Neither respect for the memories it evoked, nor reverence for the burial place it so appropriately guarded, nor the romantic in its aspect, nor the historic in its origin, could avail it. They demolished it under the sage protest that it was "ruinous." A ruin "ruinous!" A tower that bore the centuries as you wear days, "ruinous, ruinous!" That petrified mass which would have outlasted all your constructions of wood and clay!
The chapel, also, closed and forsaken, has become the prey of destruction, and its noble colonnade has fallen. Groves, convents, feudal castles, and palaces, the very ruins are disappearing, and they are not even building factories or planting orchards where they stood; to clothe the noble matron Spain, at least with muslin and flowers, instead of the tissues and jewels of which they despoil her. What, then, will remain to us? Pastures wherein to breed the ferocious beast, whose contests afford the refined and gentle diversion that enjoys, above all others, the favor of the people. My God! can it be that the natural ferocity and cruelty of man, like the atmosphere that discharges its electricity in thunder, lightning, and tempest, must have vent and expression?
In the times when Cadiz was the Rothschild among cities, times in which, according to strangers of note and credibility, her merchants lived with the pomp and splendor of ambassadors of kings, the greater part of them had in Chiclana country houses, built and furnished with marvellous richness and taste. Tarnished vestiges still remain of that elegant luxury to which the coming of Napoleon's Frenchmen gave the death-blow.
In the present epoch, in which we often see fulfilled the saying, "Ramparts fall and dust heaps exalt themselves," when old men recount the splendors of those days, new—we will not say young—men receive their stories as tales of the thousand and one nights, with incredulity and criticism alternating upon their lips.
In their opinion, gallantry, generosity, and munificence afford material for an appendix to Don Quixote as fantastic virtues which can only exist in over-excited brains.
At the close of the last century, when the events which we are about to relate began to take place, Chiclana was at the zenith of her splendor. Cadiz shone with gold, and, like the sun, shed glory upon all her environs. Nowhere now do they throw away doubloons as they then did here, with the simple indifference of children tossing soap-bubbles into the air, and the lordliness of princes who neither count nor value what they spend in compliment to others. In this epoch occurred the incident which is told of the celebrated Duchess of Alba and the youth, who, seeing twenty thousand dollars upon her table, observed, in her hearing, that this sum, which to her was such a trifle, would make a man's fortune. "Would you like to have it?" asked the duchess. The youth admitted that he would. The lady sent him the money and—closed her doors upon him. In these days the contrary would have succeeded. The money would not have been given, nor would the doors have been closed upon one who, by any means whatever, had acquired it.
In one of the wide, cheerful streets of the above-named town stood a house of more distinguished appearance than the others, though it consisted of but one story, which was somewhat elevated from the ground and reached by a flight of marble steps. The door was of mahogany, studded with great nails of shining metal. The front of the house was surmounted by the arms of the family, carved in marble. Nobility and riches seek each other; in former times they were sisters, in these they are not even cousins. The house porch, the court, and all the apartments, even to the inferior offices, were paved with magnificent blocks of blue and white marble. Columns of jasper supported the four galleries which surrounded the court, and in the area, in the midst of towering plants and alabaster statues, a fountain flowed unceasingly, singing the same pure and infantile melody to the bud half opened in hope, and to the flower falling in leafless despair. Between column and column, embowered in green and flowery tapestries of jassamine and musk rose, hung the gilded cages of bright-hued birds. A canvas awning, cut in points at the edges, and bound with red, shaded the court and preserved its refreshing coolness. The walls of the parlor were of white stucco upon a blue ground; the chairs and sofa were made of ebony, with heavy silver ornaments and coverings of azure gros de Tours. The furniture was of slight and simple form and in the Greek style, which the Revolution had brought into favor, making it the order of the day, as it had also introduced the Phrygian cap, the names of Antenor, Anacharsis, Themistocles, Aristides, and other things less inoffensive than these. Upon the table, which was supported by four straight-fluted legs, stood a clock, constructed of white marble and bronze. At that time the taste for the pastoral and idyllic in art had passed, dispossessed by the grave and classic allegories which were presently to be superseded by the cannon, banners, and warlike laurel wreaths with which Napoleon would dispel in wide air the ardor and zeal of the Revolution. In its turn the epoch of the Restoration, which put an end to the supremacy of the sword as the sword had terminated the rule of the democracy, brought back monarchical ideas and religious sentiments with the chivalry, loyalty, and ancient faith which were to introduce the Romantic in literature and the Gothic in arts and customs. Following closely upon these came the taste for the fashions of the times called "of Louis the Fourteenth" and "Louis the Fifteenth." For men are, like children, enthusiasts of the new, and ever trampling with contempt upon the idol of the moment before. Shakespeare has said. "Frailty, thy name is woman!" Well might he have added, "Fickleness, thy name is man!"
The clock formed a group, composed of an effigy of time, under the figure of an old man; two nude young girls with arms interlaced, leaning upon the old man, and representing innocence and truth; and two other figures, wrapped in dark veils, symbolizing sin and mystery flying from time, who, with raised finger, appeared to threaten them. The effigy of time was well and expressively executed; and when the clear and sonorous voice of the hour, counting its dead sisters, was added to its expressive gesture, it seemed like the warning voice of an austere patriarch, and could not fail to affect him who, meditating upon the sense of the allegory, heard the measured echo of its strokes. On each side of the clock was a bronze candlestick, in the form of a negro standing upon a marble pedestal and adorned with brazen chains. The negro carried upon his head and in his hands baskets of flowers. In the centres of the flowers the candles were set. The ceiling was painted to represent light, floating clouds of gray and white, through which was seen a nymph of the air, apparently holding in her hands the tasselled cords of azure silk which sustained an alabaster lamp, destined to filter a light as mild and soft as that of the moon, a light extremely flattering to female beauty, and therefore adopted for select reunions. In the middle of the room, upon a mosaic stand, rested a great glass globe. In it swam fishes of those lovely colors which the water displays in emulation of the air that has its gorgeous birds, and the earth that parades its charming flowers. Here they lived, silent and gentle, unvexed by the circuit which bounded their action, like pretty idiots, seeing everything with their great eyes, and comprehending nothing. The globe was surmounted by a smaller one filled with flowers, of which there was also a profusion arranged in jars in the recesses of the windows. The windows were hung with lace-edged muslin curtains, like those now used, except that the muslin was Indian instead of English, and the lace thread, made by hand, instead of cotton woven. As it was summer time, only a dim light was allowed to penetrate the drawn blinds. The atmosphere of the apartment was perfumed with flowers and pastilles of Lima.