Two Or Three Things Connected With The Above Interview With
Isturitz Struck Me As Being Highly Remarkable.
First of all, the
extreme facility with which I obtained admission to the presence of
the prime minister of Spain.
I had not to wait, or indeed to send
in my name, but was introduced at once by the door-keeper.
Secondly, the air of loneliness which pervaded the place, so unlike
the bustle, noise, and activity which I observed when I waited on
Mendizabal. In this instance, there were no eager candidates for
an interview with the great man; indeed, I did not behold a single
individual, with the exception of Isturitz and the official. But
that which made the most profound impression upon me, was the
manner of the minister himself, who, when I entered, sat upon a
sofa, with his arms folded, and his eyes directed to the ground.
When he spoke there was extreme depression in the tones of his
voice, his dark features wore an air of melancholy, and he
exhibited all the appearance of a person meditating to escape from
the miseries of this life by the most desperate of all acts -
suicide.
And a few days showed that he had, indeed, cause for much
melancholy meditation: in less than a week occurred the revolution
of the Granja, as it is called. The Granja, or Grange, is a royal
country seat, situated amongst pine forests, on the other side of
the Guadarama hills, about twelve leagues distant from Madrid. To
this place the queen regent Christina had retired, in order to be
aloof from the discontent of the capital, and to enjoy rural air
and amusements in this celebrated retreat, a monument of the taste
and magnificence of the first Bourbon who ascended the throne of
Spain. She was not, however, permitted to remain long in
tranquillity; her own guards were disaffected, and more inclined to
the principles of the constitution of 1823 than to those of
absolute monarchy, which the moderados were attempting to revive
again in the government of Spain. Early one morning, a party of
these soldiers, headed by a certain Sergeant Garcia, entered her
apartment, and proposed that she should subscribe her hand to this
constitution, and swear solemnly to abide by it. Christina,
however, who was a woman of considerable spirit, refused to comply
with this proposal, and ordered them to withdraw. A scene of
violence and tumult ensued, but the regent still continuing firm,
the soldiers at length led her down to one of the courts of the
palace, where stood her well-known paramour, Munos, bound and
blindfolded. "Swear to the constitution, you she-rogue,"
vociferated the swarthy sergeant. "Never!" said the spirited
daughter of the Neapolitan Bourbons. "Then your cortejo shall
die!" replied the sergeant. "Ho! ho! my lads; get ready your arms,
and send four bullets through the fellow's brain." Munos was
forthwith led to the wall, and compelled to kneel down, the
soldiers levelled their muskets and another moment would have
consigned the unfortunate wight to eternity, when Christina,
forgetting everything but the feelings of her woman's heart,
suddenly started forward with a shriek, exclaiming: "Hold, hold!
I sign, I sign!"
The day after this event I entered the Puerta del Sol at about
noon. There is always a crowd there about this hour, but it is
generally a very quiet motionless crowd, consisting of listless
idlers calmly smoking their cigars, or listening to or retailing
the - in general - very dull news of the capital; but on the day of
which I am speaking the mass was no longer inert. There was much
gesticulation and vociferation, and several people were running
about shouting, "Viva la constitucion!" - a cry which, a few days
previously, would have been visited on the utterer with death, the
city having for some weeks past been subjected to the rigour of
martial law. I occasionally heard the words, "La Granja! La
Granja!" Which words were sure to be succeeded by the shout of
"Viva la constitucion!" Opposite the Casa de Postas were drawn up
in a line about a dozen mounted dragoons, some of whom were
continually waving their caps in the air and joining the common
cry, in which they were encouraged by their commander, a handsome
young officer, who flourished his sword, and more than once cried
out with great glee, "Long live the constitutional queen! Long
live the constitution!"
The crowd was rapidly increasing, and several nationals made their
appearance in their uniforms, but without their arms, of which they
had been deprived, as I have already stated. "What has become of
the moderado government?" said I to Baltasar, whom I suddenly
observed amongst the crowd, dressed as when I had first seen him,
in his old regimental great coat and foraging cap; "have the
ministers been deposed and others put in their place?"
"Not yet, Don Jorge," said the little soldier-tailor; "not yet; the
scoundrels still hold out, relying on the brute bull Quesada and a
few infantry, who still continue true to them; but there is no
fear, Don Jorge; the queen is ours, thanks to the courage of my
friend Garcia, and if the brute bull should make his appearance -
ho! ho! Don Jorge, you shall see something - I am prepared for him,
ho! ho!" and thereupon he half opened his great coat, and showed me
a small gun, which he bore beneath it in a sling, and then moving
away with a wink and a nod, disappeared amongst the crowd.
Presently I perceived a small body of soldiers advancing up the
Calle Mayor, or principal street which runs from the Puerta del Sol
in the direction of the palace; they might be about twenty in
number, and an officer marched at their head with a drawn sword;
the men appeared to have been collected in a hurry, many of them
being in fatigue dress, with foraging caps on their heads. On they
came, slowly marching; neither their officer nor themselves paying
the slightest attention to the cries of the crowd which thronged
about them, shouting "Long live the constitution!" save and except
by an occasional surly side glance:
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