ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE OF QUEEN ISABELLA--THE OVERTHROW OF THE
QUEEN-MOTHER, MARIA CRISTINA
1850-1854
There was much variety of feeling when it was known that an heir to
the throne was expected. On the day of the birth, July 12, 1850, the
clerics, Ministers, diplomats, officers, and other important personages
of the realm, assembled at the palace to pay their respects to the
expected infant. But the bells and cannon had hardly announced to the
nation the birth of the girl-child when it expired. So the dead form
of the infant, which had only drawn breath in this world for five
minutes, was brought into the assembly of dignitaries, and after this
sad display the gathering dispersed in silence. The kind-heartedness of
the Queen was shown in her thoughtful generosity to the nurses who were
disappointed of their charge.
“Poor nurses, they must have felt it very much!” she exclaimed. “But
tell them not to mind, for they shall be paid the same as if they had
had my child.”
In February, 1852, an heir to the throne was once more expected, and
the birth of the Infanta Isabella was celebrated by the usual solemn
presentation. When the King showed the infant to his Ministers, he said
to the Generals Castaños and Castroterreño:
“You have served four Kings, and now you have a Princess who may one
day be your Sovereign.”
It was on February 2, 1852, that the dastardly attempt was made on the
life of the Queen, just before leaving the palace for the Church of
Atocha, where the royal infant was to be baptized. The Court procession
was passing along the quadrangular gallery, hung with the priceless
tapestries only displayed on important occasions, when Manuel Martin
Merino, a priest of a parish of Madrid, suddenly darted forward from
the spectators lining the way, with the halberdier guard. The petition
in the cleric’s hand and his garb of a cleric led to his step forward
being unmolested, and the Queen turned to him, prepared to take the
paper. But the next moment the other hand of the assassin appeared from
under his cloak with a dagger, which he swiftly aimed at the royal
mother. Fortunately, the Queen’s corset turned aside the murderous
weapon, and, although blood spurted from her bodice, the wound was not
very deep; but she was at once put to bed and placed under the care of
the royal physicians.
The royal infant was promptly seized from the arms of its mother at
the moment of the attack, by an officer of the Royal Guard, and for
this presence of mind the soldier was afterwards given the title of the
Marquis of Amparo.
With regard to the assailant, the Queen said to her Ministers: “You
have often vexed me by turning a deaf ear to my pleas of mercy for
criminals, but I wish this man to be punished immediately.” And, with
the outraged feeling of the object of such a dastardly deed, Isabella
turned to the would-be murderer, and said: “What have I ever done to
offend you, that you should have attacked me thus?”
During the trial in the succeeding days the Queen softened to the
criminal, and said to her advisers: “No, no! don’t kill him for what he
did to me!”
However, justice delivered the man to the hangman five days after his
deed.
The efforts to discover Merino’s accomplices were fruitless, and it was
thought that the deed had been prompted more by the demagogue party
than by the Carlists.
The cool, cynical manner of the cleric never left him even at the
moment of his execution.
When the priest’s hair was cut for the last time, he said to the
barber: “Don’t cut much, or I shall catch cold.”
The doomed man’s request to say a few words from the scaffold was
refused. When asked what he had wished to say, he replied: “Nothing
much. I pity you all for having to stay in this world of corruption and
misery.”
The ovation which the Queen had when she finally went to the Church of
Atocha to present the infant surpasses description. Flowers strewed the
way, and tears of joy showed the sympathy of the people with the Queen
in her capacity as mother, and at her escape from the attempt on her
life.
From 1852 to 1854 Isabella failed to please her subjects, and the
outburst of loyalty which had followed the attempt on her life
gradually waned. Curiously indifferent to what was for her personal
interest, as well as for the welfare of the country, Isabella turned
a deaf ear to the advice of her Ministers to dissolve a Cabinet which
was under the leadership of the Count of San Luis, who was known
to be the tool of Queen Maria Cristina, now so much hated by the
Spaniards. Miraflores wrote a letter to Isabella, advising the return
of Espartero, the Count of Valencia, but the letter never reached its
destination.
Remonstrances which had been made upon the Government were now directed
straight to the Throne.
“You see,” said her advisers, “how the persons whom you have
overwhelmed with honours and favours speak against you!”
The Generals O’Donnell and Dulce finally took an active part against
the Ministry, supported by the Queen-mother and Rianzares.
The Count of San Luis was a man of fine bearing and charming manners.
He had been conspicuous in his early days for his banquets and
gallantries, but he had also been known for many a generous deed to his
friends; and it was noticeable that when the tide of favour left him he
was deserted by all those to whom he had been of service.
The birth of another royal infant in 1854 excited little or no
interest in the capital, where discontent with the reigning powers was
so evident. General Dulce was accused in the presence of the Queen
and San Luis of having conspired against the Throne. This the officer
indignantly denied on the spot, declaring that never could he have
believed in the perfidy which had prompted the report.
At last the storm of revolution broke over Madrid, and the parties of
the Generals O’Donnell and Dulce came into collision with those of
the Government. Insulting cries against the Queen-mother filled the
streets, and during the three days’ uproar the house of Maria Cristina,
in the Calle de las Rejas, was sacked, as well as those of her
partisans. The furniture was burned in the street, and Maria Cristina
took refuge in the royal palace.
After the Pronunciamento of Vicalvaro and O’Donnell to the troops, it
was evident that the soldiers of the Escorial would also revolt against
the Government.
It was then that Isabella was filled with the noble impulse to go
alone to the barracks of the mutinous regiments and reason personally
with them. With her face aglow with confidence in her soldiers and in
herself, she said: “I am sure that the generals will come back with me
then to Madrid, and the soldiers will return to their barracks shouting
‘Vivas’ for their Queen.”
But this step, which would have appealed with irresistible force to
the subjects, was opposed by the Ministers, who objected to a course
which would have robbed them of their portfolios by the Sovereign
coming to an understanding with those who were opposed to their
opinions.
[Illustration: THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF ISABELLA II. DECLARES WAR
AGAINST MOROCCO
From a Painting by R. Benjumea]
At this time Isabella received from the Infanta Josefa, daughter of
the Infanta Louisa Carlota and Francisco de Paula, a letter which
showed that the Princess had inherited her mother’s hatred of the
Queen-mother, Maria Cristina; for she wrote:
“Your Majesty should distrust the artificial and partial counsels of
the Queen-mother. This lady, to whom you owe your birth, is sacrificing
you to her insatiable greed of gold. Beyond your life you do not owe
anything to Maria Cristina. She has done nothing for Spain that you
should give her submission and obedience in your conduct as Queen.
Hardly had Your Majesty’s father gone down to his grave than his widow
gave you the pernicious example of an impure love, which began in a
scandal, and ended, ten years later, in a morganatic marriage, to the
incalculable harm of the country.
“Maria Cristina is lax in the principles of morality, which ought to
be the foundation of the education of Princes, and she knew not how to
inculcate them in the mind of Your Majesty. Whilst you were a child,
she did nothing but accumulate money and arrange for her future booty.
“The disinterestedness and the generous sentiments which enrich Your
Majesty’s heart, and the high tendencies which have shone in your
mind, and which have only been suffocated by the pettiness of your
entourage, are exclusively a gift from Heaven, and under favourable
circumstances they would have developed into great and glorious deeds.
When the time arrived for the marriage of Your Majesty--an event of
such import to your destiny--Your Majesty knows that the Queen-mother
only used her influence to make you marry a man whose sole merit lay in
his power of ministering to her omnivorous nature. Never did a mother
behave in such a self-interested way in what concerned her daughter’s
domestic happiness! And now she continues the soul of the Government,
counselling Your Majesty for her own ends, and with utter disregard of
the wishes of the people.”
This letter, which gives an idea of the dissensions of the Royal
Family, and the expression of feeling against Maria Cristina, was
shared by the people. Indeed, the hatred of the Queen-mother was
publicly shown after she took refuge in the royal palace. The Plaza de
los Ministros resounded with the cries from the townsfolk of “Death to
Cristina!” A storm of stones broke all the windows of the palace. The
soldiers fired on the people. The palace gate of El Principe had to be
guarded by two cannon commanding the Plaza de Oriente. Twelve guns were
stationed in the great courtyard called the Plaza de las Armas, and all
the cavalry at Madrid was summoned to the defence of the royal abode;
and during the siege there was serious anxiety that the provisions
would not last long.
Queen Isabella sought to encourage and support her mother, but she saw
that the stream of public hatred was now too strong to be stemmed.
The arrival of Espartero in Madrid, on July 29, raised the siege of
the palace, and the people, delighted at the sight of their favourite
leader, gave a loyal ovation to Queen Isabella when she appeared at a
window of the palace.
The days from July 17 to August 28 were fraught with anxiety for the
Queen of Spain. The cries for the dismissal of the Queen-mother, and
for her trial for the appropriation of State moneys, could no longer be
silenced, and the day came when the royal lady found that her personal
safety demanded her departure from the country. So, accompanied by a
mounted escort, Maria Cristina submitted to the decision of Espartero,
as the mouthpiece of the people, and she finally bade farewell to her
weeping daughter at the palace door, and left the country, never more
to return.
Espartero made a crusade against the undue priestly influence at Court.
The weak-minded King was quite under the power of “the bleeding nun,”
as Patrocinio was called, and his constant visits to her apartments
in the palace were said to have been in search of spiritual counsel,
with which she was supposed to be miraculously endowed by reason of the
wounds in her forehead and hands, which refused to be healed, as they
were said to be illustrative of those of the Saviour. The Queen and all
the Royal Family became hysterically hypnotized by this phenomenon.
But Espartero soon put an end to the matter by having the lady put
under the authoritative care of a doctor, who had her hands tied so
as to prevent her irritating the wounds; and thus in a short time the
supposed miracle was over, and the power of the religieuse and her
brother, the Archbishop Claret, was at an end.
Espartero had O’Donnell as his Minister of War. Dissensions broke
out again in the Cabinet, and O’Donnell reaped the success of his
_camarilla_ influence at the midnight Council meeting held before the
Queen in July, 1856. For when Espartero found that his measures for the
new Constitution were rejected, he offered his resignation; and then,
to his surprise, the Queen, by a prearranged concert, turned to his
colleague with her sweetest smile, saying, “I am sure you won’t abandon
me, will you?” and he was sworn in as Prime Minister the following day.
But O’Donnell had a powerful rival for favour at the palace in the
person of Narvaez, a General of some fame, whose alert, dapper little
figure, said to have been improved by corsets, made him popular at
Court as a dancer.
This officer was extremely arrogant, and noting that the grandees, by
right of their special prerogative, stood covered in the royal presence
during the ceremony of the King washing the feet of the poor, and
feeding them in the historical Hall of Columns, he promptly put his own
cocked hat on his head, and bade his officers do the same.
O’Donnell, who was of a heavier, clumsier build than his rival,
suffered much at the sight of the success of Narvaez in the arts of
society. One day at a state ball at the palace the two Generals stood
in readiness to conduct the Queen through the mazes of the _rigodon_.
As Prime Minister, O’Donnell considered that the distinction of taking
Isabella’s hand for the figures was his by right, but Isabella could
not resist the temptation of having for a partner a man distinguished
as a follower of Terpsichore, and she therefore singled out Narvaez as
her partner.
In a fury at what he considered a public slight, O’Donnell gave in
his resignation the next day as President of the Council, and General
Narvaez was chosen to fill the vacant place.
It was well known at Court that the British Ambassador, Bulwer Lytton,
was working against the Court of Spain in England, and consequently
he was an object of great aversion to the military leader of the
Government.
Irritated at the Englishman’s assumption of authority, Narvaez said
one day to Bulwer Lytton that Spain did not interfere with the affairs
of Queen Victoria like England did with those of Isabella II. To this
remark the British diplomat returned that Victoria did not owe her
throne to foreign intervention, as Isabella did.
One day Narvaez was in his bureau in a great state of irritation
about some action of the British Ambassador, when Bulwer Lytton was
announced. He drew a chair close to Narvaez, and, although the Spaniard
pushed his back, drew his seat still closer. Upon this Narvaez jumped
up in his excitable manner, and then, wishing to seat himself again,
he missed the place and found himself lower than he wished.
Upon this the Ambassador made some remark which added fuel to the fire
of the General’s wrath, and, advancing to the Englishman, he made him
rise from his seat, took him by the neck, and kicked him so that he
nearly fell to the ground. The Ambassador took his papers for England
that day, and this incident doubtless added to the bitterness with
which Bulwer reported on the affairs of Spain.
The incident just related, of this last interview of Sir Bulwer Lytton
with the Spanish Premier, was evidently never reported in all its
bearings, but enough was known for it to be seen that the Ambassador
was apt to embroil matters. For in “The Letters of Queen Victoria,”
vol. ii., p. 207, Her Majesty writes:
“_May 23, 1848._
“The sending away of Sir H. Bulwer[17] is a serious affair, which will
add to our many embarrassments. The Queen, however, is not surprised at
it, from the tenor of the last accounts of Madrid, and from the fact
that Sir H. Bulwer has, for the last three years, been sporting with
political intrigues. He invariably boasted of being in the confidence
of every conspiracy, though he was taking care not to be personally
mixed up in them; and, after their various failures, generally
harboured the chief actors in his house under the plea of humanity. At
every crisis he gave us to understand that he had to choose between a
revolution and a palace intrigue, and not long ago he wrote to Lord
Palmerston that if the Monarchy with the Montpensier succession was
inconvenient to us, he could get up a Republic.”
[17] “Lord Palmerston had written a letter to Bulwer (which the latter
showed to the Spanish Premier) lecturing the Spanish Queen on her
choice of a Minister. This assumption of superiority, as Sir Robert
Peel calls it, led to a peremptory order to leave Spain in twenty-four
hours.--EDITOR.”
But Isabella’s realm was still torn by insurrections. In January, 1860,
the Prefect of the Police reported that a rebellion was being prepared
in Spain against the throne by the Carlist party, under Don Carlos
Luis de Bourbon y de Braganza, Count of Montemolin. When justice was
prepared to take its course against the insurrectionists, Don Carlos
wrote to Isabella, saying:
“I am certain that your compassionate heart, which has always shown
pity for the unfortunate, will not fail to have mercy on your cousins,
and not deny the pardon that we crave.”
This mercy was also eloquently pleaded for by the unhappy mother of the
delinquents. So, obedient to the impulse of her kind heart, Isabella
said to the weeping parent: “Be at rest; your son shall not die.”
However, the Carlist family soon forgot the clemency of the Queen, and
the letter of Juan de Bourbon, son of Don Carlos, Ferdinand’s brother,
showed that the spirit of animosity burnt as powerfully as ever in the
breast of the claimant to the throne.
“Twenty-seven years you have reigned,” ran the Prince’s letter to
his royal cousin, “and you must confess that the hand of God has not
helped you. I know the country; I know equally well that your heart
is good, and that you do good when you can, and you regret the evils
which afflict Spain. But you try in vain. You cannot fight against
Providence, which never wills that evil should prosper. Be assured,
dear cousin, that God did not choose you to make the happiness of
Spain, and that Divine Providence has denied you the lot of being a
great Queen. Descend, Isabella--descend from the throne! Show yourself
great in this matter, and take the place to which you have a claim in
my family as my dear cousin, and as having occupied the throne for so
many years, and do not expose yourself to final disaster and bring ruin
on the family.”