Chapter XIV: The Restoration of the Bourbons (2)

An army thus abandoned by its leader at the last moment, found itself unfit to arrest the victorious march of the duke of Angoulême. Of the two generals who had succeeded Abisbal, one of them, Castel dos Ruis, decided to go on into Estremadura heading the bulk of his troops. The other, Zayas, was left with a feeble corps of from twelve to fifteen hundred to obtain a capitulation which would at least assure life and property to the inhabitants of Madrid. This last measure was full of foresight, for while the near coming of the French army was spoken of, Bessières, the same leader of the band who a little before had threatened Madrid, had made a bold move and pretended to occupy the city, while his followers hoped to give it over to pillage. But Zayas, with the help of the garrison and national militia, fearlessly barred his passage, forced him to retreat, and kept him outside the city walls until the arrival of the first French troops--this, in spite of his repeated threats and the rage of all the bad subjects greedily anticipating an easily won booty.

The multitude in all large cities are always ready for a spectacle, fête, or anything emotional. Moreover, Madrid had within her a crowd of partisans of absolutist principles--all those who belonged to the palace or the clergy, all those whom a liberal administration had deprived of employment, and the relations of refugees. These warmly welcomed him who was conqueror over a constitutional system. But the duke of Angoulême, although received with open arms, with acclamation, song, and dance, could hardly mistake the general feeling. For while the absolutists thronged the streets, the middle class, who alone desired and upheld liberty, hid their humiliation by their firesides. The duke had to put an end to the excesses of a mad populace who would overthrow the constitution and pillage the houses of all the well-known constitutionists. For three days the _manolas_ overran the town singing the _Pitita_; they went into the churches and solemnly put Ferdinand’s portrait on the altar in place of the saints. In the hope of getting out of this anarchistic situation, the duke hastened to give a definite form to the new government, which would definitely take matters in hand, in a proclamation dated from Alcobendas (23rd of May, 1823), announcing his intention of leaving the Spaniards to govern themselves and inviting the former counsellors of Castile and the Indies to choose a regency to take the helm of the state until Ferdinand had recovered his full liberty. The duke of Angoulême made the terrible mistake of sanctioning nominations that were fatal and soon to be regretted. Then having seen the regency commence work with the duke of Infantado as president, and the new ministry formed wherein Canon Victor Saez was minister of foreign affairs and Don J. B. Erro minister of finance, he thought he could rest with perfect security and have nothing but his military operations to occupy him until Ferdinand was seized from the cortes.

The unlucky prince did not realise that, in confiding the government of Spain to personages picked out by former counsellors, he was practically condemning the unhappy country to ten years of a horrible system of persecution and religious fanaticism; that he was making the French flag responsible for the organisation of the most odious government which the human mind could conceive, and soiling the white flag he wished to hold high by making it the symbol of ignorance, fanaticism, and shameful arbitration.[b]

Meanwhile the cortes held Ferdinand practically a prisoner in Seville. On the approach of the French the king, protesting violently, was haled to Cadiz, after the appointment of a regency of three. In his diary Ferdinand describes vividly the humiliation of his position, and it is evident that he was treasuring up a wealth of grudges to repay with all his liberality in spite. Late in June Cadiz was besieged by land and sea. After a heavy bombardment, during which Ferdinand kept signalling to the duke of Angoulême, Cadiz fell on the 23rd of September, 1823, and on October 1st Ferdinand was delivered free to the French at Puerto de Santa Maria.

THE RETURN OF FERDINAND (1823 A.D.)

The 1st of October Ferdinand crossed from Cadiz to Santa Maria. He was scarcely in possession of his authority before he annulled every act which had been passed since March 7th, 1820, and announced that he considered himself released from all obligations towards his rebellious subjects and that he was going to punish their assaults. The extreme party which carried him with it no longer restrained its vengeance. The duke of Angoulême returned to Madrid and left immediately for Paris. The king proceeded to the capital where the absolutist party welcomed him in triumph. But there he saw that he must submit to a new yoke, for when certain officers of the voluntary royalists were presented to him, remembering the national militia he remarked that they were “the same dogs with different collars.”

The conquerors gave themselves up to the intoxication of vengeance. One of the victims most passionately demanded was Riego, who paid the penalty for his deeds on the 7th of November in the public square of Madrid.[129] The generals Ballesteros and Morillo went into exile. The prisons were full to overflowing. The populace hurled its rage against the liberals, who were proscribed under the name of Negros; during the ministry of Victor Saez, the king’s confessor, the hangman seemed to be the most active instrument of power.

[Sidenote: [1823-1826 A.D.]]

Ferdinand felt himself too strongly ruled by the absolutist faction[130] and he feared moreover the projects the latter seemed to be forming in connection with his brother, the infante Don Carlos, for whom they hoped for a more complete devotion. His old partisan Bessières, now at the mercy of the faction, having called together his troops without the government’s order, paid for it on the scaffold. Ferdinand was forced to retard the evacuation of Barcelona by the French for fear of the hostility from the partisans of pure despotism; he was obliged to go to Catalonia to scatter the assemblies of troops clamouring too loudly for an absolute king, and he returned to Madrid full of fear and suspicion. His reign after the fall of the Saez ministry is easy to characterise. No new principle was proclaimed, no abuse was solemnly repudiated. Not one word of authority gave reason to suppose that at some time any thought would be given to reforming ancient customs, to modifying the absolute right of the throne which is inseparable from that of religion. In 1826, when the Brazilian charter was established in Portugal, a governmental proclamation still comprised all the duties of a Spaniard in the following precepts: “Love the king, obey the king, and die for his absolute power.”

(Minister of Ferdinand VII)]

[Sidenote: [1826-1833 A.D.]]

In spite of these formulas another spirit directed affairs. The council of state had to be purged of its most influential personages. Old adherents of the constitution and even of King Joseph surrounded the throne at times, because the king had no other sentiment than that of personal safety; he did not wish to give himself up completely to the party which was already proclaiming another name than his own. He had always had a horror of the constitution, but he did not ignore the fact that the exclamation of _Vive l’inquisition!_ had been accompanied by another cry. Thus he saw himself compelled to crush both parties, to sacrifice without pity the authors of audacious attempts, no matter on which side they might be. Moreover he had good cause to treat with the new spirit because he had need of money for his administration and army, and to get it he had to revert to foreigners. It was declared by the government which succeeded him that from 1823 to the end of his reign the public debt increased 665,000,000 francs.

Ferdinand did not wish to constitute a party, to proclaim his principles, to cause his interests to dominate. He merely chose men reputed to be skilful and opposed them in his council to men who were necessary but dangerous. Spain lent itself to this oblique course because her passions had died out: the voluntary royalists who opposed the Negros had been punished. The majority of the episcopal body turned a deaf ear to cries for the re-establishment of the Inquisition. In 1827 the old hands “of the faith,” who had arisen in Catalonia against Ferdinand and his ministers, had been crushed with no hope of return. The same causes brought about the extinction of the liberal effervescence. Mina himself was obliged to escape by flight from the persecutions of populations which had once celebrated his exploits.

Ferdinand appeared equally indifferent or undecided in regard to the members of his family. On March 29th, 1830, when his young wife Maria Christina of Naples was pregnant, he issued a “pragmatic sanction” proclaiming as a law of the state a resolution of King Charles IV, made in accord with a demand of the cortes of 1789, abolishing the Salic law instituted in 1713 by Philip V, and thus re-established the right of women to inherit the throne of Spain; but he afterwards showed no predilection for the young princess Maria Isabella Louisa, who was born in July of the same year.

Again he assembled the most devoted partisans of his brother Don Carlos about his throne, and when an attack of the gout brought him to the edge of the tomb in September, 1832, he signed a decree revoking the new law of succession. Then, returned to life again, he placed the infante Don Carlos at a distance, drove away the ministers who had wrung the fatal signature from his feeble hand and denounced their odious manœuvres; and as though to protect himself against new obsessions he placed the government in the hands of the queen, his wife, until his health should be restored. He let her publish decrees of amnesty for political criminals, take measures to destroy the existence of the voluntary royalists, reduce the privileges of the council of Castile; then, for fear of seeing her advance too rapidly in the way of reforms, he had her announce in a manifesto of December that he did not intend to introduce the slightest innovation into the constitutional laws of the monarchy, nor to change anything that was established. On January 4th, 1833, he announced that, as his health was sufficiently recovered, he had reassumed the reins of government. The day before, so that they might receive full authenticity, the queen placed in the archives the act of the cortes of 1789 and the revolution of Charles IV in regard to the abolition of the Salic law. In spite of his antipathy towards innovators Ferdinand felt that it was necessary to constitute a political force around the cradle of his daughter. Men for whom the name of Don Carlos was a menace came together to defend the young princess. A decree of April 7th, 1833, convened the cortes at Madrid. The 3rd of June, the nobles, prelates, and delegates of the cities took an oath of allegiance to the princess of the Asturias, as heiress of the crown of Spain and the Indes. The 29th of September, 1833, Ferdinand died, leaving a heavy sceptre in the hands of his daughter.[d]

RISE OF CARLISM

[Sidenote: [1833-1834 A.D.]]

Though Ferdinand while alive had been accumulating legal acts in favour of direct descent, he had attached more and more importance to obtaining the acquiescence of his brother Don Carlos in his sovereign will. He had sent a royal order asking when he thought of recognising the already proclaimed heiress. Don Carlos, not to be behindhand, profited by this to take up a definite position as claimant in the eyes of the public. He wrote his brother a letter which he hastened to make public, in which these words were found:

You ask whether or not I intend recognising your daughter as
princess of the Asturias? My conscience and honour will not
permit this. My rights to the crown, if I survive you, or
you leave no male posterity, are so legitimate that I need
not enumerate them. These rights were given by God when he
willed my birth, and he alone can take them away by granting
you a son, an event that I desire perhaps even more than you.
Moreover, I am defending the rights of all those who come
after me. Thus I find myself obliged to send you the enclosed
declaration, of which I send a formal copy to you and other
sovereigns, to whom I hope you will communicate it.

Adieu, very dear brother of my heart. I am always yours, always
yours lovingly, and you are ever present in the prayers of your
most affectionate brother,

CARLOS.

The declaration was thus worded:

SIRE:

I, Carlos-Maria-Isidoro de Bourbon, infante of Spain, am
thoroughly convinced of my legitimate rights to the Spanish
throne in case of my surviving you, or your not leaving male
issue. I say that my conscience and my honour will not permit
me to swear to or recognise any other rights, and this I
declare.

Your affectionate and faithful servant,

DON CARLOS, Infante.

RAMALHAO, April 29th, 1833.

In answer to this declaration Ferdinand wrote to his brother saying that, without dreaming of violating his conscience, he nevertheless must forbid his returning to Spain, “for very serious political reasons and in consideration of the country’s laws.” He could not, he continued, make the declarations to foreign kings, basing his refusal on the principle that foreign governments ought not to interfere in interior state affairs. The salutations used were always full of an affectionate tenderness that formed a curious contrast to the real purport of the letters.

Don Carlos submitted to the banishment imposed, but had no idea of leaving Portugal, so as soon as an order came to go to Italy, he busied himself with reasons for not doing anything of the kind, not openly refusing that obedience which he had always affected to owe his brother, but inventing a crowd of pretexts for not rendering it. The now published correspondence between the two brothers on this occasion shows, on the infante’s part, a series of successive inventions to excuse his stay in Portugal, and from the king a refutation of the vain pretexts advanced, and a constant endeavour to remove obstacles to departure. Ferdinand, at length, left off using a tone of fraternal love and spoke as an annoyed king, desiring his brother to say whether he intended to obey or not. The answer was proud and disdainful. Don Carlos said if he left Portugal, he would have the air of a fugitive who had committed some crime: that he declined to put himself in such a shameful position, and, if really guilty, demanded a trial according to the laws of the realm (July, 1833).

From this date Don Carlos led a party quite in opposition to his sovereign, although keeping up an appearance of not stirring up civil war before his brother’s death. He began to gather round him in his little court at Ramalhao, then at Mafra and Coimbra, all those who had refused their oath to Princess Isabella. Inflammatory pamphlets went thence in every direction to spread doubt in men’s minds as to the legality of Ferdinand’s testamentary arrangements. A few active men were already engaged in raising army corps. Baron Los Valles was sent into France and England to convince those two governments of the justness of the claim put forth by the Spanish infante.[b]

WAR OF THE CHRISTINOS AND CARLISTS (1833-1839 A.D.)

Scarcely had King Ferdinand VII closed his eyes, when the apostolic party in northern Spain, especially in Navarre and the Basque provinces, proclaimed Don Carlos, brother of the king, as King Charles V. In order successfully to oppose the Carlists, who fought for absolutism and priesthood, there was nothing for the regent, Maria Christina, to do but to throw herself into the arms of the liberal party. Thus the seven years’ war between Carlists and Christinos grew out of a fight for the throne into a civil war and a battle for principles. The Carlists had the upper hand to start with, owing to the ability of their general, Zumalacarregui, against whom the Christinos could place no equally matched leader. From Portugal, where Don Carlos was residing with his beloved nephew, Don Miguel, this general threatened the frontiers of Spain.

[Sidenote: [1834-1855 A.D.]]

Hence Christina turned to England and France, and the Quadruple Alliance of April 22nd, 1834, was concluded between these states and Spain and Portugal, the object of which was to maintain the constitutional throne of Isabella and of Maria da Gloria and to drive out the two pretendants, Carlos and Miguel. Still, in that same year, these two men, who enjoyed the favour of the eastern powers and of the pope to a high degree, were obliged to leave Portugal. Carlos went to England in June, on an English ship, but he escaped again in July, and, after an adventurous journey through France, appeared suddenly in Navarre to reanimate the courage of his followers by his royal presence. The war was carried on with passion and cruelty on both sides. After the death of Zumalacarregui, who lost his life on June 14th, 1835, at the siege of Bilbao, the Christinos, who exceeded in numbers, seemed to have the advantage. But they could accomplish little against the restless Cabrera, who had just received his first ecclesiastical orders, and had gone over into the camp of the pretender. He was a most able guerilla leader. The turning-point came first when the command of the Christino army was intrusted to Espartero. He conquered the Carlists in 1836 in a bloody battle at Luchana, hastened to the relief of the capital when the Carlists advanced to the vicinity of Madrid in 1837, and compelled Carlos to retreat.

To these losses was added discord in the camp itself. The pretender, wholly lacking in competence and independence, was the tool of his _camarilla_,[131] who in the choice of a general paid more attention to a knowledge of the catechism than of the arts of war and displaced the most able leaders to put up their own creatures in their stead. The new general, Guergué, was beaten several times by Espartero in 1838, which gradually cooled the enthusiasm of the northern provinces. He was deposed and the chief command given to the crafty Maroto, who, as an enemy of the _camarilla_ could have maintained himself against their continual attacks only by gaining great victories. Since he could not win these against the superior force of Espartero, he concluded the Treaty of Vergara with him on August 31st, 1839, according to which he went over to the Christinos with his army and obtained in return an amnesty and the confirmation of the freedom of Basque and Navarre. With this, the cause of Don Carlos was hopelessly lost. The latter went to France in September with many of his followers, and had to pass six years under police supervision in the city of Bourges. Not until 1845, after he had transferred all his pretensions to his eldest son, the count of Montemolin, did he receive permission to depart, whereupon he betook himself to Italy. He died at Trieste on March 10th, 1855. His followers continued to fight for some time longer in Catalonia under Cabrera. But they also were overpowered by Espartero, and in July, 1840, with a force of about eight thousand men, were obliged to flee to France, where they were kept under supervision. The civil war was now at an end, but the strife continued. Espartero, entitled duke of victory (Vittoria) was the most influential and the most popular personage in Spain, with whom everyone, even the queen-regent, had to reckon.

THE STORMY REGENCY OF CHRISTINA (1833-1841 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1833-1841 A.D.]]

In the meanwhile the latter neither by her private life nor by her political conduct had been able to win the love and respect of the Spaniards. Her liberal attacks did not go very deep and as soon as the immediate necessity was past they gave place to the most opposite tendencies. At the spread of the Carlist rebellion in 1834, she had placed the once persecuted Martínez de la Rosa, known as a poet and writer, at the head of the ministry and had given the country a constitution [the _estatuto real_] which satisfied no one. The cortes convened again after a long interval and soon became divided into the two hostile factions of the moderates (_moderados_) and the progressists (_progresistas_). The ministries changed rapidly. The progressists demanded abolition of the monks’ orders and confiscation of their property, which was in part carried out. In single cities it came to bloody excesses; cloisters were destroyed, monks and nuns murdered, priests and Jesuits driven over the border. The continual wavering, the frequent dissolution of the cortes increased the discontent; the progressists in 1836 feared a reaction and wanted to make concessions. Revolts were organised in the larger cities, the constitution of 1812 was placed on the programme. The government responded by placing Madrid in a state of siege, by disbanding the national guard. Revolt broke out in the summer residence, La Granja, whither Christina had retreated. Soldiers of the guard forced their way into the palace and compelled her to adopt the constitution of 1812.

A constitutional assembly discussed a revision of the same, and thus the new constitution of 1837 came into being. Christina took oath to keep it, but hoped by watching over the election to bring the _moderados_ into the cortes and the ministry. When she succeeded in accomplishing this in 1840, she issued a municipal law in accordance with which the election of municipal authorities was placed in the hands of the government. This caused a revolt in Madrid and other cities, and when Christina commissioned Espartero, who had just returned victoriously, to quell the uprisal in Madrid he refused to be made the tool of an unpopular policy. And yet he was the only man who could check the revolution which was threatening on all sides. Hence Christina was obliged to appoint Espartero as ministerial president on September 16th, 1840. He chose all progressist members for his cabinet, made a triumphal entry into Madrid on September 29th, and placed his programme before the queen-regent in Valencia on October 5th. In this he demanded repeal of the municipal law, dissolution of the cortes, and dismissal of the _camarilla_.

The regency had little attraction more for Christina under such conditions. Other influences were also at work. Shortly after the death of her husband, she had taken a handsome life-guardsman, called Muñoz, into her favour, had made him chamberlain, and had secretly married him. The union was soon proclaimed by a large number of children, but not until 1844 was there a public marriage, whereupon Muñoz was made duke of Rianzares and grandee of Spain. By this act she had thrown away her womanly respect and laid herself open to all sorts of attacks, so that she preferred to leave the country. On October 12th, she resigned her position as regent and travelled to France.

ESPARTERO REGENT (1841-1843 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1841-1843 A.D.]]

The newly elected cortes, on May 8th, 1841, named Espartero regent of Spain and guardian of the queen Isabella and her sister the infanta Luisa Fernanda. Nor did he prove unworthy of this high position, seeking to establish order in all branches of the state administration and to preserve his respect before the clergy and the pope. Since he knew how energetically Christina, supported by Louis Philippe, was working against him with her influence and her money, he attached himself more to England, whereupon those who were envious of him, and his rivals, accused him of selling Spain’s commercial interests to England. The fact that he quelled a rebellion in Barcelona in 1842 by a bombardment, was charged against him as tyranny. New revolts broke out in the south in 1843; Colonel Prim hastened to Catalonia and placed himself at the head of the soldiers who had been won over through large expenditures of money by Christina’s agents. Espartero’s bitterest enemy, General Narvaez, landed in Valencia and entered Madrid with his troops. Espartero, against whom moderados and progressists had conspired together, found himself abandoned and set sail for England from Cadiz on July 26th, 1843. Not until 1848 was it safe for him to return.

THE PROFLIGATE QUEEN ISABELLA II (1843-1868 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1843-1851 A.D.]]

In November, 1843, the thirteen-year-old Isabella was declared of age. She took over the reins of government, appointed Narvaez, who had been raised to be duke of Valencia, president of the ministry, and called back her mother. This opened the doors and gates to French influence, to the game of intrigue and reaction. The constitution of 1837 was changed in 1845 in favour of absolutism, the freedom of the press was limited, the national guard abolished, and the cortes even more than in France reduced to a nominal existence. In order to insure for his house a lasting influence in Spain and to obtain for it a reversion of the Spanish throne, Louis Philippe, acting with Christina, brought about a marriage on October 16th, 1846, between Isabella and her cousin Francis de Asis, and between the infanta Luisa and the duke of Montpensier, the youngest of his sons. (Louis Philippe had planned at first to marry Isabella also to one of his sons, the duke of Aumale, but he gave this up on account of the decided protest of Palmerston’s cabinet and chose instead for Isabella in Francis de Asis that person who, on account of his mental and bodily weakness, would stand least in the way of his son, Montpensier). This marriage which was conducted wholly in secret cost Louis Philippe the friendship of the English cabinet. The pleasure-loving Isabella, following in the footsteps of her mother, soon grew heartily tired of her Francis and enjoyed herself in July, 1847, at La Granja, with the handsome and agreeable progressist General Serrano and other officers, while Francis found himself condemned to a hermit’s life at the hunting castle of Pardo. The marriage was a very unfortunate one, and Christina, the evil genius of Spain, fled one day and came back the next.

Isabella kept more and more to the path of her father Ferdinand, and pursued an administrative policy which joined military despotism to clerical absolutism and in which confessors and soldiers played a rôle, and even guided the rudder of state. While such conduct repelled the liberal elements from her side the frivolity of her private life made her lose all claims to respect.[132] She even went so far that the legitimacy of all her children was doubted. No wonder that from time to time revolts broke out, which, as is customary in Spain, were incited and led by officers. The government saved itself by executions and deportations. The ministerial president Marshal Narvaez, who bore the title duke of Valencia, was always ready for such drastic measures. His successor was Gonzalez Bravo [or Brabo] Murillo, who soon had the whole army against him.[e] His cabinet was very significant and important, not only because of the question of economies, but also because of Bravo Murillo’s project to abolish or diminish the military preponderance which was not very beneficial to the country. The germs of discord remained, to be united with those displayed in other acts, such as the ostentatious reception of Narvaez in Paris by the Spanish representative, the duke de Sotomayor, who was replaced by the marquis de Valdegamas, and the ridiculous prohibition of the farce called the _entierro de la sardina_ (the burial of the sardine) and the piñata ball. The burial of the sardine is part of the carnival festivities on Ash Wednesday. The piñata ball is a masked ball at the theatre--the piñata being a large earthenware jar full of sweets; the dancers are blindfolded, turned round, and have to try and break the jar with poles, after which there is a general scramble for the sweets. These sports were prohibited by the minister of government without consulting his colleagues, whom he thus compromised, occasioning resignations and annoyances, while the prestige of the new cabinet in the palace suffered somewhat from the ill-judged and useless measure of one of its members. In an unfriendly spirit towards the ministry, Napoleon showed marked honour to Narvaez and Sotomayor. General O’Donnell [who had won distinction in the Morocco wars of 1860 and become duke of Tetuan] showed himself somewhat disrespectful towards the minister of war because he had made several military appointments out of the order of seniority, the young officer of infantry wishing to put an end to this injustice.[j]

[Sidenote: [1851-1868 A.D.]]

Spain was, on the surface, a monarchy akin to that of France, Belgium, and England. Below the surface, as soon as the dynastic peril had subsided and the throne of the queen was somewhat consolidated, the old reactionary undercurrent set to work. A novel and powerful instrument of reaction--militarism--appeared on the scene and made Spain sadly famous. Its interference in politics and its _pronunciamientos_ were fatal to discipline and, what was far worse, to the sense of respect for parliamentary legality which is the corner-stone of modern institutions. It must be said that Castilian militarism somewhat atoned for its interference in politics by using its extraordinary influence quite as often in the cause of liberty and of progress as in defence of reactionary cabinets and palace favourites. It will suffice to say that Marshal Espartero acted thus from 1836 to 1843 to crush the first Carlist risings, and to check the caprices of the regent Doña Christina, and then, in 1854-1856, again stepped in to check another reaction. Marshal O’Donnell was the champion of moderate liberalism from 1856 to 1866, which might have preserved the crown of Queen Isabella had she not always harboured preferences for retrograde statesmen and generals. Marshals Prim and Serrano, too, were in the van of the progressists and advanced liberals who would fain have served their queen, but went over to revolution and conspiracies at last in sheer disgust. Such names can well be set against those of the military champions of political reaction and religious intolerance--marshals Narvaez [who died in 1868], Cheste, Novaliches, and Calonje.[k]

[Sidenote: [1868-1869 A.D.]]

In July, 1868, a great military revolt was to break out. The minister caused the most important generals, among them Serrano and Dulce, to be deported to the Canary Isles, and even banished from Spain the queen’s brother-in-law, the duke of Montpensier, whose name seemed to serve as a watchword for the revolution. Excitement increased in the land. Isabella thought herself compelled to enter into closer relations than hitherto with her friend and ally, as she called Napoleon III, and arranged an interview with him for the 18th and 19th of September in the two frontier posts Biarritz and San Sebastian. Napoleon was accredited with the plan of recalling his troops from Rome and filling their places with Spanish soldiers in the event of his beginning his long-threatened war with Germany. Isabella, who had just been honoured by receiving the Golden Rose of the Faith and Virtue from the pope, was very much in favour of such a project.

THE REBELLION OF 1868 A.D.

But at the very moment when the Franco-Spanish alliance was to have been concluded and their majesties were at their appointed posts, rebellion broke out in Cadiz. It was the 18th of September. The banished generals Serrano and Prim returned, the rear-admiral Topete joined them with the whole fleet, the few faithful troops were conquered by Serrano on September 28th, near Alcolea. All the larger cities, even Madrid, took sides with the revolution with the cry, “Down with the Bourbons! down with the Jesuits!” on the 29th; and so there was nothing left for Isabella but to leave San Sebastian the next day and to take refuge on French soil. She at once took up her residence at Pau whence she uttered a passionate but unavailing protest against her exile. When she realised that all hope of restoration, for the present, was gone, she went to Paris, where she died in 1902.

The direction of the state was intrusted to the leaders of the revolution. Marshal Serrano took the position of president of the ministry, Prim became minister of war, Topete of marine. The order of Jesuits and a number of cloisters were abolished, freedom of faith was proclaimed; in Barcelona and Madrid even Protestant services were held. The newly elected cortes, convened on February 18th, 1869, deliberated over a new constitution, declared in favour of a constitutional monarchy, and appointed Serrano regent, until a suitable candidate could be found. The political outlook, however, was not favourable for Spain. There existed a strong republican party, which threatened to oppose with arms the establishment of a new throne; the island of Cuba, that “pearl of the Antilles,” was in full revolt, ready to break loose from Spain and found an independent republic; and Carlism again raised its head.[e]

PIRALA ON THE “MILD ANARCHY” OF 1869 A.D.

[Sidenote: [1869-1870 A.D.]]

At the end of the year 1869, the state of the nation clearly showed that when parties pursue private rather than public aims the result can be no other than what then existed--that is, a monarchy without a monarch, a powerless regency, a constitution disregarded and infringed, an ill-directed and expiring _camara_, a dictatorship without a dictator, and an empty treasury and a retrograding revolution.

We do not lay the fault of this upon any of the men concerned in our revolution, and we do not think that history does so either, but we cannot cease to lament the lack of one of those men of genius who take the lead without imposing themselves. The situation had not improved at the beginning of the year 1870.

The cortes again resumed its labours. With praiseworthy frankness, Prim, as president of the council, said that they had reached a pitch of confusion in which, surrounded by thick clouds, they might come near to realising the fable of the two wolves who met on a dark night and devoured each other so that nothing was left but their tails.

Union facilitates the work of construction which is gradually perfected in every detail, but dissension entails the fate of the builders of the tower of Babel. A nation can show no sadder or more futile spectacle; and yet it is the history of all. Is mankind condemned ever to turn in this vicious circle and never to get free from it? It is impossible to think so, for in the midst of this continual conflict of interests and bastard ambitions the nineteenth century has achieved imperishable victories.

Nations conquer their sovereignty and of their own right make their laws, and struggle unceasingly to overcome ancient traditions, uproot absurd vices and tyrannical tendencies. Thus even as science pierces the mountains, explores the depths of the sea, discovers and explains the spots on the sun, and almost realises the aforetime foolish and chimerical ambition of the Titans; so politics, that science of modern societies and of free and civilised nations, will find the solution of the social problem bringing the rights of all men, the interests of all nations, and the good of all humanity into combined and harmonious action. A vast idea like a great discovery suffices to bring the whole world into close relationship. And like the electric current which flashes words and ideas from pole to pole, a grand political inspiration, social, human, fraternal, moral, just, and worthy, needs but to be hinted to triumph. Printing had but to be invented to extend over the whole world; steam came into immediate use, and Franklin needed but a lightning-conductor for Turgot to exclaim:

“_Eripuet cœlo fulmen_
_Sceptrumque tyrannis._”

And the lightning-conductor alone produced the cable which brings both worlds into constant communication, the thread which annihilates distances and transmits thoughts and events. Politics is indeed a science, and if nothing is impossible to science, shall anything be impossible to politics?

This work of social reconstruction advances slowly, all collecting materials and contributing their ideas to its perfectionment; the work will be completed; it is but a question of time, and what appears long in the life of the individual is very short in the life of nations. Liberty and civilisation being inseparably welded, where civilisation is least, liberty finds most obstacles, and the task must be more difficult and laborious.

In the meanwhile Spain was going through a troubled period, and it was said in the press and in the cortes that a heavy responsibility lay upon those who had taken part in a political movement the issue of which was so unfortunate, and cut off the country from the civilising progress of the century and the social importance to which it had so many claims; that the triumphant liberal spirit was suffocating for want of guidance, and could not succeed in laying definitive institutions upon a solid basis; that the perils surrounding the revolution were increasing; that all was unstable and that “a mild anarchy” reigned everywhere, as was said by the minister of government himself, who was yet so dilatory in framing fundamental laws.

There followed the famous session of March 19th, 1870, when the forced harmony exploded between unionists, progressists, and democrats, placing regency, government, and country in a terrible position. Thus it was published by a deputy of recognised ability, who had good reason to be well acquainted with the internal workings of the camara, that “it would be difficult to conceive worse confusion than that to which it was a prey. Without true unity in the ministry, without true unity in the majority, without unity even in the midst of the oppositions, every individual, whether minister or deputy, radical or conservative, republican or traditionalist, in the questions natural or incident to the debate expressed his own opinion without thought for the general interests of any party; the result of which was that every one of the three hundred representatives who had their seat upon the benches of the congress spoke a different language, and if such a state of moral anarchy continued, the assembly would before long be converted into a regular tower of Babel.”[l]

ESTIMATE BY CHERBULIEZ OF GENERAL PRIM

There are in every country men who accomplish their ends by romantic adventures, and this is more common in Spain than anywhere else. There it is an ancestral or fictitious adventurer, who has really no other god but his own interests, but succeeds by his audacities and a kind of native generosity in giving an air of grandeur to his exploits, a varnish of glory and poetry to his cupidity. So the favourite Spanish hero, the famous Cid Campeador, appears to us when criticism has rolled away the luminous clouds with which pure legend has surrounded him. The Rodrigo whom Corneille celebrated was only the vision of a poet; the true Cid of history was a man of prey, not troubled with scruples, ready to espouse all causes, bearing into every camp the restlessness of his moods and courage, fighting alternately for or against his prince, serving Christ or Mohammed, and, if one can believe the Arabic chroniclers, preferring a bushel of gold to a smile from Ximena. His mighty sword thrusts, his haughty bearing, his natural grandiloquence, redeemed everything; he had received from heaven the art of persuasive speech, and posterity remembers words more than intentions. The _romancero_ relates that, being in a hurry to set out on an expedition, and having need of money, he borrowed a very large sum from a Jew, giving him as guarantee a coffer full of jewels, which coffer being opened after his departure, was found to contain only sand. On his return, the Jew reproached him with deception. “Yes, it was sand,” he answered loftily, “but this sand contained the gold of my given word.” The idea was good, albeit a trifle extravagant.

It is not with any evil intention to the memory of General Prim, to suggest that he also was a hero with too easy a conscience. Is one bound to have more convictions, more principles than the Cid? “Do you know,” said Castelar[m] when orator of the opposition, “who is General Prim’s god? It is Chance. Would you know his religion? It is Fatalism. And his ideal? The dream of always keeping power in his own hands. To that everything is brought to bear and to that everything is sacrificed. Institutions matter nothing to him; he bends them to his convenience. Laws count even less for him. They are mere spider webs, to be brushed aside by the swords of his captain-generals. Parties are as nothing, he dissolves them. Engagements have never hampered him, for he forgets them. The most inconceivable alliances are not repugnant, provided he and his are advantaged thereby.”

But it is just to add that General Prim, when he came into power, astonished his enemies as much as his friends by the continued wisdom of his conduct. The most redoubtable trial of an adventurer is success. His ideas must grow with his fortune; having gained the coveted rank, he must break with his past, his habits and memories, so as to transform himself into a statesman. Only those who have good stuff in them lend themselves to such changes, and Don Juan Prim soon proved that the Aranjuez conspirator possessed the qualities of a politician, a quick sense of justice, a power of realising situations, skilful management of men and interests, and tact sufficient to use his authority without doing anything irregular. He could use strategy in councils, employing a sober yet nervous eloquence which went straight to the point, and possessed above the art of speaking the more useful one of being silent. A Portuguese has remarked that this last talent, strongly admired among a talkative people, made a man resemble a Gothic cathedral, and gave him the prestige of obscurity and mystery.

To be president of the council was no easy task. It was already difficult to govern an assembly composed of two parts; the difficulty was still greater when there were three. Oscillations from the Centre, who formed the necessary support for the majority, gave the minister perpetual anxiety and forced him to see-saw politics. The radicals, or democratic monarchists, led by a highly popular man, Rivero, and a man of great talent, Martos, played a very considerable rôle in the constituent cortes of 1869. They were at one with the liberal unionists in desiring a king, even as they agreed with the republicans to make a democratic constitution with all possible speed. Government could only expect a conditional support from them. It was inconvenient to satisfy them, dangerous to let them be discontented. It was necessary then perpetually to negotiate with these monarchists by circumstance. A single imprudence might have lost all.

Monarchists by conviction were themselves divided into a crowd of small parties, each having its candidate for the throne.

General Juan Prim needed all his attention and skill to maintain some degree of cohesion among so variegated a majority. He had to dominate the unruly, satisfy the ambitious by a portfolio, and the vain by a decoration; to reassure the timorous, calm the impatient, even like a good sheepdog who runs ceaselessly round a flock, heading the foremost, driving in the scattered, hastening the laggards. Each party sought to gain the general for their candidate, for Don Juan, as someone said at the congress, resembled a political zero, which, placed at the right of a figure, increased its value tenfold, and a candidature quoted at nine on the political bourse would be worth ninety when it had gained the approving smile of the president. His reigning principle was to discourage no illusion. “He knows quite well,” said the opposition, “that he cannot maintain his position much longer in this unstable equilibrium, which consists in keeping in with all parties, being against all parties, and above them all. The secret of his politics is to keep everyone hoping. He gives them no promises, for he is circumspect and never commits himself. He never betrays himself by his acts, being very reserved, diplomatic, and making no engagements; but he gives hope by his enigmas, his reticences, his air of mystery.”

Don Juan, however, was not always so reserved. When occasion demanded, he denounced to the majority the dangers which threatened them, adjuring them to seek safety in conciliatory politics, short of which only misery and disaster could be expected. If his advice was ill received, he complained that they made government impossible, and spoke of retiring. This manœuvre, executed with military precision, never failed of its effect. Thanks to his warning, his threats, and his reticences, that same majority, composed of men who never agreed nor loved one another, persisted in remaining united, a rare spectacle in Spain.[n]

THE HUNT FOR A KING

[Sidenote: [1870-1871 A.D.]]

Thus there existed a monarchical constitution with no monarch; and a large number of republicans took pains to make a monarchy impossible by speeches in the cortes and by revolts in the provinces. No one seemed desirous of the crown of a country politically lamed by its party system and financially rotten. The ministerial president and minister of war, Count Prim, made every effort to find a suitable personage, but for a long time in vain. The former regent of Spain, Espartero; the Coburg prince, Don Ferdinand, father of the king of Portugal; King Luiz of Portugal himself; Prince Thomas of Genoa, nephew of the king of Italy--refused in turn. The duke of Montpensier, whose wife was sister to the ex-queen Isabella, was ready to accept it, but on account of this very relationship he had many opponents among the monarchs, who, when it came to selecting a Bourbon, preferred Prince Alfonso, Isabella’s son, to her brother-in-law.

Isabella made her plan with this end in view. Acting on the advice of her friend the empress Eugénie she signed her resignation on June 25th, 1870, and made over all her political rights to her son Alfonso. First, however, there was question of another prince. Among those who in 1869 had returned a negative answer was Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who, as a Catholic, as husband of a Portuguese princess, as a relative of the Napoleonic house, and as belonging to the reigning house of Prussia, seemed a very suitable person in the eyes of the government. The latter returned to this choice in 1870 and in June sent a deputation to him. This time the prince accepted. The deputation returned to Madrid, a ministerial council was held, and on June 2nd it was decided to offer the crown of Spain to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern officially and to proclaim this candidacy publicly. The news was brought to all the capitals of Europe on July 3rd, by telegraph. The country stood at a new crisis of affairs.[e]

Napoleon III of France opposed the giving of the crown of Spain to a Prussian prince, and secured his resignation. This success led him to further demands, which he pressed so outrageously that Prussia, long ready to avenge its old disgraces before French armies, returned answers that led Napoleon to declare war. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 was the result. Prussia took a new place in the world and in Germany, the French armies were surrendered in droves by their king and his general officers, and France was rid both of her Napoleon III and of her military reputation. And all this as the result of the Spanish advertisement for a king. The prince Hohenzollern, who had refused the bauble once, and had had it taken away when he reached out to accept it, was dropped from the eligible list.[a]

AMADEO’S REIGN (1870-1873 A.D.); AND THE REPUBLIC (1873-1874 A.D.)

Marshal Prim had persuaded the second son of the king of Italy, Prince Amadeo, duke of Aosta,[133] to accept the candidacy. The cortes elected him king of Spain on November 16th, 1870, with a vote of 191 to 98. He arrived in Madrid on January 2nd, 1871, and took oath to support the constitution a few days after Prim had fallen a victim to a murderous assault. The government of the new king, who had made Marshal Serrano first ministerial president, was a continual fight for the ministry between the monarchic factions, while the republicans and Carlists organised revolts in the south and north.[e]

Serrano was a soldier risen to the highest ranks through the favour of Queen Isabella, whom he had not hesitated to betray the moment he believed that others would be put over him in the highest offices of politics and the army. His real ability as a general was more than mediocre. Allied with Prim in the insurrectional movement and the pronunciamiento of 1868 he was able to overthrow his benefactress’ throne; but the day after the 29th of September he saw himself transformed by his colleague into a puppet king. Prim, who was his superior in a hundred ways, especially in ability and energy, henceforth ruled over him. Not daring to revolt against his comrade, he submitted tranquilly, contenting himself with the pomp of the regency which he had received in exchange for his submission to the imperious will of the minister of war.

[Sidenote: [1871-1872 A.D.]]

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.