Don Nicolás Estévanez was a good friend of mine. During my sojourns in
Paris, I met him every afternoon in the Café de la Fleur in the
Boulevard St. Germain.
When I was writing _The Last of the Romantics_ and _Grotesque
Tragedies_, Estévanez furnished me with data and information
concerning life in Paris under the Second Empire.
When I last saw him in the autumn of 1913, he made a practice of coming
to the café with a paper scribbled over with notes, to assist his memory
to recall the anecdotes which he had it in mind to tell.
I can see him now in the Café de la Fleur, with his blue eyes, his long
white beard, his cheeks, which were still rosy, his calm and always
phlegmatic air.
Once he became much excited. Javier Bueno and I happened on him in a
café on the Avenue d'Orleans, not far from the Lion de Belfort. Bueno
asked some questions about the recent attempt by Moral to assassinate
the King in Madrid, and Estévanez suddenly went to pieces. An anarchist
told me afterwards that Estévanez had carried the bomb which was thrown
by Morral in Madrid, from Paris to Barcelona, at which port he had taken
ship for Cuba, by arrangement with the Duke of Bivona.
I believe this story to have been a pure fabrication, but I feel
perfectly certain that Estévanez knew beforehand that the crime was to
be attempted.