"The death of the Republic will be, for you, for us, and for
all, the death of liberty. The death of liberty will be the
death of the Republic, and as liberty is the only thing in the
world that rises from the dead, with liberty shall rise again,
in good time, the Republic."--EMILIO CASTELAR: _Inaugural
Address_, 1873.
The present state of Spanish politics was amusingly expounded to me by
a spirited young philosopher of Cadiz.
"In the north," he said, "the prevailing sentiment is for Don Carlos.
Nocedal is doing all he can to fan it in Andalusia, but it finds its
natural home in the northern provinces. To be sure, there is San
Sebastian, where the Court summers, which consequently upholds the
Queen, and there are Republican groups; but the north of Spain,
broadly speaking, is Carlist. The centre favors the reigning family.
Possession is a strong argument, and the royal forces hold Madrid.
Barcelona is Republican. Those Catalans are always thirsty for a
fight. But the middle tract of Spain, as a whole, accepts the existing
monarchy. Castilians are too gallant to strike against a woman and a
child. The south is Republican. For the best part of the century Cadiz
and Malaga have stood for revolution. Where was the army of Isabel II
defeated? And why has the Queen never seen the Alhambra?
"But, let me tell you, these Carlists, these Royalists, these
Republicans are all fools. If there is anything hopeless in this
world, it's Spanish politics. All the uproar of the Revolution ended
in murdering our best man and driving out our best king. For myself, I
mean to work hard and marry soon, and have a little Spain in my own
house that shall express my own convictions. My children shall be good
Catholics, but not superstitious bigots. They shall be well educated,
if I have to send them to France or England for it. They shall be
disciplined, but under the law of liberty. And with that I propose to
be content. All my politics are to be kept under my own roof, where I
can work my ideas into permanent form. I am sick of the way in which
Spain boils with ideas that only destroy one another."
This Sir Oracle was two-and-twenty, with the prettiest of girlish
photographs in his vest pocket, and the smallest of savings in the
bank, but I remembered his words in the days of mourning for Emilio
Castelar.
The illustrious tribune, heavy-hearted with the troubles of his
country, had gone to the home of friends, at a village in sunny
Murcia, for the rest and comfort that nature always gave him. His
almost boyish optimism, "_nino grande y grande nino_" that he was, had
kept him assured of peace even after the destruction of the _Maine_,
and assured of victory even after the battle of Manila. Hence the
pressure of fact told on him all the more cruelly. "I die a victim of
Spain's agony," he wrote in a personal letter shortly before the end,
and his last article for publication, finished on the day of his
death, a gloomy discussion of the outlook for the Peace Conference,
contains bitter references to the national disasters and to the
ravages of the "criminal troop of pirates in the Philippines."
He died on Thursday, the twenty-fifth of May, within hearing of the
Mediterranean waves he loved so well, with tender faces bent over him,
and the crucifix at his lips. The news of his death aroused this
grief-weary nation to a fresh outburst of sorrow. Some lamented him as
one of the chief orators of modern Europe, recalling his eloquence in
the tempestuous times of the Revolution, when he "intoned mighty hymns
in praise of liberty, democracy, and the sacred Fatherland!" Some
mourned the patriot, pointing proudly to the honorable poverty in
which this holder of many offices, at one time almost absolute
dictator, had lived and died. Some wept for the cordial, generous,
noble-hearted man, the joy of his friends and idol of his household.
His political sympathizers bewailed the loss of the Spanish apostle of
democracy, the lifelong champion of liberty. And many not of his
following nor of his faith felt that a towering national figure had
disappeared and another glory of Spain vanished away.
The first wreath received was from a Republican club that sent the
pansies of memory. Among the five hundred telegrams and cablegrams
that arrived within a few hours at the country-seat where he had died
was one from over seas, which read: "To Castelar: In thy death it
seems as if we had lost the last treasure left to us, the voice of the
Spanish race. In thy death Spain has become mute. Yet let me believe
that thou respondest, 'She will speak again.'"
The coming of the body to the capital was a triumphal progress. A
large escort of friends, who had made speed to Murcia from all parts
of the Peninsula, accompanied it, and there were crowds at the
stations, even in the mid-hours of the night, with tears, handfuls of
roses, wreaths, and poems of farewell. There was often something very
touching about these offerings. At one of the smaller towns a young
girl hastily gathered flowers from the garden attached to the station,
broke off a spray from a blossoming tree, tied these with the bright
ribbon from her hair, and, clambering up, hung this simple nosegay
among the costly tributes that already nearly covered the outer sides
of the funeral car. In another crowded station the village priest came
hurrying forward, bared his head with deepest reverence before the
garlanded coach, as if before the altar, and chanted the prayers for
the dead. Again, a group of workmen, allowed to enter the car, fell on
their knees before the bier and prayed.
The train was met on its arrival in Madrid by an immense concourse of
people. Senor Silvela and other distinguished representatives of the
Government were there, church dignitaries, presidents of political
societies and literary academies, but, above all, the people. It was
the great, surging multitude that gave the Republican leader his
grandest welcome.
This poor shell of Castelar, the man said to bear "the soul of a Don
Quixote in the body of a Sancho Panza," lay in state through Sunday
and a part of Monday in the _Palacio del Congreso_. The vestibule had
been converted into a _capilla ardiente_. Masses were chanted
ceaselessly at the two candle-laden altars, the perfume from the ever
increasing heaps of flowers was so oppressive that the guards had to
be relieved at short intervals, and the procession of people that
filed rapidly past the bier, often weeping as they went, reached out
from the Morocco lions of the doorway to the _Prado_ and the Fountain
of Neptune. Many of the humblest clad, waiting half the day in line,
held pinks or lilies, fast withering in the sun, to drop at the feet
of the people's friend. Early on Monday afternoon the doors were
closed, and by half-past three the funeral cortege began to form in
the _Prado_ for its four-hour march by way of the _Calle de Alcala_,
_Puerta del Sol_, _Calle Mayor_, and _Cuesta de la Vega_, to the
cemetery of San Isidro.
By the never failing Spanish courtesy, I was invited to see the
procession from the balcony of a private house in the _Alcala_. I
found my hostess, a vivacious little old lady, whose daughter had
crowned her with glory and honor by marrying into the nobility, much
perturbed over the failure of the Queen Regent to show sympathy with
the popular grief.
"There were one hundred and forty-nine wreaths sent in. The very
number shows that the royal wreath was lacking. I am a Conservative,
of course. Canovas was my friend, and has dined here often and often.
You see his portrait there beside that of my daughter, _la Marquesa_.
But Canovas loved Castelar, and would not, like Silvela, have grudged
him the military honors of a national funeral. As if the dead were
Republicans! The dead are Spaniards, and Castelar is a great Spaniard,
as this tremendous throng of people proves. There were not nearly so
many for Canovas, though the aristocracy made an elegant display;
there were not so many for Alfonso XII, though all that Court and
State and army could do was done, and the Queen rode in the splendid
ebony coach in which Juana the Mad used to carry about the body of
that handsome husband of hers.
"But the people know their losses. Never in my life have I seen the
_Alcala_ so full as this. Silvela has had to give way, and the troops
will come--at least a few of them. But not a word, not a flower, from
the Queen! She sent a magnificent wreath for Canovas, and a beautiful
letter to his widow. But for Castelar, her people's hero, nothing. Ah,
she is not _simpatica_. She does not know her opportunities. She does
not understand the art of winning love. Only a year ago she sent a
wreath to the funeral of Frascuelo, the _torero_. And everybody knows
how she hates the bull-fight. But if she could drop her prejudices
then to be at one with the feeling of her capital, why not now? They
say she has a neuralgic headache to-day. _Ay, Dios mio!_ I should
think she might."
Listening to this frank chatter and watching that mighty multitude, I
was reminded of one of the Andalusian _coplas_:--
"The Republic is dead and gone;
Bury her out of the rain.
But see! There is never a _Panteon_
Can hold the funeral train."