in the Concert Hall of Madison Square Garden. It was there that she made
an impression that served her well throughout her stay in the United
States, her tact and simplicity of manner placing everyone at ease.
There had been bitter heart-burnings as to who would be spoken to by the
Infanta, and much intriguing had taken place, in order to secure an
_entrée_ to the charmed Royal circle. These jealousies were dispelled by
the Infanta herself, who chatted affably with all, making no invidious
distinctions.
“We felt we were _all_ hostesses,” was the comment of a prominent New
York lady.
The Infanta had a busy time in New York. She cruised up the Hudson as
far as Yonkers, was taken over Governor’s Island in New York Harbour,
and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, attended the review on
Decoration Day, and laid a wreath on General Grant’s sarcophagus at
Riverside. A little incident, which reveals the sympathetic,
warm-hearted impulsiveness of the Infanta, occurred when she visited the
Normal School, where she was gracefully welcomed by 1,900 girls. In a
characteristic outburst of womanly feeling, she exclaimed:
“I can only say that I wish I were sitting on the benches with you,
girls.”
On June 5th she left for Chicago, and Chicago was determined not to be
behind New York and Washington in the enthusiasm of its reception. It
had been announced that only the “best society” would be invited to meet
the Infanta, and much bad feeling was created when a member of this
select coterie, on being asked by a local journalist whether the City
Fathers would be invited, unguardedly replied:
“The City Council could hardly claim to represent our best society.”
In the end, however, everybody who was or who pretended to be entitled
to hobnob with Royalty was invited.
At the Union Depot she was met by Mayor Carter Harrison--so soon to be
foully murdered. She speedily became as popular in Chicago as in New
York and Washington, and when she visited the Exhibition she was at once
named “Queen of the Fair.” Her desire for privacy was courteously
respected, and on several occasions she was permitted to leave the hotel
and to go out for a walk unnoticed. The Duke of Veragua, who was about
to leave Chicago, called on her, and a reception was given in her honour
at the Mayor’s private residence, but on the whole she was left to
herself much more than she had been in New York. With visits to the
Niagara Falls, Boston, and some of the watering-places on the Atlantic
seaboard, this princess of old Spain concluded her stay in the western
republic. She left New York on board the _Touraine_ for Havre, _en
route_ for Madrid, carrying with her all the varied impressions which
the modern institutions and industrial and social forwardness of the
United States had made upon her receptive mind. The following letter to
Señor Arturo Cuyas, of the Circulo Colon-Cervantes, New York, written in
English the day before her departure, is evidence of the feelings the
country aroused in her:--
NEW YORK, 23 JUNE, 1893.
DEAR MR. CUYAS,
Your inquiry about the impressions the United States have produced
on my mind have met my expectations (_sic_). They are most
favourable and, judging from the present, will be lasting, as so
many pleasant remembrances will be attached to them.
It would require more than Longfellow’s thorough knowledge of
English, Depew’s imagination, and Mary Anderson’s sentimentality to
express all the feelings which I entertain for this country.
The official world, the Press, the people and society at large have
been most kind to me.
Let me close with a French saying, “La distance n’est pas l’oubli.”
Au revoir!
INFANTA EULALIA
The domestic affairs of the Infanta and her husband about twelve years
ago received that undesirable publicity which the “fierce light which
beats upon a throne” gives even to those who are only related to its
occupant. The result was a rumour that the Royal couple were divorced.
This was wholly untrue. The fact was that, by mutual consent and without
any intervention on the part of the Courts of Justice, a separation was
arranged. By this arrangement, the Infanta continues not only to receive
the £6,000 annually voted by the Cortes, but also the allowances under
her marriage settlement. Her town residence is in Madrid, and she has a
cottage at Navas de Pinares, in the Province of Avila, high up in the
Sierra de Malagon, a continuation of the Sierra de Guadarrama. The name
Comtesse d’Avila, under which the French edition of this book was
published, is taken from the province in which her country residence is
situated.
The Infanta has two sons, both of whom were educated, first at Beaumont
College, the Jesuit institution near Windsor known as the “Catholic
Eton,” and later at the Spanish Military Academy at Toledo. The eldest
is Prince Alphonse-Marie-François Diego, born in Madrid in 1886. He
holds a commission in the infantry regiment of San Fernando. Three years
ago he married Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, daughter of
the
[Illustration: THE INFANTA EULALIA AT WORK ON “THE THREAD OF LIFE”]
late Duke, better known in this country as the Duke of Edinburgh. The
Prince Alfonso served in the recent Melilla campaign, and as late as
December of 1911 was received by King Alfonso, who conversed with him
about the situation in that Spanish colony on the Moroccan coast. About
the same time the King also received the Infanta’s second son, Infante
Louis-Ferdinand-Marie-Zacarias, who was born at Madrid in 1888.
It will be noticed that the elder brother does not bear the title of
Infante of Spain. He was deprived of it on his marriage to a Protestant
princess. It has been reported--it cannot be said with what amount of
truth--that his mother declared that “her cup of bitterness was full”
after the treatment meted out to her son after serving in the Moroccan
campaign, for she asserted that a promise had been made that his title
should be restored to him if he served efficiently in Morocco.
The chequered career of the Infanta from her earliest childhood--a
career almost without precedent in the annals of Royal houses--has given
her the wide purviews, the all-embracing, generous sympathy with human
joys, woes and strivings, which can be the attributes only of one who,
by nature broad-minded, has had the opportunity and the discernment to
form her own opinions on the great problems of life. The Royal infant,
hurried from a country in revolution; the little Paris schoolgirl in the
care of the nuns of the Convent of the Sacred Heart; the young princess
receiving her rightful homage at her brother’s Court; her visit to the
United States, with all that it taught her; the failure of her married
life; her unassuming later years in France, and her frequent visits to
her English friends--all these varied experiences contributed to the
making of a character some interesting details of which were given by a
Paris correspondent to the _Daily Telegraph_ on the occasion of the King
of Spain’s sensational action regarding “The Thread of Life.” He wrote
as follows:--
“The Infanta Eulalia, of whom I have often heard a good deal through the
Cuban and Spanish colonies here, is herself one of the most remarkable
examples of the simple life. And many unjust and untrue things have been
said of her on that very account. The princess, on the contrary, while
being most simple and unaffected in her ways, is a generous, highly
intellectual and resolute personality. She read to me the chapter on the
cultivation of the will and one’s own personal individuality, and
interrupted to tell me:
“‘I shall conquer. I believe that the most necessary thing in life is to
have a personal, properly developed will of one’s own. I have always
been resolute myself. I have all my life done my own will when I thought
it was proper. I reflected well beforehand, and then no one could stop
me; and I always conquered, and I shall conquer again.’
“This last was said with a certain amount of defiance. ‘Anyway,’ she
said, ‘I am quite prepared for anything they may now do. I know that
there has always been an antipathy between me and the Court life. I hate
Court life, anyway, because it is so absurd in many of its stiff
formalities. It puts a barrier between you and persons of the
intellectual world.
“‘You may mix with only a certain set of people, who may be the most
opposed to you, whom you feel to be unintellectual, and who are
incapable of attracting your sympathy. I hate the barrier that would
prevent you from free association with men of merit and of
understanding just because they are not in Court circles. At Court they
have also known for long that I did not care for them. I love my own
simple life. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than my little home here
in the Boulevard Lannes, facing the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. When I
feel like it, I take a ride on my bicycle in the _allées_ of the Bois. I
frequently take a ride round the lakes all by myself, and come back with
a healthy feeling of pleasure after my exercise. I like simple meals and
no great fuss about my table. I like to converse with persons of
intellect or artistic taste. I love my children and my grandchildren.’”
Probably no one was more surprised than the Infanta herself that her
book--which she described to the above-mentioned interviewer as
representing “merely my own experience in life”--should so disturb the
Court of Madrid. On the 2nd December, 1911, she received in Paris a
telegram from her nephew, King Alfonso, couched in the following terms:
“I am astonished to learn from the newspapers that you are
publishing a book as the Countess of Avila, and from other
information I suppose this will cause a great sensation. I order
you to suspend publication till I have seen the book and till you
have received my permission to publish it.”
The following telegram in reply was sent by the Infanta:
“I am much surprised that the book should be judged before the
contents are known. That is a thing which only happens in Spain.
Having never liked Court life, from which I have always kept aloof,
I take this opportunity to say good-bye to it, for after this
proceeding, worthy of the Inquisition, I consider myself free to
act in my private life as I think proper.”
The text of these telegrams was communicated by the princess to the
Paris _Temps_, and, judging from what she said at an interview which she
granted to a representative of that journal, there can be no doubt that
the bitterness created by the unjust treatment which she declared her
soldier son had been subjected to was largely responsible for the
definite renunciation of the Court of Madrid to which the telegram gives
expression.
The rupture thus created between the King and the Infanta was officially
admitted on the 5th of December in the Council of Ministers at Madrid.
Throughout early December it formed the paramount topic of conversation
in the Spanish capital. The peremptory tone of the Infanta’s reply to
the King’s telegram evoked varied opinions. It was felt by some that her
attitude had been unnecessarily defiant, but others regarded it as
justifiable resentment of an act of unwarranted interference. The
Spanish newspapers were also divided in opinion, but, judging by the
number of telegrams and letters of approval and congratulation which
arrived at the Infanta’s Paris residence, there must have been a very
large body of people in her native country who were aroused to
enthusiasm by her action.
On the 5th December the Infanta telegraphed as follows to Señor
Canalejas, the Spanish Premier:--
“I am awaiting punishment, and I beg you to let me know what it is
as soon as possible, since I am about to start on a journey.”
To this telegram Señor Canalejas sent the following reply:--
“I have the honour to acknowledge your telegram, and I am to inform
you that the Cabinet has so far confined itself to regretting the
attitude which you have adopted, as it regards the representations
of the head of the Spanish Royal Family as absolutely
warranted.--CANALEJAS.”
At that time the Government were engaged in discussing the question
whether the princess could constitutionally be deprived of her rank of
an Infanta of Spain. The payment of her Civil List income was assessed
at 250,000 pesetas (about £9,200). The princess, however, estimated her
own income at about £6,000, and this estimate was practically confirmed
on the 6th December by a semi-official _communiqué_, which asserted that
the amount in her Civil List was 150,000 pesetas, i.e. about £5,500. On
the solution of the constitutional question of the integrity or
otherwise of her rank, the question of the deprivation of her income
was known to depend.
The attitude of the King at this time was a fixed determination to act
strictly in accordance with the Constitution, though it was understood
that in any case the Infanta’s personal relations with the Spanish Court
would henceforth be regarded as at an end. The princess stated her
intention of making a present of her Spanish estates to her eldest son,
and of henceforth living _incognito_.
Through the medium of the Paris correspondent of the _Imparcial_, the
Infanta addressed a letter to that journal declaring her unaltered
affection for Spain, the King, and the Queen-Mother. She said that she
would be disposed to ask for pardon, were it not that by so doing she
might appear to be anxious about her Civil List. By the 7th December, it
appeared improbable that any severe measures would be taken against the
Infanta, and the excitement caused in Madrid by the extraordinary
incident began to subside.
What was the cause of the attempt by the Spanish Court to stop the
publication of “The Thread of Life”? The Infanta herself believed that
“the reason they took so much offence was that they imagined it was
going to be a book on some other subject--a book that would make a
scandal. This was the most remote possible thing from my mind. I had no
idea that anyone would trouble about my book. It was for that reason
that I had only a small number of copies printed, to be handed round to
my friends.”
The book was written in French because the Infanta assumed that it would
not arouse very much interest in Spain.
“I think,” she said to a correspondent of the _Época_, “that the general
mode of thought in Spain is not particularly in harmony with the ideas
which my book reveals.”
The incident, however, has served the useful purpose of drawing the
attention of the world to a volume of thoughtful essays by one of the
most remarkable personages to be found in the Royal families of
Europe--essays which are the more interesting because they are the
reasoned conclusions of one who, born and bred in the purple, has
emancipated herself from the circumscribed past by contact and sympathy
with the wider world of common things.
PRINTED BY
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE,
LONDON, E.C.
End of Project Gutenberg's The thread of life, by Eulalia, Infanta of Spain