The King then passes to the long table, of the form and laid in the style familiar to us in pictures of the Last Supper, and the beggars are handed by their respective grandees to their seats at the board. The poor men on the last occasion were blind, but this in no way affected their calm acceptance of the fact of being the cynosure of a Court in splendid state and the object of their Sovereign’s service. Stolid were the faces as the King swiftly passed the items of the long menu before their sightless eyes, and as the smell of the good things was wafted to their nostrils they knew that time would give them a more substantial realization of the dainties.
For the dish of each part of the menu found its way to the baskets for the respective beggars, after being handed by the King to the grandees in attendance. Thus twelve large pieces of salmon, twelve joints of beef, and a dozen dishes of every item, were distributed by the august purveyor.
The menu finished, His Majesty completed the programme by handing also the glasses and cruets to the distinguished retinue, they also finding their way to the poor guests; and finally the King concluded the function by folding up the tablecloth with the zest characteristic of his actions.
The final privilege granted to these beggars on Maunday Thursday is the sight of the state apartments. This benefit seems to be thrown away on those whose affliction deprives them of the appreciation of their splendour, but etiquette must be preserved.
On Good Friday the King exercises his power of pardoning criminals, so he stands in front of the high-altar, and, raising to heaven the gold salver containing the names of the privileged persons, he says: “These I pardon for their crimes, even as I hope God will pardon my sins.”
The carving of the lamb on Easter Sunday is quite a religious function at the King’s table. The Bishop of Sion has a service of benediction, and the King and Queen take their places in state on this occasion.
One of the most striking ceremonies preceding the birth of a royal infant in the palace is that of transporting the arm of St. John the Baptist, a sash said to have belonged to the Virgin Mary, and other relics, from the chapel to the bedroom of the Queen. The King and the Court all take part in the function, attended with all the ceremony due to the occasion, and so fatiguing is the ritual that in May, 1907, Queen Victoria nearly fainted during the performance. Indeed, so many are the wearisome rites which Queen Victoria had to follow, according to the customs of the Court of Spain, that more than one editor of a democratic paper declared that if he were interested in the royal succession he would see that the authorities did not thus imperil it.
On Saturday afternoon the King and Queen go to hear the Salve in a quiet, simple fashion at the Church of the Buen Suceso. Women who press their hungry children to their bosoms as they gaze up into the face of the young Queen as she sits in the royal box on this occasion wonder if Her Majesty knows what their sufferings are. The rise in the price of bread, which the Spanish Press speaks of as an act of unjustifiable oppression, recently drove the women to desperation, and made them break the windows of the bakers’ shops in some quarters of the city. This strong measure was successful, and bread is now at its usual price; for, as a Spanish lady said, “The determination of hardly-driven mothers can accomplish more than the discussions of men.”
The poor people who greeted the Queen with such loud acclamations on her arrival in Spain wonder, moreover, if she knows that the liberal gifts bestowed on such festivals as the King’s Saint’s Day (January 23) to the orphans of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Real Associación de Beneficencía Domiciliaría, etc., are devoted to the maintenance of the friars and nuns of these associations rather than to the benefit of the needy.
The Queen’s philanthropic spirit is, moreover, only appealed to on behalf of the orphanages and schools in the hands of the clerics, and so she is not in touch with the lay side of her country’s efforts.