Letters from Spain

by Joseph Blanco White

Between our advocates or barristers, and the superior judges, called Oidores, there is such a line of distinction as to be almost an insuperable barrier. A young man, who, having studied Roman law at the University, attends three or four years at an acting advocate’s chambers, is, after an examination on Spanish law, qualified to plead at the courts of justice. But once engaged in this branch of the law, he must give up all hopes of rising above that doubtful rank which his profession gives him in society. Success may make him rich, but he must be contented with drudging for life at the bar of a provincial court, and bear the slighting and insolent tone with which the judges consider themselves at liberty to treat the advocates. It is, therefore, not uncommon among young lawyers, who cannot command interest enough to be placed on the bench, to offer themselves as candidates for a Corregimiento. Having scraped together a little money, and procured a few letters of recommendation, they repair to Madrid, where they are seen almost daily in the minister’s waiting-room with a petition, and a printed list of their university degrees and literary qualifications, called Papél de Méritos, which, after two or three hours attendance, they think themselves happy if his excellency will take from their hands. Such as can obtain an introduction to some of the grandees who have the right to appoint magistrates on their estates, confine themselves to the easier, though rather more humiliating task, of toad-eating to their patron.

The Pretendientes for the higher branches of finance, must be able to make a more decent appearance at Court, if they hope for success. It is not, however, the minister for that department, who is most to be courted in order to obtain these lucrative places. A recommendation from the Queen, or from the Prince of the Peace, generally interferes with his views, if he allows himself to have any of his own. To obtain the first, a handsome figure, or some pleasing accomplishment, such as singing to the guitar in the Spanish style, are the most likely means, either by engaging her Majesty’s attention, or the affections of some of her favourite maids of honour. The no less powerful recommendation of the Prince of the Peace is, I must say in justice to him, not always made the reward of flattery, or of more degrading servility. Justice and a due regard for merit, are, it is true, far from regulating the distribution of his patronage: yet, very different from the ministers who tremble before him, he can be approached by every individual in the kingdom, without an introduction, and in the certainty of receiving a civil, if not a favourable answer. His great failing, however, being the love of pleasure, none are so sure of a gracious reception as those who appear at his public levees, attended by a handsome wife or blooming daughter. The fact is so well known all over the country, and—I blush to say it—the national character is so far sinking under the influence of this profligate government, that beauties flock from every province for the chance of being noticed by the favourite. His public levee presents every week a collection of the handsomest women in the country, attended by their fathers or husbands. A suit thus supported is never known to fail.

The young aspirants to a toga, or judge’s gown, often succeed through some indirect influence of this kind. The strange notion that an advocate—one that has pleaded causes at the bar—has, in a manner, disqualified himself for the bench, leaves the administration of justice open to inexperienced young men, who, having taken a degree in Roman law, and nominally attached themselves for a short time to an advocate, as practitioners, are suddenly raised to the important station of judges, either by marrying any of the Queen’s maids of honour, or some more humble beauty on whom the Prince of the Peace has cast a transient gleam of favour. I have known such a reward extended to the sister of a temporary favourite, who, being poor, and in love with a young man of family, poor himself, and hopeless of otherwise obtaining a place, enabled him to marry, by bringing a judge’s gown for her portion. Yet so perfectly can circumstances alter the connexion which some moral feelings have between themselves under certain forms and modifications of society, that the man I allude to, as having owed his promotion to such objectionable influence, is an example of justice and impartiality in the difficult station in which he has been placed. I do not mean, however, that a person who degrades his character with a view to promotion, gives a fair promise of honourable principles when called to discharge the duties of a public office: the growing venality of our judges is too sad and clear a proof of the reverse. But when a Government becomes so perfectly abandoned as to block up with filth and pollution every avenue to wealth, power, and even bare subsistence, men who, in a happier country, would have looked upon the contaminated path with abhorrence, or, had they ventured a single step upon it, would have been confirmed in their degradation by the indelible brand of public censure; are seen to yield for a moment to the combined influence of want and example, and recover themselves so far, as almost to deserve the thanks of the people for having snatched a portion of authority from the grasp of the absolutely worthless.

Before I proceed to the remaining class of Pretendientes, allow me, as a relief from the contemplation of this scene of vice and corruption, to acquaint you with a man in power who, unwarped by any undue influence, has uniformly employed his patronage in the encouragement of modest and retiring merit. His name is Don Manuel Sixto Espinosa. His father was a musician, who having had the good fortune to please the King by his tasteful performances on the piano, was appointed teacher of that instrument to the Royal Family. His son, a young man of great natural abilities, which he had applied to the study of finance and political economy, (branches of knowledge little attended to in Spain,) had been gradually raised to a place of considerable influence in that department, when his well-known talents made the Prince of the Peace fix upon him as the fittest man to direct the establishment for the consolidation of the public debt. Espinosa, as Director of the Sinking Fund, has been accused of impiety by the clergy, for trespassing on their overgrown privileges; and blamed, by such as allow themselves to canvass state matters in whispers, for not opposing the misapplication of the funds he enables Government to collect. It would be needless to answer the first charge. As to the second, common candour will allow that it is unfair to confound the duties of a collector with those of a trustee of the national revenue.

Without, however, entering upon the only remaining question, whether, in the unfortunate circumstances of this country, it is an honest man’s duty to refuse his services to a Government whose object is to fleece the subject in order to pamper its own vices—a doctrine doubtful in theory, and almost inapplicable in practice,—Espinosa has qualities acknowledged by all who know him, and even undenied by his enemies, which, without raising him into an heroic model of public virtue, make him a striking instance of the power of virtuous and honourable principle, in the midst of every allurement and temptation which profligacy, armed with supreme power, can employ. Inaccessible to influence, his patronage has uniformly been extended to men of undoubted merit. A manuscript Essay on Political Economy, written by a friendless young man and presented to Espinosa, was enough to obtain the author a valuable appointment. A decided enemy to the custom of receiving presents, so prevalent in Spain, as to have become a matter of course in every suit, either for justice or favour; I positively know, that when a commercial transaction, to the amount of millions, between this Government and a mercantile house in London had received his approbation, Espinosa sent back a hamper of wine, which one of the partners had hoped, from its trifling value, he would have received as a token of gratitude. His private conduct is exemplary, and his manners perfectly free from “the insolence of office,” which he might assume from the high honours to which he has been raised. His parents, now very old, and living in the modest, unassuming style which becomes their original rank, are visited by Espinosa every Sunday, (the only day which leaves him a moment of rest) and treated with the utmost kindness and deference. Always mild and modest in his deportment, it is on these occasions that he seems quite to forget his honours, and carry himself back to the time when he looked for love and protection from those two, now, helpless beings. It is there, and only there, that I once met Espinosa, and he has ever since possessed my respect. If I have dwelt too long on the subject of a man perfectly unknown to you, I trust you will not attribute it to any of the motives which generally prompt the praises of men in power. These, indeed, can never reach the ear of him they commend, nor has he the means to serve the eulogist. But the daily sickening sight of this infamous Court makes the mind cling to the few objects which still bear the impress of virtue: and having to proceed with the disgusting picture in which I have engaged, I gladly seized the opportunity of dispelling the impression which my subject might leave, either that I take pleasure in vilifying my country, or that every seed of honour has died away from the land.

I do not know how it happens that in going through the description of the different classes of Pretendientes, I have inverted the order which they hold in my enumeration, so that I still find myself with the Reverend Stall-hunters upon my hands. These, as you may suppose, are, by the decencies of their profession, compelled to take quite a different course from those already described; for Hymen, in this country, expects nothing from the clergy but disturbance; and Love, accustomed, at Court, to the glitter of lace and embroidery, is, usually, frightened at the approach of their black cloaks, and the flapping brims of their enormous hats.

During the last reign, and the early part of the present, the King seldom disposed of his patronage without the advice of his Privy Council. The Camaristas de Castilla received the petitions of the candidates, accompanied by documental proofs of their merits and qualifications, and reported thereon to the King through the Minister of the home department. Such was the established practice till the Queen took to herself the patronage of the Crown, and finally shared it with her favourite. The houses of the Privy Counsellors were, accordingly, the great resort of the Clerical Pretendientes. Letters of introduction to some of the Camaristas were considered the most indispensable provision for the Madrid journey; and no West Indian slave was ever so dependent on the nod of his master, as these parasites were on the humours of the whole family of the Privy Counsellor, where each had the happiness to be received as a constant visiter. There he might be seen in the morning relieving the ennui of the lady of the house; who, from the late period of life at which judges are promoted to a place in the King’s Council, are themselves of the age which we call canonical; and there he was sure to be found in the evening making one at the game of Mediatór, without which her ladyship would be more restless and unhappy than if she had missed her supper. In this Egyptian bondage the clerical aspirant would pass three or four years of his life, till his patron was willing and able to obtain for him the first place in the list of three candidates presented to the King at each vacancy, when the happy man quitted the Court for some cathedral, there quietly to enjoy the fruits of his patience and perseverance.

The road to preferment is, at present, more intricate and uncertain. I know a few who have been promoted in consequence of having assisted the Government with their pens. Such is the case of a clergyman, whose work against the privileges of the province of Biscay was the prelude to the repeal of its ancient charters under the Prince of the Peace: such is that of a learned sycophant who has lately given us a National Cathechism, in imitation of one published by Napoleon after his accession to the throne of France, setting forth the divine right of Kings, and the duty of passive obedience. But the despotism which crushes us, is too pampered and overgrown to require the assistance of pensioned scribblers. There was a period when the Prince of the Peace was pleased to see his name in verse; but crowds of sonnetteers showered so profusely their praises upon him, that he has grown insensible to the voice of the Muses. He, now and then, rewards some of his clerical courtiers, with a recommendation to the minister, which amounts to a positive order; but seems rather shy of meddling with such paltry concerns. It is the Queen who has, of late, taken possession of the keys of the church, which she commits into the hands of her first lady of the bed-chamber, allowing her to levy a toll on such as apply for admittance to the snug corners of the establishment. I do not report from hearsay. The son of a very respectable Seville tradesman, whom I have known all my life, having taken orders, became acquainted with a person thoroughly conversant with the state of the Court, who put him in possession of the secret springs which might promote him at once to a prebendal stall in the cathedral of his own town. The young man had no qualifications but a handsome person, and a pretty long purse, of which, however, his father had still the strings in his own hands. Four thousand dollars, or two years income of the prebend, was the market-price then fixed by the lady of the bed-chamber; and though the good dull man, the father, was not unwilling to lay out the money so evidently to the advantage of his son, he had heard something about simony,—a word which, together with his natural reluctance to part with his bullion, gave him such qualms of conscience as threatened to quash the young man’s hopes. The latter possessed but a very scanty stock of learning, but was not easily driven to his wit’s end; and, knowing too well the versatile nature of casuistry, proposed a consultation of three reverend divines, in order to take their opinion as to the lawfulness of the transaction. The point being duly debated, it appeared that, since the essence of simony is the purchase of spiritual things for money, and the interest of the Queen’s confidant was perfectly wordly and temporal, it might conscientiously be bought for the sum at which she valued it. The young man, furnished with his gold credentials, was a short time ago properly introduced to the Queen’s female favourite. Having attended her evening parties for a short time, he has, without farther trouble, been presented to the vacant stall at Seville.

The hardships of a Pretendiente’s life, especially such as do not centre their views in the church, have often furnished the theatre with amusing scenes. The Spanish proverbial imprecation—“May you be dragged about as a Pretendiente,” cannot be felt in its full force but by such as, like myself, have lived on terms of intimacy with some of that unfortunate race. A scanty supply of money from their families is the only fund on which a young man, in pursuit of a judge’s gown, must draw for subsistence, for three or four journeys a year to the Sitios, in order to attend the Court; for the court-dress which he is obliged to wear almost daily; and the turns of ill-luck at the card-table of his lady patroness. What a notion would an Englishman form of our degree of refinement, if he was to enter one of the lodging-houses at Aranjuez, for instance, and find a large paved court surrounded by apartments, each filled by a different set of lodgers, with three or four wretched beds, and not so many chairs for all furniture; here one of the party blacking his shoes; there another darning his stockings; a third brushing the court-dress he is to wear at the minister’s levee; while a fourth lies still in bed, resting, as well as he can, from the last night’s ball! As hackney coaches are not known either at Madrid or the Sitios, there is something both pitiable and ludicrous in the appearance of these judges, intendants, and governors in embryo, sallying forth in full dress, after their laborious toilet, to pick their way through the mud, often casting an anxious look on the lace frills and ruffles which, artfully attached to the sleeves and waistcoat, might by some untoward accident, betray the coarse and discoloured shirt which they meant to conceal. Thus they trudge to the palace, to walk up and down the galleries for hours, till they have succeeded in making a bow to the minister, or any other great personage, on whom their hopes depend. Having performed this important piece of duty, they retire to a very scanty dinner, unless their good stars should put them in the way of an invitation. In the afternoon they must make their appearance in the public walk, where the royal family take a daily airing; after which, the day is closed by the attendance at the Tertulia of some great lady, if they be fortunate enough to have obtained her leave to pay her this daily tribute of respect.

Such as visit Madrid and the Sitios, independent of Court favour, may, for a few weeks, find amusement in the strangeness of the scene. The Court of Spain is, otherwise, too dull, stiff, and formal, to become an interesting residence. The only good society in the upper ranks is to be found among the Corps Diplomatique. The King, wholly occupied in the chase, and the Queen in her boudoir, are, of late, extremely averse to the theatres. Two Spanish play-houses are still allowed to be open every night; but the opera has been discontinued for several years, merely because it was a daily rendezvous for the higher classes. So jealous is the Queen of fashionable assemblies, that the grandees do not venture to admit more than four or five individuals to their tertulias; and scarcely a ball is given at Madrid in the course of the year. This, however, is never attempted without asking the Queen’s permission. The Marchioness of Santiago, whose evening parties were numerous, and attended by the most agreeable and accomplished people in the capital, was, a short time since, obliged, by an intimation communicated through the police, to deny her house to her friends.