Ferdinand VIL, his mind weakened by
illness, and influenced by his ministers, had proclaimed his brother Don
Carlos heir to the throne, to the exclusion of his own infant daughter.
His wife, Queen Christine, broken down by the long conflict, had given
way in despair. But her sister, Dona Louisa Carlota, heard of the news
in the south of Spain, and, leaving her babies at Cadiz (two little
urchins, one of whom was to be king consort, and the other was to fall
by his cousin Montpensier's hand in the field of Carabanchel), she
posted without a moment's pause for rest or sleep over mountains and
plains from the sea to La Granja. She fought with the lackeys and the
ministers twenty-four hours before she could see her sister the queen.
Having breathed into Christine her own invincible spirit, they
succeeded, after endless pains, in reaching the king. Obstinate as the
weak often are, he refused at first to listen to them; but by their
womanly wiles, their Italian policy, their magnetic force, they at last
brought him to revoke his decree in favor of Don Carlos and to recognize
the right of his daughter to the crown. Then, terrible in her triumph,
Dona Louisa Carlota sent for the Minister Calomarde, overwhelmed him
with the coarsest and most furious abuse, and, unable to confine her
victorious rage and hate to words alone, she slapped the astounded
minister in the face. Calomarde, trembling with rage, bowed and said, "A
white hand cannot offend."
There is nothing stronger than a woman's weakness, or weaker than a
woman's strength.
A few years later, when Ferdinand was in his grave, and the baby Isabel
reigned under the regency of Christine, a movement in favor of the
constitution of 1812 burst out, where revolutions generally do, in the
south, and spread rapidly over the contiguous provinces. The infection
gained the troops of the royal guard at La Granja, and they surrounded
the palace bawling for the constitution. The regentess, with a proud
reliance upon her own power, ordered them to send a deputation to her
apartment. A dozen of the mutineers came in, and demanded the
constitution.
"What is that?" asked the queen.
They looked at each other and cudgelled their brains. They had never
thought of that before.
"Caramba!" said they. "We don't know. They say it is a good thing, and
will raise our pay and make salt cheaper."
Their political economy was somewhat flimsy, but they had the bayonets,
and the queen was compelled to give way and proclaim the constitution.
I must add one trifling reminiscence more of La Granja, which has also
its little moral. A friend of mine, a colonel of engineers, in the
summer before the revolution, was standing before the palace with some
officers, when a mean-looking cur ran past.
"What an ugly dog!" said the colonel.
"Hush!" replied another, with an awe-struck face. "That is the dog of
his royal highness the Prince of Asturias."
The colonel unfortunately had a logical mind, and failed to see that
ownership had any bearing on a purely aesthetic question. He defined his
position. "I do not think the dog is ugly because he belongs to the
prince. I only mean the prince has an ugly dog."
The window just above them slammed, and another officer came up and said
that the Adversary was to pay. "THE QUEEN was at the window and heard
every word you said."
An hour after the colonel received an order from the commandant of the
place, revoking his leave of absence and ordering him to duty in Madrid.
It is not very surprising that this officer was at the Bridge of
Alcolea.
At noon the day grew dark with clouds, and the black storm-wreath came
down over the mountains. A terrific fire of artillery resounded for a
half-hour in the craggy peaks about us, and a driving shower passed over
palace and gardens. Then the sun came out again, the pleasure-grounds
were fresher and greener than ever, and the visitors thronged in the
court of the palace to see the fountains in play. The regent led the way
on foot. The general followed in a pony phaeton, and ministers,
adjutants, and the population of the district trooped along in a
party-colored mass.
It was a good afternoon's work to visit all the fountains. They are
twenty-six in number, strewn over the undulating grounds. People who
visit Paris usually consider a day of Grandes Eaux at Versailles the
last word of this species of costly trifling. But the waters at
Versailles bear no comparison with those of La Granja. The sense is
fatigued and bewildered here with their magnificence and infinite
variety. The vast reservoir in the bosom of the mountain, filled with
the purest water, gives a possibility of more superb effects than have
been attained anywhere else in the world. The Fountain of the Winds is
one, where a vast mass of water springs into the air from the foot of a
great cavernous rock; there is a succession of exquisite cascades called
the Race-Course, filled with graceful statuary; a colossal group of
Apollo slaying the Python, who in his death agony bleeds a torrent of
water; the Basket of Flowers, which throws up a system of forty jets;
the great single jet called Fame, which leaps one hundred and thirty
feet into the air, a Niagara reversed; and the crowning glory of the
garden, the Baths of Diana, an immense stage scene in marble and bronze,
crowded with nymphs and hunting-parties, wild beasts and birds, and
everywhere the wildest luxuriance of spouting waters. We were told that
it was one of the royal caprices of a recent tenant of the palace to
emulate her chaste prototype of the silver bow by choosing this artistic
basin for her ablutions, a sufficient number of civil guards being
posted to prevent the approach of Castilian Actaeons.
