Marshal Serrano was incensed by the king’s attitude and sent in his resignation. The monarch now thought for a moment of throwing aside the crown, which weighed more heavily on his brow than the leaden capes on the shoulders of the damned in Dante’s Inferno. But to avoid the appearance of fleeing before the Carlists, he decided to postpone the execution of his resolve. He resigned himself to trying one last experiment with the radicals, by calling the famous Zorilla once more to the head of affairs, June 13th, 1872.
Zorilla’s return to power immeasurably increased the audacity and violence of the sectarians. Sure henceforth of impunity, and impatient to attain their proposed end, they did not shrink from crime. On July 18th, 1872, towards evening, as Amadeo was preparing to visit a circus, a warning was hastily brought him that his life was to be attempted and that the police were on the track of a plot. In vain did the queen, his ministers, and household officials implore him to renounce his visit. The king, scorning their advice and taking no notice of the threatening danger, would not consent to stay in the palace. He wished his people to know that he feared not in the least to brave the assassins who were preparing an ambush in which he was to suffer the sad fate of Marshal Prim. Maria Victoria and the marquis Dragonetti, in despair of convincing the king, determined to accompany him in his drive across the capital.
King Amadeo
[1872-1873 A.D.]
When the royal carriage reached the Calle del Arenal, at precisely the spot indicated by the police as the place where the attack would be attempted, a discharge of firearms suddenly came from a side street and wounded one of the horses without touching the king or queen, who owed their lives to their coachman’s cool-headedness. As for the assassins, they easily made off under cover of the night, protected by their accomplices. Maria Victoria returned almost fainting to the royal palace. Amadeo, on the contrary, as intrepid before murderers’ bullets as he had been on the field of Custozza, never lost for a moment that impassible calm, witness both of his contempt for danger and strength of soul. He himself announced the attempt to his father in the following telegram:
“I advise your majesty that this evening we have been object attack. Thanks to God, all safe.—Amadeo.”
This infamous deed, far from provoking the fall of the monarchy, retarded it. After this event it would appear that he was laying down the sceptre through fear of assassination. Meanwhile political affairs grew ceaselessly worse. While the Carlist insurrection, in spite of the efforts of General Moriones and the captain-general of Catalonia, assumed more and more disquieting proportions, chaos attained its apogee in governmental spheres, in the street, and in the heart of the cortes. The army now began to make some sign. It could no longer endure the despotism of the discredited advocates who were governing and ruining the country. The treasury was in the most pressing distress, and from all directions the violent tide of general discontent rose towards the throne on which an honourable but powerless king was sitting. Zorilla, not content with the ruin which he had accomplished, tried to overcome the resistance of the army by a vigorous action as inopportune as unjust. He proposed to the king to entrust a man named Hidalgo who was a by-word for treachery in the army with the command of a division in Catalonia. The king implored Zorilla to give this plan up. Zorilla threatened to resign. Finally Amadeo signed a decree as fatal as it was mad, not however without manifesting his anger and disgust. As soon as Hidalgo appeared, the artillery officers resigned en masse. The disorganisation of the army had become complete and put the finishing touches to the state of disorder; Zorilla prepared new decrees which, under pretext of mastering the military recalcitrants, would have provoked a general explosion. But this time Amadeo I did not show himself disposed to follow the wishes of the radical leader. He would not consent to accomplish Spain’s ruin and determined to abdicate. In vain did Zorilla and his supporters make an effort to deter the king from a resolution which would shatter their ambitious calculations. Amadeo would not listen to their prayers. He obliged the prime minister to communicate the act of abdication to the cortes, February 8th, 1873.
Amadeo left Spain as soon as possible after his abdication, February 12th. He returned to Italy by way of Lisbon. Every noble heart, even among his enemies, gave impartial homage to his chivalric character and loyalty; but the aversion of the people to a foreign monarchy was such that the king’s departure was one of the saddest ever known. While on the way near Badajoz some cowardly assassins fired upon the train which was bearing the son of Victor Emmanuel and his family back to the Italy they never should have left.