three hundred and sixty acres, and are the finest in the kingdom, while
even the admirers of Versailles admit that La Granja has the more
amazing fountains. From the grand walk one looks out across a panorama
of the rocks and forests of New Castile, or gazes down upon the
beautiful extravagancies of these literally hand-made gardens. The
formal design of the ground-plan, the regularity of its well-ordered box
avenues and mazes, the artificiality of its numerous fountains, its
marble vases and statuary, and the baths and summer-houses that rise out
of the dwarf-like vegetation, are all in striking contrast with the wild
grandeur of the distant scenery. Yet, artificial as the aspect
undoubtedly is, the gardens are a sheer delight, for beyond the
flower-beds are masses of yellow broom and springing ferns, and the
grass is a blaze of wild hyacinths, forget-me-nots, cowslips, and
periwinkle. Higher up the mountain, to where the sky-line shows, 3000
feet above the palace, are woods of chestnut trees, oaks, elms, and
innumerable pines, in which myriad butterflies of every hue disport
themselves, and scores of streams trickle down to feed the royal
fountains in the gardens below. The statues representing Lucretia,
Bacchus, Apollo, Daphne, America, Ceres, and Milo, and many others, are
of no great artistic value; while the fountains, to the number of
twenty-six, are unique. The Fama, which throws up its waters to a height
of 130 feet, is the most renowned; and from another fountain, compact of
sculptured flowers and fruits, forty spouts send out their two-score
jets 80 feet high. The Cenador is a single vast cascade of gleaming
water from the mountain snows. Then there are the Ranas (Frogs), Ocho
Calles, Canastillo, Tres Gracias, and the Neptuno, at which, says M.
Bourgoin, the Egotist read Virgil and quoted ‘quos ego.’ Last of all,
there is the wonderful Baño de Diana, to which reference has already
been made.
Here, where Art is truly French, and Nature is truly Spanish, where even
Nature conceives in bleak discomfort for eight months in each year to
bring forth four months of flowers and faërie, the King of Spain and his
English bride retired to surroundings amid which a honeymoon will not
be forgotten. Madrid has its magnificent royal palaces; El Pardo boasts
its wondrous tapestries; Aranjuez its gardens, and Rio Frio its
orchards; El Escorial is the eighth wonder of the world, and Miramar
looks over the yellowest of golden sands into the bluest of blue waters;
but La Granja, in the Guadarrama Mountains, is that place apart where
lovers may find a bower
‘Of coolest foliage, musical with birds’;
and here one may listen to
‘The murmurs of low fountains that gush forth
I’ the midst of roses!’
The auxiliary residence to the palace of San Ildefonso, located some
fourteen miles from it beyond the city of Segovia, is the royal house of
Rio Frio, situated in a picturesque park which is full of game of every
description. The small elegant building which stands in the centre of
the park was begun by Isabel, the widow of Philip V., and was completed
internally by Alfonso XII. It is a two-storied square building, the four
sides of which are all exactly alike, and a large square court, paved
with granite flags, occupies the centre of the building. A large portico
of Tuscan pilasters surrounds the court and supports a covered gallery
on the level of the first floor. From this court a noble staircase,
consisting of two independent flights, which start from the vestibule in
opposite directions, each subdividing into two other parallel ones, on
the level of the first landing. The two independent flights end at the
first floor at the opposite ends of the room which is used as a
guardroom for the halberdiers. The steps are of granite, and the
balustrades, which are supported by figures of children in various
attitudes, are of a pretty yellow limestone. The sculpturing is also in
stone, but it was unfortunately painted white, thus depriving it of its
artistic merit, and giving the appearance of plaster. The whole of this
work is from the chisel of Bartolomé Seximini. The entire weight of the
staircase rests on four large Tuscan columns (monoliths), constructed of
granite, and eight semi-columns of the same kind.
The apartments on the first floor, which with the exception of the
sacristy and chapel on the ground floor are the only rooms that call for
description, are decorated and furnished with a simplicity that would
seem to betoken actual poverty. This is accounted for by the fact that
the royal family very seldom resides in this palace; and at such times
whatever is required is conveyed there from the palace of San Ildefonso.
On the other hand, the collection of pictures is superior in number and
merit to that of San Ildefonso, for among its six hundred and
fifty-eight pictures there are many originals of the great masters of
the different schools. There is one each of Van Dyck, Titian, Albert
Dürer, and Goya; two by Zurbaran, Navarrete, Guido de Reni, Pantoja de
la Cruz, and Correggio; eight by Jordán, three by Teniers, four by
Domenichino, and six by Poussin.
III
EL PARDO
At the royal residence of El Pardo Maria Cristina was lodged on the eve
of her marriage with Alfonso XII. in 1879. Seven years later in the same
palace she wept beside the deathbed of her husband, the father of the
unborn king, Alfonso XIII. For a score of years El Pardo was avoided by
the queen-mother, until, in 1906, Don Alfonso brought to the suburban
palace the English princess who, on the 31st of May of that year, went
in state to the church of San Jeronimo to be married to the King of
Spain.
From the earliest days of Madrid’s claim to royal favour, over a hundred
years before Charles V. transferred the Court from Valladolid to the
present capital, the Kings of Spain have had a residence at El Pardo.
Henry III., _El Doliente_, when making some additions to the old town of
Madrid about 1461, built a pleasure-house on this site. The attraction
of the district was undoubtedly the abundance of boar and bear which
found ample cover in the forests which surrounded the capital.
Generations of improvident inhabitants have destroyed these woods, but
the preserves within the stone wall which surrounds the royal residence
are well timbered, and the plantations are full of deer and boar and all
kinds of small game. Charles V. transformed the building into a winter
palace and left the task of completing it to Philip II., who, one
imagines, spared but scant leisure from his colossal building operations
at the Escorial to superintend the furnishing of a mere shooting-box. At
the beginning of the seventeenth century the original structure was
destroyed by fire and the present château was built by Philip III.
Charles III. altered and added to the palace in which he found refuge
after the famous riots against Squillaci, and here in the reign of
Charles IV. were hatched the plot and counterplot of Ferdinand and Godoy
which culminated in the revolution of Aranjuez, the fall of the
much-abused favourite, and the deposition of Charles and his crafty
sons.
Philip II. by the prosecution of his religious policy, which was
fruitful of ruinous wars, had beggared Spain in money and credit. Philip
III. succeeded in 1621 to the crown of a country that the Cortes
officially described as ‘completely desolated.’ Agriculture and every
form of manufacture was fallen into decay, the land was left desert for
want of cultivators, the looms were idle, and the wealth of the
Spanish-American possessions was swallowed up by the crowd of avaricious
and unscrupulous office-holders and their underlings. But if Philip II.
had reduced the nation to these straits by his bigoted zeal and arrogant
vainglory, his son aggravated the conditions by his reckless
extravagance and riotous splendour. When the country’s resources had
been taxed to an extent that made further taxation an impossibility, the
king, through the agency of his all-powerful favourite, the luxurious
Duke of Lerma, raised funds to gratify his prodigal expenditure by the
sale of knighthoods and patents of nobility. When that source failed
him, he attempted to wrest from the church its silver plate and
ornaments, and being terrified out of this resolve by the threats of the
bishops, he made a personal appeal to the people. The king’s officers
went from door to door begging in the name of the sovereign for the
money required for carrying on the business of the Government.
But Philip III. still claimed to be the richest potentate in
Christendom; his subjects still believed themselves the richest people
in the world. The king could afford to expel 500,000 of his Moslem
subjects to Barbary, after robbing them of all they possessed; he could
afford to plunge his country into a foolish war to gratify Spanish
pride; and he could still afford to indulge his wildest and most
extravagant personal whims, of which the rebuilding of El Pardo was one
of the least expensive.
The palace, located in contiguity to the village, which consists of
about two hundred houses whose inhabitants are employed on the Royal
Patrimony, has a length of 432 feet and a depth of 192 feet. A tower
commands each corner, and the entire building is surrounded by a moat,
30 feet wide, which once served the double purpose of irrigation and
defence. The principal entrance to the estate is through the ancient and
beautiful Puerta de Hierro (Iron Doorway), built about the year 1753 by
Ferdinand VI. and distant about five miles from the town of El Pardo.
From the doorway a wall of stout masonry, six feet high, runs right and
left round the demesne for a distance of sixty-two miles. The property
is intersected from north to south by the River Manzanares. The stream
enters on the Sierra side beneath a high stone bridge, the piers of
which rest on the tall rocks that enclose the narrow pass of Marmota.
From this bridge may be obtained a magnificent view of the country
bounded and framed by the distant snow-clad Guadarrama Mountains. The
rugged and broken ground is prolific in evergreen oaks, cork trees, and
extensive areas of the cistus shrub. For purposes of defence the estate
is divided into twenty departments, and the fifty warders who guard the
royal residence are accommodated in twenty-six spacious and well-built
houses.
The impression conveyed by the sombre, granite-built palace is
distinctly imposing. Several stone staircases lead to the royal
apartments, consisting of sixty commodious rooms, nearly all of which
are covered with rich and brilliantly coloured tapestries, manufactured
at Madrid from designs of Goya, Bayeu, Castillo, and Teniers. The
subjects portrayed are landscapes, hunting and country scenes, and
passages in the history of _Don Quixote_. The stucco of the ceilings of
most of the saloons is the exquisite work of Roberto Michel, while the
many fresco paintings were executed by Patricio Carcéo, Carducho,
Bayeu, Maella, Galvez, Ribera, and Zacarias Velazquez. The fine
collection of pictures that once adorned the walls was destroyed by the
fire of 1604, and of the forty-seven portraits by such famous masters as
Titian, A. Moro, and Coello, only a few remain. The magnificent glass
chandeliers are a feature of the royal apartments, and in the Retablo of
the Oratory there is a copy of Christ bearing the Cross, by Ribalta, the
original of which is in Magdalen Chapel, Oxford. The Court officials are
lodged in a commodious building having a complement of a hundred rooms.
To the north of the town is the Prince’s Cottage, another creation of
that villa-building monarch, Charles IV. It is a delightful example of
the three noble arts that vie with one another to give beauty to the
villa--the old silks that cover the walls, the carvings that adorn them,
and the magnificent chandeliers and rich, varied furniture, which make a
valuable museum of this so-styled cottage. There are also other two
palaces called _La Zarzuela_ and the _Quinta_. Both are surrounded by
fine gardens, and contain sumptuous oratories where Mass is celebrated
on special occasions. These two buildings are surviving portions of the
old edifice. In _La Zarzuela_ Don Fernando, the brother of Philip IV.,
was wont to organise those little vaudeville entertainments which were
christened _Zarzuelas_. It is no longer used for that purpose, the
theatrical performances at El Pardo now taking place in the small but
elegant theatre in the palace which Alfonso XIII. had restored when the
residence was prepared for the accommodation of Princess Victoria Ena.
To the Royal Patrimony also belongs the parish church and the Capuchin
convent of Santo Cristo, situated on the left bank of the river, and
hither, on St. Eugene’s day, the people of Madrid journey in crowds. On
other feast days, also, the beautifully wooded slopes and shady avenues
of El Pardo attract thousands of visitors from the city. It would be
difficult to find anywhere in Europe, at the very doors of the capital,
such beautiful rustic scenery as that enclosed in this royal estate.
We have said that Charles III. retired to El Pardo after the Squillaci
riots, and it is curious to reflect that this best of Spanish kings was
sadly out of touch with the character of his own people. He was a man of
extraordinary ability, sound experience, and commanding personality. He
had the will and the power to carry the government of the State on his
own broad shoulders, and to manage the domestic affairs of his subjects
into the bargain. He realised the crying need for domestic reforms in
his capital, but the Madrileños failed to recognise the necessity, and
resented his interference. The king found the city ugly, filthy, and
insanitary, and he decreed that it should be made clean and kept so. He
was the apostle of order and decency, and not understanding the pride of
the Spaniards, he could not comprehend that they were affronted by this
imperious resolve to bring them into line with more advanced European
nations. Moreover, the decree was published by Squillaci, the king’s
Italian minister. Squillaci was a marked man from that day, and the
clergy who had been made to recognise that the King would tolerate no
clerical interference with his policy, fanned the spirit of revolt which
manifested itself among the people. In 1766 Charles, having commenced
his crusade by cleansing the city, now turned his attention to the
national costume. As a dress-reformer he objected to the long cloaks and
wide-brimmed hats affected by the citizens, and in March 1766 he issued
another decree forbidding their use. Immediately Madrid was in revolt.
The king’s Walloon guards were massacred, the detested Italian,
Squillaci, sought safety in flight, and for two days the city was in the
hands of the murdering, destroying mob. On the third day the king
abolished the Walloon guards and promised to rule without foreign
ministers. The revolution was at an end, and Charles retreated to El
Pardo to reflect upon the situation. The king was convinced that the
priests, and particularly the clever, intriguing members of the Society
of Jesus, were at the bottom of all the agitation against his policy of
reform, and the result of his reflections was made known in the
following year when he decreed that every Jesuit should be forthwith
expelled from his dominions. The people could not believe their ears,
but Charles was firm as a rock. He cleared Spain of the power which was
behind the priesthood, and twelve months later he wrung from Rome the
papal decree by which the Society of Jesus was temporarily suppressed.
Charles III. was engrossed in business more serious than hunting when he
retired from the riot of the capital to take counsel with himself in the
woods of El Pardo.
Still nearer to the city of Madrid, from which it is only divided by the
River Manzanares, is the royal shooting-box, called _Casa de Campo_,
the grounds of which, abounding in beautiful scenery and stocked with
well-preserved game, are twelve miles in circumference. A network of
channels irrigate the estate, many fountains adorn the gardens, and the
great pond is full of carp and other fish. The residence was
built in the middle of the sixteenth century by Philip II., who
characteristically gave orders that the house was to be surrounded by a
forest. To this end a royal decree was issued on January 17, 1562,
authorising the acquisition of some adjoining lands, and this tract was
augmented by the king’s private purchase of the ancient and noble estate
of the heirs of Fadrique de Vargas. Philip, in a fine moment, declined
to have their coats-of-arms removed, saying that in a king’s palace the
blazonry of the families that had rendered signal service to the State
were well placed. In 1582, by order of the same monarch, additional land
was purchased; and though his successors have made little alterations in
the original demesne, Ferdinand VI., when Prince of the Asturias,
increased it by the purchase of a tract of country valued at 1,250,211
reals, and still later a smaller area was purchased by the order of
Charles III. The documents relating to the acquisition of these
properties have been carefully preserved, and are now in the archives of
the royal house. The wall around the estate was commenced in 1736 and
finished twenty-two years later; it is twelve feet high and about two
feet thick, and is composed entirely of brick and solid masonry.
IV
ARANJUEZ
The Palace of Aranjuez became a patrimony of the Crown of Spain by
virtue partly of the wise and able economic reforms instituted by
Ferdinand the Catholic, and partly as a result of his characteristic
greed. The husband of Isabel of Castile safeguarded his country by
stripping the nobles of many of their privileges and powers, and
readjusting their sources of income. He prohibited them from erecting
new castles and coining money, and as the masterships of the vast
estates of the military orders fell vacant, he retained the masterships
and the estates in the royal family and paid the knights by fixed
pensions. Aranjuez sprang into existence in the fourteenth century as
the summer residence of Lorenzo Suarez de Figueroa, the master of the
illustrious and wealthy Order of Santiago, who planted the land with
trees and vines and olives, and erected a building that answered the
double purpose of castle and convent. When Ferdinand incorporated the
mastership of the Order of Santiago with the Crown, Aranjuez became the
summer palace of the Catholic king and his consort. In 1536 Charles V.
made it a shooting villa, and Philip II. introduced English elms into
the grounds, and employed Herrera, of Escorial fame, to construct
additional buildings to better accommodate his growing family. The
palace was partially destroyed by fire in 1650, and five years later a
second fire reduced it to a ruin. In this condition it remained until
1727, when Philip V., who had tasted the pleasures of palace-building at
La Granja, rebuilt the present edifice, which was successively improved
by Charles III. and Ferdinand VII.
Philip V. was better advised when he decided to erect a palace on the
site of the master of the Order of Santiago’s summer residence than when
he wrested a foothold for La Granja from the side of the mountains of
Segovia. The royal home at Aranjuez is charmingly situated in the midst
of avenues of stately elms and sycamores at the confluence of the Tagus
and Jarama--a verdurous oasis in the midst of treeless, waterless
Castile. He constructed the palace and the public chapel from stone
taken from a quarry in the district of Colmenar, which he bought for
the purpose. The timber he procured from the mountains of Cuenca, and
the lead for the roofing from some mines that existed near Consuegra.
Philip III. enriched the gardens with many of the fine bronzes and
marbles that are to be seen there, and some of the splendid fountains
were also added by his orders; but the Parterre department which Philip
II. laid out was completed by the art-loving Philip IV., who furnished
the busts of the Roman emperors, the statues, and the beautiful
medallions. In 1748 the palace was again on fire, and the principal
façade was restored by Ferdinand VI. in its present more elegant form.
That weak and fatuous monarch Charles IV., who added the Casas del
Principe to the Escorial, and El Pardo, and the auxiliary Casa del
Labrador to the palace of Aranjuez, had a particular affection for the
‘Spanish Fontainebleau.’ Here the king and queen and their favourite,
Godoy, passed much of their time in the anxious days that preceded the
fall of the monarchy; and here, in March 1808, the determination was
arrived at by which the detested Prince of the Peace was torn from
office and power, literally by the hands of the incensed mob. What a
curious spectacle of a family group they present to our eyes! Charles
IV. and Maria Luisa, Ferdinand and Godoy, with mutual hatred in their
hearts and the sound of the tumult of Madrid ringing in their ears.
King, prince, and minister each believed the advancing French to be his
friends; each felt confident that Spain was being trampled under foot by
foreign soldiers to advance their several conflicting interests. But
suddenly from the rapidly approaching host came messengers with an
ultimatum from Napoleon, containing impossible conditions that would
have dismembered Spain and deprived her of her independence. It was
evident now that Napoleon was coming not as a saviour but as a
conqueror, and now it was too late to resist him by force of arms. In
the palace of Aranjuez it was resolved that the Court should retire to
Seville, and from there, if the worst happened, sail for America.
Although this secret resolution was carefully guarded, a rumour of the
projected flight got about, and the mob vented their anger upon Godoy,
whom they believed was prepared to sell the country to the Corsican. In
vain Charles addressed proclamations to ‘my dear vassals,’ and assured
them that his dear ally, the Emperor of the French, was only making use
of Spanish soil to reach points threatened by the English enemy; in vain
he denied the story of his intended flight. The greater part of the
garrison in Madrid was ordered to Aranjuez, but with the soldiers went
an army of country people who surrounded the king’s palace and the
palace of the favourite, and closely guarded every avenue of escape. At
midnight of the 17th March a bugle-call rang out, a shot responded to
the summons, and in a moment the revolution was in full swing. Around
the royal residence, in which Charles was lying ill with gout, the mob
contented itself by howling threats and imprecations, but Godoy’s palace
was carried by assault. The work of destruction was stayed for a few
moments while the Princess of the Peace, a member of the royal family,
and her daughter were respectfully conveyed to the royal palace. Then
the ruffians got to work in terrible earnest. With murderous
thoroughness they searched every room and corridor for the despised
author of the national trouble, wrecking everything in their path. But
Godoy had slipped from his bed, and found a refuge under a roll of
matting in a neighbouring lumber-room. For thirty-six hours he remained
in hiding until hunger and thirst drove him from his retreat, and he
was led from his ruined house to the barrack guardroom through a
populace that thirsted for his life. The wretched fugitive, ill with
fear and fatigue, was placed between two mounted guards, and the journey
was made at a sharp trot, but he could not out-distance the vengeance of
the crowd, and his guards could not protect him. Fierce blows were
rained upon him by the infuriated multitude, and the man who had been
master of Spain, bleeding from a score of wounds and gasping for breath,
was only rescued from instant death by a miracle.