The small quantity of furniture found in Spanish houses offers a specimen of the most frightful bad taste, and reminds you of the Goût Messidor and Goût Pyramide. The forms that were popular under the Empire still flourish in all their integrity, and you once more meet mahogany pilasters terminated by sphinxes' heads of green bronze, as well as the brass rods and frame of garlands in the style of Pompeii; all which objects have long since disappeared from the face of the civilized world. There is not a single piece of furniture of carved wood, not a single table inlaid with burgau, not a single Japan cabinet—in a word, there is nothing. The Spain of former days has completely passed away; all that remains of it are a few pieces of Persian carpeting and some damask curtains. On the other hand, however, there is a most extraordinary profusion of straw chairs and sofas. The walls are disfigured with false columns and false cornices, or daubed over with some kind of tint or other which resembles water-colours. On the tables and the étagères are arranged little biscuit-china or porcelain figures, representing troubadours, Mathilda and Malek Adel, and a variety of other subjects equally ingenious, but long since gone out of fashion: there are also poodle dogs blown in glass, plated candlesticks with tapers stuck in them, and a hundred other magnificent things, which would take me too long to describe; what I have already said will perhaps be thought sufficient. I have not the courage to dwell on the atrocious coloured prints, which are hung on the walls under the absurd pretence that they adorn them. There are perhaps some exceptions to this state of things, but they are rare. Do not run away with the notion that the houses of the higher classes are furnished with more taste and richness. My description is most scrupulously exact, and holds good of the houses of persons keeping their carriage, and six or eight servants. The blinds are always drawn down and the shutters half closed, so that the light which reigns in the apartments is about a third only of that outside. A person must become accustomed to this darkness before he can discern the different objects, especially if he comes from the street. Those who are in the room see perfectly, but those who enter it are blind for eight or ten minutes, especially if one of the rooms they have to traverse is lighted up, which is often the case.
The heat at Madrid is excessive, and breaks out suddenly without any spring to prepare people for it. This has given rise to the saying with regard to the temperature of Madrid: "Three months of winter, and nine months of ——:" the reader can perhaps supply the deficiency. It is impossible to protect yourself from this flood of fire otherwise than by remaining in low rooms, which are almost buried in complete obscurity, and where the humidity is constantly kept up by a continual watering. This craving for coolness has given rise to the fashion of having bucaros, a savage and strange piece of refinement which would certainly possess no charm for our French ladies, but which appears to the Spanish beauties to be a most useful and elegant invention.
The bucaros are a sort of pot, formed of red American earth, rather similar to that of which the bowls of Turkish pipes are formed; they are of all sizes and of all forms, some being gilt along the rims, and decorated with coarsely-painted flowers. As they are no longer manufactured in America, these bucaros are becoming very scarce, and in a few years will be as fabulous and as difficult to be met with as old Sèvres china; of course when this is the case, every one will want to possess some.
The manner of using the bucaros is as follows:—Six or eight of them are placed upon small marble tables or the projecting ledges round the room, and filled with water. You then retire to a sofa, in order to wait until they produce the customary effect and to enjoy it with the proper degree of calm. The clay soon assumes a deeper tint, the water penetrates through its pores, and the bucaros begin to perspire, and emit a kind of perfume which is very like the odour of wet mortar, or of a damp cellar that has not been opened for some time. This perspiration of the bucaros is so profuse, that at the expiration of an hour half the water has evaporated. That which is left has got a nauseous, earthy, cisterny taste, which is, however, pronounced delicious by the aficionados. Half-a-dozen bucaros are sufficient to charge the air of a drawing-room with such an amount of humidity that it immediately chills any one entering the apartment, and may be considered as a kind of cold vapour-bath. Not content with merely enjoying the perfume and drinking the water, some persons chew small pieces of the bucaros, which they swallow after having reduced them to powder.
I went to a few parties, or tertulias, but they did not offer any very peculiar features. The guests dance to the piano as they do in France, but in a still more modern and lamentable fashion. I cannot conceive why people who dance so little do not at once make up their minds not to dance at all. This would be much more reasonable and quite as amusing. The fear of being exposed to a charge of indulging in a bolero, a fandango, or a cachuca, renders the ladies perfectly motionless. Their costume is very simple compared to that of the men, who invariably resemble the plates of the fashions. I noticed the same thing at the Palace de Villa Hermosa on the occasion of a representation for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital, Niños de la Cuna, which was graced by the presence of the queen-mother, the little queen, and all the nobility and fashionables of Madrid. Women who could boast of possessing two titles of duchess and four of marchioness, wore such toilettes as a Parisian dressmaker going to a party at a milliner's would despise; Spanish women have forgotten how to dress in the Spanish fashion, and have not yet learned how to dress in the French style: if they were not pretty, they would frequently run the risk of appearing ridiculous. At one ball only did I see a lady with a rose-coloured short satin petticoat, ornamented with five or six rows of black blond, like that worn by Fanny Elssler in "The Devil upon Two Sticks;" but she had been to Paris, and it was there that she had learnt the mystery of Spanish costume. The tertulias cannot be very expensive. The refreshments are remarkable for their absence; there is neither tea, ices, nor punch. On a table in one of the rooms are a dozen glasses of perfectly pure water and a plate of azucarillos; but a man is generally considered as indiscreet and sur sa bouche, as Henri Monnier's Madame Desjardins would express it, if he pushes his Sardanapalism so far as to take one of the latter to sweeten the water. This is the case in the richest houses; it is not the result of avarice, but custom. Such, however, is the hermit-like sobriety of the Spanish, that they are perfectly satisfied with this regimen.
As for the morals of the country, it is not in six weeks that a person can penetrate the character of a people, or the habits of any one class. Strangers, however, are apt to receive certain impressions on their first arrival; which wear off after a long stay. It struck me that, in Spain, women have the upper hand, and enjoy a greater degree of liberty than they do in France. The behaviour of the men towards them appeared to be very humble and submissive; they are most scrupulously exact and punctual in paying their addresses, and express their passion in verses of all kinds, rhymed, assonant, sueltos, and so on. From the moment they have laid their hearts at some beauty's feet, they are no longer allowed to dance with any one save their great-great-grandmothers. They may only converse with women of fifty years of age, whose ugliness is beyond the shadow of a doubt. They may no longer visit a house in which there is a young woman. A most assiduous visitor will suddenly disappear, and not return for six months or a year, because his mistress had prohibited him from frequenting the house. He is as welcome as if he had only left the evening before; no one takes the least offence. As far as any one can judge at first sight, I should say that the Spanish women are not fickle in love: the attachments they form frequently last for years. After a few evenings passed in any house, the various couples are easily made out and are visible to the naked eye. If the host wishes to see Madame ——, he must invite Mr. ——, and vice versâ. The husbands are admirably civilized, and equal the most good-natured Parisian husbands; they display none of that antique Spanish jealousy which has formed the subject of so many dramas and melodramas. But what completely does away with all illusion on the subject is that every one speaks French perfectly, and, thanks to some few élégants who pass the winter in Paris, and go behind the scenes at the Opera, the most wretched ballet-girl and the most humble beauty are well known at Madrid. I found there, for instance, something that does not exist, perhaps, in any other place in the world: a passionate admirer of Mademoiselle Louise Fitzjames, whose name conducts us, by a natural transition, from the tertulia to the stage.
The internal arrangements of the Teatro del Principe are very comfortable. The performances consist of dramas, comedies, saynetes, and interludes. I saw a piece by Don Antonio Gil y Zarate, entitled "Don Carlos el Heschizado," and constructed entirely after the Shakspearian model. Don Carlos was very like the Louis XIII. of Marion de Lorme, and the scene of the monk in the prison is imitated from the scene of the visit which Claude Frollo makes Esmeralda in the dungeon where she is awaiting her death. The character of Carlos was sustained by Julian Romea, a most talented actor, who has no rival that I know, except Frederick Lemaître, in a totally opposite style: it is impossible for any one to carry the power of illusion further, or remain more true to nature. Mathilda Diez, also, is a first-rate actress; she marks all the various shades of a character with exquisite delicacy, and with an astonishing degree of nice appreciation. I have only one fault to find with her, and that is, the extreme rapidity of her utterance, which, however, is no fault in the opinion of Spaniards. Don Antonio Guzman, the gracioso, would not be out of place on any stage. He reminded me very much of Legrand, and, at certain times, of Arnal. Fairy pieces, also, with dances and divertissements, are sometimes played at the Teatro del Principe; I saw one of this description, entitled "La Pata de Cabra:" it was an imitation of "Pied de Mouton," that used to be played at the Théâtre de la Gaieté. The choreographic portions were remarkably poor; their first-rate danseuses are not even as good as the ordinary doubles at the Opera; but, on the other hand, the supernumeraries display a great amount of intelligence, and the "Pas des Cyclopes" was executed with uncommon neatness and precision. As for the baile national, such a thing does not exist. At Vittoria, Burgos, and Valladolid, we had been told that the good danseuses were at Madrid; in Madrid we are informed the true dancers of the cachuca exist only in Andalusia, at Seville. We shall see; but I am very much afraid that in the matter of Spanish dancers, we must depend upon Fanny Elssler, and the two sisters Noblet. Dolores Serral, who produced such a lively sensation in Paris, where I was one of the first to call attention to the bold passion, the voluptuous suppleness, and the petulant grace, which characterized her style of dancing, appeared several times at Madrid, without making the least impression, so incapable are the Spaniards now-a-days of understanding and enjoying the old national dances. Whenever the jota aragonesa or the bolero is danced, all the fashionable portion of the audience rise and leave the house; the only spectators left are foreigners, and persons of the lower classes, in whom it is always a more difficult task to extinguish the poetic instinct. The French author most in repute at Madrid is Frederick Soulié; almost all the dramas translated from the French are attributed to him. He appears to have succeeded to the popularity which Monsieur Scribe formerly enjoyed.
As we are now pretty well acquainted with theatrical matters, let us proceed to view the public buildings; they will not detain us long. The Queen's Palace is a square solid building of fine stones strongly put together, with a great profusion of windows, and a corresponding number of doors, Ionic columns, Doric pilasters, and all the other elements of what is termed architectural good taste. The immense terraces which support it, and the snow-covered mountains of the Guadarrama rising behind, relieve any tendency to sameness or vulgarity which its outline might otherwise present. In the interior, Velasquez, Maella, Bayen, and Tiepolo, have painted some of the ceilings in a more or less allegorical style. The grand staircase is very fine, and was considered by Napoleon to be superior to that at the Tuileries.
The building in which the Cortes meet is interspersed with Pæstumian columns, and lions in long perukes, exhibiting the most abominable want of taste; I doubt very much whether good laws can be made in an edifice of this description. Opposite the chamber of the Cortes, in the middle of the square, is a bronze statue of Miguel Cervantes. It is, doubtless, a very praiseworthy action to erect a statue to the immortal author of "Don Quixote," but I think they should have erected a better one.
The monument raised to the memory of the victims of the Dos de Mayo is situated on the Prado, not far from the picture-gallery. On perceiving it, I thought for a moment that I was suddenly transported to the Place de la Concorde, at Paris, and beheld, as if in some fantastic mirage, the venerable obelisk of Luxor, which, up to that time, I had never suspected of any taste for vagabondism. The monument is composed of a kind of grey granite cippus, surmounted by an obelisk of reddish granite, the tone of which is very similar to that of the Obelisk at Paris. It is a pity that the Spanish obelisk is not made of a single block. The names of the victims are engraved in golden letters on the sides of the pedestal. The Dos de Mayo is an heroic and glorious episode, which the Spaniards have a slight tendency to make the most of; you perceive engravings and pictures of it wherever you go. You will have no difficulty in believing that we Frenchmen are not represented in them as being very handsome; we look as frightful as the Prussians of the Cirque Olympique.