in speaking of one’s past it is difficult not to take a present point of view; and when i say that being a royal person in spain had its serious aspects—because i could not love or marry as a private person—i mean that it had those aspects as i look back upon it. at the time i was not aware of them. they were accepted by me as constituting the natural order of life. long before i could begin to think of such things as love and marriage i had been schooled to the idea that i could have such relations only with royal persons. humanity was divided in my mind into three sexes; there were women, men of royal birth, and a third sex, who were to me, as you might say, priests. any affair of love with the latter was unthinkable—not only to me but to them. it never entered my mind, any more than it would with a priest. if it ever entered their minds, i could not know it, because they could not speak to me, even if they wished.
in the palace of madrid, when the usher would{64} take me to the antechamber of my brother’s apartments, i would always have an interval of waiting while word of my visit was being carried to the king. and during that interval there would usually be some young officers or aides-de-camp standing in another part of the room. since they were spaniards, and i was not hideous, if i glanced at them i found them trying to look romantic. if one of them was alone, he would either sigh “like a furnace,” as shakespeare says, or try to look unutterable silences across the room. at first this embarrassed me. but when i grew reassured by the fact that none of them dared approach me or speak to me, i found it comical; and i used to watch them slyly to see whether they were going to be melancholy and sigh, or make lambent calf’s eyes at me in the best spanish manner. afterwards i would tell my brother, and he would laugh, because he knew the officers and enjoyed teasing them. it became one of the little jokes between us, that all his young aides were languishing their lives away in hopeless devotion to me. later, some of them—unwilling, perhaps, to be merely amusing—an{65}nounced that they were going to blow out their brains. i never heard that any did it; and i did not see what satisfaction it would have been to them if they had. i supposed that they came to the same conclusion themselves. after a while i learned that one does not take such threats of self-destruction seriously in spain. they are only a form of mild attention paid to ladies by the gallantry that wishes to be dashing.
at luncheons, when the officers ate with us, even sighs were impossible; and they behaved like very good boys before the school-teacher. my own behaviour must have betrayed amused interest, for i remember that our mistress of the robes—called the “aya”—who is a sort of court duenna, read me long lectures on the government of my eyes. when a man conversed with me i must not look directly at him. that look, in spain, meant courtship. i must always look down, and just glance at him sidelong, under the ends of my eyelashes, demurely. the spanish girls do it very well, but my eyes were not spanish. i had the habit of direct gaze; and after repeated lectures from the aya i pretended that{66} i had acquired a squint from trying to look sideways; and this annoyed the aya and made fun for my brother.
the spanish girls are taught to regard men as some sort of wild animal, whom it is dangerous to meet unless one is well protected by chaperons; and they become as timid as oriental girls, and, of course, as curious.
sometimes in the evenings, when my sisters and i were with my brother in his apartments, he would have with him young men of the court, friends of his own age, grandees’ sons and members of the foreign legations, who went shooting and hunting with him. i enjoyed talking and listening to them, much more than conversing with the young ladies of noble families who were invited to court as companions to us infantas. the men had travelled, and read, and met interesting people. the girls had had no experiences and no thoughts. they could talk only of their religion or of their fiancés.
they went to church for both. when a young spaniard wished to begin courting he told the priest about it. the priest consulted the girl’s parents, and if the match was thought suitable, arrange{67}ments were made for her to attend certain masses on certain mornings with her chaperon. her official cavalier then posted himself somewhere near, made eyes at her during the service, and stood at the holy-water font when mass was over, to offer her holy water as she went out. it was possible, also, to leave a letter at the church door with some old beggar, who would deliver it to the proper person in return for alms; but this correspondence was not for young girls. their courting was carried on by means of devout looks, which were not required, one hopes, to be too oblique. i thought it very silly, and i said so; but the girls argued, piously, that since love was “a sacrament” it was right it should begin with holy water and benefit of clergy. i do not remember that the same argument was made for the intriguing ladies who carried on their correspondence through the beggars. as a matter of fact, the relations between the sexes were all wrong, since there could be no secure happiness based on such ignorance and orientalism in a western community, where the women can not be denied after marriage the liberty for which they are not prepared before that event.{68}
when i was about fifteen years old, a young austrian archduke came to madrid to visit my brother, and i was presented to him with my sisters, and saw him at a distance at the dinner-table, and bowed to him as i passed him in the hall. next morning my brother summoned me to his apartments to tell me that the archduke wished to become engaged to me. “but,” i said, amazed, “i have scarcely spoken to him!” never mind; he had said he was in love with me; he wanted to marry me. and as soon as i had recovered from my first astonishment, the idea delighted me. to be engaged! it made me feel quite grown-up. quite important. almost married. and i thought it would give me a standing at court that would prevent the mistress of the robes from being so dictatorial.
it would be impossible for me to marry for some time. our family fortunes had been so depleted during the revolution that i had no dot, and the young archduke had not yet come into his estate either. my brother, acting as a father to his sisters, was paying all our expenses out of his own pocket, and saving for us, as dots, the moneys that were allowed us by the government. so it was agreed{69} that my engagement with the archduke should not be made public and official until enough money had been saved to make a provision for me.
meanwhile i was privately engaged—and very proud of it. it was not extraordinary, in the spanish royal family, for a girl to be engaged in her teens. my sister isabel had been married at sixteen; and my grand-aunt, the infanta luisa carlota, had been married at thirteen and was a grandmother at twenty-seven. but neither of my other sisters was engaged yet, and i enjoyed the advantage over them.
even so, the archduke was not allowed to see me alone, and his courtship had to be formal. we were allowed to walk together in the garden of the palace, but only under the chaperonage of a lady-in-waiting, who followed a few paces behind us. one day, turning a corner of the path, we were hidden for a moment from the eyes of our chaperon, and the archduke seized his opportunity to kiss me. there was an adventure for you! when we returned to the palace i hastened to tell my sister. she was horrified. she ran to tell the governess. the governess was even more shocked. she de{70}clared that i had committed a mortal sin. “good!” i cried. “i’m glad of it! at last i have committed a mortal sin! i didn’t think it was possible—the way i am watched.” there was a great to-do. they declared that i must go to confession at once.
i went, next morning, defiantly, and in such excitement that i confessed in a voice that could be heard by every one near the confessional. i had committed a mortal sin! i had been kissed by the archduke! and the manner in which i blurted it out was so funny that the priest burst out laughing. i asked him how it could be a sin to be kissed by the man who was going to marry me. he replied, teasing me, “but if you don’t marry him, still the kiss will remain.” “i don’t care,” i said; “it won’t show.” he assured me, finally, that it was not a sin at all; and perhaps i should have been crestfallen if it were not that i had triumphed over the others. then, as the story got about, it started a reputation for me as a flirt, which i enjoyed innocently. an infanta of spain kissed by a man at fifteen! it was almost a record.
when the archduke went away we were allowed{71} to write to each other, though, of course, our letters had to be read by some one. i gave mine to my brother, but i do not suppose he ever glanced at them; the letters of a girl of fifteen, in such circumstances, would not be very interesting. i began to ask questions about the austrian court, where i should have to live after i married; and the reports i heard of it were not reassuring. the etiquette was most strict. i should be worse off there than in madrid. and i should be separated from my brother. very soon i did not like the thought of my engagement at all.
my brother had told us, at our first meeting on our return to spain, that he was in love with a daughter of the duc de montpensier; that they had been corresponding unknown to her family—who were not so strict as ours—and that he intended to marry her. my mother was outraged at this announcement, for it was well known that the duc de montpensier had helped to bring about the revolution that had lost her the throne. when we went to sevilla, to live in the alcazar, she forgave the duc, who had a place in sevilla, but she continued to intrigue against my brother’s marriage; and it was{72} because of this that he quarrelled with her, and let her go back to france when we infantas came to live with him in madrid.
the duc de montpensier was the youngest son of king louis philippe of france, and—like all that king’s sons—extremely clever. he had married my mother’s sister, another daughter of king ferdinand vii., on the same day that my parents married; and he had lived in spain ever since. in sevilla my sisters and i became very friendly with our young cousins, the duc’s children, and i became like another daughter to the duc, whom i adored. he had all the charm of the esprit fran?ais, animated and witty, accustomed to conversation with clever people, tolerant of opinions opposed to his own, and hating—more than anything else in the world—stupidity. he delighted me. he sympathised with me. i used to tell him all my little troubles.
i think that when the history of my mother’s reign and the republic is written, it will lay great stress on the duc’s influence in spain. at once, on his arrival, he had attracted to himself all the liberal elements in the spanish court, unconsciously, as
[image unavailble.]
photograph by henrie manuel, paris.
the infanta eulalia
{73}
mind attracts mind. he became the head of a liberal party—subsequently called the “orleans” party, because he was of the house of orleans—although he always declared that he had neither desired nor tried to organise any following for himself. men like the famous writer, josé de echegaray, gathered around him, and his palace became a centre for the dissemination of liberal ideas. he was antagonistic to the conservatives, who were chiefly clerical; and he was much feared and opposed by the priests. he wished to improve the conditions in spain. he wished, as he used to say, humorously, “to make it habitable.” but i do not think that he had any personal ambition to rule; for, although he had distinguished himself for bravery in the french army, and was a general in the spanish army, he made no attempt to use his influence with the army or with the politicians, in order to obtain the throne for himself when it went begging after my mother lost it. he had not expected, he told me, that the reformers contemplated interfering with the ruling family. he supported the liberals and gave them money, in the hope that they would cor{74}rect the abuses and corruptions of misgovernment in spain. and when no good came of it, he assisted the movement to call my brother to the throne.
my brother was as devoted to him as i was, and held to his intention of marrying the duc’s daughter in spite of all the intriguing and the opposition of people who feared the duc’s influence, and the warnings that this was a new attempt of the duc to get back into political power by putting his daughter on the throne of spain. it was a love match purely—the only one i ever knew in royalty. for royal love matches are usually marriages between persons of royal birth who are enthusiastic because they find they have no positive aversion for each other.
the duc, even in sevilla, had planned to marry me to one of his sons, antoine d’orléans, whom i liked as a cousin, but had no other affection for. i said “no.” when i came to madrid this was still talked of, as such things are discussed in families, but i paid no attention to it. my engagement to the archduke ended it for a time; but when i grew melancholy at the thought of going to austria my brother would say, “well, then, why not marry antoine, and we shall never be separated.” and if{75} you have to marry some one who will be more or less indifferent to you—and you foresee that in one choice your father-in-law, at least, will be charming—and that choice will keep you near a beloved brother whom you might otherwise lose—well, why not? besides, i did not have to decide immediately. i could not marry any one yet. i let it drift—and drifted with it.
the duc, to encourage me, perhaps, told me the story of his own marriage; and i think it is unique even in the annals of royal alliances. it was, of course, an affair of state, arranged for him. his bride, my aunt, was only fourteen years of age, and she could not speak a word of french. he spoke no spanish. when they had been married—in great pomp at a double wedding with my mother and father—he was left alone for the first time with his wife, and the poor child was so frightened that she began to cry. he did not know what to say to reassure her, since he could not say anything that she could understand; and, looking around the room despairingly, his eye was caught by a movement of the curtains in the far corner of the bed-chamber. he looked more intently and made out the plume{76} of a head-dress showing between the hangings. he rushed across the room and dragged out a lady-in-waiting! his exasperation at his bride’s sobs and his own inability to quieten her broke in fury on the head of the unfortunate woman. she explained as well as she could that they were afraid the bride would be too frightened if she were left alone with him, and they had agreed to conceal one of her ladies behind the curtains to give her secretly a sort of moral support. the duc put her violently out of the room.
i suppose that the duc had a strong influence on both my brother and me—on our opinions and our points of view—yet it must have been the influence of personality unconsciously exerted, for he always refrained from giving opinions about public affairs, even when he was asked for them. “no,” he would say, “i have learned not to express my opinions. they are always brought back to me—so transformed that i can not recognise them—and presented to me as my own. look at the revolution.” he conformed in matters of religion to comfort his wife, who was very devout; but he never went to confession, and he required that when he attended mass{77} the priests should not take more than twenty minutes for it. he would keep an eye on the clock, and when the twenty minutes had elapsed he would say, “watch him now,” and cough with peremptory impatience. the priest would immediately begin to race through to the conclusion of the service, and every one would be anxious for him to finish, as if the due’s impatience were some terrible threat to be placated. yet, for a man so feared, i never knew any one less fearsome.
he was very patriarchal-looking when i knew him—white-bearded, heavily-fleshed, and benign. to his receptions in the evening came all the clever people, of whatever opinion, and whenever bores arrived he pretended that they had come to see his wife, and had them ushered to her apartments, and said, contentedly, “there now. they will pray together and enjoy themselves.” it was the one thing that he asked of life—not to be bored. imagine how that would appeal to one in the atmosphere of a court. for the plague of courts is ennui.
princesses are peculiarly subject to it. a king or a prince has usually some work to do, some power to exercise. a princess is as much more idle than{78} a young lady as a young lady is more idle than a working girl. in an attempt to keep up an exercise of my brain, i continued my studies during the whole ten years of my unmarried lite in spain—studying languages, the piano, singing, the harp, painting—and keeping myself occupied with reading and writing as well as i could. people tell me that princesses are stupid. i wonder that we are not all idiots. during my life in madrid, almost my only public duty was to help lay corner-stones. i helped lay enough to pave the city. whenever nothing else could be found to justify our existence, the authorities would say, “come, let them lay a corner-stone.” i can not believe that any other stones were put on top of them. it is not possible. there were too many. if the buildings had all been completed, there would not be room now, in the town, to walk. and the te deums that i listened to were numerous enough to exhaust the ears of heaven.
i have already spoken of the audiences that we gave. they were stupid beyond words. one received strangers under conditions of formality that made them more strange, asked silly little questions of the women—“are you married?” “how many{79} children have you?”—smiled politely, and waited for the next one. it is the sort of thing that you might expect from the chinese. and the purely court receptions were even worse. there you had not even strangers, so you could not ask them whether they were married. you knew—or you were expected to know—all the dignitaries, statesmen, officials, aides, and diplomats who make up the court circle; you met them again and again, for a perfunctory moment, said something innocuous, and passed on—until you met again.
the problem was to think of something to say each time. once after a royal chapel—when we always had to make a circle of a roomful of officials lined up around the walls—i noticed, as we approached one officer, that he wore black gloves with his uniform. it is a sign of deep mourning. the others of the royal family, preceding me, made the usual conventional attempts to say a little of nothing as if it were something worth saying; and so, when i came to him, although i had no idea who he was, i said, “i was deeply sorry to hear of your bereavement.” the others, overhearing me, were mortified that they had not offered him their condolences too;{80} and when the reception was over they spoke to me about it. whom had he lost? how had i remembered it? and when i explained what i had done, without knowing who the man was, even the king was envious. it was so difficult to have anything to say, and a royal family is always so haunted by the problem that my little ruse quite made a reputation for me. and, if you can believe it, the officer was deeply touched and gratified, poor soul, by my knowing of his grief. it is on such trifles that a king makes his personal popularity. but what a life!
when my brother married the duc’s daughter, mercedes, we had that beautiful and charming creature added to our circle; but they were such lovers and so happy together that we had our brother less, though we had mercedes more. by this time i had quite lost interest in the daughters of the grandees whom my brother invited to court to make companionship for us. they could play no game more active than croquet, which they played languidly. when i drove them behind my four ponies they wanted always to go to the parks, where they could look sidelong at the young men; and i preferred the{81} country drives with more freedom. i soon wearied of a conversation that was all holy water and fiancés.
and before long the spanish young men came to bore me as much as their sisters. they had only one conversation for a woman—the romantically sentimental, exaggerated to the point of foolishness. it was too silly. if they were not pretending that they were blighted with melancholy because of your unearthly charms, they were assuring you that they would shed their blood for you. i did not want to see their blood, but their brains; and they either had none or did not consider it necessary to use them in their conversation with a princess.
in the evenings i often went to the opera, but my brother had no ear at all for music; he could not tell the royal march when it was played; and he complained that the singing depressed him like the howling of a dog. so i went with my sisters and some older chaperon. one night, on our way to the opera, we had an adventure that could happen only in spain. there, whenever the priest is summoned to attend the dying, he takes the sacrament and sets out on foot, accompanied by an attendant with a little bell. the first carriage that he meets, even if{82} it be a hired hack, is stopped at the sound of the bell and he is invited to ride. if the hack then meets a private carriage of more luxury, it is the privilege of the owner to take the priest into his vehicle. and if the royal carriage is met, the royalty not only take the priest with them, but they are expected to follow into the house of the dying, and kneel in the death-chamber while the last rites are being performed.
on this night i was in our carriage with a princess who was most gorgeously arrayed in a bright green evening gown ornamented with silver, with a great display of jewels on her corsage, and on her head a huge rayed ornament of diamonds in the shape of a diadem. her hair was prematurely grey and rather wild. she had been riding in the sun, and her face was flushed. she was an enormous woman—so large that she had to give up horseback-riding because it became impossible to find a horse capable of carrying her.
we were scarcely well away from the palace when we heard approaching us the bell of the sacrament, and i said to her, hurriedly, “we can’t go to a death-bed in this finery. i’ll make the driver turn round.{83}” but she was very religious. it was a sacrilege to her to turn our backs on the host. in spite of my protests, we met the priest, took him into the carriage, and drove him to his destination. there the princess and i followed him into the death-chamber, devoutly, though with very doubtful feelings on my part.
we found a man dying of some sort of fever, lying on his back in bed, with a holy candle burning on his forehead—to improve his temperature, no doubt. he opened his eyes at our entrance; and when he saw the unearthly apparition of the princess in bright green, with the hair and face of a soul in purgatory and a blaze of glory about her head; he sat up in bed with a shriek, pointed his shaking hand at her, and cried “booh!” that was all i saw. i got down on my knees, helpless with hysterical laughter, and covered my face with my hands. when the ceremony was over, i hurried out as best i could and went to pieces in the carriage. the man died that night.
one would think it was not very sanitary to be making such visits to fatal cases of disease. and it was not. we went once to the death-bed of a small{84}pox patient and knelt on pillows that had been under his head. but the spanish people seem to have a vitality that is proof against infection; and in the south of spain particularly they live to incredible old age.
