He Called It The Monastery Of San Lorenzo El Real, But The Nomenclature
Of The Great Has No Authority With The People.
It was built on a site
once covered with cinder-heaps from a long abandoned iron-mine, and so
it was called in common speech the Escorial.
The royal seat of San
Ildefonso can gain from the general public no higher name than La
Granja, the Farm. The great palace of Catharine de Medici, the home of
three dynasties, is simply the Tuileries, the Tile-fields. You cannot
make people call the White House the Executive Mansion. A merchant named
Pitti built a palace in Florence, and though kings and grand dukes have
inhabited it since, it is still the Pitti. There is nothing so
democratic as language. You may alter a name by trick when force is
unavailing. A noble lord in Segovia, following the custom of the good
old times, once murdered a Jew, and stole his house. It was a pretty
residence, but the skeleton in his closet was that the stupid commons
would not call it anything but "the Jew's house." He killed a few of
them for it, but that did not serve. At last, by advice of his
confessor, he had the facade ornamented with projecting knobs of stucco,
and the work was done. It is called to this day "the knobby house."
The conscience of Philip did not permit a long delay in the
accomplishment of his vow. Charles V. had charged him in his will to
build a mausoleum for the kings of the Austrian race.
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