PULLING THE STRINGS OF SOVEREIGNTY
If our fortunes had carried us directly from Paris to stay with my
brother in the palace of Madrid, perhaps I should have found myself
still caged there. But freedom is only by comparison; and, after my
unhappiness in the Alcazar, it seemed to me now as if my life had really
been given wings. Our arrival was almost private; the people in the
streets, accustomed to the sight of royalty, did not make a great to-do
about us (for it is chiefly curiosity that draws crowds, I find, even to
see kings!), and the one thing that looked like a public decoration in
our honour was the washing, which it is the custom in Madrid to hang
from the street windows to dry. It was an embarrassing decoration,
because the articles were, as one might say, very intimate. They made a
joke for us.
We arrived in high spirits at the royal palace, and I was glad to find
it not only gorgeous, but most comfortable. It had been built by Charles
III.--as everything in Madrid seems to have been built--but my brother
had had it modernised with those conveniences of heating and plumbing
which our antique splendour had hitherto done without in Spain. He had
allotted a whole wing to us three Infantas (my sister Pilar, my sister
Paz, and I), and we each had our own maids and servants from Sevilla, so
that we made quite a household. He had installed in another wing my
sister the Infanta Isabel, whom I hardly knew, because she had not been
with us in France during the revolution. She was to take our mother’s
place towards us. She had been married at sixteen to a prince of Naples;
she had lived all her life among the forms and traditions of royalty,
and she was genuinely devoted to their maintenance. I should have been
afraid for my new liberty if I had not foreseen that her direction over
us would be tempered by my brother’s indulgence. I knew that he had as
much impatience as I for what we called, jocularly, between ourselves,
the “singeries” (monkey tricks) of royalty. And so I began, with great
expectations, what proved to be the happiest period of my life.
I was able to rise early, because my brother was always up at half-past
seven, to ride in the Casa Campo for an hour, and I rode horseback with
him--to my great joy. Then, at nine, we girls had our lessons while he
met his Ministers. Early rising is not a Spanish habit. My mother, when
she was Queen, had met her Ministers after the theatre, at midnight, and
worked with them more in the nighttime than during the day. And my
brother’s Ministers had protested against his nine o’clock Cabinet
meetings; but he had won them to it with the smiling and tactful
determination that always secured him his own way.
At midday we lunched with him, the whole household together, a score at
table, with ladies and gentlemen-in-waiting, officers, and
aides-de-camp; but, on account of the presence of the latter,
conversation was always formal. It was different on the afternoon
drives. Then we were alone, for he drove himself, and I sat beside him;
there were just the two servants on the rear seat, and no one to
overhear us. Best of all were the visits I paid him in his apartments,
where it was not considered necessary that I should be followed by a
lady-in-waiting, since I was under the protection of the King. The
guards only took me across the public gallery in the centre of the
palace--a soldier on each side of me and an officer in front, because in
this gallery some attempts had been made to kill my mother when she was
Queen--and the ushers, who led me down the halls, left me when I entered
my brother’s antechamber. He had collected a large library for his own
use, and he made me free of it on condition that I should not tell any
one. At last I had books! And more than I could read.
What adventures! I was most eager for history and philosophy, because my
mind had been denied access to facts, and I read all that I could find,
indiscriminately. It was probably my brother who directed me to Kant,
his own education having been chiefly German, in Vienna. But my personal
favourite among the philosophers was Emerson. I suppose it was his
sturdy doctrine of self-reliance that appealed to me--his insisting that
nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of one’s own mind--and,
although I have not read him for years, I still remember him with the
glow of my pleasure in his words. For poetry I had no appetite. French
poetry seemed to me very light, without ideas. And fiction, English
fiction particularly, to which my sisters were devoted, interested me
but little. I wanted things to be true. I could not read Balzac; I do
not know why.
With Shakespeare I had an odd experience. We studied him with our
governess to perfect our English, and of course I realised that his
verse was beautiful; but when his kings and queens spoke their lines
they seemed to me to be playing parts that had been written to make fun
of the claims of Royalty. My governess was indignant when I told her
that. She said it was not true; that the speeches were meant to be taken
seriously. “But no!” I would cry. “Don’t you see? Shakespeare is making
fun of us. He knew we were not so, but he could not tell it in those
days. He is laughing at us. He knew it was absurd.”
And when we read _Hamlet_ I argued with her: “There! He has made a mad
prince who talks foolishness. If he had respected Royalty as much as you
say, he would not have written it. If you have an idiot in your family,
you do not let people see him. No; he is laughing at his pompous
kings.” And my governess scolded in vain. I still feel the same about
Shakespeare’s Royalties.
Outside of my books I began to be most interested to understand the
conditions in Spain itself. Why had there been a revolution? And why had
my brother been called to the throne? I was told that my mother’s rule
had been too “clerical”--that the priests had had too much power--and
that when the Republicans had failed to provide a stable Government my
brother had been welcomed as a liberal King. But the story of the way in
which he came to be proclaimed seemed to contradict this reasonable
explanation.
The ladies of the Court, it appeared, had merely given money to soldiers
in the army to cry “_Viva el Rey Alfonso!_” when General Martinez Campos
called out to them one morning, “_Viva el Rey!_” General Campos had then
telegraphed to my brother that the army had proclaimed him King. My
brother admitted to me that he had received the telegram as an
invitation to an adventure, and, being fond of adventures, he had
accepted it.
He rode into Madrid, a boy of seventeen, on a spirited horse, followed
by the general and his officers. The horse, excited by the crowds,
pranced and curveted; the crowd cheered his riding, and the more they
cheered the more he made the animal caper. Every one admired him. He
had--what is a valuable asset for a King--a very winning smile, and he
smiled and rode his way into the hearts of the people. From the palace
he announced to the Parliament that he had been proclaimed King, and the
Parliament accepted him on behalf of the country. The only opposition
came from the Carlist rebellion, led by Don Carlos, a rival claimant to
the throne. My brother went at once to the war, and the rebellion was
put down. General Campos and his family were rewarded with lands and
titles, and my brother remained securely on the throne.
I thought it was a strange thing that a King could be made in Spain on
the strength of a shout from a few soldiers; but it was the only
explanation that any one could give me. When my mother had been
dethroned, the Republicans had first chosen as King a Prince Amadeo of
Savoy, son of Victor Emmanuel. But after a brief reign Amadeo resigned
the crown and left the country. He told me himself that he had never
found out why the throne had been offered to him, nor why his rule had
been rejected. It was all a mystery to him.
Similarly, I found that the way in which my mother herself had come to
the succession was as peculiar as all the rest. When her father,
Ferdinand VII. was taken with his final illness, there was a Salic Law
in Spain by which his brother Carlos would be his heir and successor.
But an old enmity existed between Don Carlos and my mother’s aunt, the
Infanta Luisa Carlota. She had said to him, “You’ll never reign.” And he
had laughed at her. But when the King was plainly dying of paralysis,
she put before him a paper that she had prepared, abolishing the Salic
Law; and, placing a pen in his hand, she took hold of his fingers and
began to sign his name to the decree. The Prime Minister, Calomarde,
seeing what she was doing, put his hand over hers to stop her. She
stopped long enough to strike him a blow on the head that dazed him.
When he recovered himself the document had been signed and King
Ferdinand was dead. Calomarde bowed gallantly and said to her, in the
words of a Spanish proverb, “A fair hand can do no wrong.” She
[Illustration: ROYAL PALACE, MADRID]
replied, “No; but it can strike, eh?” And the law against the succession
of a woman having been thus repealed, my mother came to the throne, an
infant, under the regency of her mother, Queen Maria Cristina, and
protected by her aunt. Don Carlos made war upon her, but he was
unsuccessful.
This story my mother told me herself. I was puzzled to know why no one
but Don Carlos had objected to such a manner of changing the succession.
I got no explanation. Like the proclaiming of my brother and the summons
to King Amadeo to rule, it was a mystery. Did it all mean, then, that no
one but the Royal claimants cared who was King in Spain? Was it that the
apparent Government in Spain, as in most countries, was not the real
Government, and that the actual rulers of the country did not worry
about who was in power in Madrid, since the power was impotent?
I found in talking with my brother that he was very interested in his
work and the problems of government--but puzzled to know how to do
anything to help the people--and saddened by conditions that he could
not improve. He used to say, “I do not understand this country yet, but
I shall find a way to do something with it after I have reigned over it
a little longer.” He had no faith in the politicians, and when one party
lost office and another came to authority, and I asked him if this would
improve matters, he replied: “No. It makes no difference. They are the
same dog with different collars.”
He was apparently very popular, and no one openly opposed him; but one
could see that much of the common show of loyalty was a pleasant
make-believe, designed to flatter. Once when we were visiting a town
together, driving in a carriage with the mayor, the boys in the street
kept screaming “_Viva el Rey!_” so shrilly that my brother, who was
trying to talk with the mayor, could not make himself heard. “It is too
bad,” he said to the mayor. “They scream so loudly that I cannot talk
with you as I wish.” The mayor replied, with simplicity, “Ah, your
Majesty, if I had known that you would wish to talk with me, I would not
have paid them so much.” And thereafter, whenever I saw a people very
enthusiastic in welcoming a king, I wondered how much they were being
paid.
At another time my sisters and I were making an excursion in the
mountains, and we were accompanied by a mayor who had provided us with
the donkeys on which we rode. Whenever we came to a village, the
children first, and then the older people would come out and cheer us.
And they cheered us by name. “See!” the mayor would say. “See how
popular you are! They know you all.” As there were four of us, and we
had never been in the district before, we were astonished and very much
flattered! And the mayor beamed. At every village it was the same.
“_Viva la Infanta Isabel! Viva la Infanta Pilar! Viva la Infanta Paz!
Viva la Infanta Eulalia!_”--each as we came. And the mayor, delighted
and smiling and bowing, kept repeating: “But see! It is really
wonderful! You are all known. You are so popular!”
After a time I wished to try my sister Pilar’s donkey, and I asked her
to change with me. The mayor objected. No, no; I must not do it. It
would not be right. “What?” I said. “Is it forbidden by Spanish
etiquette that I ride my sister’s donkey?” And I insisted. Then the
mayor, seeing that I was determined, explained, in angry confusion that
we could not change donkeys because our names had been clipped on their
tails, so that the people might know who we were! And at the next
village I watched the boys come behind us and read our names on the
donkeys’ tails before they set up their shouting!
I thought it very clever--though such a joke on us--and I soon found
that it was typically Spanish. They were very ingenious at playing such
little tricks of deception. One of the oddest happened when we were
making an official visit to another town, and driving again with another
mayor. As we proceeded slowly through a crowded street, suddenly a boy
ran into the roadway and dived between the wheels of our carriage. We
were afraid that he would be killed, and we shouted to the driver, who
pulled up his horses. The boy crawled out between the opposite wheels
and ran away, but before we could start on again another boy did the
same thing. This alarmed me so--with the fear of running over some
one--that I wanted to stop altogether. How could one drive through a
town where the children did such mad things? I would not go. The mayor
assured me that it would not occur again, but I refused to believe him.
How did he know? If these two boys would do it, why not others? Finally,
to calm me, he admitted that he had hired these two boys to throw
themselves under our wheels. But why? Because we were in front of his
house, and his wife and family had wished to have a good look at us, and
he had devised this charming plan to stop the carriage under their
windows.
With a people whose simpler citizens are capable of such subterfuges,
you may believe it was not easy to discover the truth of what was going
on in the intricacies of Government. The truth, as far as I was ever
able to discover it, was this.
In Spain there was an elaborate system of what is called “bossism” in
the United States of America. But in Spain it had been carried to its
final perfection. In every small community there was some wealthy person
who controlled the machinery of public administration. He chose the
persons who were to fill the elective offices, and the election returns
were changed or manufactured to certify the election of his creatures.
In office, then, these men obeyed his orders. Taxes were levied, the
laws were administered, and justice was dealt out, as he directed, for
the benefit and protection of himself and his friends. All the
officials, ostensibly appointed or elected to represent the people and
carry out the popular will, represented only the “cacique” (as he is
called) and obeyed only him.
Over the smaller caciques were bigger caciques, with more power and a
larger following, just as, in the United States, over the boss of a city
there is a state boss. But in Spain the people had become quite unable
to free themselves, and there was an absolute administration of the
functions of Government for the benefit of the office-holders and the
wealthy men who put them into office.
A change of the party in power at Madrid made no difference. They were,
as my brother said, “the same dog with different collars.” They all
obeyed the caciques.
As in America, all indirect taxes fell most heavily on those least able
to bear them. The rents, the cost of living, the necessities of life
were high; wages were low. No poor person ever dared to go to law. There
is a Spanish proverb that “Lent and prisons are made for the poor.”
Money ruled, and ruled everything.
Along with this rule of money went a rule of the priests. Spain had been
for centuries the outpost of Christianity in the war with
Mohammedanism. In the age-long struggle against the Moors the Church
became the symbol of national freedom to all Spaniards; their faith and
their freedom were both threatened, and they fought for both together.
The wars for the possession of America kept the same aspect of religious
wars, because they were waged against a Protestant nation; and down
almost to modern times the Government and the Church were such partners
in being that it was impossible they should separate.
Now, with peace and commercial development, the problems of Government
had become wholly political, and the priests were as busy in politics as
were the caciques. The State not only maintained all the churches and
buildings of the religious orders, but paid salaries to the priests and
the monks and the nuns. They were all, in this respect, officials of the
administration, drawing money from the public revenues, so that they
conspicuously benefited by the plundering of the people. Therefore,
whenever discontent with the Government gathered head in rebellion, it
was inevitably an “anti-clerical” revolt, even though it had no concern
whatever with religion. That was not only very unfortunate for the
State, since it made reformation difficult by making it seem
anti-religious; it was also very unfortunate for the Church, since it
directed popular dissatisfaction against the priests instead of against
the misgovernment.
So the people of Spain, although they were almost as free to vote at
elections as the people of the United States, had really no voice at all
in their own government. When they revolted they made a useless
“anti-clerical” revolt that took them nowhere, because they got involved
in a quarrel about religion and the burning of churches. When a Republic
was declared, with the aid of the army--which was Republican because the
aristocracy did not even serve as officers--the system of misgovernment
continued under a new name.
It made no difference to the caciques whether there was a King or a
Republic; _they_ ruled. If the army proclaimed my brother King, the
Parliament, for the caciques, accepted him in the name of the people. It
did not matter; he was powerless, simply because he could only act
through the officials of the State who were largely responsible for the
conditions. I think the caciques would rather have a king than a
Republic, because the throne could be made a scapegoat in case of
revolt. And, though jealous of the influence of the priests with the
people, they were always in partnership with that influence to protect
themselves.
I write this explanation here as if it were something that I and my
brother and everybody else understood. As a matter of fact, we none of
us understood it. How should we? We were strangers to the country. There
was a Chinese wall around us, to keep us from learning anything that the
administration did not wish us to know. My brother was very young--at
this time only nineteen. (It is significant how the Government of Spain
prefers young sovereigns.) And the poor people of Spain, who might have
told us if they had not been dumb, did not even know themselves what was
wrong.
My brother worked very hard, trying to oversee those departments of the
Government that were most easily watched, such as the army and the navy.
He did not trust to official reports, but went himself to see if the
reports were accurate. It was on such visits that we had our adventures
with the mayors.
Once when we were out driving, he said: “Let us go to the French
hospital. I must inspect it. We will go without warning, so that they
will not be able to prepare appearances for me.” So we drove to the
hospital, and when we entered and it was seen that the King had arrived
a man who had been paralysed for years was so startled that he got to
his feet and walked. A miracle! And I thought if it had happened a few
centuries earlier it might have made my brother a saint. Who knows? I
might have had a little shrine myself.
He gave audiences every afternoon to whatever persons wished to see him,
whether to present petitions, or merely to pay their respects, or what
not. And his patience with everybody amazed me. It was impossible, I
found, to learn anything from those who came. They were usually too
oppressed by the formalities to be natural. One day, when I was
assisting an older sister at an audience to ladies of Madrid, one lady
was so embarrassed that when my sister invited her to sit down--in the
rather brusque voice that was her characteristic utterance--the lady
sat down on a chair in which a kitten was lying. I supposed, at first,
that the kitten had escaped, but I soon saw the lady growing red in the
face and shifting in her chair, as if she were painfully uncomfortable.
My sister tried to put her at her ease by asking her the conventional
questions about herself, and I struggled to control my amusement, but
without succeeding well enough to trust myself to interfere. At last my
sister dismissed the lady, and turned on me to demand what was the
matter with me that I should be grinning and choking instead of behaving
myself with dignity. I cried: “But your kitten--your kitten!” And then I
saw that my laughter had been very cruel, for the kitten was dead. The
lady had accepted the invitation to sit down as a Royal order, and had
not dared to get up off the cat till she was dismissed, although the
poor thing was struggling and fighting under her for its life.
Naturally it was difficult to get any information from people under such
conditions. Not that I wish to represent myself as going about with the
air of a determined student eager to know. I had only a desultory
curiosity that was continually stirred by finding some new puzzle of
false appearance. My brother’s problems of government were usually laid
aside with us. We shared his recreation rather than his work. And, being
human, I was much more interested in myself, my own problems of life,
and the outlook of my future than I was in anything else. Being a Royal
person in Spain was, in some of its aspects, rather a lark, but in
others it was serious. For however free I might be in my mind to be
amused, to be curious, to be cynical, there was no disguising the fact
that I was limited in my friends, controlled in my affections, and of
liberty in love and marriage wholly deprived. My mind might be what I
pleased--my body was Royal.