If our fortunes had carried us directly from Paris to stay with my brother in the palace of Madrid, perhaps I should have found myself still caged there. But freedom is only by comparison; and, after my unhappiness in the Alcazar, it seemed to me now as if my life had really been given wings. Our arrival was almost private; the people in the streets, accustomed to the sight of royalty, did not make a great to-do about us (for it is chiefly curiosity that draws crowds, I find, even to see kings!), and the one thing that looked like a public decoration in our honour was the washing, which it is the custom in Madrid to hang from the street windows to dry. It was an embarrassing decoration, because the articles were, as one might say, very intimate. They made a joke for us. We arrived in high spirits at the royal palace, and I was glad to find it not only gorgeous, but most comfortable. It had been built by Charles III.—as{44} everything in Madrid seems to have been built—but my brother had had it modernised with those conveniences of heating and plumbing which our antique splendour had hitherto done without in Spain. He had allotted a whole wing to us three Infantas (my sister Pilar, my sister Paz, and I), and we each had our own maids and servants from Sevilla, so that we made quite a household. He had installed in another wing my sister the Infanta Isabel, whom I hardly knew, because she had not been with us in France during the revolution. She was to take our mother’s place towards us. She had been married at sixteen to a prince of Naples; she had lived all her life among the forms and traditions of royalty, and she was genuinely devoted to their maintenance. I should have been afraid for my new liberty if I had not foreseen that her direction over us would be tempered by my brother’s indulgence. I knew that he had as much impatience as I for what we called, jocularly, between ourselves, the “singeries” (monkey tricks) of royalty. And so I began, with great expectations, what proved to be the happiest period of my life.
I was able to rise early, because my brother was{45} always up at half-past seven, to ride in the Casa Campo for an hour, and I rode horseback with him—to my great joy. Then, at nine, we girls had our lessons while he met his Ministers. Early rising is not a Spanish habit. My mother, when she was Queen, had met her Ministers after the theatre, at midnight, and worked with them more in the nighttime than during the day. And my brother’s Ministers had protested against his nine o’clock Cabinet meetings; but he had won them to it with the smiling and tactful determination that always secured him his own way.
At midday we lunched with him, the whole household together, a score at table, with ladies and gentlemen-in-waiting, officers, and aides-de-camp; but, on account of the presence of the latter, conversation was always formal. It was different on the afternoon drives. Then we were alone, for he drove himself, and I sat beside him; there were just the two servants on the rear seat, and no one to overhear us. Best of all were the visits I paid him in his apartments, where it was not considered necessary that I should be followed by a lady-in-waiting, since I was under the protection of the King. The guards{46} only took me across the public gallery in the centre of the palace—a soldier on each side of me and an officer in front, because in this gallery some attempts had been made to kill my mother when she was Queen—and the ushers, who led me down the halls, left me when I entered my brother’s antechamber. He had collected a large library for his own use, and he made me free of it on condition that I should not tell any one. At last I had books! And more than I could read.
What adventures! I was most eager for history and philosophy, because my mind had been denied access to facts, and I read all that I could find, indiscriminately. It was probably my brother who directed me to Kant, his own education having been chiefly German, in Vienna. But my personal favourite among the philosophers was Emerson. I suppose it was his sturdy doctrine of self-reliance that appealed to me—his insisting that nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of one’s own mind—and, although I have not read him for years, I still remember him with the glow of my pleasure in his words. For poetry I had no appetite. French{47} poetry seemed to me very light, without ideas. And fiction, English fiction particularly, to which my sisters were devoted, interested me but little. I wanted things to be true. I could not read Balzac; I do not know why.
With Shakespeare I had an odd experience. We studied him with our governess to perfect our English, and of course I realised that his verse was beautiful; but when his kings and queens spoke their lines they seemed to me to be playing parts that had been written to make fun of the claims of Royalty. My governess was indignant when I told her that. She said it was not true; that the speeches were meant to be taken seriously. “But no!” I would cry. “Don’t you see? Shakespeare is making fun of us. He knew we were not so, but he could not tell it in those days. He is laughing at us. He knew it was absurd.”
And when we read Hamlet I argued with her: “There! He has made a mad prince who talks foolishness. If he had respected Royalty as much as you say, he would not have written it. If you have an idiot in your family, you do not let people see{48} him. No; he is laughing at his pompous kings.” And my governess scolded in vain. I still feel the same about Shakespeare’s Royalties.
Outside of my books I began to be most interested to understand the conditions in Spain itself. Why had there been a revolution? And why had my brother been called to the throne? I was told that my mother’s rule had been too “clerical”—that the priests had had too much power—and that when the Republicans had failed to provide a stable Government my brother had been welcomed as a liberal King. But the story of the way in which he came to be proclaimed seemed to contradict this reasonable explanation.
The ladies of the Court, it appeared, had merely given money to soldiers in the army to cry “Viva el Rey Alfonso!” when General Martinez Campos called out to them one morning, “Viva el Rey!” General Campos had then telegraphed to my brother that the army had proclaimed him King. My brother admitted to me that he had received the telegram as an invitation to an adventure, and, being fond of adventures, he had accepted it.
He rode into Madrid, a boy of seventeen, on a{49} spirited horse, followed by the general and his officers. The horse, excited by the crowds, pranced and curveted; the crowd cheered his riding, and the more they cheered the more he made the animal caper. Every one admired him. He had—what is a valuable asset for a King—a very winning smile, and he smiled and rode his way into the hearts of the people. From the palace he announced to the Parliament that he had been proclaimed King, and the Parliament accepted him on behalf of the country. The only opposition came from the Carlist rebellion, led by Don Carlos, a rival claimant to the throne. My brother went at once to the war, and the rebellion was put down. General Campos and his family were rewarded with lands and titles, and my brother remained securely on the throne.
I thought it was a strange thing that a King could be made in Spain on the strength of a shout from a few soldiers; but it was the only explanation that any one could give me. When my mother had been dethroned, the Republicans had first chosen as King a Prince Amadeo of Savoy, son of Victor Emmanuel. But after a brief reign Amadeo resigned the crown and left the country. He told me him{50}self that he had never found out why the throne had been offered to him, nor why his rule had been rejected. It was all a mystery to him.
Similarly, I found that the way in which my mother herself had come to the succession was as peculiar as all the rest. When her father, Ferdinand VII. was taken with his final illness, there was a Salic Law in Spain by which his brother Carlos would be his heir and successor. But an old enmity existed between Don Carlos and my mother’s aunt, the Infanta Luisa Carlota. She had said to him, “You’ll never reign.” And he had laughed at her. But when the King was plainly dying of paralysis, she put before him a paper that she had prepared, abolishing the Salic Law; and, placing a pen in his hand, she took hold of his fingers and began to sign his name to the decree. The Prime Minister, Calomarde, seeing what she was doing, put his hand over hers to stop her. She stopped long enough to strike him a blow on the head that dazed him. When he recovered himself the document had been signed and King Ferdinand was dead. Calomarde bowed gallantly and said to her, in the words of a Spanish proverb, “A fair hand can do no wrong.” She
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Royal Palace, Madrid
{51}
replied, “No; but it can strike, eh?” And the law against the succession of a woman having been thus repealed, my mother came to the throne, an infant, under the regency of her mother, Queen Maria Cristina, and protected by her aunt. Don Carlos made war upon her, but he was unsuccessful.
This story my mother told me herself. I was puzzled to know why no one but Don Carlos had objected to such a manner of changing the succession. I got no explanation. Like the proclaiming of my brother and the summons to King Amadeo to rule, it was a mystery. Did it all mean, then, that no one but the Royal claimants cared who was King in Spain? Was it that the apparent Government in Spain, as in most countries, was not the real Government, and that the actual rulers of the country did not worry about who was in power in Madrid, since the power was impotent?
I found in talking with my brother that he was very interested in his work and the problems of government—but puzzled to know how to do anything to help the people—and saddened by conditions that he could not improve. He used to say, “I do not understand this country yet, but I shall find a way{52} to do something with it after I have reigned over it a little longer.” He had no faith in the politicians, and when one party lost office and another came to authority, and I asked him if this would improve matters, he replied: “No. It makes no difference. They are the same dog with different collars.”
He was apparently very popular, and no one openly opposed him; but one could see that much of the common show of loyalty was a pleasant make-believe, designed to flatter. Once when we were visiting a town together, driving in a carriage with the mayor, the boys in the street kept screaming “Viva el Rey!” so shrilly that my brother, who was trying to talk with the mayor, could not make himself heard. “It is too bad,” he said to the mayor. “They scream so loudly that I cannot talk with you as I wish.” The mayor replied, with simplicity, “Ah, your Majesty, if I had known that you would wish to talk with me, I would not have paid them so much.” And thereafter, whenever I saw a people very enthusiastic in welcoming a king, I wondered how much they were being paid.
At another time my sisters and I were making an excursion in the mountains, and we were accom{53}panied by a mayor who had provided us with the donkeys on which we rode. Whenever we came to a village, the children first, and then the older people would come out and cheer us. And they cheered us by name. “See!” the mayor would say. “See how popular you are! They know you all.” As there were four of us, and we had never been in the district before, we were astonished and very much flattered! And the mayor beamed. At every village it was the same. “Viva la Infanta Isabel! Viva la Infanta Pilar! Viva la Infanta Paz! Viva la Infanta Eulalia!”—each as we came. And the mayor, delighted and smiling and bowing, kept repeating: “But see! It is really wonderful! You are all known. You are so popular!”
After a time I wished to try my sister Pilar’s donkey, and I asked her to change with me. The mayor objected. No, no; I must not do it. It would not be right. “What?” I said. “Is it forbidden by Spanish etiquette that I ride my sister’s donkey?” And I insisted. Then the mayor, seeing that I was determined, explained, in angry confusion that we could not change donkeys because our names had been clipped on their tails, so that the people{54} might know who we were! And at the next village I watched the boys come behind us and read our names on the donkeys’ tails before they set up their shouting!
I thought it very clever—though such a joke on us—and I soon found that it was typically Spanish. They were very ingenious at playing such little tricks of deception. One of the oddest happened when we were making an official visit to another town, and driving again with another mayor. As we proceeded slowly through a crowded street, suddenly a boy ran into the roadway and dived between the wheels of our carriage. We were afraid that he would be killed, and we shouted to the driver, who pulled up his horses. The boy crawled out between the opposite wheels and ran away, but before we could start on again another boy did the same thing. This alarmed me so—with the fear of running over some one—that I wanted to stop altogether. How could one drive through a town where the children did such mad things? I would not go. The mayor assured me that it would not occur again, but I refused to believe him. How did he know? If these two boys would do it, why not others? Finally, to{55} calm me, he admitted that he had hired these two boys to throw themselves under our wheels. But why? Because we were in front of his house, and his wife and family had wished to have a good look at us, and he had devised this charming plan to stop the carriage under their windows.
With a people whose simpler citizens are capable of such subterfuges, you may believe it was not easy to discover the truth of what was going on in the intricacies of Government. The truth, as far as I was ever able to discover it, was this.
In Spain there was an elaborate system of what is called “bossism” in the United States of America. But in Spain it had been carried to its final perfection. In every small community there was some wealthy person who controlled the machinery of public administration. He chose the persons who were to fill the elective offices, and the election returns were changed or manufactured to certify the election of his creatures. In office, then, these men obeyed his orders. Taxes were levied, the laws were administered, and justice was dealt out, as he directed, for the benefit and protection of himself and his friends. All the officials, ostensibly appointed or{56} elected to represent the people and carry out the popular will, represented only the “cacique” (as he is called) and obeyed only him.
Over the smaller caciques were bigger caciques, with more power and a larger following, just as, in the United States, over the boss of a city there is a state boss. But in Spain the people had become quite unable to free themselves, and there was an absolute administration of the functions of Government for the benefit of the office-holders and the wealthy men who put them into office.
A change of the party in power at Madrid made no difference. They were, as my brother said, “the same dog with different collars.” They all obeyed the caciques.
As in America, all indirect taxes fell most heavily on those least able to bear them. The rents, the cost of living, the necessities of life were high; wages were low. No poor person ever dared to go to law. There is a Spanish proverb that “Lent and prisons are made for the poor.” Money ruled, and ruled everything.
Along with this rule of money went a rule of the priests. Spain had been for centuries the outpost{57} of Christianity in the war with Mohammedanism. In the age-long struggle against the Moors the Church became the symbol of national freedom to all Spaniards; their faith and their freedom were both threatened, and they fought for both together. The wars for the possession of America kept the same aspect of religious wars, because they were waged against a Protestant nation; and down almost to modern times the Government and the Church were such partners in being that it was impossible they should separate.
Now, with peace and commercial development, the problems of Government had become wholly political, and the priests were as busy in politics as were the caciques. The State not only maintained all the churches and buildings of the religious orders, but paid salaries to the priests and the monks and the nuns. They were all, in this respect, officials of the administration, drawing money from the public revenues, so that they conspicuously benefited by the plundering of the people. Therefore, whenever discontent with the Government gathered head in rebellion, it was inevitably an “anti-clerical” revolt, even though it had no concern whatever with{58} religion. That was not only very unfortunate for the State, since it made reformation difficult by making it seem anti-religious; it was also very unfortunate for the Church, since it directed popular dissatisfaction against the priests instead of against the misgovernment.
So the people of Spain, although they were almost as free to vote at elections as the people of the United States, had really no voice at all in their own government. When they revolted they made a useless “anti-clerical” revolt that took them nowhere, because they got involved in a quarrel about religion and the burning of churches. When a Republic was declared, with the aid of the army—which was Republican because the aristocracy did not even serve as officers—the system of misgovernment continued under a new name.
It made no difference to the caciques whether there was a King or a Republic; they ruled. If the army proclaimed my brother King, the Parliament, for the caciques, accepted him in the name of the people. It did not matter; he was powerless, simply because he could only act through the officials of the State who were largely responsible for the con{59}ditions. I think the caciques would rather have a king than a Republic, because the throne could be made a scapegoat in case of revolt. And, though jealous of the influence of the priests with the people, they were always in partnership with that influence to protect themselves.
I write this explanation here as if it were something that I and my brother and everybody else understood. As a matter of fact, we none of us understood it. How should we? We were strangers to the country. There was a Chinese wall around us, to keep us from learning anything that the administration did not wish us to know. My brother was very young—at this time only nineteen. (It is significant how the Government of Spain prefers young sovereigns.) And the poor people of Spain, who might have told us if they had not been dumb, did not even know themselves what was wrong.
My brother worked very hard, trying to oversee those departments of the Government that were most easily watched, such as the army and the navy. He did not trust to official reports, but went himself to see if the reports were accurate. It was on such{60} visits that we had our adventures with the mayors.
Once when we were out driving, he said: “Let us go to the French hospital. I must inspect it. We will go without warning, so that they will not be able to prepare appearances for me.” So we drove to the hospital, and when we entered and it was seen that the King had arrived a man who had been paralysed for years was so startled that he got to his feet and walked. A miracle! And I thought if it had happened a few centuries earlier it might have made my brother a saint. Who knows? I might have had a little shrine myself.
He gave audiences every afternoon to whatever persons wished to see him, whether to present petitions, or merely to pay their respects, or what not. And his patience with everybody amazed me. It was impossible, I found, to learn anything from those who came. They were usually too oppressed by the formalities to be natural. One day, when I was assisting an older sister at an audience to ladies of Madrid, one lady was so embarrassed that when my sister invited her to sit down—in the rather brusque voice that was her characteristic utterance{61}—the lady sat down on a chair in which a kitten was lying. I supposed, at first, that the kitten had escaped, but I soon saw the lady growing red in the face and shifting in her chair, as if she were painfully uncomfortable. My sister tried to put her at her ease by asking her the conventional questions about herself, and I struggled to control my amusement, but without succeeding well enough to trust myself to interfere. At last my sister dismissed the lady, and turned on me to demand what was the matter with me that I should be grinning and choking instead of behaving myself with dignity. I cried: “But your kitten—your kitten!” And then I saw that my laughter had been very cruel, for the kitten was dead. The lady had accepted the invitation to sit down as a Royal order, and had not dared to get up off the cat till she was dismissed, although the poor thing was struggling and fighting under her for its life.
Naturally it was difficult to get any information from people under such conditions. Not that I wish to represent myself as going about with the air of a determined student eager to know. I had only a desultory curiosity that was continually stirred by{62} finding some new puzzle of false appearance. My brother’s problems of government were usually laid aside with us. We shared his recreation rather than his work. And, being human, I was much more interested in myself, my own problems of life, and the outlook of my future than I was in anything else. Being a Royal person in Spain was, in some of its aspects, rather a lark, but in others it was serious. For however free I might be in my mind to be amused, to be curious, to be cynical, there was no disguising the fact that I was limited in my friends, controlled in my affections, and of liberty in love and marriage wholly deprived. My mind might be what I pleased—my body was Royal.