“What is the use of my going to the poll, when I know perfectly well that my vote will be either destroyed or burnt?”
“It is, then, the duty of the Government,” writes a pioneer in the Press, “to take great precautions for the protection of the polls, and even if necessary to guard them with a military force; for it is in the verity of the elections of these representatives in Parliament that lies the secret of the recovery of the virility of Spain.”
Catalonia, as we know, has recovered this virility by insisting on the return of her own deputies, and the enormous enthusiastic meeting held in a great hall of Barcelona on June 29, 1908, to hear the deputies’ opinions on a great matter of legislation shows how deep is the public interest in matters of politics, and how much the constituents appreciate their hardly-won privilege of being represented in the Congress by men they trust.
CHAPTER XVIII
PRINCESS VICTORIA EUGENIE OF BATTENBERG AS QUEEN OF SPAIN
1906
As the Spanish authoress Concepción Gimeno de Flaquer devotes the last chapter of her book, “Mujeres de Regia Estirpe” (Women of Royal Degree), to Queen Victoria Eugénie of Spain, it seems that I should fall short of the mark were I not to publish some of the Spanish impressions of the present English Queen at the Court of Spain.
VICTORIA EUGÉNIE, QUEEN OF SPAIN
Señora Flaquer says: “The presence of the beautiful Princess at the royal palace is like a shining star on a dark night, a soft balmy breath of wind in a violent storm, a refreshing dew in hot weather, and a ray of hope in depression.”