At last all was over, and the poor young Queen was laid out in state on a low couch in the stately Hall of Columns. This Hall of Columns was often used for state banquets, but, after being the scene of the last sad functions in honour of his beloved wife, Alfonso had a new banqueting-hall built, and the salon of such sad memories has never since been used for any but solemn ceremonies, such as the washing the feet and feeding the beggars by royalty on Maunday Thursday, the Chapter of one of the grand military Orders, etc.
The corpse of the young Queen was dressed in the white garb and black cape of a nun of the Convent of Don Juan de Alarcon; the lower part of her face was covered with a white gauze handkerchief; her beautiful white hands, which looked like wax, were crossed on her bosom; and her face, which had been so admired a few short weeks before—when, according to the custom of Spain, she passed through the streets on foot on Holy Thursday, to make her visits to the churches in company with her husband and the Court—looked drawn with pain and fever as it lay in the light of countless candles.
The public defiled sadly through the mortuary chapel, and many were the Masses celebrated by the Church dignitaries on the altar erected at the end of the hall.
On the day of the funeral the royal cortège solemnly passed down the soldier-lined streets to the station. The sound of the horses’ hoofs was deadened by the tan with which the roads were strewn, and the silence was only broken by the piercing note of an occasional clarion or the dull tattoo of the muffled drums. Grandees, Gentlemen-in-Waiting, mace-bearers, and officers, all with crape badges, preceded the catafalque, before which was borne the standard of the Sisterhood of the Royal House, followed by the cross and the clerics in their vestments. Finally came the band of the halberdiers, whose soblike strains of a funeral march was in tune with the occasion.
At last, for the first time in history, the remains of a Queen were placed on a railway-train for the Escorial, and so the coffin of Mercedes left the station amid the booming of the cannon and the strains of the Royal March played for the last time in her honour.
A short time after the death of the Queen, Alfonso was the object of a regicidal attempt as he was passing No. 93 of the Calle Mayor, on his way from the station to the royal palace after a visit to Asturias. The criminal was a young fellow, twenty years of age, from Tarragona, named Juan Oliva Montcousi, and he was caught with the pistol in his hand before he had time to discharge it. The young King was enthusiastically acclaimed when he calmly pursued his way home as if nothing had happened.
Alfonso’s three younger sisters, Doña Pilar, Doña Paz, and Doña Eulalia, were often seen at this time in a quiet carriage making excursions together, so when the news of the death of Doña Pilar spread through the capital it gave quite a shock to Spain.
It was said that the death of the Infanta Doña Pilar was indirectly due to a shock received during the review held in honour of the Prince of Austria. This Prince was known to have made a favourable impression on the Infanta, and if she had lived it would probably have resulted in a marriage. But, unfortunately, as the artillery carriages in the military function were passing down the Alcalá, one blew up and killed several soldiers on the spot. Perhaps for a moment the Infanta feared that the honoured guest was among the killed and wounded. Be that as it may, she and other members of the Royal Family were upset in the carriage, and she died six weeks later.
Talk of the second marriage of the King followed very soon after the death of Queen Mercedes, as a direct heir to the throne was so essential to the country, and all eyes turned to Maria Cristina Enriqueta Reniera, daughter of Charles Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, as the future Queen of Spain. The Duke of Bailen went to Vienna to ask the Emperor Joseph of Austria for the hand of his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Cristina, for his Sovereign, King Alfonso of Spain.
On August 22 Alfonso arrived at Arcachon, incognito, under the title of the Marquis of Covadonga, to claim in person the hand of the Archduchess.