Part 3

Luis Mazzantini and Cuadrilla 452

Bull-fight. Last moments of a Toreador after being attacked in the Arena, by R. Novas 453

MADRID

I

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS OF MADRID

“From Madrid to heaven, and in heaven a spy-hole to look at Madrid” is the vaunt of the inhabitants of the Spanish capital. This pride has its justification, for Madrid is a fine city, remarkable for its position on a plateau over two thousand feet above the sea, famous for its progress during the eventful eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and interesting by reason of the great names in the arts and literature inscribed upon its records. Madrid for the writers of the Romantic school was as charming as all other things Spanish; for de Musset it was “princesse des Espagnes” and “blanche ville des sérénades.”

Few towns in Europe are situated amid so many natural hindrances to development as Madrid. It stands south and east of the bleak mountains of central Spain, upon one of many exposed and almost treeless uplands, where the winds of winter and early spring sting and bite, and the sun in summer sheds pitiless heat, which dries up the blood and disposes to languor. So fickle is the climate of this lofty region that, even in the height of August, it is never quite safe to discard the _capa_ after sundown, for, during the hottest day, a sinister and gelid breath may assail one at the street corner with a menace of chill to the lungs. Yet Madrid is not unhealthy. It is dry, invigorating, swept by mountain breezes, bathed for long periods in brightest sunlight, and free from the contamination and depression of smoke. With proper provision against the variations in temperature, one may enjoy a full measure of health and live to an advanced age in this city of the hills. The more dangerous kinds of fever are uncommon in Madrid; the chief risk to health is in the sudden keen air that brings a shiver when the body has been scorched by the sun, and one turns to seek the shady side of the street.

Rio and Cabarras, two Spanish historians, speak of the bad odours and the dirt of Madrid in the seventeenth century. This reproach was, however, removed in the time of Henry Swinburne, an intelligent traveller, who visited the city in 1776. “The appearance of Madrid,” writes Swinburne, “is grand and lively; noble streets, good houses, and excellent pavement, as clean as it was once dirty.” In earlier days it was not thought necessary to wash the thoroughfares, because the purity of the air was an effective antidote to the evil of the filth and the smells. Rio, for example, advances the opinion that the invigorating mountain breezes are a sufficient purification.

The clear quality of the Madrid sunshine is a compensation for the treachery of its winds. There are but few sunless days. “The sky at Madrid is almost always clear and serene,” wrote Laborde, in 1809. The heights of the Guadarrama are too far from the city to throw their shade upon it, and the brilliant sunlight pours down and floods the streets and squares, and penetrates every dwelling. Looking upon the wide, rolling, hillocky country from the outskirts of the city, you have a marvellous vista, full of colour, glow, and the grandeur of huge sunlight spaces. The sky is almost perennially deep blue; but at times there are vast masses of purple cloud above the horizon, whose passing shadow produces changing effects of light and darkness upon the far-stretching landscape, and adds a sternness to the sierra.

For a long period this part of Castile was ravaged by the fellers of trees. The farmers aimed besides at the extinction of all kinds of birds, under the delusion that every bird is harmful to crops; and in the conduct of this warfare the axe was laid to the roots of millions of trees, so that no harbour for small birds might remain. This clearing of the forests destroyed the natural barriers against icy winds, deprived the land of all shade, made deserts in place of groves, and affected the climate and rainfall. A wiser policy was instituted in later years, and now a number of large plantations have grown up in the environs of the town, and the once denuded hillocks and bare gullies are here and there clothed with shady coppices. For the rest, the herbage of these grey uplands yields moderate pasturage for sheep in summer.

Madrid lacks the dignity and beauty which a wide river lends to a city. The little Manzanares is not an imposing flood. It can scarcely rank as a river. The handsome Puente de Toledo spans the stream, and gives a touch of the picturesque to its muddy flow; and there is also the well-constructed Bridge of Segovia, with many arches. These gave rise to the now venerable joke that it would be better to sell the bridges and buy some water with the proceeds.

Several writers have declared that the seat of the Spanish Court is not typical of the cities of Spain. This may be accepted as true in the sense that it has very little to show in the nature of antiquities. Segovia, Toledo, Avila, Burgos, Seville, Cordova, and Granada possess more interesting and romantic memorials of the past than the city of Madrid. Nevertheless, the Castilian capital has associations with days of immense moment in the history of Spain, and it is moreover one of the handsomest towns in the Europe of to-day; and whatever else is wanting in Madrid, it boasts of a priceless collection of some of the world’s masterpieces of painting. Only here can one realise the greatness of Velazquez, and appraise the genius of Goya. Its Royal Armoury, too, is the finest in the world.

That Madrid has modelled itself upon Paris is not to its discredit. The city manifests the modern spirit in Spain rather than the mediæval atmospheres. It does not live upon its past like Cordova and Toledo. Madrid aspires to be a progressive modern municipality. The streets are broad, the system of lighting is modern, there are electric tramcars, motor-cars, and London and Parisian vehicles in the thoroughfares. The streets are deluged with the fire-hose three times a day, and the nuisance of the dust is thereby abated.

A good supply of wholesome water is a boon in this arid district, but it must be admitted that Madrid is not too well off in this respect. The plazas are adorned with trees, and there are public parks, gardens, and open spaces. The Englishman, the Frenchman, and the German feel at home in this cosmopolitan centre; and yet everywhere there are the signs of Spain, the essential characteristics of a Southern people, as shown in courtly manners, mode of living, amusements, dress, and racial temperament.

To say that Madrid is an attempted replica of Paris is scarcely a fair description of the city. Madrid has an aspect and a character of its own. Its gaieties are tempered with Castilian restraint. The business of the city is conducted without bustle; the diversions are matters of importance, and they are keenly enjoyed; but the Madrileño is not so vivacious and hilarious as the Parisian. Even here, in the hub of modern Spain, the Spaniard exhibits his placidity and patience. He is not given to hurry. The express train, which travels at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour, is fast enough for him, and he will get up in the early morning to catch it. Yet life in Madrid is decidedly animated, even if it is the pursuit of pleasure and not of wealth that occupies its inhabitants.

And yet there is trading and speculating in the city, and merchants contrive to build up businesses, and shopkeepers thrive, and occasionally make large fortunes. But the aim is rather to enjoy life than to “push” and “hustle” in the hope of accumulating dollars by middle age. In fine, the art of contented enjoyment is discreetly cultivated in Madrid by all classes. Valdés, in his novel “Froth,” tells us how the “smart set” and the fashionable idlers of the city pass their days, and the picture is not unlike the life of our own West End society. But sentiment is a luxury for which the rich are prepared to pay a high price. You may see beautifully furnished houses deserted and allowed to fall into ruin by the owner, because his loved wife or child drew their last breath there, perhaps years ago.

No, despite the tramcars, the modern air of the streets, and the London and Parisian fashions in dress, you cannot fail to realise that this is a Spanish city. Look at the workman, in his canvas blouse and drill trousers, with the _boina_ on his head and hemp-soled canvas shoes upon his feet; or the work-girl, with a rose in her hair and a fan in her hand. These are types of Spain, distinctive in their social ideals, their garb, and their physiognomy. Now and then, a peasant from the provinces is seen rubbing shoulders with a grandee, clad in the costume of Piccadilly. The contrast is sharp; the man about town and the field-toiler might be natives of two different countries, for the wear of the peasant is more African than European. His feet are in sandals, his legs bound with linen, his head tied up in a kerchief, and his body clothed with white cotton. And around his waist is a broad, gay silk sash, in whose voluminous folds he conceals his money and his keen-edged, long-bladed _navaja_.

How antiquated, too, in British eyes is the ox-cart, heavy and ramshackle, with its squeaking wheels, and pair of bullocks under the carved wooden yoke! And the mule-teams--the gaunt, bony beasts, in Moorish-looking harness, with jangling bells around their necks, and the quaint devices of the clipper upon their coats, attended by swarthy men in knee-breeches and short jackets, with the peaked Castilian hat upon their cropped heads--these surely are of the days when Don Quixote rode on the great grey wastes of La Mancha, accompanied by his loyal Sancho.

Old Madrid is rapidly disappearing. One of its confines was formerly the Puerta del Sol, which is now almost in the centre of the city. The gate is no longer in existence, but the place in which it stood still bears its name, and is the focus of the city’s life. Ancient purlieus were situated to the east of the royal palace; to-day scarcely any of the alleys and small squares remain, though here and there you may note a quaint corner or an old house.

From the Puerta del Sol the chief thoroughfares of Madrid radiate. The Calle de Alcalá, the Calle del Arenal, the Calle Mayor, and the fashionable Carrera de San Jerónimo branch from this central square. In the Puerta del Sol stands the Ministerio de la Gobernación, a large, but not architecturally notable, edifice. Here also are the chief hotels, cafés, and restaurants. In the Calle de San Jerónimo are the best shops. Every one comes to stroll, lounge, and “to take the sun” in this bright, busy space in the heart of the city. It is the Piccadilly Circus of Madrid. All the types of Madrid’s population may be seen here from the bull-fighter to the great legislator. American and English tourists mingle with the throng; German commercial travellers talk business to their customers on the seats outside the cafés; and one hears several languages spoken in the hotels.

In the Buen Retiro and the Parque de Madrid you may study the _beau monde_ of the city from the shade of the trees during the afternoon parade. Here there are over two hundred acres of pleasure grounds, more or less unkempt, but containing a fine avenue, paths, and umbrageous trees. The upper classes of the city delight in riding and driving. It is necessary to own a carriage and pair in order to figure in Madrid society, and the hobby of motoring is on the increase here as elsewhere in Europe. In former times the Buen Retiro was a royal demesne. Kings of Spain from Philip II. to Charles III. resorted to this pleasaunce, and a palace stood in the gardens. Nowadays, the Parque is a public pleasure resort, used by high and low, and often merry with a carnival or a battle of flowers. The Royal Palace overlooks the Manzanares, and dominates the city. It is in form a huge quadrangle, designed by Sachetti. The views from its windows are wide and impressive, and an idea of their beauty may be gained from the balcony near the Royal Armoury. Behind the palace is the Campo del Moro, a lovely garden on the spot where Ibn Yusuf besieged the old Alcázar. Only the privileged are permitted to enter this verdant sanctuary.

In an interesting book, “A Year in Spain,” written by a young American in 1831, there is a picture of the daily life of Madrid which may serve to illustrate the day’s round among the leisured in the city of to-day: “The first thing in the morning was to arrange and order everything for the day. Then each took the little _higada_ of chocolate and _panecillo_, or small roll, of the delightful bread of Madrid. This meal is not taken at a table but sitting, standing, or walking from room to room, and not unfrequently in bed. This over, each went to his peculiar occupations; the old woman, with her Diarios and Gacetas, to open her reading-room in the entry; Florencia to ply her needle; and Don Valentin to play tinker overhead, having first taken out his flint and steel, and cigar and paper, to prepare his brief cigarillo, which he would smoke, with a sigh between each puff, after those days of liberty when a cigar cost two _cuartos_ instead of four. Towards noon he would roll himself in his _capa parda_--cloak of brown--and go down into the Puerta del Sol, to learn the thousand rumours which there find daily circulation. If it were a feast day, the Mass being over, he would go with his daughter to the Prado. At two the family took its mid-day meal, consisting, beside some simple dessert, of soup and _puchero_, well-seasoned with pepper, saffron, and garlic. If it had been summer, the _siesta_ would have passed in sleep; but it being winter, Don Valentin took advantage of the short-lived heat to wander forth with a friend, and in the evening went to his _tertulia_, or friendly reunion. In summer, one, or even two o’clock, is the hour of retiring; but in winter it is eleven. Always the last thing before going to bed was to take a supper of stewed meat and tomatoes, prepared in oil, to sleep upon.”

Although this is a fair account of the inactive life of Madrid, it must not be supposed that no business is done in the city. There are comparatively few manufactures; but there are many shops, and a great share of the produce of Spain is brought into the capital. Tobacco and metal ware are the principal manufactures, and there are a large number of craftsmen who work independently at various trades. Madrid is more a centre of merchants and shopkeepers than of manufacturers.

George Borrow came to Madrid, on his Bible-distributing mission, and lodged in the Calle de la Zarza, “a dark, dirty street, which, however, was close to the Puerta del Sol, the most central point of Madrid.” Borrow went to see two criminals strangled, and gathered some vivid and lurid impressions of the life among the manolos, “the rabble of Madrid.” He declares that the walls of the city enclose “the most extraordinary vital mass to be found in the entire world,” and claims Madrid as essentially Spanish. This is true only if we have regard for the fact that the metropolis of Spain has still a character of its own, and is in many respects more “European” and modern than Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and Granada. In Cordova and Toledo we are reminded at every step of the influence of the Morisco, but in Madrid we recall the Spain of Charles V. and of the Bourbons.

Since 1836, Madrid has been a University city. The academy founded at Alcalá was transferred here at that time, and to-day there are about eight thousand students. The Real Academia de Bellas Artes was founded here towards the middle of the eighteenth century. Several fine examples of the art of Murillo are in the gallery of the Academy, and there are also works by Ribera, Rubens, Zurbaran, and Alonso Cano. Besides these institutions there are the Academy of History, the Academy of Science, the Academy of Medicine, and a number of other learned societies.

The Museum of Modern Art contains only a few paintings of importance, but there are some notable pictures by Fortuny, and a few pieces of modern sculpture. The great treasury of art, the Prado Gallery, is fully described in a separate volume of this series. It is the greatest glory of Madrid.

The Naval Museum will recall the past maritime supremacy of Spain. In the National Library there are nearly a million books and a large number of manuscripts, including the beautiful, illuminated Gothic work dating from the tenth century, a thirteenth-century Bible, and the Siete Partidas of Alfonso the Learned. The National Museum of Archæology contains a very interesting collection of Roman, Gothic, and Moorish antiquities.

It would be difficult to find a word which would convey a true impression of a town, but if we were limited to the employment of a single term to describe Madrid, _rococo_ would suggest itself. The capital is elegant, fanciful, and yet stately. It does not smile like Seville, nor frown like Toledo, and yet it is neither sad nor stern. Granada and Cordova sleep. Madrid never seems to slumber; it is one of the most restless places upon the earth. It has the dignity of Castile and the frivolity of Paris; it exhibits the congestion of London in parts within its gates, but it has no dingy, sunless slums, and few signs of an ugly indigence.

There is the luxurious Madrid of the aristocracy and the hidalgo, the Madrid that lives for fashion and pleasure, and there is the Madrid of the shopkeeper and the lower middle class. Beneath these strata are the wage-earners, the mechanics and labourers, a frugal and usually industrious community. There is also the Madrid of a large nondescript class composed of mendicants, thieves, hawkers, and the rabble and derelicts of society.

There is the Madrid of the casinos, some intellectual, others merely social or sporting. The city has its coteries of ardent politicians, military men, financiers, reformers, freethinkers, revolutionaries, and its societies of the scientific, learned, and artistic. There is no specific character which one can point to as typical of Madrid. One passion is, however, manifest throughout all classes--the love of bull-fighting. Seville is the school of the torero; Madrid is the scene of his valour in the arena. The bull-fighter is the idol of the populace. In the cafés of the Puerta del Sol, or in the ring of the Plaza de Toros, his figure is one that arouses the deepest interest and warmest admiration. An eminent jockey in England has his host of admirers, but he cannot command that universal respect which is accorded to the _espada_ in Spain. The great bull-fighter is the pet of Madrid society, the demi-god of the populace, the model of the “sports” of the city.

It is just as easy to lead the studious, contemplative life in Madrid as in London, if one elects to be aloof. On the other hand, there is every opportunity for gaiety, social amenities, and dissipation. Madrid offers almost every kind of life to its inhabitants. Its 540,000 natives, forming Borrow’s “extraordinary vital mass,” are quite as motley as the population of Manchester. Madrid is therefore neither a purely commercial, fashionable, pleasure-seeking, nor cultured centre. Bilbao and Barcelona are the busy marts of Spain; Burgos, Salamanca, and Cordova subsist, as it were, upon the grandeur of the past, and you wonder how the people live. But Madrid throbs with life, and manifests the new ideals and views of the country in the domain of politics, in social reforms, in the arts and sciences, and in the diversions of society. In the realm of thought, the new Spain has its impulse and its centre in Madrid. Barcelona has been called “the life of Spain,” and in the commercial sense this is true. Yet Barcelona boasts of a strong affinity with France, and a great part of its trade is in the hands of foreigners. It is from Madrid that one may expect the impetus of a patriotic, national, and racial advancement, based upon culture and the recognition of the principles of social liberty.

II

THE HISTORY OF THE CITY

The records of Madrid before the tenth century are extremely scanty, and the early history of the city is largely conjectural. There is no doubt that the Moors established a fortress here, and called it Majrît; but the Romans were in possession before the Arab conquest of the Peninsula, as certain tablets, discovered in the city by Fernandez de Oviedo, serve to prove.

Upon the disruption of the Khalifate the town became subject to Toledo. Whether it was reconquered before or after the fall of that city, by Alfonso VI., is a vexed question. The credit of taking the town is assumed by the people of Segovia. At this time (1085) Madrid was encompassed by a strong wall, stretching from the Moorish Alcázar, now the Royal Palace, to the Church of our Lady of the Almudena; thence to the street of Segovia by the Cuesta de los Ciegos to the Puerta de Moros, and through the Calle Mayor and the Plaza de Oriente to the Alcázar.

According to an old tradition, still accepted by a part of the populace of Madrid, an image of the Virgin of the Almudena, now in the possession of the nuns of the Sacramento Convent, was concealed by the zealous Christians, during the Moorish occupation, in a tower of the city wall. Three hundred years after the sacred image was discovered and restored to the Church. There is a similar legend concerning the sculpture of the Holy Mother found at about the same date.

Upon the victory of Alfonso, the mosque was purified and dedicated to the Vírgen de la Almudena, and on the site is the fine new Cathedral. A mixed population of Christians, Jews, and Moors lived within the city walls at this period, and the staple industries were the making of hemp, linen, and cloth. One of the regulations of that day referred to the muzzling of dogs, as may be seen from an inspection of the curious Fuero de Madrid, which is preserved by the municipal authorities.

The city is mentioned only occasionally in Castilian annals. Sancho el Bravo in vain sought health and strength from its bracing air.

Under Ferdinand IV. the Cortes first assembled in Madrid, to meet there again in 1335 under Alfonso XI. The townsmen warmly espoused the cause of Peter the Cruel. In 1403, Henry III. sent from the city an embassy to Persia, under Gonzalez Clavijo, to negotiate with the potent warrior sovereign Tamerlane. The emissaries were absent from Spain for two years, and during the journey they visited Constantinople and Samarkand.

John II. and Henry IV. lived in the Royal Palace, and encouraged many poets of Castile who were of their retinue. It is proved by municipal documents that Madrid was not then so insanitary and neglected as some writers have stated, for there were rules for the disposal of refuse, and an order was made for the paving of some of the chief streets.