LOVE AND ENNUI
In speaking of one’s past it is difficult not to take a present point of
view; and when I say that being a Royal person in Spain had its serious
aspects--because I could not love or marry as a private person--I mean
that it had those aspects as I look back upon it. At the time I was not
aware of them. They were accepted by me as constituting the natural
order of life. Long before I could begin to think of such things as love
and marriage I had been schooled to the idea that I could have such
relations only with Royal persons. Humanity was divided in my mind into
three sexes; there were women, men of Royal birth, and a third sex, who
were to me, as you might say, priests. Any affair of love with the
latter was unthinkable--not only to me but to them. It never entered my
mind, any more than it would with a priest. If it ever entered _their_
minds, I could not know it, because they could not speak to me, even if
they wished.
In the palace of Madrid, when the usher would take me to the
antechamber of my brother’s apartments, I would always have an interval
of waiting while word of my visit was being carried to the King. And
during that interval there would usually be some young officers or
aides-de-camp standing in another part of the room. Since they were
Spaniards, and I was not hideous, if I glanced at them I found them
trying to look romantic. If one of them was alone, he would either sigh
“like a furnace,” as Shakespeare says, or try to look unutterable
silences across the room. At first this embarrassed me. But when I grew
reassured by the fact that none of them dared approach me or speak to
me, I found it comical; and I used to watch them slyly to see whether
they were going to be melancholy and sigh, or make lambent calf’s eyes
at me in the best Spanish manner. Afterwards I would tell my brother,
and he would laugh, because he knew the officers and enjoyed teasing
them. It became one of the little jokes between us, that all his young
aides were languishing their lives away in hopeless devotion
to me. Later, some of them--unwilling, perhaps, to be merely
amusing--announced that they were going to blow out their brains. I
never heard that any did it; and I did not see what satisfaction it
would have been to them if they had. I supposed that they came to the
same conclusion themselves. After a while I learned that one does not
take such threats of self-destruction seriously in Spain. They are only
a form of mild attention paid to ladies by the gallantry that wishes to
be dashing.
At luncheons, when the officers ate with us, even sighs were impossible;
and they behaved like very good boys before the school-teacher. My own
behaviour must have betrayed amused interest, for I remember that our
mistress of the robes--called the “_aya_”--who is a sort of Court
duenna, read me long lectures on the government of my eyes. When a man
conversed with me I must not look directly at him. That look, in Spain,
meant courtship. I must always look down, and just glance at him
sidelong, under the ends of my eyelashes, demurely. The Spanish girls do
it very well, but my eyes were not Spanish. I had the habit of direct
gaze; and after repeated lectures from the _aya_ I pretended that I had
acquired a squint from trying to look sideways; and this annoyed the
_aya_ and made fun for my brother.
The Spanish girls are taught to regard men as some sort of wild animal,
whom it is dangerous to meet unless one is well protected by chaperons;
and they become as timid as Oriental girls, and, of course, as curious.
Sometimes in the evenings, when my sisters and I were with my brother in
his apartments, he would have with him young men of the Court, friends
of his own age, grandees’ sons and members of the foreign legations, who
went shooting and hunting with him. I enjoyed talking and listening to
them, much more than conversing with the young ladies of noble families
who were invited to Court as companions to us Infantas. The men had
travelled, and read, and met interesting people. The girls had had no
experiences and no thoughts. They could talk only of their religion or
of their _fiancés_.
They went to church for both. When a young Spaniard wished to begin
courting he told the priest about it. The priest consulted the girl’s
parents, and if the match was thought suitable, arrangements were made
for her to attend certain Masses on certain mornings with her chaperon.
Her official cavalier then posted himself somewhere near, made eyes at
her during the service, and stood at the holy-water font when Mass was
over, to offer her holy water as she went out. It was possible, also, to
leave a letter at the church door with some old beggar, who would
deliver it to the proper person in return for alms; but this
correspondence was not for young girls. Their courting was carried on by
means of devout looks, which were not required, one hopes, to be too
oblique. I thought it very silly, and I said so; but the girls argued,
piously, that since love was “a sacrament” it was right it should begin
with holy water and benefit of clergy. I do not remember that the same
argument was made for the intriguing ladies who carried on their
correspondence through the beggars. As a matter of fact, the relations
between the sexes were all wrong, since there could be no secure
happiness based on such ignorance and Orientalism in a Western
community, where the women can not be denied after marriage the liberty
for which they are not prepared before that event.
When I was about fifteen years old, a young Austrian archduke came to
Madrid to visit my brother, and I was presented to him with my sisters,
and saw him at a distance at the dinner-table, and bowed to him as I
passed him in the hall. Next morning my brother summoned me to his
apartments to tell me that the archduke wished to become engaged to me.
“But,” I said, amazed, “I have scarcely spoken to him!” Never mind; he
had said he was in love with me; he wanted to marry me. And as soon as I
had recovered from my first astonishment, the idea delighted me. To be
engaged! It made me feel quite grown-up. Quite important. Almost
married. And I thought it would give me a standing at Court that would
prevent the Mistress of the Robes from being so dictatorial.
It would be impossible for me to marry for some time. Our family
fortunes had been so depleted during the revolution that I had no _dot_,
and the young archduke had not yet come into his estate either. My
brother, acting as a father to his sisters, was paying all our expenses
out of his own pocket, and saving for us, as _dots_, the moneys that
were allowed us by the Government. So it was agreed that my engagement
with the archduke should not be made public and official until enough
money had been saved to make a provision for me.
Meanwhile I was privately engaged--and very proud of it. It was not
extraordinary, in the Spanish Royal Family, for a girl to be engaged in
her teens. My sister Isabel had been married at sixteen; and my
grand-aunt, the Infanta Luisa Carlota, had been married at thirteen and
was a grandmother at twenty-seven. But neither of my other sisters was
engaged yet, and I enjoyed the advantage over them.
Even so, the archduke was not allowed to see me alone, and his courtship
had to be formal. We were allowed to walk together in the garden of the
palace, but only under the chaperonage of a lady-in-waiting, who
followed a few paces behind us. One day, turning a corner of the path,
we were hidden for a moment from the eyes of our chaperon, and the
archduke seized his opportunity to kiss me. There was an adventure for
you! When we returned to the palace I hastened to tell my sister. She
was horrified. She ran to tell the governess. The governess was even
more shocked. She declared that I had committed a mortal sin. “Good!” I
cried. “I’m glad of it! At last I have committed a mortal sin! I didn’t
think it was possible--the way I am watched.” There was a great to-do.
They declared that I must go to confession at once.
I went, next morning, defiantly, and in such excitement that I confessed
in a voice that could be heard by every one near the confessional. I had
committed a mortal sin! I had been kissed by the archduke! And the
manner in which I blurted it out was so funny that the priest burst out
laughing. I asked him how it could be a sin to be kissed by the man who
was going to marry me. He replied, teasing me, “But if you don’t marry
him, still the kiss will remain.” “I don’t care,” I said; “it won’t
show.” He assured me, finally, that it was not a sin at all; and perhaps
I should have been crestfallen if it were not that I had triumphed over
the others. Then, as the story got about, it started a reputation for me
as a flirt, which I enjoyed innocently. An Infanta of Spain kissed by a
man at fifteen! It was almost a record.
When the archduke went away we were allowed to write to each other,
though, of course, our letters had to be read by some one. I gave mine
to my brother, but I do not suppose he ever glanced at them; the letters
of a girl of fifteen, in such circumstances, would not be very
interesting. I began to ask questions about the Austrian Court, where I
should have to live after I married; and the reports I heard of it were
not reassuring. The etiquette was most strict. I should be worse off
there than in Madrid. And I should be separated from my brother. Very
soon I did not like the thought of my engagement at all.
My brother had told us, at our first meeting on our return to Spain,
that he was in love with a daughter of the Duc de Montpensier; that they
had been corresponding unknown to her family--who were not so strict as
ours--and that he intended to marry her. My mother was outraged at this
announcement, for it was well known that the Duc de Montpensier had
helped to bring about the revolution that had lost her the throne. When
we went to Sevilla, to live in the Alcazar, she forgave the Duc, who had
a place in Sevilla, but she continued to intrigue against my brother’s
marriage; and it was because of this that he quarrelled with her, and
let her go back to France when we Infantas came to live with him in
Madrid.
The Duc de Montpensier was the youngest son of King Louis Philippe of
France, and--like all that king’s sons--extremely clever. He had married
my mother’s sister, another daughter of King Ferdinand VII., on the same
day that my parents married; and he had lived in Spain ever since. In
Sevilla my sisters and I became very friendly with our young cousins,
the Duc’s children, and I became like another daughter to the Duc, whom
I adored. He had all the charm of the _esprit Français_, animated and
witty, accustomed to conversation with clever people, tolerant of
opinions opposed to his own, and hating--more than anything else in the
world--stupidity. He delighted me. He sympathised with me. I used to
tell him all my little troubles.
I think that when the history of my mother’s reign and the republic is
written, it will lay great stress on the Duc’s influence in Spain. At
once, on his arrival, he had attracted to himself all the Liberal
elements in the Spanish Court, unconsciously, as
[Illustration: Photograph by Henrie Manuel, Paris.
THE INFANTA EULALIA]
mind attracts mind. He became the head of a Liberal party--subsequently
called the “Orleans” party, because he was of the House of
Orleans--although he always declared that he had neither desired nor
tried to organise any following for himself. Men like the famous writer,
José de Echegaray, gathered around him, and his palace became a centre
for the dissemination of Liberal ideas. He was antagonistic to the
Conservatives, who were chiefly Clerical; and he was much feared and
opposed by the priests. He wished to improve the conditions in Spain. He
wished, as he used to say, humorously, “to make it habitable.” But I do
not think that he had any personal ambition to rule; for, although he
had distinguished himself for bravery in the French army, and was a
general in the Spanish army, he made no attempt to use his influence
with the army or with the politicians, in order to obtain the throne for
himself when it went begging after my mother lost it. He had not
expected, he told me, that the reformers contemplated interfering with
the ruling family. He supported the Liberals and gave them money, in the
hope that they would correct the abuses and corruptions of
misgovernment in Spain. And when no good came of it, he assisted the
movement to call my brother to the throne.
My brother was as devoted to him as I was, and held to his intention of
marrying the Duc’s daughter in spite of all the intriguing and the
opposition of people who feared the Duc’s influence, and the warnings
that this was a new attempt of the Duc to get back into political power
by putting his daughter on the throne of Spain. It was a love match
purely--the only one I ever knew in Royalty. For royal love matches are
usually marriages between persons of royal birth who are enthusiastic
because they find they have no positive aversion for each other.
The Duc, even in Sevilla, had planned to marry me to one of his sons,
Antoine d’Orléans, whom I liked as a cousin, but had no other affection
for. I said “No.” When I came to Madrid this was still talked of, as
such things are discussed in families, but I paid no attention to it. My
engagement to the archduke ended it for a time; but when I grew
melancholy at the thought of going to Austria my brother would say,
“Well, then, why not marry Antoine, and we shall never be separated.”
And if you have to marry some one who will be more or less indifferent
to you--and you foresee that in one choice your father-in-law, at least,
will be charming--and that choice will keep you near a beloved brother
whom you might otherwise lose--well, why not? Besides, I did not have to
decide immediately. I could not marry any one yet. I let it drift--and
drifted with it.
The Duc, to encourage me, perhaps, told me the story of his own
marriage; and I think it is unique even in the annals of royal
alliances. It was, of course, an affair of State, arranged for him. His
bride, my aunt, was only fourteen years of age, and she could not speak
a word of French. He spoke no Spanish. When they had been married--in
great pomp at a double wedding with my mother and father--he was left
alone for the first time with his wife, and the poor child was so
frightened that she began to cry. He did not know what to say to
reassure her, since he could not say anything that she could understand;
and, looking around the room despairingly, his eye was caught by a
movement of the curtains in the far corner of the bed-chamber. He looked
more intently and made out the plume of a head-dress showing between
the hangings. He rushed across the room and dragged out a
lady-in-waiting! His exasperation at his bride’s sobs and his own
inability to quieten her broke in fury on the head of the unfortunate
woman. She explained as well as she could that they were afraid the
bride would be too frightened if she were left alone with him, and they
had agreed to conceal one of her ladies behind the curtains to give her
secretly a sort of moral support. The Duc put her violently out of the
room.
I suppose that the Duc had a strong influence on both my brother and
me--on our opinions and our points of view--yet it must have been the
influence of personality unconsciously exerted, for he always refrained
from giving opinions about public affairs, even when he was asked for
them. “No,” he would say, “I have learned not to express my opinions.
They are always brought back to me--so transformed that I can not
recognise them--and presented to me as my own. Look at the revolution.”
He conformed in matters of religion to comfort his wife, who was very
devout; but he never went to confession, and he required that when he
attended Mass the priests should not take more than twenty minutes for
it. He would keep an eye on the clock, and when the twenty minutes had
elapsed he would say, “Watch him now,” and cough with peremptory
impatience. The priest would immediately begin to race through to the
conclusion of the service, and every one would be anxious for him to
finish, as if the Due’s impatience were some terrible threat to be
placated. Yet, for a man so feared, I never knew any one less fearsome.
He was very patriarchal-looking when I knew him--white-bearded,
heavily-fleshed, and benign. To his receptions in the evening came all
the clever people, of whatever opinion, and whenever bores arrived he
pretended that they had come to see his wife, and had them ushered to
her apartments, and said, contentedly, “There now. They will pray
together and enjoy themselves.” It was the one thing that he asked of
life--not to be bored. Imagine how that would appeal to one in the
atmosphere of a Court. For the plague of Courts is ennui.
Princesses are peculiarly subject to it. A king or a prince has usually
some work to do, some power to exercise. A princess is as much more idle
than a young lady as a young lady is more idle than a working girl. In
an attempt to keep up an exercise of my brain, I continued my studies
during the whole ten years of my unmarried lite in Spain--studying
languages, the piano, singing, the harp, painting--and keeping myself
occupied with reading and writing as well as I could. People tell me
that princesses are stupid. I wonder that we are not all idiots. During
my life in Madrid, almost my only public duty was to help lay
corner-stones. I helped lay enough to pave the city. Whenever nothing
else could be found to justify our existence, the authorities would say,
“Come, let them lay a corner-stone.” I can not believe that any other
stones were put on top of them. It is not possible. There were too many.
If the buildings had all been completed, there would not be room now, in
the town, to walk. And the Te Deums that I listened to were numerous
enough to exhaust the ears of Heaven.
I have already spoken of the audiences that we gave. They were stupid
beyond words. One received strangers under conditions of formality that
made them more strange, asked silly little questions of the women--“Are
you married?” “How many children have you?”--smiled politely, and
waited for the next one. It is the sort of thing that you might expect
from the Chinese. And the purely Court receptions were even worse. There
you had not even strangers, so you could not ask them whether they were
married. You knew--or you were expected to know--all the dignitaries,
statesmen, officials, aides, and diplomats who make up the Court circle;
you met them again and again, for a perfunctory moment, said something
innocuous, and passed on--until you met again.
The problem was to think of something to say each time. Once after a
Royal chapel--when we always had to make a circle of a roomful of
officials lined up around the walls--I noticed, as we approached one
officer, that he wore black gloves with his uniform. It is a sign of
deep mourning. The others of the Royal Family, preceding me, made the
usual conventional attempts to say a little of nothing as if it were
something worth saying; and so, when I came to him, although I had no
idea who he was, I said, “I was deeply sorry to hear of your
bereavement.” The others, overhearing me, were mortified that they had
not offered him their condolences too; and when the reception was over
they spoke to me about it. Whom had he lost? How had I remembered it?
And when I explained what I had done, without knowing who the man was,
even the King was envious. It was so difficult to have anything to say,
and a Royal Family is always so haunted by the problem that my little
ruse quite made a reputation for me. And, if you can believe it, the
officer was deeply touched and gratified, poor soul, by my knowing of
his grief. It is on such trifles that a king makes his personal
popularity. But what a life!
When my brother married the Duc’s daughter, Mercedes, we had that
beautiful and charming creature added to our circle; but they were such
lovers and so happy together that we had our brother less, though we had
Mercedes more. By this time I had quite lost interest in the daughters
of the grandees whom my brother invited to Court to make companionship
for us. They could play no game more active than croquet, which they
played languidly. When I drove them behind my four ponies they wanted
always to go to the parks, where they could look sidelong at the young
men; and I preferred the country drives with more freedom. I soon
wearied of a conversation that was all holy water and fiancés.
And before long the Spanish young men came to bore me as much as their
sisters. They had only one conversation for a woman--the romantically
sentimental, exaggerated to the point of foolishness. It was too silly.
If they were not pretending that they were blighted with melancholy
because of your unearthly charms, they were assuring you that they would
shed their blood for you. I did not want to see their blood, but their
brains; and they either had none or did not consider it necessary to use
them in their conversation with a princess.
In the evenings I often went to the opera, but my brother had no ear at
all for music; he could not tell the Royal March when it was played; and
he complained that the singing depressed him like the howling of a dog.
So I went with my sisters and some older chaperon. One night, on our way
to the opera, we had an adventure that could happen only in Spain.
There, whenever the priest is summoned to attend the dying, he takes the
sacrament and sets out on foot, accompanied by an attendant with a
little bell. The first carriage that he meets, even if it be a hired
hack, is stopped at the sound of the bell and he is invited to ride. If
the hack then meets a private carriage of more luxury, it is the
privilege of the owner to take the priest into his vehicle. And if the
Royal carriage is met, the Royalty not only take the priest with them,
but they are expected to follow into the house of the dying, and kneel
in the death-chamber while the last rites are being performed.
On this night I was in our carriage with a princess who was most
gorgeously arrayed in a bright green evening gown ornamented with
silver, with a great display of jewels on her corsage, and on her head a
huge rayed ornament of diamonds in the shape of a diadem. Her hair was
prematurely grey and rather wild. She had been riding in the sun, and
her face was flushed. She was an enormous woman--so large that she had
to give up horseback-riding because it became impossible to find a horse
capable of carrying her.
We were scarcely well away from the palace when we heard approaching us
the bell of the sacrament, and I said to her, hurriedly, “We can’t go to
a death-bed in this finery. I’ll make the driver turn round.” But she
was very religious. It was a sacrilege to her to turn our backs on the
Host. In spite of my protests, we met the priest, took him into the
carriage, and drove him to his destination. There the princess and I
followed him into the death-chamber, devoutly, though with very doubtful
feelings on my part.
We found a man dying of some sort of fever, lying on his back in bed,
with a holy candle burning on his forehead--to improve his temperature,
no doubt. He opened his eyes at our entrance; and when he saw the
unearthly apparition of the princess in bright green, with the hair and
face of a soul in purgatory and a blaze of glory about her head; he sat
up in bed with a shriek, pointed his shaking hand at her, and cried
“Booh!” That was all I saw. I got down on my knees, helpless with
hysterical laughter, and covered my face with my hands. When the
ceremony was over, I hurried out as best I could and went to pieces in
the carriage. The man died that night.
One would think it was not very sanitary to be making such visits to
fatal cases of disease. And it was not. We went once to the death-bed of
a smallpox patient and knelt on pillows that had been under his head.
But the Spanish people seem to have a vitality that is proof against
infection; and in the South of Spain particularly they live to
incredible old age.