Ofalia—The Juez—Carcel de la Corte—Sunday in Prison—Robber Dress—Father
and Son—Characteristic Behaviour—The Frenchman—Prison Allowance—Valley of
the Shadow—Pure Castilian—Balseiro—The Cave—Robber Glory.
Ofalia quickly perceived that the imprisonment of a British subject in a
manner so illegal as that which had attended my own, was likely to be
followed by rather serious consequences. Whether he himself had at all
encouraged the corregidor in his behaviour towards me, it is impossible
to say; the probability is that he had not: the latter, however, was an
officer of his own appointing, for whose actions himself and the
government were to a certain extent responsible. Sir George had already
made a very strong remonstrance upon the subject, and had even gone so
far as to state in an official note that he should desist from all
farther communication with the Spanish government until full and ample
reparation had been afforded me for the violence to which I had been
subjected. Ofalia’s reply was, that immediate measures should be taken
for my liberation, and that it would be my own fault if I remained in
prison. He forthwith ordered a juez de la primera instancia, a kind of
solicitor-general, to wait upon me, who was instructed to hear my account
of the affair, and then to dismiss me with an admonition to be cautious
for the future. My friends of the embassy, however, had advised me how
to act in such a case. Accordingly, when the juez on the second night of
my imprisonment made his appearance at the prison, and summoned me before
him, I went, but on his proceeding to question me, I absolutely refused
to answer. “I deny your right to put any questions to me,” said I; “I
entertain, however, no feelings of disrespect to the government or to
yourself, Caballero Juez; but I have been illegally imprisoned. So
accomplished a jurist as yourself cannot fail to be aware that, according
to the laws of Spain, I, as a foreigner, could not be committed to prison
for the offence with which I had been charged, without previously being
conducted before the captain-general of this royal city, whose duty it is
to protect foreigners, and see that the laws of hospitality are not
violated in their persons.”
_Juez_.—Come, come, Don Jorge, I see what you are aiming at; but listen
to reason: I will not now speak to you as a juez but as a friend who
wishes you well, and who entertains a profound reverence for the British
nation. This is a foolish affair altogether; I will not deny that the
political chief acted somewhat hastily on the information of a person not
perhaps altogether worthy of credit. No great damage, however, has been
done to you, and to a man of the world like yourself, a little adventure
of this kind is rather calculated to afford amusement than anything else.
Now be advised, forget what has happened; you know that it is the part
and duty of a Christian to forgive; so, Don Jorge, I advise you to leave
this place forthwith. I dare say you are getting tired of it. You are
this moment free to depart; repair at once to your lodgings, where, I
promise you, that no one shall be permitted to interrupt you for the
future. It is getting late, and the prison doors will speedily be closed
for the night. _Vamos_, _Don Jorge_, _a la casa_, _a la posada_!
_Myself_.—“But Paul said unto them, they have beaten us openly
uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they
thrust us out privily? Nay, verily: but let them come themselves and
fetch us out.”
I then bowed to the juez, who shrugged his shoulders and took snuff. On
leaving the apartment I turned to the alcayde, who stood at the door:
“Take notice,” said I, “that I will not quit this prison till I have
received full satisfaction for being sent hither uncondemned. You may
expel me if you please, but any attempt to do so shall be resisted with
all the bodily strength of which I am possessed.”
“Your worship is right,” said the alcayde with a bow, but in a low voice.
Sir George, on hearing of this affair, sent me a letter in which he
highly commended my resolution not to leave the prison for the present,
at the same time begging me to let him know if there were anything that
he could send me from the embassy to render my situation more tolerable.
I will now leave for the present my own immediate affairs, and proceed to
give some account of the prison of Madrid and its inmates.
The Carcel de la Corte, where I now was, though the principal prison of
Madrid, is one which certainly in no respect does credit to the capital
of Spain. Whether it was originally intended for the purpose to which it
is at present applied, I have no opportunity of knowing. The chances,
however, are, that it was not; indeed it was not till of late years that
the practice of building edifices expressly intended and suited for the
incarceration of culprits came at all into vogue. Castles, convents, and
deserted palaces, have in all countries, at different times, been
converted into prisons, which practice still holds good upon the greater
part of the continent, and more particularly in Spain and Italy, which
accounts, to a certain extent, for the insecurity of the prisons, and the
misery, want of cleanliness, and unhealthiness which in general pervade
them.
I shall not attempt to enter into a particular description of the prison
of Madrid, indeed it would be quite impossible to describe so irregular
and rambling an edifice. Its principal features consisted of two courts,
the one behind the other, intended for the great body of the prisoners to
take air and recreation in. Three large vaulted dungeons or calabozos
occupied three sides of this court, immediately below the corridors of
which I have already spoken. These dungeons were roomy enough to contain
respectively from one hundred to one hundred and fifty prisoners, who
were at night secured therein with lock and bar, but during the day were
permitted to roam about the courts as they thought fit. The second court
was considerably larger than the first, though it contained but two
dungeons, horribly filthy and disgusting places; this second court being
used for the reception of the lower grades of thieves. Of the two
dungeons one was, if possible, yet more horrible than the other; it was
called the gallineria, or chicken coop, and within it every night were
pent up the young fry of the prison, wretched boys from seven to fifteen
years of age, the greater part almost in a state of nudity. The common
bed of all the inmates of these dungeons was the ground, between which
and their bodies nothing intervened, save occasionally a manta or
horse-cloth, or perhaps a small mattress; this latter luxury was,
however, of exceedingly rare occurrence.
Besides the calabozos connected with the courts, were other dungeons in
various parts of the prison; some of them quite dark, intended for the
reception of those whom it might be deemed expedient to treat with
peculiar severity. There was likewise a ward set apart for females.
Connected with the principal corridor were many small apartments, where
resided prisoners confined for debt or for political offences. And,
lastly, there was a small capilla or chapel, in which prisoners cast for
death passed the last three days of their existence in company of their
ghostly advisers.
I shall not soon forget my first Sunday in prison. Sunday is the gala
day of the prison, at least of that of Madrid, and whatever robber finery
is to be found within it, is sure to be exhibited on that day of
holiness. There is not a set of people in the world more vain than
robbers in general, more fond of cutting a figure whenever they have an
opportunity, and of attracting the eyes of their fellow creatures by the
gallantry of their appearance. The famous Sheppard of olden times
delighted in sporting a suit of Genoese velvet, and when he appeared in
public generally wore a silver-hilted sword at his side; whilst Vaux and
Hayward, heroes of a later day, were the best dressed men on the pavé of
London. Many of the Italian bandits go splendidly decorated, and the
very Gypsy robber has a feeling for the charms of dress; the cap alone of
the Haram Pasha, or leader of the cannibal Gypsy band which infested
Hungary towards the conclusion of the last century, was adorned with gold
and jewels to the value of four thousand guilders. Observe, ye vain and
frivolous, how vanity and crime harmonize. The Spanish robbers are as
fond of this species of display as their brethren of other lands, and,
whether in prison or out of it, are never so happy as when, decked out in
a profusion of white linen, they can loll in the sun, or walk jauntily up
and down.
Snow-white linen, indeed, constitutes the principal feature in the robber
foppery of Spain. Neither coat nor jacket is worn over the shirt, the
sleeves of which are wide and flowing, only a waistcoat of green or blue
silk, with an abundance of silver buttons, which are intended more for
show than use, as the vest is seldom buttoned. Then there are wide
trousers, something after the Turkish fashion; around the waist is a
crimson faja or girdle, and about the head is tied a gaudily coloured
handkerchief from the loom of Barcelona; light pumps and silk stockings
complete the robber’s array. This dress is picturesque enough, and well
adapted to the fine sunshiny weather of the Peninsula; there is a dash of
effeminacy about it, however, hardly in keeping with the robber’s
desperate trade. It must not, however, be supposed that it is every
robber who can indulge in all this luxury; there are various grades of
thieves, some poor enough, with scarcely a rag to cover them. Perhaps in
the crowded prison of Madrid, there were not more than twenty who
exhibited the dress which I have attempted to describe above; these were
_jente de reputacion_, tip-top thieves, mostly young fellows, who, though
they had no money of their own, were supported in prison by their majas
and amigas, females of a certain class, who form friendships with
robbers, and whose glory and delight it is to administer to the vanity of
these fellows with the wages of their own shame and abasement. These
females supplied their cortejos with the snowy linen, washed, perhaps, by
their own hands in the waters of the Manzanares, for the display of the
Sunday, when they would themselves make their appearance dressed à la
maja, and from the corridors would gaze with admiring eyes upon the
robbers vapouring about in the court below.
Amongst those of the snowy linen who most particularly attracted my
attention, were a father and son; the former was a tall athletic figure
of about thirty, by profession a housebreaker, and celebrated throughout
Madrid for the peculiar dexterity which he exhibited in his calling. He
was now in prison for a rather atrocious murder committed in the dead of
night, in a house at Caramanchel, in which his only accomplice was his
son, a child under seven years of age. “The apple,” as the Danes say,
“had not fallen far from the tree”; the imp was in every respect the
counterpart of the father, though in miniature. He, too, wore the robber
shirt sleeves, the robber waistcoat with the silver buttons, the robber
kerchief round his brow, and, ridiculous enough, a long Manchegan knife
in the crimson faja. He was evidently the pride of the ruffian father,
who took all imaginable care of this chick of the gallows, would dandle
him on his knee, and would occasionally take the cigar from his own
moustached lips and insert it in the urchin’s mouth. The boy was the pet
of the court, for the father was one of the valientes of the prison, and
those who feared his prowess, and wished to pay their court to him, were
always fondling the child. What an enigma is this world of ours! How
dark and mysterious are the sources of what is called crime and virtue!
If that infant wretch become eventually a murderer like his father, is he
to blame? Fondled by robbers, already dressed as a robber, born of a
robber, whose own history was perhaps similar. Is it right? . . .
O, man, man, seek not to dive into the mystery of moral good and evil;
confess thyself a worm, cast thyself on the earth, and murmur with thy
lips in the dust, Jesus, Jesus!
What most surprised me with respect to the prisoners, was their good
behaviour; I call it good when all things are taken into consideration,
and when I compare it with that of the general class of prisoners in
foreign lands. They had their occasional bursts of wild gaiety, their
occasional quarrels, which they were in the habit of settling in a corner
of the inferior court with their long knives; the result not unfrequently
being death, or a dreadful gash in the face or the abdomen; but, upon the
whole, their conduct was infinitely superior to what might have been
expected from the inmates of such a place. Yet this was not the result
of coercion, or any particular care which was exercised over them; for
perhaps in no part of the world are prisoners so left to themselves and
so utterly neglected as in Spain: the authorities having no farther
anxiety about them, than to prevent their escape; not the slightest
attention being paid to their moral conduct and not a thought bestowed
upon their health, comfort or mental improvement, whilst within the
walls. Yet in this prison of Madrid, and I may say in Spanish prisons in
general, for I have been an inmate of more than one, the ears of the
visitor are never shocked with horrid blasphemy and obscenity, as in
those of some other countries, and more particularly in civilized France;
nor are his eyes outraged and himself insulted, as he would assuredly be,
were he to look down upon the courts from the galleries of the Bicetre.
And yet in this prison of Madrid were some of the most desperate
characters in Spain: ruffians who had committed acts of cruelly and
atrocity sufficient to make the flesh shudder. But gravity and
sedateness are the leading characteristics of the Spaniards, and the very
robber, except in those moments when he is engaged in his occupation, and
then no one is more sanguinary, pitiless, and wolfishly eager for booty,
is a being who can be courteous and affable, and who takes pleasure in
conducting himself with sobriety and decorum.
Happily, perhaps, for me, that my acquaintance with the ruffians of Spain
commenced and ended in the towns about which I wandered, and in the
prisons into which I was cast for the Gospel’s sake, and that,
notwithstanding my long and frequent journeys, I never came in contact
with them on the road or in the despoblado.
The most ill-conditioned being in the prison was a Frenchman, though
probably the most remarkable. He was about sixty years of age, of the
middle stature, but thin and meagre, like most of his countrymen; he had
a villainously-formed head, according to all the rules of craniology, and
his features were full of evil expression. He wore no hat, and his
clothes, though in appearance nearly new, were of the coarsest
description. He generally kept aloof from the rest, and would stand for
hours together leaning against the walls with his arms folded, glaring
sullenly on what was passing before him. He was not one of the professed
valientes, for his age prevented his assuming so distinguished a
character, and yet all the rest appeared to hold him in a certain awe:
perhaps they feared his tongue, which he occasionally exerted in pouring
forth withering curses on those who incurred his displeasure. He spoke
perfectly good Spanish, and to my great surprise excellent Basque, in
which he was in the habit of conversing with Francisco, who, lolling from
the window of my apartment, would exchange jests and witticisms with the
prisoners in the court below, with whom he was a great favourite.
One day when I was in the patio, to which I had free admission whenever I
pleased, by permission of the alcayde, I went up to the Frenchman, who
stood in his usual posture, leaning against the wall, and offered him a
cigar. I do not smoke myself, but it will never do to mix among the
lower classes of Spain unless you have a cigar to present occasionally.
The man glared at me ferociously for a moment, and appeared to be on the
point of refusing my offer with perhaps a hideous execration. I repeated
it, however, pressing my hand against my heart, whereupon suddenly the
grim features relaxed, and with a genuine French grimace, and a low bow,
he accepted the cigar, exclaiming, “_Ah_, _Monsieur_, _pardon_, _mais
c’est faire trop d’honneur a un pauvre diable comme moi_.”
“Not at all,” said I, “we are both fellow prisoners in a foreign land,
and being so we ought to countenance each other. I hope that whenever I
have need of your co-operation in this prison you will afford it me.”
“Ah, Monsieur,” exclaimed the Frenchman in rapture, “_vous avez bien
raison_; _il faut que les étrangers se donnent la main dans ce . . . pays
de barbares_. _Tenez_,” he added, in a whisper, “if you have any plan
for escaping, and require my assistance, I have an arm and a knife at
your service: you may trust me, and that is more than you could any of
these _sacres gens ici_,” glancing fiercely round at his fellow
prisoners.
“You appear to be no friend to Spain and the Spaniards,” said I. “I
conclude that you have experienced injustice at their hands. For what
have they immured you in this place?”
“_Pour rien du tout_, _c’est a dire pour une bagatelle_; but what can you
expect from such animals? For what are you imprisoned? Did I not hear
say for Gypsyism and sorcery?”
“Perhaps you are here for your opinions?”
“_Ah_, _mon Dieu_, _non_; _je ne suis pas homme a semblable betise_. I
have no opinions. _Je faisois . . . mais ce n’importe_; _je me trouve
ici_, _ou je creve de faim_.”
“I am sorry to see a brave man in such a distressed condition,” said I;
“have you nothing to subsist upon beyond the prison allowance? Have you
no friends?”
“Friends in this country, you mock me; here one has no friends, unless
one buy them. I am bursting with hunger; since I have been here I have
sold the clothes off my back, that I might eat, for the prison allowance
will not support nature, and of half of that we are robbed by the Batu,
as they call the barbarian of a governor. _Les haillons_ which now cover
me were given by two or three devotees who sometimes visit here. I would
sell them if they would fetch aught. I have not a sou, and for want of a
few crowns I shall be garroted within a month unless I can escape,
though, as I told you before, I have done nothing, a mere bagatelle; but
the worst crimes in Spain are poverty and misery.”
“I have heard you speak Basque, are you from French Biscay?”
“I am from Bordeaux, Monsieur; but I have lived much on the Landes and in
Biscay, _travaillant a mon metier_. I see by your look that you wish to
know my history. I shall not tell it you. It contains nothing that is
remarkable. See, I have smoked out your cigar; you may give me another,
and add a dollar if you please, _nous sommes creves ici de faim_. I
would not say as much to a Spaniard, but I have a respect for your
countrymen; I know much of them; I have met them at Maida and the other
place.” {359}
“Nothing remarkable in his history!” Why, or I greatly err, one chapter
of his life, had it been written, would have unfolded more of the wild
and wonderful than fifty volumes of what are in general called adventures
and hairbreadth escapes by land and sea. A soldier! what a tale could
that man have told of marches and retreats, of battles lost and won,
towns sacked, convents plundered; perhaps he had seen the flames of
Moscow ascending to the clouds, and had “tried his strength with nature
in the wintry desert,” pelted by the snow-storm, and bitten by the
tremendous cold of Russia: and what could he mean by plying his trade in
Biscay and the Landes, but that he had been a robber in those wild
regions, of which the latter is more infamous for brigandage and crime
than any other part of the French territory. Nothing remarkable in his
history! then what history in the world contains aught that is
remarkable?
I gave him the cigar and dollar: he received them, and then once more
folding his arms, leaned back against the wall and appeared to sink
gradually into one of his reveries. I looked him in the face and spoke
to him, but he did not seem either to hear or see me. His mind was
perhaps wandering in that dreadful valley of the shadow, into which the
children of earth, whilst living, occasionally find their way; that
dreadful region where there is no water, where hope dwelleth not, where
nothing lives but the undying worm. This valley is the facsimile of
hell, and he who has entered it, has experienced here on earth for a time
what the spirits of the condemned are doomed to suffer through ages
without end.
He was executed about a month from this time. The bagatelle for which he
was confined was robbery and murder by the following strange device. In
concert with two others, he hired a large house in an unfrequented part
of the town, to which place he would order tradesmen to convey valuable
articles, which were to be paid for on delivery; those who attended paid
for their credulity with the loss of their lives and property. Two or
three had fallen into the snare. I wished much to have had some private
conversation with this desperate man, and in consequence begged of the
alcayde to allow him to dine with me in my own apartment; whereupon
Monsieur Basompierre, for so I will take the liberty of calling the
governor, his real name having escaped my memory, took off his hat, and,
with his usual smile and bow, replied in purest Castilian, “English
Cavalier, and I hope I may add friend, pardon me, that it is quite out of
my power to gratify your request, founded, I have no doubt, on the most
admirable sentiments of philosophy. Any of the other gentlemen beneath
my care shall, at any time you desire it, be permitted to wait upon you
in your apartment. I will even go so far as to cause their irons, if
irons they wear, to be knocked off in order that they may partake of your
refection with that comfort which is seemly and convenient: but to the
gentleman in question I must object; he is the most evil disposed of the
whole of this family, and would most assuredly breed a funcion either in
your apartment or in the corridor, by an attempt to escape. Cavalier,
_me pesa_, but I cannot accede to your request. But with respect to any
other gentleman, I shall be most happy, even Balseiro, who, though
strange things are told of him, still knows how to comport himself, and
in whose behaviour there is something both of formality and politeness,
shall this day share your hospitality if you desire it, Cavalier.”
Of Balseiro I have already had occasion to speak in the former part of
this narrative. He was now confined in an upper story of the prison, in
a strong room, with several other malefactors. He had been found guilty
of aiding and assisting one Pepe Candelas, a thief of no inconsiderable
renown, in a desperate robbery perpetrated in open daylight upon no less
a personage than the queen’s milliner, a Frenchwoman, whom they bound in
her own shop, from which they took goods and money to the amount of five
or six thousand dollars. Candelas had already expiated his crime on the
scaffold, but Balseiro, who was said to be by far the worst ruffian of
the two, had by dint of money, an ally which his comrade did not possess,
contrived to save his own life; the punishment of death, to which he was
originally sentenced, having been commuted to twenty years’ hard labour
in the presidio of Malaga. I visited this worthy and conversed with him
for some time through the wicket of the dungeon. He recognized me, and
reminded me of the victory which I had once obtained over him, in the
trial of our respective skill in the crabbed Gitano, at which Sevilla the
bull-fighter was umpire.
Upon my telling him that I was sorry to see him in such a situation, he
replied that it was an affair of no manner of consequence, as within six
weeks he should be conducted to the presidio, from which, with the
assistance of a few ounces distributed among the guards, he could at any
time escape. “But whither would you flee?” I demanded. “Can I not flee
to the land of the Moors,” replied Balseiro, “or to the English in the
camp of Gibraltar; or, if I prefer it, cannot I return to this foro
(_city_), and live as I have hitherto done, choring the gachos (_robbing
the natives_); what is to hinder me? Madrid is large, and Balseiro has
plenty of friends, especially among the lumias (_women_),” he added with
a smile. I spoke to him of his ill-fated accomplice Candelas; whereupon
his face assumed a horrible expression. “I hope he is in torment,”
exclaimed the robber. The friendship of the unrighteous is never of long
duration; the two worthies had it seems quarrelled in prison; Candelas
having accused the other of bad faith and an undue appropriation to his
own use of the _corpus delicti_ in various robberies which they had
committed in company.
I cannot refrain from relating the subsequent history of this Balseiro.
Shortly after my own liberation, too impatient to wait until the presidio
should afford him a chance of regaining his liberty, he in company with
some other convicts broke through the roof of the prison and escaped. He
instantly resumed his former habits, committing several daring robberies,
both within and without the walls of Madrid. I now come to his last, I
may call it his master crime, a singular piece of atrocious villainy.
Dissatisfied with the proceeds of street robbery and house-breaking, he
determined upon a bold stroke, by which he hoped to acquire money
sufficient to support him in some foreign land in luxury and splendour.
There was a certain comptroller of the queen’s household, by name
Gabiria, a Basque by birth, and a man of immense possessions: this
individual had two sons, handsome boys, between twelve and fourteen years
of age, whom I had frequently seen, and indeed conversed with, in my
walks on the bank of the Manzanares, which was their favourite promenade.
These children, at the time of which I am speaking, were receiving their
education at a certain seminary in Madrid. Balseiro, being well
acquainted with the father’s affection for his children, determined to
make it subservient to his own rapacity. He formed a plan which was
neither more nor less than to steal the children, and not to restore them
to their parent until he had received an enormous ransom. This plan was
partly carried into execution: two associates of Balseiro well dressed
drove up to the door of the seminary, where the children were, and, by
means of a forged letter, purporting to be written by the father, induced
the schoolmaster to permit the boys to accompany them for a country
jaunt, as they pretended. About five leagues from Madrid, Balseiro had a
cave in a wild unfrequented spot between the Escurial and a village
called Torre Lodones: to this cave the children were conducted, where
they remained in durance under the custody of the two accomplices;
Balseiro in the meantime remaining in Madrid for the purpose of
conducting negotiations with the father. The father, however, was a man
of considerable energy, and instead of acceding to the terms of the
ruffian, communicated in a letter, instantly took the most vigorous
measures for the recovery of his children. Horse and foot were sent out
to scour the country, and in less than a week the children were found
near the cave, having been abandoned by their keepers, who had taken
fright on hearing of the decided measures which had been resorted to;
they were, however, speedily arrested and identified by the boys as their
ravishers. Balseiro perceiving that Madrid was becoming too hot to hold
him, attempted to escape, but whether to the camp of Gibraltar or to the
land of the Moor, I know not; he was recognized, however, at a village in
the neighbourhood of Madrid, and being apprehended, was forthwith
conducted to the capital, where he shortly after terminated his existence
on the scaffold, with his two associates; Gabiria and his children being
present at the ghastly scene, which they surveyed from a chariot at their
ease.
Such was the end of Balseiro, of whom I should certainly not have said so
much, but for the affair of the crabbed Gitano. Poor wretch! he acquired
that species of immortality which is the object of the aspirations of
many a Spanish thief, whilst vapouring about in the patio, dressed in the
snowy linen; the rape of the children of Gabiria made him at once the pet
of the fraternity. A celebrated robber, with whom I was subsequently
imprisoned at Seville, spoke his eulogy in the following manner.—
“Balseiro was a very good subject, and an honest man. He was the head of
our family, Don Jorge; we shall never see his like again; pity that he
did not sack the parné (_money_), and escape to the camp of the Moor, Don
Jorge.”