“Tell ‘the great one’ (el grande),” returned Comas, “that ‘the little one’ has gone off.”
And so he did.
The remark was repeated at Court, and the following day the Queen-Regent received the cacique with demonstrations of respect.
Queen Maria Cristina always encouraged those who really wished to counsel her for the welfare of Spain. When, therefore, somebody was loyal and disinterested enough to present a programme to Her Majesty which would do away with the abuses of the Government by introducing a true Parliamentary representation, she pressed the paper to her bosom, crying: “Yes, yes, it is true, it is true, and I will do it!”
But politicians would not support a course which limited their exclusivism, and so things went on in the same fatal way.
To the surprise of the Court, Castelar, the great republican leader, made at this time a great speech in which he showed that the advanced opinions of his partisans were not incompatible with monarchy, for he said:
“When our fanaticism made us think that monarchy was incompatible with public liberty, we did not understand the monarchical principles of England, Sweden, or Norway. But now I can tell you that a monarchy should be a Liberal monarchy.”
And the orator went on to say that a Liberal monarchy is a democratic monarchy in so far as the universal suffrage became an accomplished fact, for a democratic monarchy is the formula of this generation.
Of course this speech, which certainly showed that the leader of republicanism had considerably modified his views, called forth much remark, and gossip in the press even went so far as to associate the name of a “charming royal widow” with that of the great orator.
But Sagasta set the matter right by saying, in one of his speeches, that “those who spread such reports were strangely ignorant of the temple of the soul of the august lady, and that no credence was to be given to the stories.”