After the assassination of the marshal, Serrano found himself again in the highest place and obliged by his position to direct the beginnings of a young king, lacking in great political qualifications and the indispensable knowledge of Spain’s needs and aspirations as well as being very unpopular on account of his foreign origin. To succeed in such a task a man of exceptional ability was required and Serrano’s talents were but mediocre. Under the marshal’s feeble hand, passions far from being calmed flared up much fiercer than ever and discord penetrated every element of official life.
Marshal Serrano and his colleagues having given in their resignations, Amadeo determined to try the experiment of a radical régime. But Señor Zorilla was incapable of rising above the violent and mean passions of the party to which he belonged. Amadeo was compelled to dismiss him in less than three months. Admiral Malcampo was invested with the power on October 6th; six weeks later he too was compelled to hand in his resignation.
Amadeo now confided the power to Señor Sagasta, December 20th, 1871. The situation, however, became more critical day by day. The king was absolutely isolated in the midst of his people. The educated and especially the aristocratic classes, justly wounded at seeing a foreign prince seated without any right whatever on the throne, held aloof from the court. The clergy could scarcely be expected to sympathise with a régime that exhibited decided Voltairian tendencies.
The people had never sanctioned the arbitrary choice and protested against the accomplished act sometimes by noisy demonstrations, more often by a still more dangerous attitude of cold and irreducible hostility. The republicans benefited largely by the situation. Amadeo was daily covered with mud and the ministry found it impossible to make the royal dignity and person respected. In order to quell so formidable a storm, the genius of a Napoleon I, the skill of a Cavour would have been required, and even then it is more than doubtful that with the prestige which genius gives and the resources which the most perfect art of governing men can provide, Amadeo would have settled his dynasty firmly in Spain. In truth the greatest fault found was with his foreign origin, and this intrinsic defect could not be overcome by personal merit.
How often, turning his thoughts towards his absent country, towards that city of Turin where he was the idol of its citizens, must Amadeo have regretted not having resisted more vigorously the demands of his father and the Italian ministers, as they prayed him to accept that crown of Spain for which he had so little vocation.
His tastes were simple and his habits modest—altogether too modest for Spain. He was affable, received everyone, and forced himself to appear as amiable with the common people as with the politicians and the few great nobles who had not deserted the court. He understood the low condition of the treasury and did not take a penny of the civil list which the constitution allowed him. He lived upon his own personal income, spending freely, and always tried to make use of Spanish articles and purveyors. The queen on her part zealously occupied herself with good works. Yet when Amadeo passed through the Madrid streets those who did not salute him were assuredly in greater number than those who through politeness took off their hats as he went by. The reception was no better in the provinces whenever the king and queen visited them.
And the situation kept on getting worse and worse. Señor Zorilla’s downfall deeply incensed that statesman. In place of carrying on an honest opposition to Señor Sagasta, Zorilla, who had once promised Victor Emmanuel to be “the most faithful of servants,” hastened as soon as he was no longer minister to ally himself with the monarchy’s worst enemies, made common cause with the most violent anarchists in order to undermine not only the cabinet, but the throne he had helped to establish. King Amadeo’s position was becoming more and more critical. Placed between the republicans and Alfonsists, who fought him both in and out of parliament, and the Carlists who, less attached to constitutional forms and the manners of modern nations, openly declared war, raising the standard of war under the very eyes of his generals and officials, the king could not even count on the co-operation of his partisans, whose differences were now entirely incurable. Prime minister Sagasta was retired at the end of two months’ sterile work and troubled existence. What could all this statesman’s abilities do towards consolidating a monarchy deprived of a nation’s support and condemned in public opinion?
The second Serrano ministry, of which Señor Sagasta was also a member, began its labours May 26th, 1872; but the king’s hopes were again deceived. Serrano and his colleagues, judging the situation too critical to be remedied by ordinary measures, submitted a decree for the king’s approbation which arbitrarily suspended several privileges guaranteed by the constitution, at the same time inviting his majesty to take in person the chief command of the army against the Carlists. Amadeo returned an energetic refusal to Marshal Serrano’s requests. It was asked that he take part in civil war, and he could not stoop to this exigency. Ready to shed his blood for Spain the day on which his adopted country should be threatened from abroad, it was absolutely repugnant to him to direct a campaign in which his subjects would simply cut one another’s throats. If he had not abdicated before, it was only to let his people and the whole of Europe see that he knew how to face danger, and that he had no intention of shirking his duties the moment they became most serious and pressing—a noble line of conduct, which even those who never approved of Amadeo’s taking the Spanish throne must highly and unreservedly praise.
Sagasta