Spanish Life in Town and Country

by L. Higgin; Eugène E. Street

While the old church of Atocha was still standing, the Court, with a royal escort, or what is called escadron de salut, all the dignitaries of the Palace in attendance, guards, outriders, etc., in gorgeous array, drove in half state (media gala) across Madrid and the paseos to hear the salut "sa'nt" on Saturday. The Queen Regent and her daughters, but not often the King, now visit in turn some of the churches, but without the old state or regularity.

Since the death of Alfonso XII., many of the purely Spanish customs of the Court have been modified or discontinued. Although the late King was credited with a desire to reduce the civil list, and to adopt more English customs, he was to some extent in the hands of the Conservatives, who had been the means of his restoration, and when he went forth to put an end to the Carlist insurrection and finish the civil war, which had laid desolate the Northern provinces and ruined commerce and industry for some seven years, it was at the head of a personal following of over five hundred people. Nor was the Court much, if any, less numerous when the Royal Family removed in the summer to the lovely Palace of St. Ildefonso at La Granja—that castle in the air, which has no equal in Europe, hanging, as it does, among gardens, forests, rivers, and lakes, three thousand eight hundred and forty feet above the level of the sea.

The Queen is Austrian, and she has never gone out of her way to conciliate the people by making herself really Spanish. This she has left to the Infanta Isabel, the eldest sister of Alfonso XII. For many years before the birth of her brother, the Infanta Isabel was Princess of Asturias, as heiress apparent of the Crown. With the advent of a boy, she became, of course, only Infanta, losing the rank which she had held up to this time. Being but a child at the time, she perhaps knew or cared little for any difference it may have made in her surroundings. She shared in the flight of the Royal Family to France in 1868, and her education was completed in Paris. When the whirligig of Spanish politics called her brother Alfonso, who at the time was a military student at Sandhurst, to the throne from which his mother had been driven, Princess Isabel returned with him to Madrid, and was once more installed in the Palace, above the Manzanares, as Princess of Asturias. This rank remained hers during the short episode of her brother's marriage to his cousin Mercédes, and the melancholy death of the girl Queen at the moment when a direct heir to the throne was expected. Once more, when the daughter of Alfonso's second wife, the present Queen Regent, was born, the Infanta Isabel became her title, and she took again the lower rank.

Nothing in history is more pathetic than this first marriage of Alfonso XII. and its unhappy termination. The children of Queen Isabel and those of her sister, the Duquesa de Montpensier, had been brought up together, and there was a boy-and-girl attachment between the Prince of Asturias and his cousin Mercédes. When Alfonso became King, almost as it seemed by accident, and it was thought necessary that he should marry, the boy gravely assured his Ministers that he was quite willing to do so, and in fact intended to marry his cousin. Nothing could be more inopportune, nothing more contrary to the welfare of the distracted country! From the time that the notorious "Spanish marriages" had become facts, the Duke of Montpensier had been an intriguer. The birth of heirs to the throne of Spain (it is useless to go back to those long-past scandals) had completely upset the machinations of Louis Philippe and his Ministers. So long as Don Francisco de Assis and the Spanish nation chose to acknowledge the children as legitimate, there was nothing to be done. The direct hope of seeing his sons Kings of Spain faded from the view of the French husband of the sister of Isabel II., but he never for one moment ceased to intrigue. Although loaded with benefits and kindness by the Queen, Montpensier took no small part in the revolution which drove her from the country. Topete, and Serrano—who had once been what the Spaniards called Pollo Real himself—were bound in honour to uphold his candidature for the vacant throne; their promise had been given long before the pronunciamiento at Cadiz had made successful revolution possible. Prim alone stood firm: "Jamas, jamas!" (Never, never!) he replied to every suggestion to bring Montpensier forward. In those words he signed his own death-warrant. His actual murderers were never brought to justice, ostensibly were never found; but there never was a Spaniard who doubted that the foul deed was the result of instigation.

IN THE WOODS AT LA GRANJA

To have Mercédes as Queen Consort, was to bring her father once more within the limits of practical interference with national politics. To all remonstrance, however, the young King had one answer: "I have promised," and the nation, recognising that as a perfectly valid argument, acquiesced, though with many forebodings. The marriage took place, and within a few months the girl Queen was carried with her unborn child to the melancholy Pantéon de los Principes at the Escorial.

The marriage of the Infanta Isabel with Count Girgenti, a Neapolitan Bourbon, was an unhappy one, and she obtained a legal separation from him after a very short matrimonial life. Spaniards have a perfect genius for giving apt nicknames. Scarcely was the arrangement for the marriage made known when the Count's name was changed to that of Indecente. He fought, however, for Isabel II. at Alcoléa, which was at any rate acting more decently than did Montpensier, who had furnished large sums of money to promote the rising against his confiding sister-in-law, and, in fact, never ceased his machinations against every person and every thing that stood in his way, until death fortunately removed him from the arena of Spanish politics, his one overmastering ambition unfulfilled. He had neither managed to ascend the throne himself, nor see any of his children seated there, except for the few months that Mercédes, "beloved of the King and of the nation," shared the throne of Alfonso XII.

The Infanta Isabel, except for the episode of her exile in France, has always lived in the Royal Palace of Madrid, having her own quarters, and her little court about her. At times she has been the butt of much popular criticism, and even dislike, but she has outlived it all, and is now the most popular woman in Spain. It must have required no common qualities to have lived without discord—as a separated wife—with her brother and her younger sisters; then with Queen Mercédes, her cousin as well as sister-in-law; again, during the time of the King's widowhood and her own elevation to the rank of Princess of Asturias, and, finally, since the second marriage of her brother, and his untimely death, with Maria Cristina and her young nephew and nieces.

One thing is to be said in favour of Isabel II. Deprived of all ordinary education herself, as a part of the evil policy of her mother, she was careful that her own children should not have to complain of the same neglect. One and all have been thoroughly educated: the Infanta Paz, now married to a Bavarian Archduke, has shown considerable talent as a poetess; and the Infanta Isabel is universally acknowledged to be a clever and a cultivated woman, inheriting much of her mother's charm of manner, and noted for ready wit and quick repartee. Her popularity, as I have said, is great, for she is careful to keep up all the Spanish customs. She is constantly to be seen in public, and, above and beyond all things, she never fails in attendance at the bull-fight, wearing the white mantilla. This alone would cover a multitude of sins, supposing the Infanta to be credited with them; but there has never been a breath of scandal connected with her. She is very devout, and never fails in the correct religious duties and public appearances. At the fair, and on Noche buena, she fills her carriage with the cheap toys and sweetmeats which mean so much to Spanish children, and she must be a veritable fairy godmother to those who come within her circle. She takes a close personal interest in many sisterhoods and societies for the help of the poor. In a word, she is muy simpática and muy Española. What could one say more?