Before taking leave of Prim, in turn the hero and the terror of the revolution, much as we deplore that the destinies of such a nation at such a crisis should have fallen into the hands of such a man, we cannot help paying a tribute to his never-flagging energy, dauntless courage, and prompt decision. Men laughed at Prim, at his speeches, and wondered how he ever gained his position. Speaking on the deficiency of the national treasury, and utterly unable to tide over those rocks on which all governments break—figures: “I know we shall be able to meet the deficiency,” said Prim, “But how?” asked the deputies. “I do not know exactly how; but I have a feeling in my breast which convinces me;” the words are from memory, but they convey the substance. Men laughed, but Prim stood his ground; and gradually the question, “What will Spain do?” merged into that of “What will Prim do?” A better man and a wiser statesman, neither very difficult to obtain, would have availed himself of such an opportunity to heal his country’s wounds. Prim could not do this; he did not know how; but he was at least “wise in his generation.” He could not save the sick man; he did the next best thing, he kept him from killing himself. The foolhardiness of the man was his destruction. He had often had warnings, but he knew not what fear was, and took no precautions.
“To have the republic is easy,” said Castelar, the leader of the republicans, after one of his defeats, to Prim. “We have only to kill one man.” “Nothing but a thunderbolt kills me,” retorted Prim, “and of those very few fall.”
The thunderbolt fell and crushed him, but failed to crush what it was aimed at, the monarchy. Amadeus landed just in time to learn that his right-hand man was gone—a fearful venture for a young king and his queen. But he braved it royally; and though the race of Victor Emanuel can never find much favor in our eyes, this son of his, we confess, has borne himself through trying scenes like a king and like a gentleman, nobly supported by his brave and Catholic lady. That he was never elected by the people is clear; that, notwithstanding his personal merit, he is not likely to stay long where he is, is the surmise of all. If a telegram, without the slightest foundation in fact, announced his expulsion to-morrow, not a man in the world would disbelieve it. The people can feel no sympathy with a man who has no sort of title to their ancient crown; who is a perfect stranger to them, and almost to the world; who after the hawking of their throne about Europe, was forced upon them against their will. Besides, the Italians, of all European nations, are despised in Spain. They are considered there as good singers, dancers, cooks, and such like, but not the men for anything manly or great: how much less for the throne of Ferdinand the Catholic! “King Macaroni the First” was the burlesque that greeted Amadeus on his arrival in the capital. With him we will not trouble ourselves further, but with the revolution that gave occasion to the accident of his accession, and which will displace him to-morrow or the next day.
Spain undoubtedly was in a bad state under the régime of Isabella. The question is, Has she bettered herself by driving out the queen? The new order came in with a grand flourish of trumpets. Progress was the watchword: the “Progressistas” were Prim’s party till he broke them up. We have touched already on the blood shed in civil strife for this party and for that, but there are other things to consider. Education is the word of the day; let us see what the revolution effected in this direction.
The Jesuits under great difficulties were organizing colleges and missions; they were straining every nerve to educate and improve the people, and were just beginning to make some headway when the revolution came; and of course the first “abuse” to be abolished was the Order of Jesus—that order that flourishes even in Protestant countries like England, where the government, under such a chancellor as Mr. Lowe, grants them a pension for their observatory at Stonyhurst. They had to fly the country; their establishments were all broken up and seized upon by the government. A case in point:
At Port St. Mary’s, between Cadiz and Jerez, the gentlemen of the town, seeing the good effected by the Jesuits in their missions, and feeling it in the improved conduct of the men they employed, as more than one of them assured the writer, united and raised funds sufficient to build a magnificent college which they presented to the society. The government, then of Isabella, had nothing to do with it. When the revolution broke out, there were three hundred students there, many of them from the first families of Spain. In addition to these, forty of the poor children of the district were admitted to the course of studies free. The Jesuits were banished, and escaped with their lives, thanks to the courage of a noble-hearted gentleman of the town and his sons, who at the risk of their own lives and property gave them shelter till Topete himself went and conducted them to the sea. The college was closed and seized by the government. The gentlemen who built it demanded the building to be used at least for educational purposes, no matter under whom. To all their remonstrances a deaf ear was turned; and the college stands tenantless to this day. Those who had the means sent their children out of the country to England, France, or elsewhere. Many could not, and for them there was no remedy. Their children must do without education while the work of enlightenment goes on.
They drove out the friars and the nuns destitute into the world; seized upon their property, and possessed themselves of their treasures, the vessels of the sanctuary, vestments, paintings, gifts given in expiation of sins or propitiation of heaven by men and women long ago resting in their graves. Not a year back the writer, then in London, saw an announcement in the Times of the accession of some rare Spanish jewelry to the curiosities of the very interesting Museum at Kensington. He went, and found the ornaments that had decked the images and altars of the Virgen del Pilar at Saragossa, neatly arranged in two large cases, each ornament ticketed off as in a Jew’s shop, with the estimated value underneath in sums varying from over a hundred, sometimes over two or three hundred, pounds downwards. This sacrilegious robbery was repeated throughout the country—a dangerous example to the poor, whom they had indoctrinated with the pernicious ideas so prevalent in these times, the climax of which we saw the other day in Paris.
There was to be no state religion, and the clergy no longer to be salaried by the government. We must observe how all these movements strike at the church first; as is right they should do, for, that power destroyed, there is an end to morality, and the rest is easy. After a fierce and prolonged debate, in which the republicans came out in their true colors, and gave utterance, not the greater number happily, to open-mouthed blasphemy not simply against the church, but against the God whom Protestant and Catholic adore in common, the motion was not carried. The Catholic Church continues the church of the state, as it is the church of the whole nation.
“There are three things I hate intensely (que me odian): God, the monarchy, and phthisis,” said an alcalde in the north. It is a comfort to know that the wretch who said this craved a priest on his dying bed when attacked by the last object of his hatred, and God, ever merciful, allowed him one.