Passing on by the rail from Burgos, we might stop at Valladolid, once the most renowned of all the cities of Spain, now so utterly decayed as to be of interest only to antiquarians. Here Ferdinand and Isabella were married in 1469. Here Columbus, the worn and weary, died in his own house in 1506. Here he slept in death six years, and then his bones were removed to Seville, and again to Cuba, that they might rest in the New World he found. Philip II., whose Escorial we are going to see, was born here in Valladolid, and after he grew to manhood had the pleasure of seeing at one time fourteen Protestants, and thirteen at another, burnt alive, in the Grand Square of the city: a most edifying spectacle, which strengthened his faith so much that he afterwards dedicated his mighty structure to the good St. Lawrence, who was broiled to death on a gridiron, enduring his torments with so much fortitude that he said to his executioners, “I am done on this side, perhaps you had better turn me over,”—whence comes the expression, “done to a turn.”
Philip II. made Madrid the capital of his kingdom, holding his court there or at the Escorial, at his pleasure, for they were only a few hours apart.
It is a long but pleasant walk from the station to the palace, and it is better to stroll along the shaded avenues, resting at times on the solid stone seats, looking upward at the solitary pile ahead, and musing on the wonderful dead past; the pomp and pageantry, the vast processions of priests and kings and countless armies of Spain, of France, of England, that have marched up this same street, in triumph, in penitential grief, or in funeral array. Away from the world, the world has often come hither, under the many garbs the world wears, according as it is in glory or in shame. Entering the grand quadrangle by the chief gate, the colossal edifice presents its central front and the two lateral projections in one view; the main façade is adorned with statues of the principal personages in Old Testament history. Crossing the court, paved with great granite blocks, we enter, and the massive walls, the cold damp halls, gloomy in their naked, solid grandeur, make us feel that we are entering a fortress, and not a palace. It would be impossible to find your way without a guide. There are sixteen courts within, and out of each of them long passages lead to eighty staircases, and up these we may go, if we have time, to twelve thousand doors, and look out of two thousand six hundred windows, and worship at forty altars!! You wish to be excused from such climbing and kneeling. Come, then, with me at once into the church. It is more than 300 feet long, and 230 feet wide, and 320 feet high: of granite all; its columns are majestic in their proportions, severe in Doric simplicity, supporting twenty-four arches, so beautifully sprung that, wherever you stand, the eye takes in the whole at a glance. The pulpits surpass, in the splendor of their finish, any thing in Italy. The richest, variegated, and most precious marbles, used as freely as though they were common wood, are adorned with gold and silver, strangely in contrast with the severity of the church itself. The altar is reached by a flight of several steps, and on the right, as we stand in front of it, a window opens into a little chamber, which we sought with more interest than any other apartment of this remarkable structure. We went out of the church and into the room. It was scarcely ten feet by six in dimensions; but it was the favorite closet, the study and the bedchamber of the monarch who built the whole. This was all he wanted for himself. It was in sight and hearing of the service at the high altar. At midnight and before daybreak he could rise from his couch, and join in the service of the church. I sat down in the plain old chair, by the table, the same that he used, and put up my feet on the camp-stool that often held his diseased and agonized limbs, and looked down from the little window on the priests and people in the church below. And here in this room death came and called for Philip II. For long months he had suffered anguish not less than that he had inflicted on better men than he. Let us leave it for others to say if like Herod he was smitten for his sins, and destroyed with the same disease. But when he saw that his end was near, at his order his servants bore him on a couch through the palace, and the monastery and the church, that his poor dying eyes might rest once more on all that he had done, and then they brought him back to his lonely, comfortless cell, and left him to die. It was on a September Sabbath morning, in 1598, while listening to the service at this altar, and holding in his hand the same crucifix that fixed the dying eyes of the Emperor his father, that Philip yielded his spirit into the hands of a just as well as merciful God!
We left this sad chamber, and descending a flight of steps made of precious stones, the walls lined with beautiful, polished marbles, we stood in a subterranean chapel, a mausoleum, shelves on each of the eight sides, and on each shelf a bronze sarcophagus, and in each coffin a dead king or queen. The name of each occupant is inscribed on the outer shell. One of the queens scratched her name on her coffin with a pair of scissors before she was put in. She could not have well done it after. There is an altar in this dungeon, and here the late queen of Spain, who is very devout in her way, came once a year and had a service at midnight. It adds nothing to the solemnity to have mass here in the night, for at noonday we had to hold candles in our hands to see our way in and out.
The Sagrario was a more interesting apartment than this. It has some fine paintings. I valued them more than the 7,400 relics which are here preserved with pious care, including the entire bodies of eight or ten saints, twelve dozen whole heads, and three hundred legs and arms. It once had—but the fortunes of war have deprived the house of the treasure—one of the bars on which St. Lawrence was burnt, and one of his feet, with a piece of coal still sticking between its toes! but the coal and the toes are lost in toto.
One of the priests, who was leading a company of strangers visiting the place, overheard me asking for the Cellini crucifix, and immediately took us to the choir, and opened the door of a closet in which this remarkable work is carefully preserved. It is a Carrara marble statue of Christ on the cross, and marked by the great Benvenuto himself with his name and the date, 1562. He was the first who made a crucifix in marble, and the patient toil and great genius expended on this work have made it justly esteemed as his master-piece of sculpture.
Yet have I alluded to but one or two out of a thousand things that fix the attention, and impress one rather with astonishment than delight. I have not even mentioned the library, which is the crown of the whole, designed to be the repository of all learning, and in spite of all its sufferings by violence, it is still rich in rare and valuable books and manuscripts. The cases are of ebony and cedar. Jasper and porphyry tables stand through the hall, about 200 feet long, and allegorical paintings adorn the ceilings.
It was refreshing to get out of it, after walking through the palace and the cloisters, and to enjoy the warm sunshine beyond the gloomy walls. Two or three cottages have been built among the groves planted here, and it seems a mercy to children to provide a more cheery home for them than a sepulchral palace could be, though of wrought gold.
CHAPTER IV.
MADRID—A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL.
A VALET-DE-PLACE who was leading us to church on Sunday morning in Madrid, spoke very fair English, and I asked him where he had learned it. He said, “At the missionary’s school in Constantinople.” He was quite a polyglot, professing to be able to speak seven languages fluently. It was interesting to meet a youth who knew our missionaries there, and entertained a great respect for his old teachers,—and it gave us an idea, too, of the indirect influence which such schools must be exerting, when youth are trained in them, and afterwards embark in other callings than those that are religious in their purpose.