Asturias went for a half-holiday to visit
his imperial comrade at the Tuileries, the urchins had a game of "toro"
on the terrace, admirably conducted by the little Bourbon and followed
up with great spirit by the little Montijo-Bonaparte.
The bull-fight has not always enjoyed the royal favor. Isabel the
Catholic would fain have abolished bathing and bull-fighting together.
The Spaniards, who willingly gave up their ablutions, stood stoutly by
their bulls, and the energetic queen was baffled. Again when the
Bourbons came in with Philip V., the courtiers turned up their thin
noses at the coarse diversion, and induced the king to abolish it. It
would not stay abolished, however, and Philip's successor built the
present coliseum in expiation. The spectacle has, nevertheless, lost
much of its early splendor by the hammering of time. Formerly the gayest
and bravest gentlemen of the court, mounted on the best horses in the
kingdom, went into the arena and defied the bull in the names of their
lady-loves. Now the bull is baited and slain by hired artists, and the
horses they mount are the sorriest hacks that ever went to the knacker.
One of the most brilliant shows of the kind that was ever put upon the
scene was the Festival of Bulls given by Philip IV. in honor of Charles
I.,
"When the Stuart came from far,
Led by his love's sweet pain,
To Mary, the guiding star
That shone in the heaven of Spain."
And the memory of that dazzling occasion was renewed by Ferdinand VII.
in the year of his death, when he called upon his subjects to swear
allegiance to his baby Isabel. This festival took place in the Plaza
Mayor. The king and court occupied the same balconies which Charles and
his royal friend and model had filled two centuries before. The
champions were poor nobles, of good blood but scanty substance, who
fought for glory and pensions, and had quadrilles of well-trained
bull-fighters at their stirrups to prevent the farce from becoming
tragedy. The royal life of Isabel of Bourbon was inaugurated by the
spilled blood of one hundred bulls save one. The gory prophecy of that
day has been well sustained. Not one year has passed since then free
from blood shed in her cause.
But these extraordinary attractions are not necessary to make a festival
of bulls the most seductive of all pleasures to a Spaniard. On any
pleasant Sunday afternoon, from Easter to All Souls, you have only to go
into the street to see that there is some great excitement fusing the
populace into one living mass of sympathy. All faces are turned one way,
all minds are filled with one purpose. From the Puerta del Sol down the
wide Alcala a vast crowd winds, solid as a glacier and bright as a
kaleidoscope.
