The reigning Spanish family are the last of the powerful Bourbons, and their court is conducted with all the Bourbon etiquette of Louis XIV. It is a less brilliant court than the Austrian, being very much poorer, but the shining white grandeur of the palace itself makes up for elegance foregone by the courtiers. For once, Spain’s overweening pride is justified: she boasts the loveliest royal residence of any nation.
An interesting time to visit it is at Guard Mount in the morning. Then the beautiful inner court is filled with Lancers in plumed helmets and brilliant blue uniforms, riding splendidly matched roans. Two companies of infantry, in their darker blue and red, line the hollow square; and in the centre are the officers, magnificently mounted and aglitter with gold braid and orders. They advance into the court to the slow and stately measure of the Royal March, and sometimes the King appears on the balcony above—to the delight of the people, who are allowed to circulate freely in the passages of the pillared patio.
Peasants are there by the score, in their shabby earth-brown corduroys, and soft-eyed girls with stout duenas, swaying fans between the threadbare fingers of their cheap cotton gloves. Students with faded capes swung from their shoulders; swarms of children and shuffling old men in worn sombreros; priests, bullfighters, beggars, and vendors of everything from sweetmeats to bootlaces, wander in and out the arcades while the band plays.
In spite of the modern uniforms of the soldiers, it is a scene out of another age: a sleepy, sunny age, when all the simple people demanded was a heel of bread and the occasional spectacle of the pomp of their masters. Yet it is the Spain of today; in the foreground its brave show of traditional splendour; peering out from behind, its penury and rags.
The old actor sees none of this. In his forgotten corner he has wound himself within his gorgeous tattered cloak of long ago; and crouches into it, eyes closed upon a vision in which he never ceases to play the part of Cæsar.
II
HIS ARTS AND AMUSEMENTS
Pan y toros! The old “Bread and the circus” of the Romans, the mediæval and modern “Bread and the bulls!” of Spain. One feels that the dance should have been worked in, really to make this cry of the people complete. For in the bullfight and the ancient national dances we have the very soul of Spain.
Progressive Spaniards like to think the corrida de toros is gradually dying out; many, many people in Madrid, they tell you, would not think of attending one. This is true, though generally the motive behind it is financial rather than humane. And the great mass of the people, aristocracy as well as bourgeoisie, put the bulls first, and go hungry for the bread if necessary. Every small boy, be he royal or beggar, plays “bullfight” from the time he can creep; every small girl looks on admiringly, and claps her hands. And when the small boy is grown, and dazzles the Bull Ring with his daring toreo, the girl in her brilliant dancer’s dress still applauds and flings him her carnations. Throughout Spain the two are wedded in actual personal passion, as in symbolic truth.
It is said that the bullfight was founded by the Moors in Spain in the twelfth century, though bulls were probably fought with before that in the Roman amphitheatres. The principle on which the play depends is courage, coolness, and dexterity—the three-in-one characteristics of the Arabs of the desert. In early days gentlemen, armed only with a short spear, fought with the bulls, and proved their skill and horsemanship. But with the coming of the Bourbons as the reigning house of Spain the sport changed from a fashionable into a national one, and professional bullfighters took the place of the courtly players of before.
It is by no means true, however—as so many foreigners imagine—that the toreros are invariably men of mean birth and vulgar education. On the contrary, they are frequently of excellent parentage and great mental as well as physical capability; while always their keen science and daring make them an aristocracy of themselves which the older aristocracy delights to worship. They are the friends and favourites of society, the idols of the populace; you never see one of them in the streets without an admiring train of hangers-on, and the newspapers record the slightest item in connection with each fighter of the hour. Whole pages are filled with photographs of the various feats and characteristic poses of distinguished toreros; and so well known do these become that an audience in the theatre recognizes at once an “imitation” of Bombita, or Gallito, or Machaquito—and shouts applause.