiring the garrison at parade. Physically the men are up to a high standard—superior to those of most European armies; morally they have the name of being patient and well-conducted; in formation they are steady, in dressing precise, and in movement they have a step as quick, but more dégagé than the Prussians. Were I a Spaniard, I would, every time I bent in prayer, offer up a supplication for the conversion—or perhaps the something else—of the bedizened culprits who are sending the soldiers to rack and ruin.
CHAPTER XII.
Luring the Reader into a Stony Desert—A Duel on the Carpet—Disappointment of the Special Correspondents—The People Amuses Itself—How the Ballot Works—A Historic Sitting of the Congress—Castelar's Great Oration—The Glory of Spain—About Negro Manumission—Distrust of "Uncle Sam"—Return of Figueras—The Permanent Committee—A Love-Feast of Politicians—The Writer Orders Wings.
IT may be urged with some show of truth that under the mirage of the adventurous, I have lured the reader, anxious for the sensational, into exhausting deviations in the stony desert of politics. I am guilty, and I am sorry that I shall have to sin again—politics are so ultimately interwoven with life in Spain. But it must not be imagined that these accounts of what happened more than a decade ago are no more useful or interesting than the stale report of the death of Queen Anne. In Spain history has the trick of literally repeating itself. The country is split into the same camps still, and occurrences similar to those of which I treat are certain to be presented to the world anew. The drama will be the same; the company only will be strange. And the information, such as it is, which I give now, may furnish the key to much that would otherwise be hard to unlock when the curtain rings up again.
Before one more error of political errantry, I must tell of a duel which did not come off, for the sake of its moral. This was how the affair arose. There was a discussion in the Assembly in reference to an alleged insurrection in Porto Rico. Señor Padial asked, was it true that the insurgents had raised cries of "Death to Spain," and demanded the independence of Porto Rico, and the massacre of the local volunteers? Several members got up to speak, and one of them, for what reason I cannot fathom, characterized the question as "a farce unworthy of the Conservative party." After a little while Señor Ardanay proceeded to read some documents proving the reality of the disturbances. He was interrupted by a torrent of voices, and Señor Padial shouted that the Civil Guards and volunteers of the island had got up the whole row, and that General Sanz was the author of the farce. General Sanz politely retorted, "Your worship is wanting in truth." Several honourable gentlemen sprang to their feet, and asked that Señor Padial's words should be taken down in writing. And then the Assembly became a bear-garden. Señor Olavarrieta claimed "la palabra," but the President would not give him the privilege of speaking. He spoke all the same, and said, "We shall not allow ourselves to be insulted by those señores," pointing to the Porto Rico deputies. The confusion became worse confounded. The President rang his bell, called "Order," and threatened to suspend the sitting. General Sanz then rose, looking wicked, and asked that the words offensive to the Civil Guards and the volunteers should be taken down in writing. As for what had been said offensive to himself, he asked nothing; he knew what course to take. In England this might have meant that the soldier would treat Señor Padial with silent contempt; in Spain, with my preconceived notions of the pride of blue blood and the fire of Castile, and all the rest, I took it that it could only mean "pistols for two and coffee for one." The confession is sad; but the truth at any price, the truth is so rare under this sky. Sundry Special Correspondents who had come out to describe the revolution that would not come off, were cudgelling their brains to discover how they could assist at this passage of arms, in order that they might render a full, true, and particular account to the public. The encounter would have been more diverting than a bull-fight. Opinions were divided as to whether it was better to go disguised as a hackney coachman or an apothecary's assistant. I hurried, after dinner, to the Café Fornos, the great rendezvous of Madrid politicians, to hear the latest details of the pending affair of honour. It was to come off—no doubt of it; but when and where, I could not hear. Next morning I read that the difficulty had been arranged. It may be a satisfaction that the barbarous "code of honour" has fallen out of fashion in Spain; but it would be a still greater satisfaction if the practice of gentlemen giving each other the lie in public were to fall out of fashion also. The scene was disgraceful, and I am glad to be able to add that most of the deputies were thoroughly ashamed of it; and in places of public resort some went so far as to say that they would take their seats no more in the Assembly. But they were in their places all the same on the following afternoon. The Congress of Spain is no more mannerly on occasions than legislatures elsewhere; but the occasions are rare.
My visit to the Café Fornos was not for nothing, after all. There was a scene there too. A group of low fellows, overheated with wine, entered about eight o'clock, while the immense hall on the ground-floor was crowded with Radical deputies, officers, and quiet Madrileños who frequent it nightly, and commenced bellowing for the Republic after their hearts—that is to say, the Republic, Federal, Social, and Uncompromising. The shout was taken up by another group outside, which blocked up the entrance in the Calle de Alcalá. It was evidently a premeditated manifestation. A Republican deputy who was present tried to calm the disorderly crew, but to no purpose. They had come to shout, and they would have their shout out. Señor Estévanez, the civil governor, was dining in a room upstairs, but Señor Estévanez did not leave his repast. When the thirsty and uncompromising federal social citizens were hoarse they retired. They had effectually succeeded in annoying the coffee-drinking tyrants who had the impudence to wear broadcloth, and they withdrew to drain bumpers to their tremendous exploit elsewhere.
These individuals were all in favour of the "social liquidation." This cry of the drones had partisans in every citizen with an empty pocket and a patch on his garments, for it means that the provident shall be robbed to satisfy the improvident. But nathless these agitators, Spain, I was told, was likely to be quiet for five or six weeks—that is, quiet in the Spanish sense, with an insurrection in one stage of heat or another, smouldering or flaming, in half a dozen provinces. The elections would be tranquil, with "scrimmages" here and there; they would not be elections without. The voting is by ballot. Theoretically the system is faultless, but in practice jugglery is possible, and does habitually occur. The alcalde has some influence in the matter, so has the parish priest, so has the nearest large landed proprietor, so has the local police functionary, and so has the mob. Ballot-boxes have been broken open or have disappeared mysteriously. And thus it happens that a Spanish constituency sends in a buff man as its representative by a crushing majority at one election, and a blue man or a red man by a crushing majority at the next. The constituency has not changed in the interval, but the Minister in the Gobernacion, or, as we should call it, the Home Office, has. There lies the secret.