Part 9

This vast, empty palace contains little of interest except the two rooms inhabited by Philip. Within them all is austerity and simplicity--as befitted a king who was a monk at heart. The walls are whitewashed, the flooring of brick. The footstools remind us of the gout from which the sad king suffered--certainly not from over-indulgence in the good things of life. In this room he worked from four in the morning till midnight, his labours interrupted only by his fervent devotions. The adjoining chamber is the oratorio, of which I have already spoken, where he could assist at the celebration of Mass. Here, at the end of a two months’ illness, patiently borne, he died, grasping the very crucifix with which his father had been consoled during his last moments. His death, at any rate, was happier and more dignified than that of his victorious rival, Elizabeth, writhing out her life at Richmond in an ecstasy of remorse and chagrin.

Adjacent to the Escorial are several blocks of buildings, such as the Campaña, containing the domestic offices, and the Casa del Principe, the Petit Trianon of the palace, surrounded by gardens. In these may be seen the cross marking the spot where the baker’s boy was burnt at the stake in Philip’s reign. A queer site for a palace dedicated to the “menus plaisirs”!

The Escorial has been the scene of some important historical events, notably of the arrest and imprisonment of the Infante Ferdinand, on the charge of high treason against his father in 1807. He was afterwards Ferdinand VII. The prince was confined in the Prior’s cell and managed to communicate with his friends by the aid of a fishing line. Charles IV. had no option but to pardon his son, whose intrigues resulted indirectly in the spoliation of the palace which had been his prison, by the French a year or two later.

Not without relief will the visitor leave these interminable halls and corridors over which broods the presence of death, and seek the little Silla del Rey, or King’s Chair, a mile and a half from the pile. It is a natural seat, formed of granite rocks, where Philip used to watch the progress of the building operations. It is worth visiting as affording one of the pretty views to be obtained in the midst of a generally uninviting district.

After a visit to the Escorial, the Palace of La Granja will seem what it was intended to be--the house of life and gaiety. At any other time it would seem a rather dull and depressing imitation of Versailles. It is called the Grange or Farm and appropriately enough is in the midst of charming scenery. Trees afford a shade not too often to be found in barren, scorched Castile. And in the background the snowy Guadarrama lift their heads above the pine forests. On the whole one does not blame Philip V. for his choice of a royal domain, or wonder why the present King’s father and mother spent much of their time here, soon after their marriage. Yet at this height of 4000 feet above the sea, it must be an Arctic spot at all seasons except summer. La Granja--or San Ildefonso, to give it its official name--is the residence of the Court in summer. If the Escorial expresses in stone the character of its founder, the same cannot be said of this palace, for the fifth Philip was of almost as gloomy a temper as the first. He spent very little time at the pleasaunce he had decreed, for he died a few months after its completion in 1746. Here in 1724 he abdicated the throne in favour of his son, Don Luis, on whose death eight months later he was constrained to resume the royal authority.

The palace itself is not a very interesting structure. The principal façade dates from 1737, and is buttressed by columns and pilasters, supporting an entablature and balustrade. Over the middle rises an attic story, also surmounted with a balustrade, supported by four Caryatides representing the seasons, between them being the coat-of-arms of Spain and the Bourbons. This front was designed by Juvarra, and is the most tasteful portion of the building, to which additions have been made at different epochs with little regard to harmony or good taste. The interior, however, reflects the taste of the present august occupants. Much of the heavy rubbish accumulated in preceding centuries has been relegated to the lumber room, and the vast halls and corridors have been refurnished throughout. Rich tapestries cover the walls, and the palace still contains upwards of 300 pictures, though the finest works of art have gone to fill the galleries of Madrid. The chapel is only worth visiting for the tombs of Philip V. and his Italian Queen.

But if the Palace of San Ildefonso hardly rewards the visitor for his journey from Madrid, the park is a thing of beauty and a joy at least during a long day. Here flourish the elm, the lime, the pine, and the chestnut, forming delicious woods. In the ornamental gardens exists the very finest system of fountains the world has seen. Philip V. far surpassed the achievements of the Roi Soleil in this direction. The first visit is naturally to the lake, a beautiful expanse of water on the bank of which is situated the important piscicultural establishment, founded in 1867 by the King-Consort Francisco.

The gardens are filled with statues of mythological characters, grouped with great skill among the foliage. Those most admired are the Lucretia, Daphne, Phœbus, and America. Especially beautiful is the group of Diana and her nymphs surprised by Actæon, in the centre of a magnificent fountain. Contemplating the play of the waters Philip V. is said to have exclaimed “This has amused me three minutes and cost me three millions.” A still finer and taller column of water issues from the Trumpet of Fame, breaking in a shower of crystalline drops 130 feet above the water level; while miniature rainbows interlace and form an aureole round the head of the figure. In the centre of another lake, Latona is seen, embracing her children, while her enemies, transformed into frogs, vomit forth jets of water in impotent rage, which cross and recross, forming arches in bewildering variety.

There is nothing equal to this to be seen elsewhere. The achievements of the immortal Mr Brock with fire have been eclipsed by Renato Firmin with the conflicting element. Spain can boast the finest display of hydrotechnics in the world.

Before we leave this favourite home of His Catholic Majesty it is worth while to recall a few of the events of which it has been the theatre. On the 17th September 1832, Ferdinand VII. lay here dying. All those round him--his family, his ministers, even the garrison--were devoted to the interests of Don Carlos, and even his confessor ceased not to importune the dying king to revoke the Pragmatic Sanction and to decree the exclusion of his own infant daughter from the throne. Queen Cristina, in the face of such pressure, remained inactive and despairing. With his hand guided, it is said, by the Bishop of Leon, Ferdinand at last traced his feeble signature to the decree which disinherited his child. The triumph of the Carlist faction seemed complete. Suddenly at the doors of the palace appeared the Queen’s sister, Doña Luisa Carlota, a woman of such spirit that no one there--minister or officer or prelate--dared bar her way to the King’s bedside. The court presently resounded with her shrill denunciations of the Queen’s want of courage, of the King’s weakness. She summoned to her presence the trembling minister, Calomarde, and when he offered his hand, struck him on the face. “White hands do not wound” stammered the statesman and fled from the presence of the royal mænad. Before such a tempest of righteous indignation, intriguers and schemers retired. Force at the last can always break through the meshes of treachery. Many of those who witnessed the memorable scene must have thought of the furious bull at Madrid which bore down before it the most dexterous of banderilleros, the bravest of espadas, and breaking over the barriers, dispersed a whole population. Before nightfall the decree was revoked and the succession of the Infanta Isabella confirmed anew by royal decree. Bravo Luisa Carlota!

Four years later, Cristina, now regent, had to face alone and unprotected, a mob headed by the palace guard, which broke into her room, loudly demanding the re-establishment of the Constitution of 1812. The Queen, unmoved and tactful, asked the deputation if they knew what the constitution was. According to the Honourable John Hay (see his “Castilian Days”) they replied, “No, but we hear it is a good thing, and will make salt cheaper.” The story like most good ones, is certainly untrue, and may be classed with the legend that in 1893 when there was an agitation in Belgium for an extended franchise, some peasant women presented themselves at the Town Hall with buckets to carry away their share of the “Suffrage!”

The only other royal residence which can form the goal of an excursion from Madrid is El Pardo, a shooting-box on a large scale, six miles from the capital. The hunting seat built here by Enrique III. was replaced by a palace in 1543. The building is very simple, and contains but a single court. The walls in the interior are hung with tapestries after the designs of Goya (made in Madrid) and Teniers (made at Les Gobelins). Students of Spanish art should visit this palace for a sight of the best of the very few remaining works of Gaspar Becerra--the Legend of Perseus and Andromeda. The chapel contains a copy of Ribalta’s altar-piece in Magdalen Chapel, Oxford. Over the staircase is a fine equestrian portrait of Don John of Austria, attributed to Ribera. These works of art having been inspected, there is little to detain you at El Pardo. The shooting in the adjacent covers is excellent, but few of my readers will have the time or opportunity to prove this for themselves.

VII

ALCALÁ DE HENARES

Twenty-one miles from Madrid, on a plain two thousand feet above sea-level, is the little town of Alcalá de Henares, whose annals are so intimately associated with the history of Spain that it deserves more than passing mention. In 1510, Alcalá was a famous University town, esteemed equally with Salamanca, and frequented by the most learned professors, doctors, and students of that age. Here, it is claimed, was born the great Miguel Cervantes, and in the church of Santa Maria he was baptised in 1547. Catharine of Aragon, first of the wives of Henry VIII. of England, was a native of the place. But long before the sixteenth century, Alcalá de Henares was a town of importance, for the Romans settled here, and named the centre Complutum, while the Moors, at a later date, fortified the Roman station and called it the “stronghold” or “castle.”

Until the University, founded here by Cardinal Ximenez, was removed to Madrid, Alcalá de Henares was a town of note, populated by over ten thousand students. As early as the thirteenth century the Court frequently sat here to administer the _fueros_, and Alcalá was one of the first bishoprics founded in Spain. Cervantes speaks of the town of his birth as “the famous Complutum”; and Erasmus, in a letter to Vives, relates that “the cultivation of languages and polite letters has given celebrity to the University of Alcalá, whose principal ornament is that illustrious and truly worthy old man, Anthony de Nebrija, who has outstripped many Nestors.”

The students of the Alcalá University were a very merry community. Many are the tales repeated of their frolics, their escapades, and their Bohemianism. They prided themselves upon the carelessness of their dress, and at holiday time sang to the guitar for chance coppers thrown from the windows. Yet there were many serious students in the colleges, which numbered about twenty, and many youths sat at the feet of the sage teachers and learned lecturers who were retained by Cardinal Ximenez for the instruction of the pupils. Cervantes was among the students of Alcalá before he went to Madrid; but we read that he was not much inclined to follow the academic course, preferring poetry and romance to the dry tomes of theology and philosophy.

The ancient University was first established on the site of the present Colegio de San Ildefonso, which was built in 1583. Two celebrated architects, Gumiel and Gil de Hontañon, designed the building, and showed great taste in planning the front and the patios. The amphitheatre, in which the honours of the college were bestowed upon diligent students, and the chapel, are fairly preserved, and contain some interesting memorials of the days of prosperity and culture at Alcalá. In design the chapel is a curious mixture of the Renaissance and Morisco styles of architecture.

Ximenez, more correctly called Cisneros, is one of the most impressive figures in Spanish history. He was a shrewd politician, a profound pietist, a promoter of learning, an ascetic, and an exemplar in works of charity. He was, however, tainted with fanaticism, and at his direction many hundreds of ancient Arabic books were burned, a step the wisdom of which is still a matter of controversy. From 1516 till his death in 1518, the Cardinal held the regency of Castile, an office which provoked the resentment of many old and noble houses in the kingdom, for, though Ximenez was of high birth, he came of an impoverished family. Upon being challenged by the grandees for his authority, the Cardinal led a deputation to the window of his palace, and pointing to a body of armed men in the courtyard, said: “By these powers I govern Castile until Prince Carlos shall arrive or shall supersede me.”

The worsting of the French invaders in Navarre was due to the militant Cardinal’s tactics. He dismantled the forts, except Pamplona, which he rendered almost unassailable, and having garrisoned the capital of the kingdom, he defied the troops of France. To him also Spain owed the establishment of a militia, or citizen army, though the institution found little favour with the populace. Although Ximenez undoubtedly checked the study of Hebrew and Arabic in Spain, it must be remembered that his energy and his zeal secured the University of Alcalá de Henares, and that he produced here the great Polyglot Bible hence called the Complutensian. The books which this censor permitted to be used were “Catechisms, solid and simple explanations of Christian doctrine, and other writings calculated to enlighten the minds of the people.”

A noteworthy figure connected with the history of Alcalá de Henares was the learned and liberal-minded Nebrija, a reformer of a very different cast of intellect from that of Cardinal Ximenez who proved, however, his generous protector. Antonio de Nebrija was the Erasmus of Spain. He spent ten years of study in Italy, and returned to lecture at the University of Alcalá and to encourage learning among his countrymen. Although Nebrija encountered strong opposition in certain quarters, he strove till his old age to improve education in Spain, and contrived to gain the countenance of many persons of high position. Queen Isabella the Catholic was herself amongst his pupils.

The surroundings of Alcalá de Henares are austere and bleak; and if it were not for the hills that screen the town from the north, it would be considerably colder and more wind-swept than it is. A stream meanders by the town, and elms and poplars grow on this green upland of the sierras; but the environs of Alcalá cannot be called sylvan. Towards Meco, at one time a Moorish settlement, the country is of a softer and more pastoral character, enlivened by numerous mountain rivulets. This village is about four miles from Alcalá.

The Archbishop’s Palace is one of the monuments of the place, and it is now used as a repository for historical archives. Berruguete and other celebrated architects planned the building, which has some interesting patios and a fine staircase, showing the ornate tendency of the age in which the palace was designed.

The Colegiata has been restored. Its chief object of interest is the beautiful monument to Cardinal Ximenez, by Fancelli, an Italian sculptor. Juan Francés executed the reja, or screen, of the chapel in this edifice, and the saints Justo and Pastor, to whom the Colegiata is dedicated, were buried in the vault.

In Santa Maria, an unimposing church, Cervantes was christened; and upon the house where he was born we shall find an inscription containing a tribute to his genius. Several towns in Spain claim to be the birthplace of the author of “Don Quixote,” and it is not absolutely proved that he was born at Alcalá de Henares. There is, however, scarcely any doubt that he was baptised here, for the registers contain an entry of his baptism, and, as children in Spain were christened almost immediately after their birth, there is perhaps the strongest claim to be set forth by the townspeople, who aver that Alcalá is “the real birthplace of the immortal Cervantes.”

Still following the windings of the river Henares, we may reach Guadalajara in a rail journey of about fourteen miles from Alcalá. Here the Castilian landscape is of a less severe aspect, and the Roman and Moorish associations of the town tempt the traveller to linger for a while. The situation of Guadalajara is elevated, and the Romans made it a fortified place, and built an aqueduct from the hills.

The Palace of the Duke del Infantado is the most interesting building in the town. It is in the blended styles of the Goths and the reconciled Moors, and the patios are beautifully decorated, though much of the ornamentation of the interior has suffered the impairment of age and neglect.

On our way from Madrid to these fascinating towns of Castile we gain a glimpse of the stern order of the natural surroundings amongst which Cervantes was reared. This is not “the sunny Spain” of the south, but the Spain of the hardy Castilians, and the country of wind-searched highlands, where vegetation is thin, and whole districts are without foliage and shade. The towns and villages are often in green oases of the dreary table-land, but some of them are among the rocks of this sterile region, and exposed to snowstorms and hurricanes. Were it not for the system of irrigation which the Spaniards learned from the Moors, the plight of the farmer upon these table-lands would be melancholy indeed; but even in the bleakest territory the system of artificially watering the parched, sun-baked soil works wonders, and grain crops smile here and there among the savage hill-slopes of the despoblados or wastes, and almost everywhere flocks gain pasturage in the summer.

VIII

THE BULL-FIGHT

The origin and antiquity of bull-fighting in Spain is a subject that has engaged the minds of many writers, and led to much research and interminable discussion. It is most probable that those who incline to the opinion that this pastime was instituted by the Romans are in the right, though there is undoubted evidence that the Moors, if they did not introduce the _corrida_, or _lidia_, adopted it, and carried bull-fighting to perfection. The sport, however, seems to accord more with the character of the Roman than the Moorish conquerors of Spain, for the Romans possessed a passion for scenes of combat in the arena between gladiators and fierce animals, whereas there is no such strong testimony to show that the Moors took an equal delight in these feats of the circus.

The _taurilia_ of the Romans resembled the fights with bulls that may be witnessed to-day in every large town of Spain. Whatever may have been the origin of these contests, it is certain that, since the days of the Moors, the bull-fight has endured as the chief recreation of all classes of the population. There is in no other country any sport that can be compared with it in importance and in the sway of its fascination upon the public. The passion for horse-racing in England is not general, and the diversion owes its popularity in a large degree to the chances of gambling which it offers. Eliminate betting from the turf, and you will find that those who “follow racing” simply from an enthusiasm for rearing and running horses, and those who enjoy the amusement from the mere pleasure of watching competitions in speed between horses form an almost insignificant minority. In this country where horse-racing is regarded as a national pastime, the proportion of the populace that takes any interest in the breeding of the horses, the technique of riding, and racing _per se_ is greatly restricted. But this is not the case with bull-fighting in Spain. Here every one from the noble to the mule-driver is learned in all the rules of the game, keenly critical of the exploits of the performers in the ring, and ever ready to talk with fervour upon the absorbing topic.

The hold which this pastime has upon the Spanish imagination is so strong that it is a part of the national character, as deep-seated as the sentiments of piety and loyalty, and as powerful as the feeling of patriotism. King or peasant, man or woman, every native of Spain is a lover of the _corrida_; every child plays at bull-fighting as soon as he can walk; and every youth, who would be thought manly and a true son of Spain, yearns to emulate the courage and the dexterity of the _espada_.

Hundreds of volumes have been written in Spain upon the art of bull-fighting, the history of the ring, the lives of eminent _toreros_, and the records of famous arenas. Bull-fighting has produced an array of ardent chroniclers, poets, and hosts of journalists, and it has quickened the brush or pencil of artists from before the time of Goya down to Zuloaga.

The breeding of bulls for the ring may be described as one of the national industries of Spain. Noblemen endeavour to keep up the breed and the fighting qualities of bulls, and the rearing of bulls is the proper occupation of a gentleman. The beautiful Duchess of Alba, the friend of Goya, was an enthusiastic admirer of the sport, and a breeder of bulls. The _vacadas_ or breeding establishments of Andalusia produce the finest fighting bulls. They are considered fit for the combat, or warrantable, at the age of five years, when their value averages about £50 each. Over a thousand of these highly-bred animals are killed in the bull-rings of Spain annually, while the number of horses gored to death is very much larger.

In the old days bull-fights were mimic representations of warfare, in which the true caballero aspired to take part and to distinguish himself. The _toreros_ were amateurs belonging to high families, and several of the kings of Spain were expert exponents of the art of the _espada_. Accidents and deaths in the arena were of common occurrence, sometimes several knights were killed during a single performance. At all royal _fêtes_ a bull-fight was part of the amusement provided. If a prince was born, or married, the event was celebrated by a grand display of bull-fighting, while the coronation of a sovereign was always made the occasion for a brilliant spectacle in the ring. In Madrid these fights were held in the Plaza Mayor, a big quadrangle in the centre of the city. The plaza is surrounded by houses of several storeys high, having balconies and an arcade. The Panaderia, or Royal Bakery, served as a royal stand, and here the Court assembled in the balconies to witness the feats of the grandees, who engaged the fierce bulls with lances. No one of vulgar rank was permitted to take part in the contest.