L. R. Marin
KING ALPHONSO SWEARING IN THE RECRUITS ON THE DAY OF THE ATTEMPT ON HIS LIFE (APRIL 13, 1913)
Again, at the time of the attack last April, the King was the first to see the man rushing towards him, pistol uplifted. Instantly he started forward, on his horse, to ride down the assassin; and when the shots rang out, and people realized what was happening, the King was the first to reach his would-be murderer, and to protect him from the mob. Then the crowd forgot the criminal, and went mad over the sovereign. Spaniards themselves say that never has there been such a demonstration for any monarch in the history of Madrid. One can imagine the tingling pride of those recruits who, when the confusion was past, had still to go through the impressive ceremony of kissing the cross made by their sword against the flag: what it must have meant to swear allegiance to such a man at such a moment. As I heard a young girl say, at the time: “There is just one adjective that describes him: he’s royal, through and through.”
He looked more than ever royal when, coming back from Chapel, he knelt head bared before the shrine at our end of the gallery. All the procession now carried lighted candles, and their number was increased by the bishop and richly clad priests who had conducted service. At each of the four shrines they halted, while prayers were sung; and one was struck with the opportunity this offered for an attack upon the King. As he knelt there, head lowered between the two lines of people, he made an excellent mark for the anarchist’s pistol; but, as usual, seemed utterly unconscious of his danger.
The court, on its knees, looked very bored; and made no pretence at devoutness while the beautiful Aves were being sung. But the King played his part to the end, with a dignity rather touching in such a frankly boyish man; though, when the ceremony was over, he heaved a very natural sigh of relief as he rose to his feet again.
Back stalked the “sweepers,” the old major-domos, the haughty grandees; back came Don Carlos, Don Fernando, Don Alfonso. And then, for the fourth time that morning so near us, the King; smiling, with his first finger on his helmet, in the familiar gesture. The Infantas followed him, then the diplomats; finally the six nobles of Estada Mayor. The chief of the halberdiers pounded on the floor with his halberd; the guards broke ranks; the people surged out of line and towards the stairs—and Royal Chapel was ended.
Yet not quite, for me. Thanks to a friend in the Estada Mayor, I had still to see one of the finest pictures of the morning: the exit from the palace, of the famous Palace Guards. Six abreast they came, down the grand staircase of the beautiful inner court, two hundred strong as they filed out to their solemn bugle and drum. All of them men between six and seven feet, in their brilliant red and black and white uniform, I shall never forget the sight they made, filling the splendid royal stairs. They seemed the living incarnation of the old Spanish spirit; the spirit of Isabella’s time, but none the less of that heroic woman of today who, though not of Spanish blood herself, has given to Spain a king to glory in and revere.
IV
HIS FOIBLES AND FINENESSES
“The salient trait of the Spanish character,” says Taine, “is a lack of the sense of the practical.” For want of it, Ferdinand and Isabella themselves—the greatest rulers Spain ever had—drove the Moors and the Jews out of the country; and laid the cornerstone of its ruin. Far from realizing they were expelling by the hundred thousand their most wealthy and intelligent subjects, the Catholic sovereigns saw only the immediate religious triumph; the immediate financial gain of confiscating the estates of the infidels, and refusing to harbour them within their realm.
Time after time, the blind arrogance of the Spaniard as champion of orthodoxy throughout the world, has rebounded against him in blows from which he will never recover. The Inquisition in itself established an hereditary fear of personal thinking that remains the stumbling-block in the way of Spanish progress to this day. Too, the natural indolence of the people inclines them to accept without question the statements and standards handed down from their directors in Church or State.