An excursion of thirty-five miles, to a station of the same name, took us from Madrid to the Escurial, which the Spaniards in their egotism call the eighth wonder of the world. This vast pile of buildings, composed entirely of granite, and as uniform as a military barrack, is nearly a mile in circumference,—tomb, palace, cathedral, monastery, one and all combined. The wilderness selected as the site of the structure shows about as little reason as does that of the locality of Madrid; utter barrenness and want of human or vegetable life are its most prominent characteristics. Here, however, are congregated a vast number of curious and interesting objects, while the place is redolent of vivid historical associations. One of the first objects shown us here was the tomb of Mercedes, the child-wife of the present king; also, in a deep octagonal vault, the sepulchres of some thirty royal individuals, kings and mothers of kings. Among them were Philip II., Philip V., Ferdinand VI., Charles V., etc. The niche occupied by Philip IV. attracted special notice from the fact that the eccentric monarch, during his life-time, often seated himself here to listen to mass, an idea more singular than reverential. The coffin of Charles V. was opened so late as 1871, during the visit of the Emperor of Brazil, when the face of the corpse was found to be entire,—eyebrows, hair, and all, though black and shriveled. The last burial here was that of Ferdinand VII. This octagon vault is called the Pantheon of the Escurial; but it is nothing more than a theatrical show room: nothing could be more inappropriate. While we were in Madrid, ex-queen Isabella visited the vault,—her own last resting-place being already designated herein,—and caused mass to be performed while she kneeled among the coffins, as Philip IV. was accustomed to do. She does this once a year, at the hour of midnight, but why that period is chosen we do not know.
A room adjoining the church, close beside the altar, is shown to the visitor, where that prince of bigots, Philip II., passed the last days and hours of his life. It is a scantily furnished apartment, with no upholstery, hard chairs, and bare wooden tables; with a globe, scales, compasses, and a few rude domestic articles, writing material, half a dozen maps, and three or four small cabinet pictures on the walls, forming the entire inventory. A large chair in which he sat, and the coarse hard bed on which he slept and died, are also seen in a little adjoining room scarcely ten feet square. It was here that he received with such apparent indifference the intelligence of the destruction of the Spanish Armada, which had cost over a hundred million ducats and twenty years of useless labor. Everything is left as it was at the time of his death. A sliding panel was so arranged in the little sleeping-room that the king could sit or lie there, when too ill to do otherwise, and yet attend upon the performance of public mass. With this door put aside, the king lay here on that September Sabbath day, in the year of our Lord, 1598,—after having just ordered a white satin lining for his bronze coffin,—grasping the crucifix which his father, Charles V., held when dying, and with eyes fixed upon the high altar, attended by his confessor and children, the worn-out monarch breathed his last. Little as we sympathized with the character of the royal occupant, there was yet something touching in the stern simplicity with which he surrounded his own domestic life. Self-abnegation must have been with him a ruling principle. The cell of a Franciscan monk could not have been more severely simple and plain than that small living and sleeping apartment.
A few statistics, as rattled off by our guide, will give the reader some idea of the vastness of the Escurial. There are sixteen open courts within its outer walls, eighty staircases, twelve thousand doors (?), and some three thousand windows. There are over forty altars. The main church is as large as most European cathedrals, being three hundred feet long, over two hundred wide, and three hundred and twenty feet high. We know of no cathedral in Italy so elaborately and beautifully finished, and yet this was only a part of the princely household of Philip II. The Escurial is now only a show place, so to speak, of no present use except as a historical link and a tomb. There are a few, very few, fine paintings left within its walls, most of those which originally hung here having been very properly removed to the Museo at Madrid. In the refectory will be noticed a choice painting by Titian, of which we are a little surprised that no more has been said, for it is a remarkable painting. On the same wall are two or three canvases by Velasquez, but none by other artists of repute. On the walls of a large hall, called by the guide the Hall of Battles, is painted a most crude and inartistic series of pictures, only worthy of a Chinese artist, representing a series of battles supposed to depict Spanish conquests.
We were also shown, preserved here, a large and useless library, kept in a noble hall over two hundred feet long and fifty or sixty wide, the books being all arranged with their backs to the wall, so that even the titles cannot be read,—a plan which one would say must be the device of some madman. The bookcases are made of ebony, cedar, orange, and other choice woods, and contain some sixty thousand volumes. What possible historic wealth may here lie concealed,—what noble thoughts and minds embalmed! In the domestic or dwelling portion of the Escurial the apartments are very finely inlaid with various woods on the doors, dado, and on the floors; besides which they contain some delicate antique furniture of great beauty, finished mostly in various patterns of inlaid woods. A few cabinet pictures are seen upon the walls, and one or two large hall-like apartments are hung with tapestry, which, although centuries old, is perfect in texture and the freshness of the colors. It might have come from the Gobelins' factory during this present year of our Lord, and it could not be brighter or more perfect.
The grounds surrounding the structure are laid out, on the south side, in pleasant gardens, where fountains, flowers, and a few inferior marble statues serve for external finish. On the outside, high up above the dome, is seen the famous plate of gold, an inch thick, containing some ten square feet of surface, and forming a monument of the bravado and extravagance of Philip II., who put it there in reply to the assertion of his enemies that he had financially ruined himself in building so costly a palace. We may expect one of these days to hear of its having been taken down and coined into shining doubloons.
CHAPTER XIII.
From Madrid to Burgos.—Through a Barren Country.—The Cathedral of Burgos.—Monastery of Miraflores.—Local Pictures.—A Spanish Inn.—Convent of Las Huelgas.—From Burgos to San Sebastian.—Northern Spain.—A Spanish Watering Place.—Bayonne.—Lower Pyrenees.—Biarritz.—A Basque Postilion.—A Pleasant Drive.—On Leaving Spain.—Sunday and Balloons at Bordeaux.—On to Paris.—Antwerp and its Art Treasures.—Embarking for America.—End of the Long Journey.