THE POOR AND THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS

“In my last situation my mistress made me go to Mass with her every Sunday. I had to get up at five in the morning, so as to be back in time to do my work in the house. Every Sunday she asked me if I had confessed so that I might take the Communion, but I always told her I had not had time and would confess next time. I will not go to confession. I would rather lose my place.”

“It is true that I am over seventy, and it is very hard to earn my bread and pay a penny a day for rent by picking up rags and rubbish for sale. I am ill too: I have never been well since my daughter ran away from me to live with a priest. But I do not wish to go into the Asylum of the —— Sisters. They not only make the poor people there confess and communicate every day, but they make them work quite as hard as I am working now. And in my own place, though I may be hungry, at least I am not obliged to get up at six in the morning to go to Mass, and thencarry firewood for the convent, as my poor old brother was.”

In another town in the diocese where the rag-picker lived, an old acquaintance of mine thankfully accepted an opportunity I was able to obtain for her, through friends, of entering an asylum for aged paupers, managed by nuns under the supervision of the municipality. That town has long been markedly Liberal in its politics, and possibly this may have something to do with the more humane administration of the asylum. With this instance in my mind I was surprised at the rag-picker’s rejection of a similar refuge for her old age, but further inquiries convinced me that the rule of the one convent was in truth very different from that of the other.

“Every one knows that Higuero was the son of the Bishop, and that was why they didn’t hang him. There was no doubt at all that he murdered his paramour: he was caught almost in the act. How upset the Bishop was! His son and his daughter married a brother and sister, and both turned out badly, very badly. The son—Higuero was his nickname—and the daughter’s husband—Pepita her name was—fell in love with the same woman, and that was the cause of the murder.If the Bishop had not used all his influence with the Government Higuero would not have escaped hanging. He was taken away to —— Prison, and no one ever heard of him again. Of course he was not really taken to prison, he was allowed to escape. How did we know he was the son of the Bishop? Very simply. His mother had beenama de gobierno[housekeeper] in the Bishop’s house before he was made bishop. No, she was never married. She was well provided for, and the children had some education, but they were bad from the beginning. I lived for some years in the same tenement house with them. Many of the priests’ children turn out ill. What can be expected of the children of such bad men?”

These are a few out of hundreds of such stories told.And the people believe they are true.

Certain scandals, relating to the disappearance of valuable paintings from one Spanish cathedral or another, are familiar to all who travel in Spain. One such incident has always been a mystery to the outside world, owing to the seeming impossibility of a thief getting access to the picture in question, which was in a chapel in the cathedral, protected by a heavy grille extending from floor to ceiling, the door of which was always kept locked.

The following explanation was given by the widow of a former cathedral servant:

“I know quite well how it was done. The assistant-keeper of the keys was on duty that night, his superior having leave of absence because his daughter was ill. The priest in charge of the chapel made some excuse to take the keys from him that afternoon. Next day he and several others were sent to prison, accused of having been concerned in the theft. They were released in a week, for there was no evidence against them, and the proof is that not one of them lost his place. The priest soon after left the city. It was said that he had been promoted, but no one ever heard of him again.” The husband of the speaker was one of those accused.

A scandal which gave rise to a question in the Cortes was the disappearance of two valuable pictures from the Cathedral of Toledo. It appears that these pictures were in a chapel which had been built and endowed in the seventeenth century by a certain family. Two or three years ago their descendants claimed these pictures as their private property, and entered into treaty to sell them to a “foreigner.” The State intervened, declaring the whole contents of thecathedral to be inviolate. Soon afterwards “it was found necessary to repair” the chapel in question, and the pictures were taken down “for safe custody” meanwhile. What happened after that has never been cleared up, but a “foreigner” and a motor figure in the story, and the chapel is now without the pictures. No steps were ever taken, so far as the public could learn, to bring the matter home to any one.

That quantities of valuable old laces and embroideries have disappeared from the cathedrals and parish churches of Spain there is no doubt. I know of one case myself in which an antique chasuble was exchanged for one of cheap jute imitating brocade. The explanation given was that the old one was worn out, but as it now figures in a private museum it is difficult not to believe, as the people say, that some money changed hands with the chasuble.

In the cathedrals each canon had, until quite lately, entire control of the chapel he served, and was responsible to no one for its contents. The temptation to sell old lace and vestments and altar fittings, and to replace them by new, was no doubt great, especially if there is any truth in the popular belief that the priests in many cases maintain a home and bring up families like men to whom marriage is not forbidden. And noone could bring him to book for any change made in the appointments of his chapel or (in the case of a parish priest) his church, because, as a rule, no one in authority over him knew what it contained when he took possession. Even after his death it would generally be impossible to prove peculation, did the superior officers of the Church desire to do so, for it is a rare thing for any cathedral or church to keep an inventory of the valuables it is supposed to possess.

It is said that the priests in many cathedrals and parish churches allow their linen vestments and altar fittings to be taken away from the precincts for laundry purposes. The facility with which valuable old laces can be exchanged for modern machine-made stuff in these cases need not be dwelt on.

Another opportunity for those who wished to profit by the sale of church treasures was said to be afforded by the fact that fabrics, sometimes several centuries old, stand in occasional need of repair. I have heard the “store-room” or “workshop” laughed at by employees of the church.

“Once anything worth money goes into the store-room for repairs we never expect to see it again.”

“And where is this store-room?”

“Don’t you know? The dealers in antiques can tell you.”

The hostility of the people towards the priests doubtless colours their views in these as in all other matters relating to them. But it is a fact that a distinguished Spanish archæologist a few years ago was refused further access to the archives of a certain cathedral after he had asked the Chapter to permit him to publish an inventory of the treasures under their charge. Now, I am glad to say there are at any rate some dioceses in which all this has been changed. The archbishops have had the contents of the churches examined and catalogued, to the annoyance of certain persons, but to the satisfaction of the parishioners, who obtained no benefit from the sale of the Church treasures under the old system.

The following incident was reported to the Press at the end of the year 1909. I have not seen any contradiction published, and I give the story for what it is worth.

In one of the great cities a certain church was condemned as unsafe, and the congregation were told that ere long they would have to attend other churches in the neighbourhood. One of the Religious Orders entered into treaty for the purchase of the condemned building, in order tobuild on the site. But nothing was settled, and as the danger of collapse was not immediate the services continued to be conducted as usual. When the time came to collect money for Masses to be said on All Souls’ Day, the parish priest found his usual request for alms refused, on the ground that the —— Brothers had already been round to say that the church was given up and its congregation attached to the Brothers’ Church in such a street, and this being so they had come to collect the payment for the All Souls’ Masses, which was usually given to the parish priest. He indignantly reported the affair to his superiors, and so it got into the papers.

It was added that the priest declined to say the Masses for the dead, as he had not been paid for them, and the —— Brothers, although they got the money, provided no special service for the congregation who had paid for it. So that the souls for whom these poor folk had given their alms will—in their belief—remain so much longer in purgatory. That the alms were given by the poor, not by the rich of the parish, is evident from the donors not knowing that their parish church still existed. The whole affair throws an instructive light on the relations of the poor with their Church or their parish priest. Had he been in the habit of visiting them, or did they make apractice of attending Mass even occasionally, the mistake could never have arisen. But, as the story shows, the priest had no intercourse with his people save when he went to beg from them. The incident, even allowing a wide margin for journalistic exaggeration, goes a long way to support the assertion of the woman who gave as her reason for not going to confession, that “the priest would only ask her for money, which she wanted more than he did.”

One more case, and I have done with this unattractive subject.

Some twenty years ago a large dole to the poor, which had been given annually for about four centuries in a certain chapel, was suddenly cut off, and has never been renewed. It came out that the priest in charge had sold the bonds in which the capital was invested, with the connivance of a Government official in the Finance Department, and the two between them spent the money. The priest was convicted and imprisoned for a twelvemonth. Then he was released and appointed to another church in the same diocese. My informant said he had been a witness at the trial. “And to-day,” said he, “that bad man holds the sacred Elements in his hands, and gives the people his blessing. Such things ought not to be allowed.”

Myreaders may be inclined to think that the Religious Orders are a kind of King Charles’ head, which I, a twentieth century Mr. Dick, am unable to keep out of this book. The truth is that in an attempt such as this to make intelligible the views and aspirations of the working classes of Spain, the Religious Orders are the central and dominating fact which overshadows everything else. Whether we discuss the material condition of the poor, their education, their political disabilities, or whatever it may be, and make any attempt to analyse the matter and discover the reasons of their deplorably backward condition, we always get back to the Religious Orders as the cause—if not in actual fact, at any rate in the firm and unshakeable conviction of the people—of all their misfortunes.

It must be remembered, in connection with the Religious Orders, that the position of nearly all of them in Spain is illegal. According to theConcordat, made before the expulsion of Isabel II., the only Orders allowed in Spain are those of St. Vincent of Paul, St. Philip Neri, and one other, to be nominated by the Pope by agreement with the Government, while all closed Orders of nuns are prohibited. The Pope has never yet named the third Order, and apparently no steps are ever taken to oblige him to carry out his part of the bargain.

I will now give—generally in the words of the narrators—typical instances of the way in which the Religious Orders are said to interfere with the livelihood of the working classes, and of the manner in which once wealthy families have been brought to ruin through their machinations.

The porter of a Jesuit college—for the servants of these institutions love their employers no better than do their friends and relatives outside—told his brother, who told me, that every night during the first two or three weeks in August, 1909, after the Barcelona riots, refugees were admitted to the college. At least eighty, he said, came in all. They slipped in secretly, after the lights were out, disguised in lay dress, often of the poorest description, having travelled half dead with fear [muertos de miedo] from Cataluña. That the porter’s story was true was proved by the large purchases of provisions made by thecollege during that month. A baker told me that thefraileswere more insistent than ever that all the waste bread should be given to them “for the poor.” And, he added, the “good Fathers” were already buying twice their usual supply of him. “Thefrailesalways demand all the bread we put by for the poor,” said my friend. “We would prefer to give it direct to the poor ourselves, for we do not feel sure how much of it they get from thefrailes, whose house-keepers are great hands at makingpastelesanddulces[7]for sale to good Catholic families. These good Catholic families prefer to buy theirpastelescheap from the friars, who say that they are sold for the good of the Church. We do not care to give our stale bread to be used in injuring the trade of our companions the confectioners; for the friars, having no taxes to pay, can naturally undersell ordinary tradesmen, and all the more when they get the bread for their confectionery free. But if we said that we wished to give our bread to our own acquaintances among the poor, the Jesuits would ruin us. They would tell all their clients that we were bad men and enemies of the Church, and we should lose all our trade. We know this by experience. So we give ourstale bread to thefrailesand they let us live. But the poor are getting no bread from thefrailessince the Barcelona business.”

During the disturbances in Cataluña it was said that “shiploads” of monks and nuns were being landed in the middle of the night at sundry ports along the coast, and that they so effectually betrayed themselves by their nervousness of manner that the country people had not the slightest doubt as to who and what they were. But as the people had no desire to injure them personally—notwithstanding a certain amount of talk about cutting throats and hanging—they were permitted to pass unmolested, though it is true that there were occasional scowls at ill-clad individuals who wore their trousers “with a difference,” as though they missed the flowing skirts of their cloth.

And it must be remembered that at the very time that these frightened men and women were travelling the country in disguise, numbers of families were sorrowfully bidding farewell to sons, brothers, and husbands, on their departure to the war which, as the people will always believe, was begun in the interest of Jesuit capitalists, sheltering their ownership of the Morocco mines and the great steamer companies behind the names of lay millionaires.

The popular suspicion of Jesuit interference in these, as in almost all the other big commercial concerns in the Peninsula, may or may not be justified, but its effect on the attitude of the people towards the Religious Orders cannot be over-rated. Not the least extraordinary feature in the situation is that the Religious Orders profess to disregard the feeling that exists against them, although it is apparent on every hand to any one who goes about with eyes and ears open.

For years past I have noticed that no member of the working classes salutes a priest or friar in the streets. Day after day one summer I saw the same priests taking their afternoon walk along the same by-way, where the same artisans, to the number of twenty or thirty, watched the “long skirts” from the doors of their workshops. I never saw an artisan greet a priest or friar, or vice versa. The flowing robes of the ecclesiastics swept against the patched garments of the workmen, but no glance was exchanged. The priests kept their eyes bent on the ground, one hand grasping the skirts and the other pressed on the breast, a typical attitude, which is jeered at by the poor as “canting.” The workmen kept their eyes fixed on the work on which they were engaged. It is impossible to imagine anything more hostile than the silent defiance of the men,as they turned to watch the “long skirts” out of sight. I have seen single instances of the same thing elsewhere in many places, but here I had special facilities for observing the daily exhibition of armed neutrality, owing to the accident of my room at the back of the little country hotel looking out on the by-path. “I hate to see them,” one of the men said to me; “they are the ruin of us and our country.” What made it the more significant was that these same workmen had a pleasant word of greeting for every lay person, man or woman, acquaintance or stranger, who passed by them.

The economic question bulks largely among the causes of the popular hostility to the Religious Orders, and if only half the complaints generally made are based on fact, the people have reason on their side.

Formerly, say the women, it was easy to obtain a day’s wage by washing in well-to-do houses, and a laundress could make a decent living. Now in every town of any importance there are one or more convents called “Domestic Colleges,” where orphans or servants out of place are received, and these girls repay the nuns for their board and lodging by doing laundry-work for rich Catholic families. If the girls were allowed to keep even a portion of what they earn,the women say that they would not feel the system to be so unjust. But they declare that this is not the case. Whatever is paid goes to the nuns, and as they, having no taxes or wages to pay, can undersell the laundresses, who are called upon to provide both charges, the lay laundry trade is steadily declining, although the quality of the work is on a par with that done in the convents.

The nuns teach their protégées every class of needlework, lace-making, and a kind of embroidery or net-work which is largely used for priests’ vestments, altar-cloths, &c. This competition, which was one of the reasons given for the presence of women (if, indeed, they were present) in the attack on the convents in Barcelona, is felt in every part of Spain, but perhaps especially in the south and south-west, where skilled needlework, which is almost the only employment of women above the domestic servant class, is exceedingly common and badly paid at best. Nowadays, say such women, it is increasingly difficult to obtain employment of this kind at any price, owing to the quantity done in the convents and the reduced prices at which the nuns undertake it.

And finally, although this does not so directly affect women, the nuns do a large trade in the sweetmeats andpatisseriealready referred to.

The grievances against the nuns, then, are chiefly related to their interference with the industrial market, and this, although a very real source of hardship, has not yet, except in a few isolated instances, given birth to anything like the active hostility that is expressed against the male Religious Orders. The closed Orders of nuns are regarded with aversion and contempt, as living at the expense of the nation and leading lives which, to the working classes, seem purely idle and self-indulgent—“doing nothing all day but pray for their own souls, or worse,” as they describe the life of contemplation. I have never heard working women express any desire to injure the nuns, much though they dislike them as a class. But when we come to the Jesuits, Maristas, Carmelites, Franciscans, Dominicans, and all the long list of Orders lumped together in one condemnation by both men and women under the derisive name of “long skirts” (sayones), we find a much worse state of affairs.

The people declare that in many places the leading industries have been completely ruined by the competition of persons in the employ of the Jesuits—for they call all the friars indiscriminately Jesuits, although they are perfectly aware of the distinctions between the various Orders. And they will point out to you one family afteranother who have been reduced to penury by the “good Fathers,” and will relate innumerable instances of the methods they believe to have been employed to this end. Perhaps the best way to explain these will be to give a literal translation of one or two of the stories I have heard from the people, which, told as they are with an absolute conviction of their truth, show what ground the working classes have for distrusting and detesting those who ought to set an example of virtue and self-abnegation.

“A man I know saved 5,000duros[about £1,000], and he lent it all to the Jesuits for a building they were putting up, a building attached to the monastery, so that he looked upon it as a work for God. Some years went by, and my friend was growing old and wished to retire from his little business and live on his capital. So he asked the Jesuits to repay his loan. ‘Oh, no!’ they said, ‘do you not know, my son, that he who lends to God must expect no return? A loan to God is a gift for the salvation of thy soul.’ As I say, he was an old man, and he found himself ruined, without hope of earning more money. He left the good Fathers and went and cut his throat.”

“Why is the old Marquesa de Fulano starving? I will tell you. When her father, the last Marquis, was dying, the Jesuits never left him for a moment, and at last they persuaded him that his soul was of more consequence than his daughter’s livelihood, and he made a will by which he left all his money to found a college for boys in ——. When he was dead his daughter discovered that all she had was the family land, and not a farthing of the capital her father had invested. Soon afterwards a famine came, and there was no rain for nine months. The Marquesa gave food to all the labourers on the estate, although there was no work for them, for she is a very charitable lady. She spent all the money she had, and then sold all her jewels and other valuables to buy them food. You see, she is a widow without family to advise and help her. Of course she was too proud to betray her poverty, but even if she had told her friends they could have done nothing, for many landowners were ruined that year. Now the estate is mortgaged to the last acre, and she has sold everything she has and is almost without food for herself. If you wish to hear about the Jesuits, ask the Marquesa de Fulano! And you will understand that all the people employed on the estate lost their livelihood too, for it is now long since she has been able to afford to have it cultivated.”“Yes, it is a pity to see that fine old oil-mill falling to ruin. It used to belong to a very rich man, but when he died the Jesuits got hold of his widow and induced her to build a large new chapel in the monastery of ——. Millions of pesetas they squeezed out of her for the work, and when it was finished, there was nothing left of the business. One of the sons meanwhile became a Jesuit, and as they have a big business in oil over there he naturally took the olive-groves for his share of the property. This happened twenty years ago: the younger brothers are married and have children to bring up. They have to earn their bread as they can. One of them rents ten acres and cultivates them himself, so he does not starve, but the other poor fellow has taken to drink, and he and his family mostly go hungry. It is all the work of the Jesuits.”

“Yes, it is a pity to see that fine old oil-mill falling to ruin. It used to belong to a very rich man, but when he died the Jesuits got hold of his widow and induced her to build a large new chapel in the monastery of ——. Millions of pesetas they squeezed out of her for the work, and when it was finished, there was nothing left of the business. One of the sons meanwhile became a Jesuit, and as they have a big business in oil over there he naturally took the olive-groves for his share of the property. This happened twenty years ago: the younger brothers are married and have children to bring up. They have to earn their bread as they can. One of them rents ten acres and cultivates them himself, so he does not starve, but the other poor fellow has taken to drink, and he and his family mostly go hungry. It is all the work of the Jesuits.”

There are many such stories of gifts made to the Churchin articulo mortis. The priests are said to urge the dying penitent to save his soul by benefiting the Religious Orders instead of providing for his family, on the ground that if he acts as his duty and instincts dictate he will lengthen his stay in purgatory. There seems no room for doubt that many once wealthy families have been reduced to poverty in consequence of such legacies to the Church. Indeed, it almost seems as if a new class of society is gradually arising among the very people who formerly were the strongest supporters of the Church—people of good birth and gentle breeding, with a family tradition of injury at the hands of the Jesuits, which has alienated them for ever from a Church to which they owe their worldly misfortunes, and is converting them into earnest recruits to the cause of Free Thought. From these men of gentle breeding will eventually come the leaders of the people in their final struggle against the Ultramontanes.

The ways which the Jesuits are reputed to employ in order to ruin those who defy them are many. The following story shows how easily it can be done, if it is true that the Company of Jesus condescends to such contemptible action against the industrial and working classes.

“Francisco Mengano used to have a very good business. He employed nine men to work for him. But he hated the friars, and he used to talk against them to a man who pretended to think as he did and came to sit with him every day, and encouraged him to say he would never let his daughters go to confession because he was afraid the priest would make love to them,and many other things. That vile man always talked in the same sort of way himself, and poor Francisco looked upon him as a friend. But when his eldest girl was old enough for her first Communion and Francisco refused to let her go to confession, he discovered that the man he trusted was himself a Jesuit, and had told the Jesuits everything Francisco had said. They waited to be sure his daughter was not going to confession, and then set to work to ruin him. It was quite simple. He was a cart-builder and wheelwright, and depended on the landowners in the neighbourhood for most of his work. The Jesuits merely sent word round that he was charging too much and doing bad work, and his trade was ruined and he became what you see—a poor old jobbing carpenter, who cannot even afford to employ a boy to do his heavy work.”

When I heard this story I recollected that about a year earlier, when passing Francisco’s workshop in company with a gentleman reputed to be friendly with the Jesuits, he had remarked,apropos des bottes, “Don’t employ Francisco if you should want any carpentering done; his work is bad and he overcharges abominably.” It naturally did not occur to me that this observation could have any other object than to save me, as a foreigner, from being cheated, and, all unconscious of what I afterwards discovered to be its injustice, I gave my work elsewhere.

Not only do the people accuse the Religious Orders of depriving them of employment by underselling them and destroying their trade by slanders, but they also bring grave charges of indifference, if not actual brutality, to the poor who ask them for help of any kind.

It seems to be a fact that no assistance was volunteered by any Religious House during the epidemic of typhus in Madrid in 1909. In another town, where a seminary for priests was temporarily converted into a hospital for the sick and wounded from Melilla, the cisterns ran dry one night owing to the unusual quantity of water used for the invalids. Not a man or a boy among the seminarists would take the trouble to pump more water, though a quarter of an hour’s work would have done all that was needed for the time, so workmen had to be fetched in the middle of the night to supply what was immediately required for the sufferers. This I heard from one of the men who did the work.

The working classes have as yet no plan of campaign against the Religious Orders. Theyare waiting in the hope that at no distant day they will have the suffrage in fact, not, as at present, in name only. But the bitterness of their hostility may be judged from the following incident, related to me by an eye-witness.

Three country people, dealers in charcoal, were sitting in a tramcar. My informant was sitting immediately behind them, and at his side was a priest. One of the charcoal-merchants, pretending to be unaware of the priest’s presence, related how he had been overtaken by night on the mountains, where he was buying wood in pursuit of his trade, and how he had gone to a large Jesuit college standing alone on the hillside, to ask permission to sleep under the portico, the season being mid-winter and the weather bitterly cold. The “good Father” who opened the door at his knock refused to admit him, telling him that “the college was not a house of call for tramps, and he could go and sleep under a tree by the roadside.” The narrator had no option but to do this, for the door was shut in his face, and “he thought he would have died of cold before morning.” “I wish,” he concluded, “that all thefrailesin Spain would come to my house some cold night and ask for shelter. Before morning I would leave every one of them under my trees with his throat cut.”

I have no doubt that the charcoal merchant uttered his theatrical threat on purpose to frighten the priest, and if that was his object he certainly succeeded, for the poor man turned white and trembled with alarm; but it is certain that no one of his class would have dared to express such sentiments before a priest or a monk previous to the Barcelona affair.

I have heard a gentle-looking old woman say deliberately: “I wish all thefraileswere going out to be shot this morning! How I should enjoy seeing them killed!”

And I have heard an artisan remark as a couple of “long skirts” went by:

“How I hate those vermin! It makes me sick to see them near me.”

The people who say these things are not Socialists nor Anarchists, nor even Republicans. They are decent, quiet, industrious working people, who know and care little about current politics, and simply judge of the priests and the Religious Orders by what they see. Once the confidence of such people is won, you will hear similar remarks by the score wherever two or three of the working class are gathered together, whether in town or country. Nor are their wives and daughters one whit behind the men in their expressions of hostility.

Here is an outburst which I took down word for word from a clever but quite illiterate working woman. The reference to the “ovens,” as will be seen, tallies with what I have quoted about the bakers, although the speakers were in different provinces, far apart.

“While we have that lot here we cannot live. The alms which ought to be given to the poor are given to them. I don’t believe they give to the poor the bread which they beg from the ovens. I believe they use it all to makealforjillasandpiñonatesfor sale.[8]They cannot make them without bread. The Jesuits do not make them themselves. All the monasteries keepamas de gobierno[9]to cook and wash and mend and do everything required. They are quite independent, answerable to nobody. They eat us up as if they were ants. They let no one live, meddling with everything that doesn’t concern them. They tack themselves to a lady, an acquaintance, and she has linen to launder, and they order her to send it at once to be washed in one of the [religious] houses where poor unfortunates are taken in. Many of them are the children of thefriars themselves and of the priests. There is a family in —— Street whom they call ‘Curitas,’ five brothers and sisters, all children of one parish priest [cura]. Their ‘Uncle Cura,’ as they called him, brought them up and educated them and left them all he possessed. They were all the children of one mother; it was the same as if the priest had been married to her. He lived with her and maintained her all his life. But that is a great sin for the priest! They say that in your country the priests are allowed to marry. If it were the same here the Church would be purged of many sins, for all the priests live with women. If they are faithful to one woman I do not see what sin there is in it. It is natural. But it is more usual for them to have many women. I know that one old priest had at least ten or twelve children in —— [a low quarter of the town], all by different women. He brought them all up, and gave them every year enough for their food. He was very rich. They called him ‘the Prior.’ The mothers said to the children: ‘Run along; the Prior will give thee money to buy food.’ I know this because my father used to work for him. The priest often said to him: ‘Look, what pretty children mine are!’ He was not in the least ashamed of owning that they were his.”

And here is another statement made by the father of growing lads whom he was educating as best he could to try for appointments in the Civil Service.

“You should be careful not to say anything about the Jesuits in those letters you are always writing,” he said. “In Madrid or Barcelona it may be all very well, but in a little country town like this you can never be sure how much the ‘good Fathers’ will find out. It is well known that Paco, who attends to the registered letters here, is the son of a Jesuit. Many of the clerks in the post-offices are the sons of priests orfrailes, and that is why honest lads like my sons have no chance of getting a place there. The Jesuits have a plan by which their sons slip in without the examination imposed on others. Do you think that fool Paco would be where he is if he had had to pass a competitive examination? But be warned! He has been clever enough to learn how to open letters and seal them up again. The ‘good Fathers’ have taken care of that. And if they suspect that you write stories about them, they will take care to read your letters before they leave the post-office.”

In this connection I may mention a curiousincident. A book sent to me from England went astray, and some six months later, after inquiry made by the English post-office, reached me minus its wrapper, with a note of apology from the local post-office, explaining that it had been recovered from a Jesuit college at least fifty miles from the place to which it had been addressed and registered by the publisher. Why it was delivered at the college instead of to me was not explained. I thought at the time it was merely a piece of characteristic Spanish carelessness, but I was reminded of the occurrence by my friend’s remarks about “Paco” and the post-office.

THE QUEEN AND THE QUEEN-MOTHER OF SPAIN.[To face page111.

THE QUEEN AND THE QUEEN-MOTHER OF SPAIN.

[To face page111.

IfSpain at large had attributed the misfortunes of 1909—the war in Melilla, the outbreak in Cataluña, the suspension of the Constitution, the attacks on the country made by the foreign Press—to the influence of Don Alfonso, the throne would have been in greater danger than at any time since the expulsion of Isabel II., for the whole nation was roused to indignation by the general conduct of the Clericalist Ministry then in power.

But happily for Spain, and indeed for Europe, since civil war in the Peninsula would be an European disaster, not even the most violent of the Republicans or Socialists taxed the King, the Queen, or any member of the Royal Family with indifference to the feelings of the people or a disregard of the sufferings of the poor.

A fact not recognised in England is the extent to which conscription tends to consolidate the Monarchy in a country where the King, the headof the Army, enjoys personal popularity among his working-class subjects.

Under an unpopular ruler conscription would probably lend itself to the speedy establishment of a Republic. But every year that King Alfonso lives he binds the Army, which is the very flesh and blood of the nation, more firmly to himself by ties of personal affection. And personal affection is a stronger force than political conviction alone ever has been or ever can be.

In the seventies the Army stood for liberty and the Republic against Carlism and Ultramontanism, until Alfonso XII. was brought from his English college and offered to the nation which had seen his mother dethroned, as the mass of the nation always will believe, at the instigation of the Church. It was his mother’s personal popularity with the masses which made her son’s path comparatively smooth, notwithstanding the chaos of conflicting interests among which his lot was cast. His own honesty of purpose, his devotion to his people’s welfare, the Spartan simplicity of his private life, and the personal charm which he, in common with all his race, possessed, gave him a higher place in the affections of the nation than is at all realised outside of Spain, and the greatest hope expressed for King Alfonso XIII. by the poor is that hemay take after his father. “He was aman,” they say. It was for the father’s sake that all parties agreed to call a truce during the anxious months that followed on his premature death, until his son was born, and it would be difficult to say how many times, while Queen Maria Cristina held the reins of Regency, the memory of her dead husband may have turned the tide in favour of their child, when the Ultramontanes would have used the national unrest to the profit of the proscribed branch.

From the day that Alfonso XII. breathed his last, the Ultramontanes have consistently tried to represent the Queen Mother as closely attached to their party. The accusation is manifestly absurd. No mother would support a policy directed in the interests of a Pretender before that which maintains the rights of her own son. It is, indeed, a matter of history that in order to give the Opposition no excuse for agitation, Canovas, with true patriotism, recommended the grief-stricken Regent in the early days of her widowhood to entrust the Government to his opponents, the Liberals under Sagasta, in order to avoid a contest, so that to the latter fell the duty of proclaiming to the waiting nation the birth ofAlfonso XIII., on May 17, 1886.[10]Canovas would not have acted thus had there been any real doubts of the loyalty of the Liberal party.

TheImparcial, in an article dealing with Señor Maura’s assertion, immediately after his fall in 1909, that the Conservatives are the only bulwark against revolution and the only support of the Throne, recalled this fact, and added that “without the Liberals the Throne would not exist now, because the Liberals rescued it from revolution after it had been shaken by the bloody attacks of Carlism. Without Sagasta, without Castelar, the Spanish monarchy would not be.”

Yet so persistently has the story of the Queen Mother’s clericalist leanings been repeated by those interested in its acceptance during the twenty-three years that King Alfonso XIII. has been on the throne, that the mass of the people still believe that she defers to the Jesuits even in matters in which their interference cannot fail to injure the King in the eyes of his people—a preposterous misconception, which cannot be corrected too soon. Quite lately I heard a working woman say:

“She cannot be a Jesuit, as they say. A Jesuit mother could not have borne such children as hers. Look at the King! He has none too much love for thecuras(priests). Yet we havealways been told that Queen Cristina is a Jesuit! Why should that be said? These arecosas de los frailes(doings of the friars) ‘said to make us dislike her.’”

In one town where I had some acquaintances among the clergy, I was struck by the malicious things that were said by them about the young Queen, and especially about her relations with the Queen Mother. Not long before I went there I happened to have heard a very pleasant account of the private life of the Royal Family from a foreigner, entirely outside of politics, who was for a short time employed in one of the palaces while the Royal Family were in residence. His description left no doubt at all as to the happiness of their home life.

With this in my mind I did not feel greatly concerned at being informed by various Ultramontanes that “Queen Victoria was on the worst terms with the Queen Mother, who had never forgiven her for having been brought up a Protestant,” and that “Maura had refused to let her go to England after the Barcelona affair, because she was so miserable in Madrid that she had declared she would never return to Spain if once she got back to her own country.”

No one who has seen the young King and Queen together believes this kind of thing,although it has been repeated in clericalist circles ever since the marriage. But, unfortunately, comparatively few of their subjects have the opportunity of seeing them, and during the last half-year of the Maura administration photographs and picture postcards of the Royal Family, which formerly were on sale everywhere, became noticeably absent. Throughout the three months that the press was censured it was almost impossible to find an illustrated paper containing any picture of the King, the Queen, the Queen Mother, the Infanta Maria Teresa, or the Royal children. During that time everything that could tend to recall the King and Queen to the minds of the people and increase their popularity was suppressed. My attention was first called to this state of affairs by finding that in one large town not a single picture postcard of King Alfonso could be bought. The shops had sold out their last year’s stock, and no new photographs of any kind had been issued since the war broke out.

It would have been natural that portraits of the Queen should appear in connection with the War Fund initiated by her Majesty and taken up with enthusiasm all over the country. But no. A portrait and several pictures of the Marquesa de Squilache, who acted as honorary secretary, were published, showing that lady at work in heroffice, distributing money to applicants, &c. But I have not been able to discover that any such pictures appeared with the young Queen as the central figure. The Marquesa de Squilache is a philanthropist whose fame deservedly extends all over Spain, and the admirable organisation of the fund was certainly due in a great measure to her clear-headed and business-like methods. But she would be the first to acknowledge that the Queen, and not herself, should have been represented in the picture-papers as the head and front of this effort to alleviate the misery caused by the war. It is difficult to believe that the marked omission of her Majesty’s portrait in the illustrated papers during the clericalist Press-censorship was accidental, while at the same time a series of thirty-six postcards of Don Jaime of Bourbon in the Castle of Frohsdorf was being freely advertised in Madrid.

The War Fund, initiated and presided over by the young Queen, was perhaps the first charitable appeal ever issued direct from the Court to the nation, without the intervention of the Church. At first it was stated that applicants for relief from this Fund must bring certificates of birth, baptism, marriage, &c., from their parish priests.[11]But theHeraldo, one of the leading Liberal-Monarchist papers, pointed out that such a condition would deprive all those who had been married by the civil authority of participation in the Fund, and put in a further plea for the children of soldiers not born in wedlock. The Queen and her committee of ladies decided on the widest interpretation of the family limitation, and at an early stage in the war relief was given to a child whose father was at the front, although the mother did not bear his name. This broadly charitable decision commended the Fund warmly to the mass of the people, for, as already shown, the prohibitive cost of the marriage licence in many, if not all, the Spanish dioceses compels numbers of decent couples to use the civil rite or none. Thus the decided action taken by, the Queen and her committee, notwithstanding the recommendations of the Church, endeared Queen Victoria Eugénie to thousands of mothers who, if the first conditions proposed had been made obligatory, would have been without the pale.

The interminable lists of subscribers, appearing day after day and week after week, and the innumerable small subscriptions, often not exceeding ten centimes, and sometimes falling aslow as five, proved how whole-heartedly the poor gave of their penury, and various incidents which occurred showed a real spirit of self-sacrifice in the wage-earners. Such was the action of the cigarette-makers of Seville, the two thousand women of all ages whose fame has been so often sung in the opera of “Carmen.” They were ordered to make up several thousand boxes of cigarettes with the legend “For the Army at Melilla.” They immediately asked to be allowed to do the whole work gratis as a tribute to the Army; and on being informed that this could not be permitted, because the consignment was a gift to the troops from the Company which rents the tobacco rights from the Crown, thecigarrerasvolunteered to forfeit a whole day’s pay, to be given to the Queen’s Fund for the Wounded. Numbers of these women are mothers of families, and many of them have only three or four days’ work weekly, at a wage ranging from 75 centimes to pesetas 1.50, so that a whole day’s pay was a serious consideration to them. Nor were they by any means alone in their generosity, for many industrial guilds, companies, trade unions, and civil servants, such as,e.g., the minor post-office officials and telegraph operators, also gave a day’s wage.

Judging from the results of previous appealsto the public for charitable purposes, it is safe to say that the enthusiastic response to the Queen’s Fund was due in a great measure to the national confidence that the money would be well and wisely administered under her Majesty’s auspices, for it is a melancholy fact that similar confidence is not felt by the poor in the case of subscriptions raised under the patronage of the Church.

I have quoted at random a few observations from among many betraying animus against her Majesty on the part of the priests. Here is another, which shows why they dislike the young Queen so much. I met one day in a mountain village a Franciscan friar who had come from a neighbouring city to deliver a course of sermons. He mistook me for a Frenchman, and therefore had the less hesitation in enlarging upon the evils that the King’s marriage would bring upon the country. One remark particularly impressed me, as expressing in a few words the attitude of the Church towards education.

“She will do untold harm by trying to introduce her English ideas about the education of women. The women of Spain have quite as much education as is good for them. More would only do them harm.”

In this connection it seems worth while tomention that what most appealed to the working women (who certainly are not over-burdened with education) in relation to the birth of the Prince of Asturias was the announcement that the Queen intended to nurse her baby herself, instead of following the old-fashioned custom, universal among the upper classes, of employing a wet-nurse. This is not the place to discuss the unhappy, results of the system on the general health and morale of the nation. But the announcement was seized upon by the poor as bringing the royal mother into close contact with themselves.

“Have you heard that she is suckling her child, just as we do?”

And when soon after it was stated that “owing to the Queen’s state of health, and having regard to the duties of her position” the infant Prince had been handed over to a wet-nurse like any other rich man’s child, a sigh of disappointment went up.

“You see, the doctors would not let her do as she wished. Health? Rubbish! Any one can see that she is the picture of health. But what would become of the commissions the doctors get from the wet-nurses for recommending them if the Queen put wet-nursing out of fashion?”

The Queen was not blamed for relinquishing her maternal duties. Every poor mother believedthat she would have nursed her baby, had the decision rested with her. This is characteristic of the attitude of the mass of the people towards both the King and the Queen. Whatever they do that is worthy of respect and admiration is taken as fresh evidence of their intrinsic virtues. But whatever happens in regard to them that does not please the country people is attributed to the malign influence of those who stand between them and their subjects.

I was struck by the popular comments on the announcement that Don Alfonso was not going to Melilla, among which this was one:

“Do we not know that he is dying to go? He is young and brave, and he loves our soldiers. It is Maura who forbids him to go to the war.”

A suggestive remark was made by a journeyman plumber with whom I had a long conversation while the war was at its height.

“No doubt he would have liked to lead the Army. He is brave enough. But kings are too expensive to be risked in that way. If we have a king he may as well be taken care of.”

“You do not seem a very enthusiastic Monarchist,” I said.

“I? Monarchist! I am republican to the bones.”

“Ah! Then I suppose you would like to turn Don Alfonso out of the country?”

“I? Why? What harm has that boy done me? Everybody likes him.”

And he seemed quite puzzled by the smile I found it impossible to repress at this exposition of “republicanism to the bones.”

For fully a year before the fall of the Maura Ministry anecdotes of the charity and generosity shown by the King, the Queen, and the Royal Family were growing rarer in the papers which had formerly supplied these little pieces of information to the many people who like thus to be brought into contact with the home life of their rulers. The omission was introduced so gradually that at first no one noticed it. But when soldiers returning from the war talked of gifts sent out by the Queen, and other evidences of active sympathy shown by the Royal Family, it was realised that no steps had been taken to make these things known to the public at home. The King’s gift of thirty thousand solar topees out of his private purse was one instance. The Queen’s present of thousands of warm vests to wear under the uniform was another. Queen Maria-Cristina, and the Infanta Maria Teresa (who by her gentleness and unassuming manner has won for herself an affectionate nicknameamong the poor of Madrid), as well as the Infantas Doña Isabel, Doña Paz (Princess Louis of Bavaria) and Doña Eulalia, the King’s aunts, all devoted themselves during the war to working with their own hands for the soldiers, besides giving generously to the Queen’s fund, but not a word of this appeared in any of the papers. I heard something of their work from private sources: the public heard nothing.

It may be suggested that the ladies of the Royal Family, who are instinct with patriotism and love of their fellow-countrymen, may have preferred that their charities should pass unpraised by the nation. But even were that so, one would expect that the expenditure of some £11,000 out of the King’s private purse would have been reported far and wide, especially since it had been impossible to conceal that the troops were suffering severely from want of proper headgear in the tropical summer of North Africa. But beyond the bare announcement that the King had ordered this immense number of sun-helmets to be procured for the troops in urgent haste, from abroad, because they could not be purchased at home, no comment was made on an act of truly royal generosity. A Liberal paper said that information on the subject was held back by ministerial instructions “until a suitabletime for publication arrived,” but beyond the bare fact of the number given and the price said to have been paid, no further details were ever published. The Conservative organs confined themselves to commenting unfavourably on the size, shape, and colour of the new headgear, and one of their correspondents turned the whole affair into ridicule, describing the soldiers in the new helmets as “having the appearance of walking mushrooms, which destroyed all that had hitherto been picturesque in the campaign.” But when the illustrated papers brought out one picture after another in which the men were seen wearing these solar topees, and the soldiers began to write home to their families that “the King’s helmets” not only protected them from the sun by day, but kept their heads dry and warm while sleeping on the damp ground by night, the people scored another black mark against Señor Maura, crediting him with a deliberate intention to conceal evidences of the King’s care for the soldiers from the people at home.

The vests sent out by the Queen were never mentioned at all by the Press. Yet my informant, a returned soldier, told me they must have numbered thousands, for, said he, “there seemed to be enough for all of us; at any rate, all I knew had them.”

It was thanks to these, he said, that there were not many more fever patients when the torrential rains of October fell on an Army destitute of winter clothing and even of sufficient sleeping accommodation, so that for nights at a stretch “men lay on soaked mattresses or blankets only, sunk in a bed of mud.” “The Queen’s vests kept us warm in the middle, and that helped us to bear the wet and cold,” he said.

Why was the Queen’s gift, equally with the King’s, treated with such discourteous silence under the Press censorship of the Clericalist Ministry? It was not for want of space in the papers, nor for want of goodwill on the part of the editors, for full particulars were given of innumerable generous offerings by commercial houses and private individuals, and column after column was daily filled with names of subscribers to the War Fund, which was designated “The Patriotic Fund presided over by H.M. the Queen,” or “The Patriotic Fund under the Committee of Ladies,” according to the political bias of the paper publishing the lists.

If anything had been wanting to arouse national enthusiasm for the Queen, her prompt action in initiating this fund would have provided it. To English people it seems natural that the Queen should undertake the work, forthe Queen of England has been for many a long day regarded as the head and front of charity organised on behalf of the nation. But Spanish women, accustomed for centuries to bow to the dictates of the Church, had come to believe that what the Church looked on coldly could not be carried out at all, and least of all by a woman. The Church, with certain exceptions, stood aloof from the Queen’s Fund on the pretext that men of peace might not aid in any matter connected with war. The nation translated this into a protest on the part of the Ultramontanes against a national work of charity headed by a Queen who is not popular with the priesthood. And the response to the Queen’s appeal for the sick and wounded is not only a testimony of the love of the nation for the Army, but also evidence of its confidence in the Monarchy as opposed to the Ultramontanes.

A pretty incident in regard to another royal gift made on the first visit of the young King and Queen to a certain large provincial town may be worth relating. The usual largesse of so many thousand pesetas to the municipality, for the poor, was announced in the newspapers when they left. But by chance I heard how much farther their unannounced charity had extended. They had given a considerable sum toa convent in each district of the city to buy bread for the poor, and of this no notice was taken by the papers. I heard of it from a journeyman painter, whose sick wife had received two loaves.

“Her aunt is portress at the Convent of ——, so she was able to get her share. Everybody in our parish was very pleased. The only thing we should have liked better would be to receive the bread from the King’s and Queen’s own hands, so that we might have thanked them as they deserve. But such a crowd of people would have gone to the palace that the Queen would have got very tired, which was no doubt the reason why they did not give us the bread themselves.”

Strangely enough, the Queen’s Protestant upbringing, which prejudices the Ultramontanes so strongly against her, has just the opposite effect upon the people. They look upon her as being, like themselves, a victim of clericalist injustice, and so deep-rooted is the conviction that whatever the Jesuits object to must be good for the people, that the knowledge of their oppositions to the marriage would have been sufficient in itself to secure her a welcome from the proletariat.

But her hold upon the masses goes deeperthan this. The peasants appreciate, far more than many of the upper classes seem to do, the vital importance to the nation of a settled Dynasty and Constitution. They know that for many years the Monarchy hung on a thread, while the frail life of a little child was all that preserved Spain from the chaos that another conflict between Republicans, Carlists, and Monarchists would have produced. Therefore when King Alfonso grew up, married, and became the father of an heir to the throne, the rejoicing of the nation was heartfelt and sincere. The discussions which arose in 1905 on the death of the poor young Infanta Mercedes, the King’s eldest sister, as to whether her son was or was not entitled to be Prince of Asturias in the absence of a direct heir, had aroused all serious-minded Spaniards to the ever-present dangers that would take shape in action should King Alfonso die unmarried or childless. So that when the birth of the little Prince of Asturias—the first son born to a reigning King of Spain for over a century—was speedily followed by that of a second, the poor, always the worst sufferers from civil discord and changes of Government, learnt to look upon the young Queen who has given these hostages for peace to the nation, with a feeling compounded of admiration and affection. Andeach fresh child that comes to fill the royal nurseries seem a fresh bulwark to the State in the eyes of the working classes, who remember how their own flesh and blood were thrown to the dogs of war time after time by opposing forces during the century when Spain had either no King or no Crown Prince.

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