There is no court in Europe about which so little is known as that of
Madrid, and certainly no European sovereign whose character and habits
have been so studiously misrepresented as those of Ferdinand. The first
time we beheld this monarch, we could scarcely credit the evidence of
our senses. Walking in the gardens of the Retiro, at the time crowded
with company, we encountered a portly old gentleman, quite unattended,
habited in a plain, blue coat and nankeen trousers. This was Ferdinand,
_El Rey absoluto_, whom, in our mind's eye, we had long sketched
with the dark pencil of a Murillo. On a countenance that we expected
to have seen marked by all the dark and fiery passions of a Caesar
Borgia, we beheld an expression of _bonhomie_--a total absence of
hauteur, still less of ferocity; in fact, so totally different was he
in appearance from all that we had preconceived, that it was with
some difficulty we could persuade ourselves that our cicerone was not
practising upon our credulity. So much, then, for the notion, that he
never trusts himself out of his palace without being surrounded by
a formidable guard. Perhaps no monarch is oftener seen without, or
evinces less fear for his personal safety, than the tyrant Ferdinand.
By men of all parties, at Madrid, he is spoken of as a man not naturally
vicious, but equally prone to good or evil, according to the direction
impressed upon him towards either of these two ends, arising from a wily
indolence of character, that, conscious of its own inability, throws
itself on another. Leave him, say they, but the name of king, his
secretaries, his valets, and his favourite amusements,--give him his
Havanna cigars, (a lot of which he sends daily to the officer of the
guard,)--and he would willingly consent to any change that might be
proposed to him. The faults or the vices of Ferdinand are owing to his
neglected and defective education; no care was taken to prepare him for
his high station.
It was in the spirit of party that he embroidered a petticoat for the
Holy Virgin, solely with the view of pleasing and cajoling the clergy;
for, in his heart, Ferdinand is rather a devotee to pleasure than
religion. In his habits he is remarkably domesticated; he rises at
an early hour, and passes the greater part of the day in his wife's
apartment, of whom he is passionately fond. The queen unites to a very
graceful figure an interesting expression of countenance, that sometimes
wears an appearance of sadness. Such is Ferdinand of Spain, whose actual
demise will disclose scenes that at present almost set political
calculation at defiance.
Ferdinand has been married four times:--1st, To Marie Antoinette,
daughter of the King of the Two Sicilies; 2ndly, To his neice, the
Infanta of Portugal, Maria Isabella; 3rdly, To the Princess Maria
Josepha-Amelia, daughter of Prince Maximilian of Saxony; and, lastly,
to his present queen, Maria Carletta, daughter of the late King of
Naples.--_Metropolitan_.
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