We heard that the English police had informed the Spanish before the outrage that a man had been observed practising throwing various articles from a balcony, as if gauging the distance to the street.
The shadow of fear darkened every sunny hour of these festival days. It was with us when we started at eight o’clock one golden June morning to drive to the review, held on the Castilian plain eight miles from Madrid. We had tickets for the grand stand of the Senate. We were a little late; by the time we arrived the seats were all taken. We were turning sadly away when Patsy espied Don Luis.
“Here is the Key!” he cried. “He will get us in somewhere.” Don Luis was called the Key because he contrived to open every door to us. How did he manage it? It was not with a silver key; Don Luis was very poor. He had an uncle who stood high in office; he was never caught without the uncle’s card, the open sesame of many doors. This time it opened the military tribune, where we found admirable places. This tribune was less crowded than the others; most of the military were busy with the manœuvres. It was a morning of extraordinary emotions; there was a thrill of controlled excitement in the air; every face wore a smile, every heart held a fear. The royalties were all present; the young Queen, looking fresh and rosy, drove by with her mother-in-law. Don Alfonzo, in the uniform of an officer of halberdiers, rode at the wheel of her carriage. All through the fêtes the young lovers were the centre of interest; we saw them so often that we grew to feel quite intimate with them.
All the ambassadors extraordinary were there, and all the royalties. We saw the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Crown Prince of Sweden, the Russian Grand Duke Vladimir, the Duke of Genoa, Prince Albert of Prussia, and Prince Louis Philippe, the young Crown Prince of Portugal; a lovely looking lad, about whose future consort, young as he was, the court gossips were already busy.[4]
We trembled for these great people, come together from every part of the world to take part in the wedding celebration; our hearts were full of fear and pity for them.
“It seems,” said Patsy, “as if the Reign of Terror had returned, only instead of being in France alone it is over the whole world. A list has been found of Anarchy’s next victims, headed by——” he whispered three great names.
Meanwhile the infantry regiments, the backbone of the army, were marching by. The men were well dressed, well looking, full of dash and vigor; they marched worse than any troops I ever saw.
“When it comes to the drill, the steady hammer, hammer, hammer, of the drill sergeant, they haven’t it in them,” said Patsy. “They may get it, they haven’t it now.”
The music was very bad; the military bands lacked the same thing that the soldiers lacked,—training, the stiff, hard, daily grind, the thing that makes the difference between every man and his brother, between every nation and her sister. What remains, if marching and music are bad? The glory and insolence of youth in those squadrons of cavalry and artillery dashing by. The vast arid plain soon became like a battlefield as soldiers describe it and as painters of battles try to paint it. The bands of cavalry began to pass slowly, the officers in advance, picked men, with picked horses, as gallant a troop as I ever saw. The officers rode with the naked sword raised as if for a charge. Just after they passed our stand, the pace quickened from a trot to a canter, to a mad gallop, as each troop swung short round an imaginary curve and disappeared in a cloud of dust. The dust they raised gave the effect of dust and smoke combined. A real battle-field must look like a thing seen on the stage with transparencies of dust and smoke. Through the veil of gray haze, we caught glimpses of distant squadrons marching and countermarching, pack mules with mountain batteries, engineers with field telegraph apparatus and pontoon bridges, long boats made very squat and solid so they will not easily capsize, and longer planks to lay upon the boats.
“They can bridge a river in fifteen minutes,” said Don Luis.