THE SPANISH REVOLUTION.
Madrid, 14th August 1854.
Madrid, 14th August 1854.
Madrid, 14th August 1854.
Madrid, 14th August 1854.
Dear Ebony,—My last letter was dated immediately after the first circulation in Madrid of a document, which had a most important effect on the fate of the military insurrection, that soon grew into a popular revolution. You will remember that after the action of Vicálvaro, on the 30th June, the insurgent generals drew their forces southwards, still lingering, however, within a few leagues of Madrid, as if in hopes that the capital would make a demonstration in their favour. But Madrid remained tranquil—almost indifferent; and every post brought accounts of similar apathy in large provincial towns, on whose rising in arms O’Donnell and his friends had doubtless reckoned. A few small bodies of troops and some armed civilians repaired to the insurgent banner; there were trifling disturbances in the Huerta of Valencia; a daring partisan, one Buceta, surprised the slenderly garrisoned but strongly situated town of Cuenca. But these incidents were unimportant; without co-operation on a far larger scale, it was evident the insurrection was a failure, and that O’Donnell and his little army, isolated in the midst of a population which seemed to have lost all spirit (even that of revolt), must soon either make for the frontier, or risk an action with the greatly superior forces concentrating to oppose them. But O’Donnell had a card in reserve, which he was perhaps unwilling to play, but yet was resolved to risk before abandoning the game as lost. In a proclamation, dated from Manzanares, a town nearly half-way on the road from Madrid to Granada, and whither a division under General Blaser was proceeding, although slowly, to operate against him, he issued a declaration in favour of the National Guard, of provincial juntas, and of the assemblage of the Cortes, in which the nation, through its representatives, should fix the basis of its future government. The effect of this profession of faith was soon seen. So long as the generals had limited themselves to invectives against Sartoriusand his colleagues, and against the system of corruption and immorality they had fostered into a monstrous development, the nation had remained inactive, because it saw no assurance of gain in a mere change of men, and because no prospect was held out to it of a complete change of system. But when O’Donnell spoke out, and threw himself frankly into the arms of the popular cause, he had not long to wait for backers. On the 15th, 16th, and 17th July, Valencia, Valladolid, Barcelona, Zamora, and, most important of all, Saragossa, declared against the government, and the fall of the ministry was inevitable. On the morning of the 17th, Madrid received the double intelligence of some of thesepronunciamientos, and that the Sartorius cabinet was out. It was understood that General Cordova, a statesman without talent, and a general without resolution, was to head the new ministry, to which end he had long been intriguing, currying favour with the King-consort, and with a less legitimate influence at court. There was to be a bullfight on the afternoon of Monday the 17th July—the first fight that had been permitted since O’Donnell’s insurrection; and it became known in the morning that Cordova and his friends intended getting up a smallemeuteor demonstration, when, between seven and eight o’clock, the streets should be thronged with the ten or twelve thousand spectators issuing forth from the bull-ring. The intention of this was doubtless twofold—to let off a little of the popular steam, and to give an air of popularity to the incoming ministry. But Cordova and his advisers had not sufficiently felt the pulse of the people, or duly estimated the possible results of so imprudent a manifestation. It was like exploding fireworks in a powder-magazine; and the moment selected made the trick still more hazardous. On the sultry evening of a burning July day, when several thousand men of the middle and lower classes should just have quitted the spectacle which excites them to the utmost, and habituates them to bloodshed, to raise, in the streets of Madrid, even the simulacre of a riotous banner, and that at a time when the people were galled by a long period of oppression and misrule, and when an insurrectionary army was in the field, was surely an act of as self-destructive madness as ever a doomed and blinded man was afflicted with. Early in the day, one or two leaders of the liberal party in Madrid had spoken to me of the proposed demonstration, and had intimated their intention of being on the watch to improve it, should circumstances turn favourably for their views. Evening came, and the bullfight took place; after it, as usual, the streets were crowded, especially the Puerta del Sol and adjacent thoroughfares. It was about eight o’clock when the first symptoms of disturbance were apparent. Numerous groups were formed in the streets, and parties of men marched through them at a rapid pace, shoutingvivasfor liberty, and down with the ministry. The resignation of the ministry, I must observe, had not yet been officially published, but it was well known to have been accepted, and that, as far as the cabinet went, Spain was in an interregnum. This was the moment chosen by General Cordova for the farce which was to prove a tragedy. I was reminded, as I watched the proceedings of the night, of the Italian robber story, in which a party of practical jokers, and verymauvais plaisants, having gone out with corked faces and leadless pistols to frighten some friends abroad on a pic-nic, suddenly find amongst them the chocolate visages, fierce whiskers, and blunderbusses charged to the muzzle of the genuine brigand and his band, and heartily deplore the sorry plight in which their folly has put them. So it was in Madrid on the 17th July.
The armed police, up to that evening so numerous that nowhere could you walk ten yards without encountering them, were withdrawn from the streets; the soldiers were all in their quarters—the very sentries had disappeared: the main guard, which mounts at a large solid building on the Puerta del Sol, used by the ministryof the interior, but best known as thePrincipal(chief guard-house), had closed the strong gates of the edifice, and gazed listlessly through the windows at the movements of the mob. Every precaution was taken to avoid collisions between the authorities and the harmless rioters who were to carry out Cordova’s plan. But its execution had scarcely begun when the mockery was turned into earnest—so much so, that I am still at a loss to explain, except by the confusion consequent on a change, and the real absence for some hours of all government in Madrid, the want of any opposition to the insurgents. At first, however, the disturbance was a mere riot, although it soon grew into a political revolt. The bands of men that roamed the streets, with shouts, sticks, and a few with arms, presently began to seek modes of actively employing themselves. Long before the hour (between ten and eleven o’clock) at which, as I afterwards ascertained, the Progresista chiefs in Madrid had decided on an outbreak, the people were busily at work. Before nine o’clock they repaired to two public offices where they knew there were arms—the house of the political governor and the town-hall—and, without opposition from the municipal guards they found there, got possession of between seven hundred and eight hundred muskets. These were regularly served out to the people by the leaders of the movement; and soon, on the Puerta del Sol, an immense crowd, in great part armed, besieged the doors of the Principal. The soldiers within had their orders not to oppose the people, but they did not think proper to admit them into their guard-house. Hard by was an enclosure of planks, placed round some of the demolitions going on in the Puerta del Sol (a flagrant job of Señor Sartorius), and there were also beams from the falling houses. Planks and beams were seized by the mob, piled against the doors of the Principal, and set on fire. The dry wood, parched by the summer sun of Madrid, burned like straw. There was danger of the whole building being consumed. The military evacuated it, and the mob took possession. It would have saved a great deal of fighting, and not a few lives, if they had kept it when they once held it; but, as I have already shown, there was a want of organisation at this early period of the night, and no definite intention, on the part of the masses, of accomplishing a revolution. Even up to eleven or twelve o’clock that night, many persons not inexperienced in such movements thought that the disturbance was a mere popular effervescence—the expression of the joy and relief felt by the people at being rid of their tyrants—and by no means anticipated the serious events that were to grow out of it. The Principal was abandoned by the people, and again occupied by troops. Meanwhile, at other points, the mob was actively mischievous, or, I should perhaps rather say, it actively employed itself in revenging its wrongs on the authors of much of its misery. Below a window, in one of the most frequented and central thoroughfares of Madrid, which I occupied at intervals during the great part of that evening, the passage of strong bodies of the people continued. A great many weapons were now to be seen amongst them—muskets, fowling-pieces, blunderbusses, antiquated firearms of all kinds. At the same time the great majority were unarmed; but their blood was up, their will was strong, and their hands were ready for anything. That night was so full of events that few thought of looking at watches, and I cannot therefore give you the hour at which incidents occurred, or set them down in the exact order of their occurrence, especially as I often changed my place between the hours of eight and two, making excursions into different parts of the town, but frequently returning to the window before mentioned, which, as headquarters and central post of observation, was an excellent position. One of the first acts of violence committed was an attack on the house of Don Luis Sartorius, Conde de San Luis, a man whose name will ever be pre-eminently infamous in the annals of political crime. On their way to his house the people got a ladder, set it against the front of the Principe theatre, which had been endowed when he was in office, and broke to pieces a stoneover the entrance on which his name was carved. On reaching his residence they turned his furniture, pictures, and valuable library into the street, and made a bonfire of them. I know of literary amateurs who, on hearing of this, hurried to the spot, hoping to rescue some of the rare and curious books he was known to possess: but their efforts were in vain; the people would allow nothing to be taken away, everything was for the flames. At first the second floor of the house was respected, but presently it was known that it had lately become the residence of Esteban Collantes, the minister of public works, who had sent in, it is said, only a few days before, twelve thousand dollars’ worth of furniture. After Sartorius, Collantes, Domenech minister of finance, and Quinto the civil governor, were the three men in Madrid most detested by the people. Collantes was thegamin, the mischievous scapegrace, of the San Luis cabinet, devoid alike of dignity, morality, and common decency. The discovery that he abode above his chief colleague was a godsend to the enraged mob, and his chattels quickly shared the fate of those of Sartorius. Similar destruction proceeded at the houses of the renegade liberal Domenech, of the Marquis de Molins, minister of marine of Count Vista-hermosa, who had commanded under General Blaser at the action of Vicálvaro, and who was then following up with a division O’Donnell’s retiring forces; and at those of the well-known capitalist, Salamanca, and of Count Quinto, the alcalde-corregidor, and governor of Madrid. At these two last houses, especially, great destruction of property took place. Rich furniture, pictures of high value, plate, costly ornaments, jewels (especially at Salamanca’s), to the amount of many thousands of pounds, valuable papers, government securities, and even, it is said, bank notes and coin, were destroyed by fire. There is reason to believe, however, that some of the more portable of these things, particularly the jewels, were stolen—not, as I believe, by the people, who, throughout the whole revolution, set an example of honesty and disinterestedness—but by the professional thieves, who are always on the look-out upon such occasions, and by servants in some of the houses attacked, who, knowing where their masters kept their most precious effects, had great facilities for purloining them. A friend of Salamanca’s went to his house to rescue some valuable papers, and also, if possible, some jewels of great price, which were in an iron chest under a bed. Amongst these jewels was a diamond of remarkable beauty, whose history is rather curious. It had been given, set in a ring, by Count Montemolin, to an attached and faithful follower of his and his father’s fortunes. This gentleman afterwards desired to dispose of the stone, retaining the ring as a memorial, and addressed himself, with this object, to a well-known London jeweller. The jeweller advised him to retain the gem, for that, being of a most unusual size, he should have difficulty, if he bought it, in selling it again—should, perhaps, have to cut it down, &c. &c., and ending by naming a sum, which he acknowledged to be less than its value, as the most he could afford to give for it. The offer was accepted. Señor Salamanca afterwards paid £3000 for it. This ring, with other valuable jewellery and a number of unset stones—worth altogether many thousand pounds—were in the iron chest. Salamanca’s friend reached the house, secured the papers, and went to the chest. It was open and empty.
Meanwhile the people continued in motion in almost every part of the town. It was by no means the rabble that were abroad and stirring; many persons of the better classes were active in promoting the tumult. In the streets the leaders could be heard consulting together, and planning whither they should proceed. One party went to the Saladero prison to release the political captives detained there; another strong band, including general officers and persons of note and rank, repaired to the town-hall, appointed a committee, and drew up a representation to the Queen, which was delivered to her by a deputation. She promised to give it favourable consideration. Before this time there had been movements of troops in the town, but no hostilities. Towards two in the morning, however, a decided change took place in theaspect of affairs, and firing commenced at two points. After the deputation had returned from the palace, and reported the result of its mission (amongst other things, the Queen had expressed her earnest desire that there should be no effusion of blood), the committee, which was soon to be a junta, exhorted the crowd assembled in the square of the town-hall to return home and await the result of what had been done. They were disposed to do this, when in the Calle Mayor several companies of infantry opened fire upon them. This roused their indignation and anger, and thenceforward a struggle was inevitable. About the same time as those volleys were fired there was an affray around the princely mansion, or as it is usually called the palace, of Queen Christina. There, too, the people had assembled (throughout the night, “Death to Christina!” had been one of the most frequently repeated cries), had stoned and smashed the windows, forced their way into the house, thrown out furniture and valuables, and lit an immense bonfire with them—finally setting fire to the house itself. The scene presented by the triangularplazain front of the dowager-queen’s residence was striking enough. The wild figures and furious activity of the insurgents—amongst whom were not a few women inciting the men to mischief—contrasted with the passive attitude of a small body of infantry, which tranquilly looked on at the proceedings of the mob. At last, when a considerable portion of the furniture of the right wing was blazing in the plaza, making it as light as day, and illuminating the half-curious, half-frightened physiognomies that peered from the windows of the neighbouring houses, the handful of troops were reinforced by two companies, which at once fired on the people. Two or three volleys cleared the plaza; a tolerable number of persons were killed and wounded. There was firing at about the same time in other parts of the town—in the Calle Mayor, as already mentioned—and skirmishing between the troops and people, the latter of whom had begun to assume the offensive; and from that moment it was pretty evident that a sharp conflict was at hand. But it was not yet fairly engaged in, owing to the absence of orders for the military, and of leaders and organisation for the mob. A new and most unsatisfactory ministry, with General Cordova and the Duke of Rivas at its head, had been appointed, but could not be said to have as yet assumed command. And there was also mistrust as to the extent to which the troops might be depended upon to act against the people. On the other hand, the movement had commenced so suddenly, and so many incidents had filled the few hours that had since elapsed, that nothing like method had as yet been introduced into the proceedings of the insurgents. On the 18th there was a good deal of desultory fighting, and in several places severe conflicts took place; but few barricades were thrown up, and the skirmishing was chiefly from street corners, and from the doors of houses. It was easy to see that the inhabitants of Madrid sympathised with the revolution, and wished well to the insurgents. In many places, when these were hard pressed, and compelled to run, doors were seen suddenly to open to receive them, and again were quickly closed. The insurgents were as yet but imperfectly armed. You might see groups of half a dozen standing at the corner of a cross street, with perhaps two muskets or fowling-pieces amongst them, the others having sticks and swords—the latter often strange old-fashioned weapons, that looked as if they had belonged to the middle ages, and picked out of a curiosity-shop. These gentry would protrude their heads into the main thoroughfare, and watch the favourable moment for a shot at some military post or passing picket. If the shot drew pursuit upon them, they were off into the doors of neighbouring houses, like rabbits into their burrows, or else away through a labyrinth of lanes to harass some other point. A glance at a map of Madrid, if you chance to have one at hand, will show you how well adapted this most irregularly built capital is to the operations of a body of insurgents perfectly acquainted with its intricacies. The uneven surface—the town being built on a collection of small hills—the narrow crooked streets, jumbled together without anysort of order or system—the numerous small squares or open places, in passing over which troops are liable to find themselves under a cross fire from half a dozen different corners—the whole configuration of Madrid, in short, greatly favours its inhabitants when they choose to rise in arms against the garrison. Amongst the most remarkable events of the 18th was the desperate fight maintained by the people against a body of gendarmes, who, all old soldiers, defended themselves with signal valour, but were finally overcome, some of them killed, and the rest disarmed. These gendarmes, or civil guards, as they are here called, were in some sort the Swiss guards of the Madrid July revolution—equally firm in duty and discipline, and almost equally odious to the people, whom they punished pretty severely, and who did not always give them quarter, when vast superiority of numbers at last gave them the advantage which they certainly would not have had in more equal conditions of force. One of the most dashing things done by the insurgents on the 18th was clearing the Plaza del Progreso (one of the larger squares in the heart of the town) with the bayonet, after firing had for some time gone on. The soldiers were fairly driven out by the civilians, and the square and adjoining streets were quickly converted into a fortress, into which there was little probability of the military again penetrating. On the afternoon of the same day a number of lives were uselessly sacrificed, owing to the recklessness and vindictive spirit of a retired officer, a friend of Cordova’s. This person, although no longer in the army, obtained command of a couple of guns, some infantry, and a few dragoons, and, proceeding to the Calle Atocha, one of the principal streets of Madrid, opened a heavy fire of artillery and musketry, firing round shot into the houses, and grape down the street. He did a great deal of damage—some of it to private houses in which no insurgents were or had ever been—killed a few persons, most of them persons who had nothing in the world to do with the insurrection, but who were sitting, inoffensive and terrified, in their houses—lost thirty or forty of his own men, and finally cleared a few hundred yards of street. But this was small gain to the cause he defended, for the insurgents he drove away merely changed their place, and when he departed they returned to contemplate the ravages he had committed in the dwellings of peaceable citizens, and to go forth upon the morrow more embittered than ever to the fight.
It was the 19th, however, that was by far the most important and interesting day of the revolution. The aspect of the night that preceded it was very singular. The day had been hot and bright, as usual in Madrid at this season, and from early in the morning until half-past eight at night the firing had been incessant and frequently very sharp in one or other part of the town. When night fell, the noise and glare were suddenly succeeded by profound silence and darkness. There was no moon; except in a very few streets not a lamp was lit, and the inhabitants received hints to show no lights in their windows. The streets, which during the latter part of the afternoon had been little frequented, owing to the numerous shots that were flying (the soldiers, in some places, firing on every civilian they got sight of), were now almost deserted. There was something very strange and alarming in the complete stillness and gloom prevailing in this densely peopled capital, which in ordinary times is all bustle and blaze until midnight or later. Looking from a first-floor window, nothing was to be seen, except now and then a dark figure gliding stealthily along or darting across the street; but, on venturing out, you soon saw that the people were neither idle nor off their guard. They were in groups behind their barricades—which began to be numerous, although few of them were as yet of a formidable aspect. Meanwhile the revolutionary junta was sitting at the house of Sevillano the banker, a wealthy man, of liberal politics, who had been an object of suspicion and persecution to the Sartorius government. A depot of arms was ordered to be formed there, a well-organised system of defence wasdecided upon, the barricades were ordered to be strengthened and new ones to be made. Within two or three hours after daybreak on the 19th, there were hundreds of barricades in Madrid, many of them of great height and strength. The town presented a most singular spectacle. The whole of its central portion, with the exception of the Principal, which was garrisoned and stoutly defended by a few companies of grenadiers, was soon in the hands of the insurgents. These displayed astonishing activity and readiness of resource. Everything was converted into means of offence or defence. Those of the inhabitants who took no part in the fray, yet did all they could to assist those who did. The enthusiasm was general. In the street in which I that morning found myself, there were several barricades. Most of these were commenced after five o’clock. As soon as the neighbours saw two or three men at work, raising the pavement with picks and crowbars, they hastened to supply them with materials, running out of their houses with empty boxes, dilapidated furniture, and old matting. When mattresses were asked they were freely given, and many hundreds of them were used in the barricades. A patriotic carpenter, nearly opposite to where I was stationed, who usually occupies his time in making coffins for the dead and trunks for the living, brought out of his yard some heavy boards, of great length, which extended completely across the street, and formed an excellent skeleton for a barricade. Before eight in the morning, the firing had begun on all points, and the bullets were singing through the streets in every direction. Besides defending their positions and attacking those of the military and civil guards—who had taken possession of houses here and there in the districts occupied by the people, and held them with great tenacity—the insurgents busied themselves in various other ways, completing and strengthening the barricades, collecting arms, making cartridges, preparing the houses for defence in case the soldiers forced their foremost defences. Quantities of paving-stones were taken up to the roofs and higher floors of the houses, to throw down upon the enemy. Women and children assisted in this labour. It was curious to observe the women. Notwithstanding danger from bullets, they were all at their doors and windows. Some of them—these were the younger ones—seemed to think it great fun; some of the older ones looked ghastly and terrified enough; whilst others, chiefly of quite the lower orders, were fierce partisans—as much so as their husbands and brothers, who in perfect silence, but with deadly resolution, were loading and firing from barricade, window, and house-top. I heard one sturdy dame, crimson with exertion and excitement, who bore in her brawny arms a basket of supplies to a barricade then under fire, express her determination, should the troops get into the street, to shower upon their devoted heads the whole of her kettles and crockery. When a thrifty housewife comes to such extremes as this, it is evident her blood is up. But the forced loan imposed by Sartorius had come home to the pockets of the lower classes of tax-payers, and had greatly exasperated the women.
I profess to send you mere sketches of the revolution—not its history, which the newspapers have already in great measure supplied—and therefore I do not consider myself bound to trace all its events, but limit myself chiefly to what I saw. An artist who should have perambulated Madrid during the 19th and 20th July would have found abundant and striking subjects for his pencil. Feverish activity was the characteristic of the first day, armed and vigilant repose of the second. Repose from fighting, but not from toil, for, although there was a cessation of hostilities—the Principal having surrendered (not, however, until the afternoon of the 20th, when its garrison was literally starved out), the whole town, with the exception of a few barracks and buildings at its extremities, being in the possession of the insurgents, and the Queen having sent for Espartero, which was all that Madrid asked—the insurgents were still mistrustful, and in no way relaxed their watchfulness. The medley of arms amongst them—particularly on the 19th, for on the 20th they were better supplied with muskets—wascurious to observe. Many had scabbardless swords, which they used as walking-sticks, thereby greatly improving the point; others had pistols, some of tremendous length and most antiquated construction. There were not a fewtrabucosto be seen. These are tremendous blunderbusses, wide at the mouth, which scatter a handful ofpostas(large slugs), or carry a ball full four times the size of a musket-ball. Here is a man with a curved scimitar, which must have been handed down to him from some Moorish ancestor, bound to his waist by a bit of old sash; yonder, on a door-step, out of the exact range of fire, but the bullets striking from time to time the balcony above her head, sits a woman playing with a dagger, which she looks quite capable of using. I write only what I myself observed. On the morning of the 20th I walked round many of the barricades when their defenders were breakfasting. One group had got a guitar for a table. It rested on the knees of a circle, and supported their bread and sausage. There was great sobriety; during the whole of the revolution I saw no case of drunkenness.
I leave you to imagine the alarm and confusion at the palace during all this time. The poor, feeble, helpless Queen was distracted by many counsellors. Her evil genius, the Duchess of Rianzares, was at her elbow, urging her to resist to the utmost; for Maria Christina well knew that, if her daughter yielded to the revolution, she herself would have to quit Spain or do penance. She neglected to do the first until it was too late, and must now submit to the second. Then, however, aided by such bad advisers as Roncali, Cordova, Gandara, she excited the Queen to resist and fight, or, if necessary, to fly from Madrid and plant the royal standard elsewhere. There were about 3000 soldiers in and near the palace, in the Retiro gardens, and in two or three barracks—every day the palace cooks provided dinner for 3500 mouths;—these troops, which included a powerful artillery, were to form the nucleus of a force speedily to be assembled, and which was to crush the revolution. A civil war might in this way have been brought about, but the universal spirit of opposition to the Queen, and of indifference—if not dislike—to the dynasty, that the Spaniards have since shown, sufficiently proves that it would not have been of long duration; and its end would inevitably have been the ejection of Isabella II. from her dominions. It was written, however, that the misguided Sovereign should have another chance of retaining the crown to which she has done so little honour. If there were some persons at court who desired to see her leave Madrid for a fortified place—or for any place where she would not be exposed to the pressure of that revolution which they dreaded—there were others who dissuaded her from departure, and even resolutely opposed and forbade it. The ladies of honour, the officers of the halberdiers—that corps which in 1841, under the command of General (then Colonel) Dulce, so stoutly and successfully resisted an attack upon the palace—protested that the Queen should not leave; and one of the former went so far as to seek an interview with a well-known liberal and promoter of the revolution, and to inform him of what was planning. The Marquis of Turgot, the French ambassador, being consulted, advised the Queen by all means to remain where she was. Even the Queen’s husband, poor, feeble, ill-treated Don Francisco de Assis, showed spirit in the cause of prudence, and vehemently protested against her removal from Madrid. Then came—from Saragossa, the eastern stronghold of Spanish liberalism—not Espartero, as was expected, but a messenger, bearing the conditions on which the man of the day, whom all demanded and desired, would come to Madrid. The exact contents of these conditions have not transpired, but, from what has since passed, we may presume that they were tantamount to giving Espartero almost unlimited power, and that, by accepting them, the Queen bound herself to be guided in every respect by him and the cabinet he should form. Few hours were passed in deliberating whether or no they should be accepted, but those were hours of storm and strife within the palace. The wicked, finding theirprojects ruined and their power gone, fell out amongst themselves. There are strange stories of what then occurred, especially between the Queen, her husband, and her mother; of high words and bitter recrimination, and even of blows struck and swords drawn. The exact truth is difficult to ascertain, for scandal, very rife in Madrid, has distorted it into various forms; but I believe there is no doubt that Christina, furious at seeing her daughter about to accept conditions most unpalatable to herself, suffered her Italian blood to move her to unbecoming violence. On the other hand the King, reflecting how much of the unpopularity and difficulty that now overwhelmed his wife was due to the boundless cupidity and unscrupulous manœuvres of the Duchess of Rianzares and her husband, is said to have vented his indignation on the latter, and even to have drawn a sword upon him.
The ten days that elapsed between the summons sent to Espartero and his arrival at Madrid, were days of much anxiety, and even of serious apprehension. The junta governed, but its authority was not strong, and there was danger of excesses by the democratic and turbulent population of the low quarters of Madrid. The greatest danger was of an attack on Queen Christina’s house. For two or three days this was seriously talked of. The people were bent upon burning it. To do this would have been to entail the destruction of a street that runs at the back of the dowager’s palace, and one side of which forms part of the same block; probably, also, the destruction of the British Embassy, which is separated from it but by an interval of a few feet. Fortunately, things occurred to distract the attention of the people, and no attempt was made to carry out the imprudent design. The only acts of violence that had to be deplored were the shooting of three or four obnoxious persons belonging to the secret police. One of these was the infamous Francisco Chico, the chief of that institution, who certainly richly deserved the fate he met, for he had committed many and heinous crimes. A strict watch was kept for the ex-ministers, and had they been caught, in those first moments of excitement and fury, when the people were still hot from the fight, they assuredly would have been killed.
To keep the people employed, the temporary authorities rather encouraged the building and strengthening of barricades. The Spanish nation has been so often cheated out of the results of its insurrections, and has so repeatedly beheld a half-effected revolution converted into a reaction, that it was determined this time to guard against such delusions and disappointments. Such, at least, was the case in Madrid. Under a broiling sun, they toiled as if life and death depended on their exertions. Most of the barricades, at first constructed of very heterogeneous materials, and without much regard to symmetry, were taken down, and rebuilt of paving-stones and earth. The operation was a great nuisance. The town was continually in a cloud of dust; passage through the streets, obstructed by these temporary fortifications, was extremely slow; at night one risked breaking his legs by tumbling into holes, or his shins by stumbling over huge blocks of stone and other building materials. The result of all this labour and inconvenience was, that, by the 25th of July, Madrid contained upwards of two hundred and eighty barricades of the first magnitude, each one of which was the centre of (on an average) eight or ten smaller redoubts and defences. Besides stones, of which the principal parapets were chiefly composed, the materials used were bricks, tiles, bags of sand, beams, mortar, diligences, private carriages, carts, and furniture. On the first days of the revolution, it was curious to observe how, in the haste and enthusiasm of the moment, good and even handsome furniture was taken out into the street by its owners to be knocked to pieces in the barricades. Flags and streamers adorned them all, and at nearly every one, raised upon altars covered with coloured cloths, were portraits of Espartero—horrible caricatures, many of them, but nevertheless the objects almost of adoration on the part of the people. After nightfall there were lights placed round these portraits, which in someinstances were accompanied by others of O’Donnell, Dulce, and latterly (but only in a few cases) of the Queen, and music of every kind, from excellent bands down to a single cracked guitar, played behind the barricades, in front of which the people assembled in crowds. The revolution, serious enough at first, had now become a sort of festival. The people were too unsettled to return to their customary occupations; business of all kinds was suspended; the streets were continually crowded with men of the lower orders, armed, idle, but very well-conducted; whilst the better classes, to whom, now that the preliminary object of the revolution (the placing of Espartero at the head of affairs) was gained, the whole thing was an intolerable nuisance, longed for the arrival of the man whose presence alone would content the multitude, and restore Madrid to its normal condition.
At last he came, and certainly his reception was a triumph. The road was lined with people for miles without the town. The military and civil authorities went out to meet him as far as theVentaof the Holy Ghost, half a league from Madrid. The garrison was formed up on the right hand outside the Alcala gate, and the National Guard on the left. His approach was announced by a general peal of all the church bells of Madrid. There were triumphal arches, and every balcony in the town was draped with coloured hangings. But the glorious part of the ovation was the unmistakable and irrepressible joy of the people, and their demonstrations of affection. The whole population of Madrid was either outside the town or in the streets. Women of all classes abounded in the crowd, and were vehement in the welcome they gave to the popular hero. His carriage could hardly proceed for the people that thronged around it, eager to touch his hand or even the skirt of his garment. This continued the whole of the way to the palace, which is at the opposite extremity of the town to that at which he entered, and all the way back to Espartero’s temporary residence near the Puerta del Sol. The Duke de la Victoria is far too warm-hearted a man not to be deeply moved by such a reception, and I saw him more than once wipe the tears from his eyes.
The good effects of Espartero’s presence in Madrid were soon apparent. Confidence returned, and in a short time we got rid of the barricades. There was more difficulty in disarming that portion of the population unfit to be trusted with arms, but this too was effected by advertising for their purchase. Thereupon musket and carbine, rifle and blunderbuss, came quickly into store. The ministry which Espartero formed did not at first give general satisfaction to the liberal party, for the political views of some of its members were at least doubtful; but soon its prompt and judicious measures won it good opinions. Its first and greatest difficulty was the Queen-mother. On this point the people would not give way, or listen to reason. A few words from Espartero had sufficed to make them remove their beloved barricades, but with respect to Maria Christina they were inexorable. Armed men beset the gates of the town and the avenues to the palace, and swore she should not depart till she had rendered an account of her stewardship, and refunded at least a part of her plunder. Night after night, and till past daybreak, Espartero and the ministers, and the veteran patriot San Miguel—who, after rendering immense services to the cause of order during the revolution, had been appointed captain-general of the province—remained at the palace, anxious to effect the departure of the Dowager Queen. But when she could have gone she would not; and when she would, it was no longer possible. At first her escape might have been managed, had she consented to go off quietly in a post-chaise, without state or many attendants. But this did not suit her. She had two enormous diligences at her daughter’s palace, to convey herself and her family, her suite and her baggage. And on the night that she might have gone, she made various difficulties, like a person who was being forced to go, instead of one whose safety depended on speedy flight. She seems to have been completely infatuated, and she dallied and lingered until it was toolate. It became impossible to remove her from Madrid without a serious collision with the people. The systematic, persevering, and determined manner in which they kept watch was attributed to higher instigations than that of their ordinary chiefs. It was said, with what degree of truth it is impossible to ascertain, that they were prompted and directed by persons in authority, who thought it unfair that the cause of so much evil to Spain should be allowed to escape with her spoil to live luxuriously in a foreign land. O’Donnell was mentioned as one of those who would gladly see justice done on the unscrupulous and heartless Duchess of Rianzares. The character of that general renders this not unlikely; but there is no proof of it, and it is a mere report. What is certain is, that Espartero, whose fault it is to be too easy and forgiving, rather than severe and vindictive, was very desirous to get the Queen-mother away,—possibly not only out of pity and consideration for her daughter, but because he felt that her detention in Spain would be an additional embarrassment to his government. He did not conceal his opinion of her; he would not even have seen her, had she not, one night, after he had repeatedly refused her an interview, abruptly entered a room where he and the other ministers were assembled with the Queen. But he would have facilitated her departure. Amidst her delays, pretensions, and indecision, the moment passed, and even his power and influence were insufficient to secure her exit from Spain without a combat and a sacrifice of life; or, at the least, without deeply offending the people, and imperilling the tranquillity of Madrid—if not of the whole country. When things came to this, persons at the palace proposed various plans for escape in disguise. Such escape was not easy, for the people rigidly scrutinised all who left the palace, and armed parties outside the town examined every vehicle that passed. It is said that some one proposed to Christina to disguise herself as a black woman (there are a great many negresses in Madrid), and answered for her escape if she would do so, but that she refused, on account of two remarkable dimples in her cheeks, which she made sure would betray her. The poor lady begins to have more wrinkles than dimples; but she was doubtless right not to risk detection in such ignoble disguise. Her features are of course extremely well known here, and had the people caught her making off in masquerade, she certainly would not have escaped rough usage, and perhaps her life would have been sacrificed. What could her daughter then have done? Hardly have retained her throne, already slipping from under her—and her crown, whose brightness is so grievously dimmed by the humiliation her errors have brought upon her. It seems incredible that a sovereign should be found sufficiently wanting in pride to put pen to such a manifesto—I should rather say to such an apology—as was signed by Isabella II. on the 26th July last. Doubtless nothing less would do; but surely most princes—or they are meaner than the world believes them—would have preferred abdication to so humbling themselves. In that notable proclamation, she completely criedpeccavi, promised better behaviour, and protested her entire adherence to Espartero’s political principles. Since he has been here, her conduct towards him has been such as to make it appear miraculous how she ever managed to do without him. She constantly requires his presence, and, notwithstanding the immense deal of business he has to attend to, he is obliged to go daily to the palace. Doubtless she has not yet quite recovered from the alarm of the revolution, and looks upon Espartero as her best safeguard. I will not attribute any covert or perfidious motive to a sovereign who has suffered severely for her errors, and has pledged herself to amendment. But it would be very desirable to separate her from her mother, whose intriguing spirit will never be at rest so long as there is life in her body, and a possibility of her working evil. She continues at the palace, instead of being sent away from Madrid, and guarded in some castle or royal residence. Of course, there are difficulties in the way of removing her, and it seems cruel to separate her from her daughter, from whom, perhaps, beforelong, she may be separated for ever. But the paramount consideration is the welfare of Spain; and, moreover, in reality, the links that bind the two ladies to each other are of a less tender nature than may be supposed, or would seem natural. Christina, it is well known, has never loved this daughter, whom she shamefully neglected, and, it may almost be said, wilfully corrupted, with a view to place upon her throne the Duchess of Montpensier. She has that influence over Isabella which long habit, and the ascendancy of a strong mind over a weak one, naturally give to her. And probably the Queen hangs more than ever upon her mother, now that her lover has been sent away, and her palace cleared of that crew of supple courtiers, ready for any base subserviency or corrupt complaisance, who have so long infested it. “It is absolutely necessary,” the venerable San Miguel is reported one day to have said to the Queen, “that the Señor de Arana should go on a mission to Ciudad Rodrigo. There he will be very near to Portugal, and may easily pass into that country.” This caused instant anxiety and alarm. “You answer to me for his life,” was the reply. “It runs not the slightest risk,” said the old general, and so the thing was arranged. The favourite departed, and is perhaps already as completely forgotten by the person most interested in retaining him here as he appears to be by everybody else. He is not likely to be recalled, so long as Espartero is in power, and it is to be hoped he will not be replaced. The clearance of the court was left for the Duke de la Victoria, who assumed the office of governor of the palace, and speedily dismissed the titled and embroidered, but impure, crowd that haunted its halls and avenues.
Availing myself of the roving and desultory license conceded to the letter-writer, I step back a few weeks to note some small but not uninteresting circumstances, which I find I have omitted to mention. When O’Donnell’s outbreak occurred, not only were the civil guards removed from their duty on the roads and concentrated in the capital, and at other points, to act in bodies as troops against the insurgents and against the people, but the numerous police of Madrid became too much engrossed by their political avocations to heed the ordinary objects of their solicitude. The proper regulation of the streets was neglected, and a prodigious swarm of beggars, emerging from their habitual lurking-places, spread itself over the town. The streets were infested by the most revolting deformities. The least disagreeable section of the mendicant mob was that consisting of the blind men, who, always numerous in Madrid, were now apparently in redoubled strength. There is an independent spirit amongst theseciegos, and they seldom beg, but poke their way about with a big stick, or are led by a friend, and sell newspapers, flying sheets, and extraordinary supplements. Since the revolution there has been much work for them, and from seven in the morning until late at night one hears their discordant cries, consisting generally of the names of new newspapers, (many have been started within the last month), theEsparterista, theIndependencia, theSentinela del Pueblo, or of the announcement of the “latest news from the palace,” “the departure of thetia Cristina,” or “the life of the robber Sartorius,”—all for twocuartos, or one halfpenny. It were unjust to these benighted dispensers of intelligence to class them amongst the beggars, although they certainly are a nuisance, owing to their straightforward manner of perambulation, which compels everybody to keep out of their way who does not desire to have their heavy feet stamped upon his, or their protruded stick thrust against his shins. But the blind are quite agreeable and ornamental compared with the maimed, the diseased, the shrivelled, the distorted, who lie under walls and upon the staircases of public buildings, station themselves at street corners, ride about on donkeys, and everywhere disgust you with their nauseous presence, and pester you with their piteous whine. The Spaniards are charitable—that is to say, they are great alms-givers—and this of course encourages street-begging. There are places of refuge and humane establishments in Madrid whither all destitute persons have aright to repair—whither, indeed, it is the duty of the police to compel them to betake themselves. But for some time past it can hardly be said that there has been any police in this capital; and I assure you that a walk through it is anything but a gratification, either to the eyes or the olfactories. It is full of strange, complicated, and most unfragrant odours, to which the puzzled and tortured nose involuntarily and in vain attempts to ascribe an origin. And it is plentifully besprinkled with objects that should never be seen out of an hospital. Here, seated or squatted on the pavement of one of the most crowded thoroughfares, is a wretch with an arm shrivelled to the bone; here another whose leg grows up behind his back, his foot appearing over his shoulder. Here is an unfortunate creature who almost reminds us of the days when lepers sat by the road-side and implored alms. A little farther on a man, in an old soldier’s coat, displays the hideous stump of his amputated leg; and in this narrow passage we run up against a boy leading a donkey, on which is stretched, upon his belly, a shapeless mass of humanity, his limbs naked, and every one of them in some way or other distorted and deformed. And here—haunting the narrow court that leads to the post-office, and whose asphalt pavement, most injudicious in this climate, grows sticky and stinking beneath the beams of the August sun—is a tall young fellow without any arms at all, who, in the names of many saints, entreats pity upon apobre joven, unable to work, and expects you to put your coppers into his waistcoat pocket. As if political revolutions and vagabond music had some mysterious connection, the number of street bands, Italian harp-players, organ-grinders, and guitar-strummers, that have deafened us during the last six weeks, is something extraordinary. It was noticed by persons here that on one particular day, early in July, all these itinerant professors disappeared, and it was inferred that an outbreak was close at hand. But either the musicians had been falsely alarmed, or a general feast or fast held by them was the cause of the suspension of their hostilities against the tympanum of Madrid, for no insurrection occurred at that time, although we had not very long to wait for it.
The Spanish revolution of 1854 has, I need hardly say, not been accomplished without some expense. Revolutions are costly amusements: from the State they take money, and from the people days of labour. Although this one has, up to the present time, especially as regards Madrid, and in all Spain except Catalonia, been particularly orderly for a movement of the kind, and remarkably free from excess and riot, there still is a bill to pay. The provincial juntas, during their few days of local but almost absolute power, issued various decrees that would have played havoc with the finances had they not been promptly repealed by the regular government established under Espartero, to which, however, even up to the present moment, some of these juntas refuse to give up. In many provinces important taxes were taken off, without any measures being adopted to replace the heavy deficit their abolition would occasion in the public revenue. And some of these taxes were of daily collection, as, for instance, duties on goods entering towns. Then there were barricades to be paid, damages to be repaired, streets to be repaired, and many other charges. And the outgoing ministers, when they saw their political end approaching, took scandalous liberties with the public money. Of the portion of the forced loan that had been collected, but a few thousand reals were to be discovered, although at least half a million sterling had been got in, and paid at Madrid into the coffers of the State. In short, as regards finance, the new government has entered office under most unfavourable circumstances. But the purses of Progresista capitalists, rigidly closed to the Sartorius ministry, are freely opened to that of Espartero. And no time has been lost in effecting savings in various departments. Numbers of useless clerks and government officials have been dismissed; and although, according to the very bad rule here observed, all these men are entitled to more or less retiring pension, to be more or less punctually paid, still the economy is considerable.But the great saving will result from the character of the men who have come into office, and who are all respected for their integrity. O’Donnell, it is true, made his fortune in no very reputable way—by the slave-trade, when he was governor of Cuba—but that has been such a common and received practice that it would be erroneous to infer, from his having followed it, that he would necessarily take bribes in Madrid, or defraud the country he assists to govern. A Spanish general, sent out to command at the Havanna, sees nothing improper—as there is certainly nothing extraordinary—in receiving his ounce or two of gold for every slave landed. Don José Concha, now on the eve of embarking for Cuba to resume the post he formerly held there, is almost the only instance, for many years, of resistance to the temptation held out to West Indian captain-generals by the importers of the raw article from Africa. In Spain, however, O’Donnell passes for an honourable man, who keeps his word when it is pledged, and is incapable of the baseness and peculation of which Spanish ministers have been too often guilty.
Although formed and headed by the most popular man in Spain, and composed of men by no means unwelcome to the nation, the present ministry, brief though its existence yet has been, has not escaped censure for some of its acts. Of course, all the persons whom the revolution has upset, all the employés who are put on half-pay, all the friends of the polacos, the partisans of Sartorius, Bravo Murillo, Roncali, and other notorious ex-ministers, who now find themselves sunk in the slough of despond, are furious against the new order of things, and spare no pains to damage the government by propagating false reports and malicious inventions. On the other hand, the ultra-liberals, the republicans and clubbists, look upon the present men as a mere compromise, and declare that the revolution has been nipped in the bud, and has not gone half far enough. They have faith in Espartero, and discretion enough not violently to agitate, at least for the present, against his government; but here there are clearly the elements of two oppositions, one factious and reactionary, the other, by its impatience for progress, nearly or quite as dangerous. The most recent and the principal ground of complaint the latter party has found, is the intimation in a ministerial document published two days ago in theMadrid Gazette, and which preludes to a decree regulating the mode of convocation of the Constituent Cortes—that the government intends to admit no discussion as to the permanence of Isabella and her dynasty on the Spanish throne. There is at present a very strong feeling in Spain against the Queen personally, and against the race to which she belongs; and those who desire to see her compelled to abdicate, or dethroned by the vote of a National Convention—the proper name for the single popular chamber that is to assemble on the 8th of next November—do not perhaps sufficiently reflect on the difficulties to which such a measure would give rise. They are ready to remove, but are they prepared to replace, the erring daughter of the treacherous Ferdinand? My belief is, that were Isabella to-morrow to sign her act of abdication, it would be joyfully received by a large portion of the nation, but that discord would ensue as to who or what should replace her. During the latter days of the Sartorius ministry there were seven or eight candidates in the field for the premiership—as soon as it should be vacant. There have lately been nearly as many named for the throne, should the present sovereign quit it. First there is her daughter, with a long regency—probably that of Espartero. But this would only lead to fresh complications. The Princess of the Asturias is a puny, unhealthy child; besides which there are reasons, known to all, and which I need not particularise, that make it extremely doubtful whether the Spanish nation would accept her as their sovereign even in name. This admitted, there are still many to choose out of, but there are difficulties and objections in every case. There are Montemolin, Montpensier, Don Pedro of Portugal: a federative republic has been talked of, and some have ventured to hint even at Don Enrique, the Queen’scousin and brother-in-law. The two last, however, are out of the question. The priest party would give all its support to Montemolin, and, were an attempt made to change the dynasty, he might possibly find sufficient adherents to commence a civil war, whose duration and consequences to Spain it would be impossible to foresee. Montpensier would find few partisans. Brought into Spain by intrigue, and against the wish of the people, he has wanted either the tact or the opportunity to gain their esteem and affection. Living in retirement at Seville, he has been little heard of, and the general opinion of his abilities is decidedly poor. I say nothing of the Spanish dislike to a French sovereign, or of the opposition that the present ruler of France would probably make to his elevation to the throne of Spain. Amongst the better classes here there is decidedly a leaning to the young King of Portugal. The favourable accounts received of his talents and character, the increase of importance that would be given to Spain by the union of the two countries into the kingdom of Iberia, the commercial advantages to be derived from the command of the whole course of the two great rivers that traverse Portugal and the greater part of Spain,—these are some of the circumstances that induce many here to cast wishful looks in the direction of the young heir of Braganza. Pedro V., they say, would suit them well. And even some of the objections urged against the scheme, such as the vast difference in customhouse tariffs and religious tolerance in the two countries, are set down by them amongst the advantages and inducements to their union. The converts in Spain to such a reduction of the imports on foreign manufactures as should destroy smuggling, benefit the treasury, and produce an increase of the demand for Spanish produce, daily augment in numbers. As to religious tolerance, the Spaniards begin to see that it is inseparable from true liberty, and to be ashamed of the system of bigotry that disgraces their country. The appointment of Don José Alonso, a most determined opponent of ultramontane influence, to the ministry of Grace and Justice, is significant of the feeling prevailing here, and of a probable move in the right direction. The liberals all declare the existing concordat to be doomed, and if the Pope opposes the great alterations that will be made in the present system, and which will doubtless include the expulsion of the Jesuits, and a great reduction in the hierarchical establishment in Spain, it is by no means impossible that the whole fabric of papal interference will be swept away, and that Spain will have the Spanish church as France has the Gallican.
There still are certainly considerable difficulties in the way of the union of the two crowns and countries. In the first place, is it sure that the King of Portugal would accept the arduous task of governing Spain? Would it be wise of him to exchange his present humble but safe and respectable position amongst the sovereigns of Europe for one certainly much more exalted, but also infinitely more arduous, and even dangerous? Admitting, however, that he made up his mind to this, how would the Portuguese like the plan? Waiving the question of national antipathies, to which exaggerated weight has been given, how would Portuguese pride endure that Portugal should be absorbed in Spain, even whilst giving her a king? And what would they say to the loss of the valuable smuggling trade of which Portugal is now the depôt, and which is carried on through her ports and territory? If there be not a customs union, there can be no real union between the countries. It is not likely, however, that Portugal will long benefit in the way it now does by the absurd Spanish tariff, of which a reform is inevitably approaching.That tariff is doomed by the increasing good sense of the nation and by the example of others, and its existence can be a question only of time. There are other difficulties, such as the fusion of the two debts and the election of one capital (is Madrid or Lisbon to be sacrificed?) but it is thought that all these things might be reconciled and arranged in a satisfactory manner. It is hoped France would not object, and England’s co-operation and aid are reckoned upon—as they are admitted to be indispensable. The Iberian monarchy, with Pedro V. on the throne and an English princess for his wife—such is the dream of many here. That at least a part of it may be realised, is certainly not improbable. And I have reason to know that such a plan has occurred, some years since, to persons in high places, not in this country, whose influence, if steadily and perseveringly applied, would go far towards carrying it out. No time could be more favourable for that than the present, when England and France are bound in close alliance and cordial amity, and when Spain is thoroughly disgusted with the dynasty that has so long misruled her.
There is much more to be said on this subject of a change of dynasty, but for the present I must conclude, for here is the middle of the month; and moreover writing long letters with the thermometer at fever-heat is almost too much exertion. And so, for at least another moon, I quit the complicated question of Spanish politics, and bid you a hearty farewell.