The message filled the Duchess with dismay, for, although she held the Princes of the blood in great respect, she had no intention of receiving one who disputed the throne with the reigning Queen.
So, summoning all her dignity to her aid, she said, in a tone of icy politeness:
“Tell the Duke of Madrid that I am very sorry not to have the honour of receiving his visit, but to-morrow I leave for Paris.”
And in effect the lady left the hotel on the morrow, and thus the meeting of one of the oldest and most valued Ladies-in-Waiting with Don Carlos was avoided.
Isabella certainly never expected that she would be dethroned, for a few weeks before the revolution of September, 1868, the celebrated General Tacon, Duke of the Union of Cuba, announced the forthcoming marriage of his daughter Carolina with the Marquis Villadarías, of the première noblesse, and a perfect type of a Spanish grandee, and she said: “I congratulate her sincerely on her engagement; but,” she added sadly, “for myself I am sorry, as I shall see her no more at Court.” The Queen here referred to the well-known Carlist opinions of the Marquis Villadarías, which would have made it impossible to receive the Marchioness at the palace if she had remained there.
So Isabella II. was dethroned in 1868, and she can truly be said to have been the victim of circumstances. From the moment King Ferdinand died his daughter had been the object of intrigue and ambition. Whilst our Queen Victoria was carefully educated and drilled in high principles, Isabella was the prey of those who wished to rise to power by her favour. Ministers made love to the Sovereign instead of discussing the welfare of the nation; flowery speeches on patriotism meant merely the gratification of the orator’s vanity to be remarked by Her Majesty. Personal advancement was the end and aim of those in the Government, and thus poor Isabella’s susceptibilities were worked upon to an awful extent.
It is well known that General Serrano, who might have been thought to have the welfare of his country at heart, gained an undue influence over the Queen by means of her affections, and fomented to a great extent the matrimonial differences between her and her husband. Generous to a degree, Isabella paid the debts of this courtier twice, and yet it was this same General who was the first to have her hurled from the royal palace.
When the great Canning visited Madrid, Bulwer Lytton showed him at a Court ball the many women who were the favourites of the Ministers, and there was, indeed, hardly a statesman who would not sacrifice principles to the pleas of his mistress. It was at this Court, steeped in immorality, that Isabella was brought up with little or no knowledge of right and wrong, and even in her marriage she was a victim to the intrigues and ambitions of other Courts of Europe as well as those of her own. She was, in fact, a scapegoat of the nation.
Harassed and in desperation at being pressed on to a miserable marriage destitute of all that could justify it, Isabella, after one of those long and fruitless discussions with her mother, once addressed a letter to our Queen Victoria; but in a pure Court like that of England little idea could be formed of the stagnant atmosphere of the Spanish palace from which the poor young Queen sent forth her plaint. Beyond the Court raged the stormy discontent of the country, which had been thwarted for more than thirty years of the fulfilment of its constitutional rights promised by Ferdinand VII. as the condition of his return to the throne of Spain.
Whilst Queen Victoria was daily increasing in the knowledge of constitutional rights which are the base of a Sovereign’s power, poor Isabella’s Prime Ministers resigned at any moment in pique or jealousy of some other politician, and the people grew daily more discontented at finding the Parliament was a farce, and it meant neither the progress of the land nor the protection of the people.