Part 7

The _Reina Maria Cristina_ arrived in New York late in the night of the 18th of May.

In the morning, the U.S. dispatch-boat _Dolphin_, bearing the representative of the President of the United States, was seen to be lying at anchor just outside Sandy Hook, on the New Jersey coast. It would seem that the _Dolphin_ expected the _Reina Maria Cristina_ to move into the bay, while the latter awaited the former outside the bar. Etiquette had again crept in. Finally, an understanding was reached through the mediation of the Spanish consul, for it was explained that it was impossible for the Infanta to enter a foreign port in any ship but a Spanish man-of-war, whereupon the _Dolphin_ saluted the Infanta with twenty-one guns, and then followed in the wake of the cutter sent for her by the Spanish frigate _Isabel_, on board of which she was received with Royal honours. While on the cruiser, a delegation from the Spanish colony in New York came to welcome her, and to pay her its respects. The ceremony was of the briefest and most formal kind, the visitors being introduced by her chamberlain, the Duc de Tamames. Shortly afterwards, she landed at Jersey City, and entrained thence for Washington.

The Infanta arrived at the capital at eight o’clock the same evening, being met at the station by Secretary Gresham, representing the President of the United States, and by Assistant Secretaries Quincy and Adee, who, after welcoming the nation’s guest, conveyed her in the President’s state carriage to the Arlington Hotel. Next day, she called on the President at the White House, and two hours later her call was returned by Mrs. Cleveland and the wives of the members of the Cabinet.

During her brief and enjoyable stay in Washington, the Infanta devoted most of her time to sight-seeing, and visited the home of George Washington at Mount Vernon, on the opposite side of the Potomac. The President and Mrs. Cleveland gave a dinner in honour of Her Royal Highness, and Sir Julian Pauncefote’s ball at the British Embassy to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday was honoured by the Infanta’s presence. During her sojourn in the capital, she attended St. Matthew’s Church. She naturally was besieged by callers from the Embassies and Legations, as well as by people prominent in social circles of the capital.

On May 25th she left Washington _en route_ for New York, and at Jersey City was greeted by committees of the citizens of New York and of the Spanish residents, the principal officers of the Spanish warships in port, and the Spanish consul. On reaching New York she was welcomed by the Mayor (the Hon. Thomas F. Gilroy), and afterwards escorted to the Savoy Hotel. In reply to the address delivered by Mayor Gilroy the Infanta said:

“I am delighted with the graciousness of the pleasant reception you have tendered me. In fact, my welcome has been so hearty and spontaneous that I am confused, and hardly know what to say.”

Her round of pleasure was to begin on the very evening of her arrival. While dining, she was greeted with the strains of Spain’s “Royal March” from a band stationed on the Piazza, while a group of New York Spaniards cheered vociferously, and clamoured for her appearance. She graciously showed herself on the balcony. When, just as she was returning to the dining-room, she was asked at what hour she desired to go to the theatre, her answer, as recorded by an American journalist, was:

“From nine to ten, to show myself to the people who have been so kind to me; but I should so like to be back at ten o’clock, for I am very tired, and I would like to come home and go to sleep.”

On the following day she was entertained at a ball given in her honour in the Concert Hall of Madison Square Garden. It was there that she made an impression that served her well throughout her stay in the United States, her tact and simplicity of manner placing everyone at ease. There had been bitter heart-burnings as to who would be spoken to by the Infanta, and much intriguing had taken place, in order to secure an _entrée_ to the charmed Royal circle. These jealousies were dispelled by the Infanta herself, who chatted affably with all, making no invidious distinctions.

“We felt we were _all_ hostesses,” was the comment of a prominent New York lady.

The Infanta had a busy time in New York. She cruised up the Hudson as far as Yonkers, was taken over Governor’s Island in New York Harbour, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, attended the review on Decoration Day, and laid a wreath on General Grant’s sarcophagus at Riverside. A little incident, which reveals the sympathetic, warm-hearted impulsiveness of the Infanta, occurred when she visited the Normal School, where she was gracefully welcomed by 1,900 girls. In a characteristic outburst of womanly feeling, she exclaimed:

“I can only say that I wish I were sitting on the benches with you, girls.”

On June 5th she left for Chicago, and Chicago was determined not to be behind New York and Washington in the enthusiasm of its reception. It had been announced that only the “best society” would be invited to meet the Infanta, and much bad feeling was created when a member of this select coterie, on being asked by a local journalist whether the City Fathers would be invited, unguardedly replied:

“The City Council could hardly claim to represent our best society.”

In the end, however, everybody who was or who pretended to be entitled to hobnob with Royalty was invited.

At the Union Depot she was met by Mayor Carter Harrison--so soon to be foully murdered. She speedily became as popular in Chicago as in New York and Washington, and when she visited the Exhibition she was at once named “Queen of the Fair.” Her desire for privacy was courteously respected, and on several occasions she was permitted to leave the hotel and to go out for a walk unnoticed. The Duke of Veragua, who was about to leave Chicago, called on her, and a reception was given in her honour at the Mayor’s private residence, but on the whole she was left to herself much more than she had been in New York. With visits to the Niagara Falls, Boston, and some of the watering-places on the Atlantic seaboard, this princess of old Spain concluded her stay in the western republic. She left New York on board the _Touraine_ for Havre, _en route_ for Madrid, carrying with her all the varied impressions which the modern institutions and industrial and social forwardness of the United States had made upon her receptive mind. The following letter to Señor Arturo Cuyas, of the Circulo Colon-Cervantes, New York, written in English the day before her departure, is evidence of the feelings the country aroused in her:--

NEW YORK, 23 JUNE, 1893.

DEAR MR. CUYAS,

Your inquiry about the impressions the United States have produced on my mind have met my expectations (_sic_). They are most favourable and, judging from the present, will be lasting, as so many pleasant remembrances will be attached to them.

It would require more than Longfellow’s thorough knowledge of English, Depew’s imagination, and Mary Anderson’s sentimentality to express all the feelings which I entertain for this country.

The official world, the Press, the people and society at large have been most kind to me.

Let me close with a French saying, “La distance n’est pas l’oubli.”

Au revoir!

INFANTA EULALIA

The domestic affairs of the Infanta and her husband about twelve years ago received that undesirable publicity which the “fierce light which beats upon a throne” gives even to those who are only related to its occupant. The result was a rumour that the Royal couple were divorced. This was wholly untrue. The fact was that, by mutual consent and without any intervention on the part of the Courts of Justice, a separation was arranged. By this arrangement, the Infanta continues not only to receive the £6,000 annually voted by the Cortes, but also the allowances under her marriage settlement. Her town residence is in Madrid, and she has a cottage at Navas de Pinares, in the Province of Avila, high up in the Sierra de Malagon, a continuation of the Sierra de Guadarrama. The name Comtesse d’Avila, under which the French edition of this book was published, is taken from the province in which her country residence is situated.

The Infanta has two sons, both of whom were educated, first at Beaumont College, the Jesuit institution near Windsor known as the “Catholic Eton,” and later at the Spanish Military Academy at Toledo. The eldest is Prince Alphonse-Marie-François Diego, born in Madrid in 1886. He holds a commission in the infantry regiment of San Fernando. Three years ago he married Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, daughter of the

late Duke, better known in this country as the Duke of Edinburgh. The Prince Alfonso served in the recent Melilla campaign, and as late as December of 1911 was received by King Alfonso, who conversed with him about the situation in that Spanish colony on the Moroccan coast. About the same time the King also received the Infanta’s second son, Infante Louis-Ferdinand-Marie-Zacarias, who was born at Madrid in 1888.

It will be noticed that the elder brother does not bear the title of Infante of Spain. He was deprived of it on his marriage to a Protestant princess. It has been reported--it cannot be said with what amount of truth--that his mother declared that “her cup of bitterness was full” after the treatment meted out to her son after serving in the Moroccan campaign, for she asserted that a promise had been made that his title should be restored to him if he served efficiently in Morocco.

The chequered career of the Infanta from her earliest childhood--a career almost without precedent in the annals of Royal houses--has given her the wide purviews, the all-embracing, generous sympathy with human joys, woes and strivings, which can be the attributes only of one who, by nature broad-minded, has had the opportunity and the discernment to form her own opinions on the great problems of life. The Royal infant, hurried from a country in revolution; the little Paris schoolgirl in the care of the nuns of the Convent of the Sacred Heart; the young princess receiving her rightful homage at her brother’s Court; her visit to the United States, with all that it taught her; the failure of her married life; her unassuming later years in France, and her frequent visits to her English friends--all these varied experiences contributed to the making of a character some interesting details of which were given by a Paris correspondent to the _Daily Telegraph_ on the occasion of the King of Spain’s sensational action regarding “The Thread of Life.” He wrote as follows:--

“The Infanta Eulalia, of whom I have often heard a good deal through the Cuban and Spanish colonies here, is herself one of the most remarkable examples of the simple life. And many unjust and untrue things have been said of her on that very account. The princess, on the contrary, while being most simple and unaffected in her ways, is a generous, highly intellectual and resolute personality. She read to me the chapter on the cultivation of the will and one’s own personal individuality, and interrupted to tell me:

“‘I shall conquer. I believe that the most necessary thing in life is to have a personal, properly developed will of one’s own. I have always been resolute myself. I have all my life done my own will when I thought it was proper. I reflected well beforehand, and then no one could stop me; and I always conquered, and I shall conquer again.’

“This last was said with a certain amount of defiance. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I am quite prepared for anything they may now do. I know that there has always been an antipathy between me and the Court life. I hate Court life, anyway, because it is so absurd in many of its stiff formalities. It puts a barrier between you and persons of the intellectual world.

“‘You may mix with only a certain set of people, who may be the most opposed to you, whom you feel to be unintellectual, and who are incapable of attracting your sympathy. I hate the barrier that would prevent you from free association with men of merit and of understanding just because they are not in Court circles. At Court they have also known for long that I did not care for them. I love my own simple life. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than my little home here in the Boulevard Lannes, facing the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. When I feel like it, I take a ride on my bicycle in the _allées_ of the Bois. I frequently take a ride round the lakes all by myself, and come back with a healthy feeling of pleasure after my exercise. I like simple meals and no great fuss about my table. I like to converse with persons of intellect or artistic taste. I love my children and my grandchildren.’”

Probably no one was more surprised than the Infanta herself that her book--which she described to the above-mentioned interviewer as representing “merely my own experience in life”--should so disturb the Court of Madrid. On the 2nd December, 1911, she received in Paris a telegram from her nephew, King Alfonso, couched in the following terms:

“I am astonished to learn from the newspapers that you are publishing a book as the Countess of Avila, and from other information I suppose this will cause a great sensation. I order you to suspend publication till I have seen the book and till you have received my permission to publish it.”

The following telegram in reply was sent by the Infanta:

“I am much surprised that the book should be judged before the contents are known. That is a thing which only happens in Spain. Having never liked Court life, from which I have always kept aloof, I take this opportunity to say good-bye to it, for after this proceeding, worthy of the Inquisition, I consider myself free to act in my private life as I think proper.”

The text of these telegrams was communicated by the princess to the Paris _Temps_, and, judging from what she said at an interview which she granted to a representative of that journal, there can be no doubt that the bitterness created by the unjust treatment which she declared her soldier son had been subjected to was largely responsible for the definite renunciation of the Court of Madrid to which the telegram gives expression.

The rupture thus created between the King and the Infanta was officially admitted on the 5th of December in the Council of Ministers at Madrid. Throughout early December it formed the paramount topic of conversation in the Spanish capital. The peremptory tone of the Infanta’s reply to the King’s telegram evoked varied opinions. It was felt by some that her attitude had been unnecessarily defiant, but others regarded it as justifiable resentment of an act of unwarranted interference. The Spanish newspapers were also divided in opinion, but, judging by the number of telegrams and letters of approval and congratulation which arrived at the Infanta’s Paris residence, there must have been a very large body of people in her native country who were aroused to enthusiasm by her action.

On the 5th December the Infanta telegraphed as follows to Señor Canalejas, the Spanish Premier:--

“I am awaiting punishment, and I beg you to let me know what it is as soon as possible, since I am about to start on a journey.”

To this telegram Señor Canalejas sent the following reply:--

“I have the honour to acknowledge your telegram, and I am to inform you that the Cabinet has so far confined itself to regretting the attitude which you have adopted, as it regards the representations of the head of the Spanish Royal Family as absolutely warranted.--CANALEJAS.”

At that time the Government were engaged in discussing the question whether the princess could constitutionally be deprived of her rank of an Infanta of Spain. The payment of her Civil List income was assessed at 250,000 pesetas (about £9,200). The princess, however, estimated her own income at about £6,000, and this estimate was practically confirmed on the 6th December by a semi-official _communiqué_, which asserted that the amount in her Civil List was 150,000 pesetas, i.e. about £5,500. On the solution of the constitutional question of the integrity or otherwise of her rank, the question of the deprivation of her income was known to depend.

The attitude of the King at this time was a fixed determination to act strictly in accordance with the Constitution, though it was understood that in any case the Infanta’s personal relations with the Spanish Court would henceforth be regarded as at an end. The princess stated her intention of making a present of her Spanish estates to her eldest son, and of henceforth living _incognito_.

Through the medium of the Paris correspondent of the _Imparcial_, the Infanta addressed a letter to that journal declaring her unaltered affection for Spain, the King, and the Queen-Mother. She said that she would be disposed to ask for pardon, were it not that by so doing she might appear to be anxious about her Civil List. By the 7th December, it appeared improbable that any severe measures would be taken against the Infanta, and the excitement caused in Madrid by the extraordinary incident began to subside.

What was the cause of the attempt by the Spanish Court to stop the publication of “The Thread of Life”? The Infanta herself believed that “the reason they took so much offence was that they imagined it was going to be a book on some other subject--a book that would make a scandal. This was the most remote possible thing from my mind. I had no idea that anyone would trouble about my book. It was for that reason that I had only a small number of copies printed, to be handed round to my friends.”

The book was written in French because the Infanta assumed that it would not arouse very much interest in Spain.

“I think,” she said to a correspondent of the _Época_, “that the general mode of thought in Spain is not particularly in harmony with the ideas which my book reveals.”

The incident, however, has served the useful purpose of drawing the attention of the world to a volume of thoughtful essays by one of the most remarkable personages to be found in the Royal families of Europe--essays which are the more interesting because they are the reasoned conclusions of one who, born and bred in the purple, has emancipated herself from the circumscribed past by contact and sympathy with the wider world of common things.

PRINTED BY CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.

End of Project Gutenberg's The thread of life, by Eulalia, Infanta of Spain