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.
