“She was one whom many loved; surely all to their great good. No hatred or other evil could exist in a mind full of her memory.
“Once, when she was a little girl, five or six years old, I asked her what she would do when she grew up. She said that she would build everybody a palace. ‘What,’ I said, ‘with your little hands?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘my lover will build it for me.’ This I have so often, often thought of.”
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The poem “Carlotta,” by Tomás de Medellin, is well-known in Santa Barbara. It is a formless but interesting jumble of writing about her, in sonnets, ballads, lyrics and dramatic dialogues. It contains most of the fables about her which the imagination of the race has seized upon. I quote here some translation from portions of the poem.
The Sonnet of Camilla, Mother of Don Manuel, on hearing of her son’s betrothal to Carlotta:
Lord, when Thy servant, doubting of Thy grace,
Went in despair from what she judged Thy frown
To search for comfort in an earthly town,
Despairing of all help in any place!
When she was sure, that not in any case