Spanish Life in Town and Country | Page 4

in itself was irregular; it was never put before the Cortes, and the

Council of Castile protested against it at the time.
[Illustration: A CORNER IN OLD MADRID]
This Act, such as it was, was revoked by Charles IV.; but the
revocation was never published, the birth of sons making it immaterial.
When, however, his son Ferdinand VII. was near his end, leaving only
two daughters, he published his father's revocation of the Act of Philip
V., and appointed his wife, Cristina, Regent during the minority of
Isabel II., then only three years of age.
At no time, then, in its history, has the Salic Law been in use in Spain:
the irregular act of a despotic King was repudiated both by his
grandson and his great-grandson. Nothing, therefore, can be more
ridiculous than the pretension of legitimacy on the part of a pretender
whose party simply attempts to make an illegal innovation, in defiance
of the legitimate kings and of the Council of Castile, a fundamental law
of the monarchy. Carlism, the party of the Church against the nation,
came into existence when, during the first years of Cristina's Regency,
Mendizábal, the patriotic merchant of Cadiz and London, then First
Minister of the Crown, carried out the dismemberment of the religious
orders, and the diversion of their enormous wealth to the use of the
nation. Don Carlos, the brother of Ferdinand VII., thereupon declared
himself the Defender of the Faith and the champion of the extreme
clerical party. Hinc illæ lachrymæ, and two Carlist wars!
The position of the Church, or rather what was called the "Apostolic
party," is intelligible enough, and it is easy also to understand why
Carlism has been preached as a crusade to English Roman Catholics,
who have been induced in both Carlist wars to provide the main part of
the funds which made them possible; but to call Don Carlos "the
legitimate King" is an absurd misnomer.
For the rest, as regards Spain herself and the wishes of her people, it is
perhaps enough to remark that if, after the expulsion of the Bourbons in
1868, at the time of the Revolution known as "La Gloriosa," when Prim
had refused to think of a republic and declared himself once and always
in favour of a monarchy, and the Crown of proud Spain went a-begging

among the Courts of Europe,--if, at that time of her national need, Don
Carlos was unable to come forward in his celebrated character of
"legitimate Sovereign of the Spanish people," or to raise even two or
three voices in his favour, what chance is he likely to have with a
settled constitutional Government and the really legitimate Monarch on
the throne? The strongest chance he ever had of success was when the
Basque Provinces were at one time disposed, it is said almost to a man,
to take his side; but, in fact, the men of the mountain were fighting
much more for the retention of their own fueros--for their immunity
from conscription, among others--than for any love of Don Carlos
himself. They would have liked a king and a little kingdom all of their
own, and, above all, to have held their beloved rights against all the rest
of Spain.
All that, however, is over now. In all Spain no province has profited as
have those of the North by the settled advance of the country. Bilbao,
once a small trading town, twice devastated during the terrible civil
wars, has forged ahead in a manner perhaps only equalled by Liverpool
in the days of its first growth, and is now more important and more
populous than Barcelona itself; with its charming outlet of Portugalete,
it is the most flourishing of Spanish ports, and is able to compare with
any in Europe for its commerce and its rapid growth. Viscaya and
Asturias want no more civil war, and the Apostolic party may look in
vain for any more Carlist risings. More to be feared now are labour
troubles, or the contamination of foreign anarchist doctrines; but in this
case, the Church and the nation would be on the same side--that of
order and progress.
In attempting to understand the extremely complex character of the
Spaniard as we know him,--that is to say, the Castilian, or rather the
Madrileño,--one has to take into account not only the divers races
which go to make up the nationality as it is to-day, but something of the
past history of this strangely interesting people. To go back to the days
when Spain was a Roman province in a high state of civilisation: some
of the greatest Romans known to fame were Spaniards--Quintilian,
Martial, Lucan, and the two Senecas. Trajan was the first Spaniard
named Emperor, and the only one whose ashes were allowed to rest

within the