Que no quiere ser francesa."
Just as in Andalusia the chief ejaculation is "_Ave María Purísima!_"
and in the mountains of the north, "_Nuestra Señora de Nieve!_" so in
Aragon, "_Virgen Mia del Pilar!_" springs to the lips in time of joy or
trouble. However, emotion cannot be summoned on command, and I left
Saragossa unmoved by her special shrine of devotion. Had it been in the
solemn old Cathedral, sympathy had come more readily. The _Seo_, like
most Spanish churches, is spoiled outside by restoration, but within it
is not unworthy of the coronations and councils held there. Ferdinand
_el Católico_ was baptized at its font; and near the altar is buried the
heart of Velasquez's handsome little Don Baltazar Carlos, who died of
the plague at seventeen. The church is high and square, like a hall; it
is rich in mediæval tombs, Moorish ceilings, pictures, and jewels. Some
truly glorious fourteenth century tapestries were still hanging in place
after the Easter festivals, on the day of our visit; and as a council
was to be held in the church on the following day, a row of gold busts
of saints, Gothic relic holders, stood on the altar. The sacristy was a
treasure house, from its floor of Valencian tiles to its vestments heavy
with real pearls. The enthusiasm of the priest who showed us the
Cathedral told of the personal pride most of his countrymen feel in the
house of God; again, as at Burgos, I felt that these people considered
their churches as much their abode as their own simple homes, that one
supplemented the other, and hence much of the contentment of their
frugal lives.[36]
We were stupid enough to go hunting for the leaning tower of Saragossa,
not knowing that it had come down in 1893, and the search led us through
the narrow streets of the older town, where the mansions of dull, small
bricks, as a rule, have been turned into stables and warehouses, like
the former palaces of Barcelona. Outside the city, flat on the plain,
stands what was once the Moorish, later the Christian, palace, the
Aljuferia, now serving as barracks, in which are embedded a few good
remains, such as a small mosque and a noble hall of Isabella's time,
with that suggestive date, 1492,--Granada and America.
On our first arrival at the hotel in Saragossa, they had informed us we
could stay but a few days, as the centenary celebration of May 2d, 1808,
was approaching, and every hotel room was engaged. The town so hum-drum
to-day has a stirring history to look back on. In modern times she has
stood a siege as heroic as any in the Netherlands, but Spain has lacked
a Motley to make her popular. I can only repeat, justice has never been
done to the outburst of patriotism which began in Madrid with the _Dos
de Mayo_, 1808. Murat's savage slaughter on that May day made the whole
of Spain rise in almost simultaneous defense, to the astonishment and
admiration of Europe. Saragossa chose for her leader against the invader
the young Count Palafox, assisted by the priest Santiago Sas, and by Tío
Jorge ("Uncle George") with two peasant lieutenants. The French closed
in round the city, but the victory of Bailén in the south raised this
first siege.
Then in December of 1808 four French marshals with twenty thousand men
again surrounded Saragossa, and it must not be overlooked that, built on
the plain, she had slight natural means of defense. "War to the knife"
was the historic answer of the town when called on to surrender, and the
bones of over forty thousand citizens at the end of the siege bore
testimony to the boast. To embarrass the enemy they cut down the olive
plantations around the city, thus destroying with unselfish courage the
revenue of a generation, for it takes some twenty years for the olive
tree to bear fruit. They sacrificed all personal rights to private
property by breaking down the partitions from house to house till every
block was turned into a well-defended fortress. Organized by the
intelligent Countess of Burita, the women enrolled themselves in
companies to serve in the hospitals and to carry food and ammunition to
the fighters; a girl of the people, Ajustina of Aragon, whom Byron
immortalized as the Maid of Saragossa, worked the gun of an
artillery-man through a fiery assault. Ajustina lived for fifty years
after her famous day, always showing the same vigorous equilibrium of
character; though Ferdinand VII rewarded her with the commission of an
officer, she seldom made use of the uniform of her rank nor let
adulation change the humble course of her life. The siege lasted up to
the end of February. In the beginning of that month the daily deaths
were five hundred, the living were not able to bury the dead, and a pest
soon bred; the atmosphere was such that the slightest wound gangrened.
Sir John Carr, who visited Spain the year of the siege, heard detailed
accounts from officers who had taken part in it: "The smoke of gunpowder
kept the city in twilight darkness, horribly illumined by the fire that
issued from the cannon of the enemy. In the intervals which succeeded
these discharges, women and children were beheld in the street writhing
in the agonies of death, yet scarcely a sigh or moan was heard. Priests
were seen, as they were rushing to meet the foe, to kneel by the side
of the dying, and dropping their sabers, to take the cross from their
bosoms and administer the consolations of their religion, during which
they exhibited the same calmness usually displayed in the chambers of
sickness." Even after the French had forced an entrance into the city,
there continued for weeks a room to room struggle: "Each house has to be
taken separately," Marshall Lannes wrote to Napoleon, "it is a war that
horrifies." "At length the city demolished, the inhabitants worn out by
disease, fighting and famine, the besieged were obliged with broken
hearts to surrender, February 21, 1809, after having covered themselves
with glory during one of the most memorable sieges in the annals of war,
which lasted sixty-three days." (_Travels in Spain_, Sir John Carr
K.C.). Truly can the _testarudo aragonés_ of Iberian blood boast of the
title of his capital, _siempre heróica_!
The Aragonese is manly, enduring, and stubborn; the special laws of this
independent province, the _Fueros_, are worth close study from those
interested in the gradual steps of man's self-government; under an
ostensible monarchy they gave republican institutions. This is an
address to the King: "We, who count for as much as you and have more
power than you, we elect you king in order that you may guard our
privileges and liberties; and not otherwise." Nice language for a
Hapsburg or a Bourbon to hear! Aragon was united early, by a royal
marriage, to Catalonia, and a few centuries later Ferdinand's union with
Isabella bound both provinces to Castile, Ferdinand also conquering
Navarre; it was under the first of the Bourbon kings, Philip V, that
Aragon lost her treasured _Fueros_.
We saw nothing of the neighboring Navarre, and I cannot say we saw much
of sturdy Aragon, since Saragossa was the only stopping-place, but a
long day on the train going south gave us a fair idea of its general
character. And constantly through the day rose the remembrance that it
was here in this kingdom happened the delightful Duchess adventure.
Never has the scene been equaled,--that witty, high-bred lady and
_hermano Sancho_ of the adorable platitudes and proverbs--("_Sesenta mil
satanases te lleven á ti y á tus refranes_"! even the patient Don
exclaimed)--brother Sancho quite unembarrassed--was he not a _cristiano
viejo_?--stooping to kiss her dainty hand.
The landscape of the province was rather desolate, though relieved from
monotony by the snow-covered wall of the Pyrenees that continued
unbroken in the distance to our left. The Spanish side of the great
range of mountains is abrupt in comparison with the French slopes, which
are gay with fashionable spas, and fertile with slow, winding rivers,
such as the Garonne. In Spain the rivers descend with such rapidity that
they pour away their life-giving waters in prodigal spring floods, and
during the rest of the year the land suffers from drought; there is a
saying here that it is easier to mix mortar with wine than with water.
It happened that on our train was a band of young soldiers returning to
their homes after their military service, as irrepressible as escaped
young colts. Such songs and merriment! Such family scenes at each
station! Mothers and little sisters, blushing cousins and neighbors had
flocked down from the villages on the Pyrenees slopes to welcome them. A
touch of nature makes the world akin; we found ourselves waving, too, as
the train drew away, leaving the returned lad in the midst of his
rejoicing family. At the fortress-crowned town of Monzón we saw the last
of our happy fellow travelers. There a young soldier led his comrades to
be presented to a majestic old man with a plaid shawl flung over his
shoulder like a toga, and the son's expression of pride in the noble
patriarch was a thing not soon forgotten. In Spain few journeys lack a
primary human interest, something to give food to heart or soul.
MINOR CITIES OF CATALONIA
Romanesque is the Trappist of architecture, ... on its knees in the
dust, singing with lowered head in a plaintive voice the psalms of
penitence.... This mystic Romanesque suggests the idea of a robust
faith, a manly patience, a piety as secure as its walls. It is the
true architecture of the cloister.... There is fear of sin in these
massive vaults and fear of a God whose rigours never slackened till
the coming of the Son. Gothic on the contrary is less fearful, the
lowered eyes are lifted, the sepulchral voices grow angelic....
Romanesque allegorizes the Old Testament, and Gothic the
New.--J.-K. HUYSMANS.
In his valuable book on Spanish churches, Street is justly enthusiastic
over the form that Gothic architecture took in the province of
Catalonia, and especially over the now unused Cathedral of Lérida, which
he calls the finest and purest early-pointed church in Europe. It was
such praise that induced us to stop over in the dull, little city,
crowned by the hill where the ancient Cathedral stands. Its history of
ten sieges, and Velasquez's "Philip IV on horseback entering Lérida in
triumph," somehow had suggested a grandiose impression that is far from
lived up to by the modern town.
A pause of three hours between trains seemed to give ample time to see
the Cathedral, but the scramble into which the visit to Lérida
degenerated was proof that no limited period is ample time in this
country of leisurely ease. Could we have gone direct to the citadel, all
had been well, but as the hill is now a fort, with the old church turned
into a dormitory for soldiers, much red tape was required to visit it.
We hurried along the interminable crowded street that stretches beside
the river, asking right and left for the office of the military
governor. Wrongly directed, we burst into the somnolent quarters of the
city authorities and made our request for a permit. With a slow dignity
that no flurried haste could move, the provincial governor sent us to
the private house of the military big-wig. There a precious half hour
went by in the drawing-room with his handsome wife, who did not seem
sorry to break the monotony of her exile by the strangers' visit. In
came the genial governor waving the permit backward and forward for the
ink to dry, and another half hour of social chatting went by, the very
ink of Spain being gifted with dignified slowness. A soldier was put at
our disposal to serve as guide, a young man as tranquil as his
superior, for we climbed the hill at a snail's pace, and once inside the
fort were stopped here and there by sentries who, letter by letter, it
seemed to our impatience, spelled out the written paper. When finally we
stood before the Cathedral, the soldier escort told us we must pause
there while he went to seek the commandant of the fort. Precious minute
after minute went by, till at last, the clock telling us we must soon be
starting back to the station, we took the bull by the horns and entered
the church without further delay.
A strange spectacle presented itself. In every direction were ranged
cots, clothes hung about and washing troughs added to the confusion. The
beautiful old church had been floored half way up its piers and down
these improvised rooms we could see other rows of narrow beds. It was so
cluttered that I could hardly get oriented; where was the nave? which
were the transepts? We could see that the capitols of the pillars were
grandly carved, that here was the beautiful clearness of form, the noble
solidity of early Gothic, but the confusion of the soldiers' dormitory
made it impossible to study the church with any satisfaction. Except for
the architect, Lérida to-day hardly repays a visit. The soldiers stood
round in astonishment at such unexpected visitors, so we were soon glad
to confine our examination to the exterior portals and the tower.
Just as we were on the point of leaving, the commandant appeared, shook
us warmly by the hand and prepared to take us over the fort. Like the
military governor and his wife, he beamed with the interest of something
new; the cordiality of all was perfect, but nothing, nothing, could
hurry them. We explained that we had come to see the church alone, that
our time unfortunately was limited, and we must now leave to catch the
train for Poblet. He took a disappointed and bewildered farewell; up on
his citadel in the land of pause and leisure such new-world notions of
speed were disconcerting. With a hasty look at the noblest early-pointed
church in Europe, a grateful handshake to the colonel, we hurried down
the precipitous hill and jumped on the train just as it was moving out,
our valises being flung in to us desperately at the final moment.
Soon the broken, fertile hills of the province of Catalonia closed in
around us, and the country grew so charming that we were glad to have
planned to pass a night near Poblet. From the train we saw the prominent
brown mass of the monastery buildings, but, of course, we ran on some
miles before stopping in a station. There we found a Catalan cart,
two-wheeled with a barrel vaulted awning, and drove to the primitive
hotel at Espluga. The landlord offered us his cart to drive out to
Poblet, two miles away, but the bumps and ruts of the road from the
station made us prefer to walk. The ill-kept roads and the not wholly
cultivated fields told clearly that the industrial monks were no longer
masters of the valley.
Poblet stood for monastic pride, only nobles entered as monks, the
mitered abbot was a count-palatine and ruled the peasantry as their
feudal lord; the revenues were enormous, but as Benedictines are
invariably cultivated men, they were spent on ancient manuscripts, and
in the ceaseless energy of building. When the mob came from the
neighboring towns in 1835 to sack the convent, they shattered the very
treasure they sought. In their blind ignorance they did not know that
chiseled alabaster, wrought doors and windows, and carven cloisters,
represented the hidden gold they were seeking. This uprising in Spain
against the monasteries, the "_pecado de sangre_," was a political more
than a religious affair; in the first Carlist war, the countryside here
was Constitutional, while the monks of Poblet were firm for the
Pretender Don Carlos. The havoc the mob wrought is heart-rending; and
yet though empty and partly destroyed, Poblet is still one of the
finest things in the Peninsula.
On our way out to it we happened to take a wrong turning, which
fortunately led us to encircle the walled-in mass of buildings before
entering, and gave us some idea of their great extent. It was a
veritable town; there were hospices for visitors, hospitals, a king's
palace, an abbot's palace, a village of workshops for the artisans,
since in every age the monks had been builders. Every style was
represented, each stage of Romanesque and Gothic; Poblet is indeed
to-day one of the best places in Europe to study architecture, and the
guardian told us that students from every country flock here in the
summer time. Artists too are a familiar sight sketching the beautiful
vistas, the arched library, the pillared _sala capitular_ where effigies
of the abbots lie so haughtily that one can almost understand the fury
of the rabble, the imposing length and strength of the novices'
dormitory where swallows now flit, the pure early Gothic of King
Martin's palace, the odd little _glorieta_ of the chief cloister.
Pleasant quarters can be found in the caretaker's house, which is more
convenient than living at Espluga down the valley. We wandered for hours
through courtyards and cloisters that show the subtly simple proportions
of Catalan art. The church of the monastery was built during that rare
moment when Romanesque turned to pointed work; it is very narrow and
severe and impressive. The once superb alabaster _retablo_ is mutilated,
and the tombs of the Aragonese kings are scattered. The bones of Jaime
_el Conquistador_ are now in Tarragona Cathedral. Poblet served as the
Escorial of the rulers of Aragon and Catalonia, and is many times more
worth visiting than Philip II's rigid pile in Castile. I strongly urge
everyone who goes to Spain to turn aside from the beaten path to see
this unrivaled Cistercian monastery, which it is no exaggeration to say
is one of the most artistic groups of buildings in the world. The
evening of our visit the sunset glorified the pretty rural valley whose
brooks bounded merrily down the hillside. "Laugh of the mountain, lyre
of bird and tree," Lope de Vega calls the gurgling, clear waters.
We took a long hour to loiter back to Espluga, accompanied by a racy old
character, Sabina, and her tourist donkey. The peasants returning from
cutting wood up in the mountains above us gave a new greeting, "_Santas
Noches_," reminiscent, no doubt, of the former masters of the valley.
Then the following day we took the train south of Tarragona, to the
"Little Rome" that is the reputed birthplace of Pontius Pilate, of
which Martial sang, and where Augustus Cæsar wintered. The landscape was
a delight, showing the most unrivaled cultivation of soil I have ever
seen, flowering orchards, fields of wheat and poppies, the very
vineyards that Pliny has described; the sensation of the earth's lavish
bounty, of the fecundity of the sun and the intoxication of growing
things was overwhelming. And a week before we had been freezing in
Sigüenza!
On the train was an amusing company. Some dozen people came to one of
the stations en route to escort an alert, keen-eyed little bishop, who
mounted nimbly among us. Everyone bent to kiss his episcopal ring, and
even when some shrewd business men entered the carriage later, and saw
that a bishop was its occupant, they too knelt to kiss his hand in
salutation, republican Catalans though they were. I could not take my
eyes off the delightful little prelate, so happily unconscious of his
purple satin skull cap with its St. Patrick's green rosette on top, and
his equally vivid green woolen gloves. Then when we reached Tarragona,
down he stepped briskly, and instead of entering an episcopal carriage
as we expected, he got into a public diligence and drove off like a true
democratic Spaniard.
The Mediterranean at Tarragona was brilliantly, startlingly blue. As it
burst on us in its sun dazzling wonder it seemed as if the bleak high
table-land of the country behind was a nightmare of the imagination.
Surely a whole continent must separate such luxury and such aridness.
We wandered about the white, glaring city, glad to bask in warm sun and
drink in the salt air, happy too to be back again by the inland sea that
has known the great nations of the earth, to be part again of the
marvelous belt of ancient civilization that encircles its blue water.
Tarragona was surrounded by cyclopean walls, the huge boulders of Rome
below, and the smaller mediæval stones above. The blinding sun made the
Cathedral so dark that it was long before we could see our way about. It
is solemn and very earnest, with a fortress-like apse, and with
cloisters the most perfect in the country. The doorways and capitols are
so curiously carved that they merit detail study. The Roman urns, a
Moorish prayer niche, and so on, down through the centuries, showed
again how clearly architecture in Spain tells her history. The chief
_retablo_ is of extreme beauty, with large statues and smaller scenes
combined harmoniously; in it the restraint that distinguishes the
Catalan school is very apparent.
On leaving Tarragona, the railway followed the coast for some time,
then to our disappointment branched inland to loop round to Barcelona.
When we realized that we could have taken the line that runs the whole
way by the sea, we were annoyed at our mistake, though later we were
grateful to it, for the inland route gave a noble view of Montserrat,
that astonishing serrated ridge of gray rock, a cragged comb of stone,
geologically a puzzle of formation, which abruptly rises out of the
plain. For an hour the train drew nearer and nearer to it, so we got an
admirable view. Our proposed ascent of the mountain was never to take
place, and this was to be our only glimpse of the shrine to which
thousands of pilgrims flock each year, where St. Ignatius Loyola sought
counsel and made his vigil of the armor. When Barcelona was reached the
illness which had been fastening itself closer since the unfortunate
drive to Alcántara declared itself unmistakably, and many proposed
excursions, such as Montserrat, Manresa, Ripoll, with its unique portal,
had to be foregone. To leave a country with some of its best things
unvisited is an open invitation to return,--which theory may be good
philosophy, but is not wholly adequate in stifling regrets.
BARCELONA
"He who loves not, lives not."
RAMÓN LULL.
"Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof,
The clustered stems that spread in boughs disleaved,
Through which the organ blew a dream of storm
That shut the heart up in tranquillity."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
I wonder if, to the reader, when hearing the name Barcelona there rises
one sovereign picture,--Isabella and Ferdinand's reception of Columbus
on his return from the New World. It may have been some print seen in
childhood that impressed itself indelibly on my imagination, but always
with the name Barcelona I seemed to see _los Reyes Católicos_ seated on
their throne listening to the man whose genius was so well bodied forth
in his face and bearing. Around stood gentle-eyed natives of the
Antilles, with their ornaments of pearls and gold, lures that were to
rouse the rapacity which exterminated those Arcadian peoples, and to
break the heart of their great discoverer. Heart-break and defeat lay in
the future, this was an hour of enthusiastic hope. When Columbus had
finished his peroration, the Queen and the court fell on their knees in
a spontaneous burst of exaltation, and together intoned that king's hymn
of victory, the _Te Deum_.
It was the unknown Barcelona that called up this scene of Spain's heroic
hour; the city as it is to-day has blurred and dimmed the picture. There
is a striking statue of Columbus on a column that faces the harbor, but
it is not of him nor of his patrons that you think here. The Castle of
Segovia, the walls of Avila or Toledo, the Alhambra hill, Seville's
Alcázar, these are romantic spots that make
"the high past appear
Affably real and near,
For all its grandiose air caught from the mien of kings";
but I defy the imaginative lover of old times to call up the romantic in
the modern capital of Catalonia; seething with industrial life, with
revolutionary new ideas, she is too aggressive and prosperous for
sentimental regrets.