THE MONARCHY AND THE PEOPLE
If Spain at large had attributed the misfortunes of 1909--the war in
Melilla, the outbreak in Cataluña, the suspension of the Constitution,
the attacks on the country made by the foreign Press--to the influence
of Don Alfonso, the throne would have been in greater danger than at any
time since the expulsion of Isabel II., for the whole nation was roused
to indignation by the general conduct of the Clericalist Ministry then
in power.
But happily for Spain, and indeed for Europe, since civil war in the
Peninsula would be an European disaster, not even the most violent of
the Republicans or Socialists taxed the King, the Queen, or any member
of the Royal Family with indifference to the feelings of the people or a
disregard of the sufferings of the poor.
A fact not recognised in England is the extent to which conscription
tends to consolidate the Monarchy in a country where the King, the head
of the Army, enjoys personal popularity among his working-class
subjects.
Under an unpopular ruler conscription would probably lend itself to the
speedy establishment of a Republic. But every year that King Alfonso
lives he binds the Army, which is the very flesh and blood of the
nation, more firmly to himself by ties of personal affection. And
personal affection is a stronger force than political conviction alone
ever has been or ever can be.
In the seventies the Army stood for liberty and the Republic against
Carlism and Ultramontanism, until Alfonso XII. was brought from his
English college and offered to the nation which had seen his mother
dethroned, as the mass of the nation always will believe, at the
instigation of the Church. It was his mother’s personal popularity with
the masses which made her son’s path comparatively smooth,
notwithstanding the chaos of conflicting interests among which his lot
was cast. His own honesty of purpose, his devotion to his people’s
welfare, the Spartan simplicity of his private life, and the personal
charm which he, in common with all his race, possessed, gave him a
higher place in the affections of the nation than is at all realised
outside of Spain, and the greatest hope expressed for King Alfonso XIII.
by the poor is that he may take after his father. “He was a _man_,”
they say. It was for the father’s sake that all parties agreed to call a
truce during the anxious months that followed on his premature death,
until his son was born, and it would be difficult to say how many times,
while Queen Maria Cristina held the reins of Regency, the memory of her
dead husband may have turned the tide in favour of their child, when the
Ultramontanes would have used the national unrest to the profit of the
proscribed branch.
From the day that Alfonso XII. breathed his last, the Ultramontanes have
consistently tried to represent the Queen Mother as closely attached to
their party. The accusation is manifestly absurd. No mother would
support a policy directed in the interests of a Pretender before that
which maintains the rights of her own son. It is, indeed, a matter of
history that in order to give the Opposition no excuse for agitation,
Canovas, with true patriotism, recommended the grief-stricken Regent in
the early days of her widowhood to entrust the Government to his
opponents, the Liberals under Sagasta, in order to avoid a contest, so
that to the latter fell the duty of proclaiming to the waiting nation
the birth of Alfonso XIII., on May 17, 1886.[10] Canovas would not have
acted thus had there been any real doubts of the loyalty of the Liberal
party.
The _Imparcial_, in an article dealing with Señor Maura’s assertion,
immediately after his fall in 1909, that the Conservatives are the only
bulwark against revolution and the only support of the Throne, recalled
this fact, and added that “without the Liberals the Throne would not
exist now, because the Liberals rescued it from revolution after it had
been shaken by the bloody attacks of Carlism. Without Sagasta, without
Castelar, the Spanish monarchy would not be.”
Yet so persistently has the story of the Queen Mother’s clericalist
leanings been repeated by those interested in its acceptance during the
twenty-three years that King Alfonso XIII. has been on the throne, that
the mass of the people still believe that she defers to the Jesuits even
in matters in which their interference cannot fail to injure the King in
the eyes of his people--a preposterous misconception, which cannot be
corrected too soon. Quite lately I heard a working woman say:
“She cannot be a Jesuit, as they say. A Jesuit mother could not
have borne such children as hers. Look at the King! He has none too
much love for the _curas_ (priests). Yet we have always been told
that Queen Cristina is a Jesuit! Why should that be said? These are
_cosas de los frailes_ (doings of the friars) ‘said to make us
dislike her.’”
In one town where I had some acquaintances among the clergy, I was
struck by the malicious things that were said by them about the young
Queen, and especially about her relations with the Queen Mother. Not
long before I went there I happened to have heard a very pleasant
account of the private life of the Royal Family from a foreigner,
entirely outside of politics, who was for a short time employed in one
of the palaces while the Royal Family were in residence. His description
left no doubt at all as to the happiness of their home life.
With this in my mind I did not feel greatly concerned at being informed
by various Ultramontanes that “Queen Victoria was on the worst terms
with the Queen Mother, who had never forgiven her for having been
brought up a Protestant,” and that “Maura had refused to let her go to
England after the Barcelona affair, because she was so miserable in
Madrid that she had declared she would never return to Spain if once she
got back to her own country.”
No one who has seen the young King and Queen together believes this kind
of thing, although it has been repeated in clericalist circles ever
since the marriage. But, unfortunately, comparatively few of their
subjects have the opportunity of seeing them, and during the last
half-year of the Maura administration photographs and picture postcards
of the Royal Family, which formerly were on sale everywhere, became
noticeably absent. Throughout the three months that the press was
censured it was almost impossible to find an illustrated paper
containing any picture of the King, the Queen, the Queen Mother, the
Infanta Maria Teresa, or the Royal children. During that time everything
that could tend to recall the King and Queen to the minds of the people
and increase their popularity was suppressed. My attention was first
called to this state of affairs by finding that in one large town not a
single picture postcard of King Alfonso could be bought. The shops had
sold out their last year’s stock, and no new photographs of any kind had
been issued since the war broke out.
It would have been natural that portraits of the Queen should appear in
connection with the War Fund initiated by her Majesty and taken up with
enthusiasm all over the country. But no. A portrait and several pictures
of the Marquesa de Squilache, who acted as honorary secretary, were
published, showing that lady at work in her office, distributing money
to applicants, &c. But I have not been able to discover that any such
pictures appeared with the young Queen as the central figure. The
Marquesa de Squilache is a philanthropist whose fame deservedly extends
all over Spain, and the admirable organisation of the fund was certainly
due in a great measure to her clear-headed and business-like methods.
But she would be the first to acknowledge that the Queen, and not
herself, should have been represented in the picture-papers as the head
and front of this effort to alleviate the misery caused by the war. It
is difficult to believe that the marked omission of her Majesty’s
portrait in the illustrated papers during the clericalist
Press-censorship was accidental, while at the same time a series of
thirty-six postcards of Don Jaime of Bourbon in the Castle of Frohsdorf
was being freely advertised in Madrid.
The War Fund, initiated and presided over by the young Queen, was
perhaps the first charitable appeal ever issued direct from the Court to
the nation, without the intervention of the Church. At first it was
stated that applicants for relief from this Fund must bring certificates
of birth, baptism, marriage, &c., from their parish priests.[11] But
the _Heraldo_, one of the leading Liberal-Monarchist papers, pointed out
that such a condition would deprive all those who had been married by
the civil authority of participation in the Fund, and put in a further
plea for the children of soldiers not born in wedlock. The Queen and her
committee of ladies decided on the widest interpretation of the family
limitation, and at an early stage in the war relief was given to a child
whose father was at the front, although the mother did not bear his
name. This broadly charitable decision commended the Fund warmly to the
mass of the people, for, as already shown, the prohibitive cost of the
marriage licence in many, if not all, the Spanish dioceses compels
numbers of decent couples to use the civil rite or none. Thus the
decided action taken by, the Queen and her committee, notwithstanding
the recommendations of the Church, endeared Queen Victoria Eugénie to
thousands of mothers who, if the first conditions proposed had been made
obligatory, would have been without the pale.
The interminable lists of subscribers, appearing day after day and week
after week, and the innumerable small subscriptions, often not exceeding
ten centimes, and sometimes falling as low as five, proved how
whole-heartedly the poor gave of their penury, and various incidents
which occurred showed a real spirit of self-sacrifice in the
wage-earners. Such was the action of the cigarette-makers of Seville,
the two thousand women of all ages whose fame has been so often sung in
the opera of “Carmen.” They were ordered to make up several thousand
boxes of cigarettes with the legend “For the Army at Melilla.” They
immediately asked to be allowed to do the whole work gratis as a tribute
to the Army; and on being informed that this could not be permitted,
because the consignment was a gift to the troops from the Company which
rents the tobacco rights from the Crown, the _cigarreras_ volunteered to
forfeit a whole day’s pay, to be given to the Queen’s Fund for the
Wounded. Numbers of these women are mothers of families, and many of
them have only three or four days’ work weekly, at a wage ranging from
75 centimes to pesetas 1.50, so that a whole day’s pay was a serious
consideration to them. Nor were they by any means alone in their
generosity, for many industrial guilds, companies, trade unions, and
civil servants, such as, _e.g._, the minor post-office officials and
telegraph operators, also gave a day’s wage.
Judging from the results of previous appeals to the public for
charitable purposes, it is safe to say that the enthusiastic response to
the Queen’s Fund was due in a great measure to the national confidence
that the money would be well and wisely administered under her Majesty’s
auspices, for it is a melancholy fact that similar confidence is not
felt by the poor in the case of subscriptions raised under the patronage
of the Church.
I have quoted at random a few observations from among many betraying
animus against her Majesty on the part of the priests. Here is another,
which shows why they dislike the young Queen so much. I met one day in a
mountain village a Franciscan friar who had come from a neighbouring
city to deliver a course of sermons. He mistook me for a Frenchman, and
therefore had the less hesitation in enlarging upon the evils that the
King’s marriage would bring upon the country. One remark particularly
impressed me, as expressing in a few words the attitude of the Church
towards education.
“She will do untold harm by trying to introduce her English ideas about
the education of women. The women of Spain have quite as much education
as is good for them. More would only do them harm.”
In this connection it seems worth while to mention that what most
appealed to the working women (who certainly are not over-burdened with
education) in relation to the birth of the Prince of Asturias was the
announcement that the Queen intended to nurse her baby herself, instead
of following the old-fashioned custom, universal among the upper
classes, of employing a wet-nurse. This is not the place to discuss the
unhappy, results of the system on the general health and morale of the
nation. But the announcement was seized upon by the poor as bringing the
royal mother into close contact with themselves.
“Have you heard that she is suckling her child, just as we do?”
And when soon after it was stated that “owing to the Queen’s state of
health, and having regard to the duties of her position” the infant
Prince had been handed over to a wet-nurse like any other rich man’s
child, a sigh of disappointment went up.
“You see, the doctors would not let her do as she wished. Health?
Rubbish! Any one can see that she is the picture of health. But what
would become of the commissions the doctors get from the wet-nurses for
recommending them if the Queen put wet-nursing out of fashion?”
The Queen was not blamed for relinquishing her maternal duties. Every
poor mother believed that she would have nursed her baby, had the
decision rested with her. This is characteristic of the attitude of the
mass of the people towards both the King and the Queen. Whatever they do
that is worthy of respect and admiration is taken as fresh evidence of
their intrinsic virtues. But whatever happens in regard to them that
does not please the country people is attributed to the malign influence
of those who stand between them and their subjects.
I was struck by the popular comments on the announcement that Don
Alfonso was not going to Melilla, among which this was one:
“Do we not know that he is dying to go? He is young and brave, and he
loves our soldiers. It is Maura who forbids him to go to the war.”
A suggestive remark was made by a journeyman plumber with whom I had a
long conversation while the war was at its height.
“No doubt he would have liked to lead the Army. He is brave enough. But
kings are too expensive to be risked in that way. If we have a king he
may as well be taken care of.”
“You do not seem a very enthusiastic Monarchist,” I said.
“I? Monarchist! I am republican to the bones.”
“Ah! Then I suppose you would like to turn Don Alfonso out of the
country?”
“I? Why? What harm has that boy done me? Everybody likes him.”
And he seemed quite puzzled by the smile I found it impossible to
repress at this exposition of “republicanism to the bones.”
For fully a year before the fall of the Maura Ministry anecdotes of the
charity and generosity shown by the King, the Queen, and the Royal
Family were growing rarer in the papers which had formerly supplied
these little pieces of information to the many people who like thus to
be brought into contact with the home life of their rulers. The omission
was introduced so gradually that at first no one noticed it. But when
soldiers returning from the war talked of gifts sent out by the Queen,
and other evidences of active sympathy shown by the Royal Family, it was
realised that no steps had been taken to make these things known to the
public at home. The King’s gift of thirty thousand solar topees out of
his private purse was one instance. The Queen’s present of thousands of
warm vests to wear under the uniform was another. Queen Maria-Cristina,
and the Infanta Maria Teresa (who by her gentleness and unassuming
manner has won for herself an affectionate nickname among the poor of
Madrid), as well as the Infantas Doña Isabel, Doña Paz (Princess Louis
of Bavaria) and Doña Eulalia, the King’s aunts, all devoted themselves
during the war to working with their own hands for the soldiers, besides
giving generously to the Queen’s fund, but not a word of this appeared
in any of the papers. I heard something of their work from private
sources: the public heard nothing.
It may be suggested that the ladies of the Royal Family, who are
instinct with patriotism and love of their fellow-countrymen, may have
preferred that their charities should pass unpraised by the nation. But
even were that so, one would expect that the expenditure of some £11,000
out of the King’s private purse would have been reported far and wide,
especially since it had been impossible to conceal that the troops were
suffering severely from want of proper headgear in the tropical summer
of North Africa. But beyond the bare announcement that the King had
ordered this immense number of sun-helmets to be procured for the troops
in urgent haste, from abroad, because they could not be purchased at
home, no comment was made on an act of truly royal generosity. A Liberal
paper said that information on the subject was held back by ministerial
instructions “until a suitable time for publication arrived,” but
beyond the bare fact of the number given and the price said to have been
paid, no further details were ever published. The Conservative organs
confined themselves to commenting unfavourably on the size, shape, and
colour of the new headgear, and one of their correspondents turned the
whole affair into ridicule, describing the soldiers in the new helmets
as “having the appearance of walking mushrooms, which destroyed all that
had hitherto been picturesque in the campaign.” But when the illustrated
papers brought out one picture after another in which the men were seen
wearing these solar topees, and the soldiers began to write home to
their families that “the King’s helmets” not only protected them from
the sun by day, but kept their heads dry and warm while sleeping on the
damp ground by night, the people scored another black mark against Señor
Maura, crediting him with a deliberate intention to conceal evidences of
the King’s care for the soldiers from the people at home.
The vests sent out by the Queen were never mentioned at all by the
Press. Yet my informant, a returned soldier, told me they must have
numbered thousands, for, said he, “there seemed to be enough for all of
us; at any rate, all I knew had them.”
It was thanks to these, he said, that there were not many more fever
patients when the torrential rains of October fell on an Army destitute
of winter clothing and even of sufficient sleeping accommodation, so
that for nights at a stretch “men lay on soaked mattresses or blankets
only, sunk in a bed of mud.” “The Queen’s vests kept us warm in the
middle, and that helped us to bear the wet and cold,” he said.
Why was the Queen’s gift, equally with the King’s, treated with such
discourteous silence under the Press censorship of the Clericalist
Ministry? It was not for want of space in the papers, nor for want of
goodwill on the part of the editors, for full particulars were given of
innumerable generous offerings by commercial houses and private
individuals, and column after column was daily filled with names of
subscribers to the War Fund, which was designated “The Patriotic Fund
presided over by H.M. the Queen,” or “The Patriotic Fund under the
Committee of Ladies,” according to the political bias of the paper
publishing the lists.
If anything had been wanting to arouse national enthusiasm for the
Queen, her prompt action in initiating this fund would have provided it.
To English people it seems natural that the Queen should undertake the
work, for the Queen of England has been for many a long day regarded as
the head and front of charity organised on behalf of the nation. But
Spanish women, accustomed for centuries to bow to the dictates of the
Church, had come to believe that what the Church looked on coldly could
not be carried out at all, and least of all by a woman. The Church, with
certain exceptions, stood aloof from the Queen’s Fund on the pretext
that men of peace might not aid in any matter connected with war. The
nation translated this into a protest on the part of the Ultramontanes
against a national work of charity headed by a Queen who is not popular
with the priesthood. And the response to the Queen’s appeal for the sick
and wounded is not only a testimony of the love of the nation for the
Army, but also evidence of its confidence in the Monarchy as opposed to
the Ultramontanes.
A pretty incident in regard to another royal gift made on the first
visit of the young King and Queen to a certain large provincial town may
be worth relating. The usual largesse of so many thousand pesetas to the
municipality, for the poor, was announced in the newspapers when they
left. But by chance I heard how much farther their unannounced charity
had extended. They had given a considerable sum to a convent in each
district of the city to buy bread for the poor, and of this no notice
was taken by the papers. I heard of it from a journeyman painter, whose
sick wife had received two loaves.
“Her aunt is portress at the Convent of ----, so she was able to get her
share. Everybody in our parish was very pleased. The only thing we
should have liked better would be to receive the bread from the King’s
and Queen’s own hands, so that we might have thanked them as they
deserve. But such a crowd of people would have gone to the palace that
the Queen would have got very tired, which was no doubt the reason why
they did not give us the bread themselves.”
Strangely enough, the Queen’s Protestant upbringing, which prejudices
the Ultramontanes so strongly against her, has just the opposite effect
upon the people. They look upon her as being, like themselves, a victim
of clericalist injustice, and so deep-rooted is the conviction that
whatever the Jesuits object to must be good for the people, that the
knowledge of their oppositions to the marriage would have been
sufficient in itself to secure her a welcome from the proletariat.
But her hold upon the masses goes deeper than this. The peasants
appreciate, far more than many of the upper classes seem to do, the
vital importance to the nation of a settled Dynasty and Constitution.
They know that for many years the Monarchy hung on a thread, while the
frail life of a little child was all that preserved Spain from the chaos
that another conflict between Republicans, Carlists, and Monarchists
would have produced. Therefore when King Alfonso grew up, married, and
became the father of an heir to the throne, the rejoicing of the nation
was heartfelt and sincere. The discussions which arose in 1905 on the
death of the poor young Infanta Mercedes, the King’s eldest sister, as
to whether her son was or was not entitled to be Prince of Asturias in
the absence of a direct heir, had aroused all serious-minded Spaniards
to the ever-present dangers that would take shape in action should King
Alfonso die unmarried or childless. So that when the birth of the little
Prince of Asturias--the first son born to a reigning King of Spain for
over a century--was speedily followed by that of a second, the poor,
always the worst sufferers from civil discord and changes of Government,
learnt to look upon the young Queen who has given these hostages for
peace to the nation, with a feeling compounded of admiration and
affection. And each fresh child that comes to fill the royal nurseries
seem a fresh bulwark to the State in the eyes of the working classes,
who remember how their own flesh and blood were thrown to the dogs of
war time after time by opposing forces during the century when Spain had
either no King or no Crown Prince.
THE REVIVAL OF CARLISM