The foregoing pages must inevitably arouse in the reader’s mind a curiosity to know more of the author. It is rarely that a princess of Royal blood sets down in writing, and publishes for all the world to read, her personal views of the established institutions of civilisation and the inherent virtues and vices of mankind, and when those views prove to be the very antithesis of what might be expected from one born and bred in the restricted atmosphere of a European Court, curiosity is still further whetted. The broad socialism—using the word in its widest sense—which characterises the Infanta Eulalia’s views of life would have been a surprising product of any Royal House; emanating as it does from the Royal House of Spain it is no less than amazing, as King Alfonso’s action in regard to this book (which we deal with later) further shows.

A knowledge of the Infanta’s life will enable the discerning reader to detect the influences which have laid open her mind to liberal and democratic ideas, fostered her remarkable independence of thought, and given her the moral courage to express her well considered opinions. She was little more than a baby when the revolution which dethroned her mother, Isabella II., sent them both in exile to France. It was in September, 1868, that Queen Isabella, who had been living in a fool’s paradise at Lequetio, on the Biscay coast, enjoying sea-bathing, at last realised that Spain would no longer tolerate her rule, for Admiral Topete, in command of the squadron in Cadiz Bay, hoisted the flag of revolt. All Spain was waiting for this spark, which kindled a fire not easily to be extinguished. The Battle of Alceola followed, when Serrano, representing the Revolution, defeated Pavia, who defended the tottering regime, and the road to Madrid was open. Isabella heard of Alceola five days after the fight, i.e. on the 29th September, 1868. Soon after, the news reached her of the unanimous rising of Madrid, the deposition of the Bourbon dynasty, and the formation of a provisional Government. She realised then that there was nothing left for her to do but to cross the frontier into France. The abdication of her throne in favour of her son Alfonso took place some years later. In France she first resided at the Castle of Pau, then in Paris, in the Pavillon de Rohan, an annexe of the Tuileries fronting on the Rue de Rivoli. During the winter of 1868-1869 she bought a house in the Avenue du Roi de Rome (now the Avenue KlÉber), named it the Palace of Castile, and dwelt there till her death.

At that time, the authoress of “The Thread of Life,” the Infanta Marie-Eulalie-FranÇoise d’Assise-Marguerite-Roberte-Isabelle-FranÇoise de Paule-Christine-Marie de la Piedad, to mention a few of the many names bestowed on her, was three and a half years old, having been born in Madrid on the 12th of February, 1864. Two and a half years later, the little girl’s education was entrusted to the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, whose famed institution in Paris stood in the Rue de Varenne. There she remained until she was thirteen and a half. During her stay at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, no distinction was made between her and the other pupils, the nuns governing the institution being no flatterers of Royalty, accustomed as they had been, for years to educate the daughters of the highest families. To them, the Infanta Eulalia was an ordinary boarder.

While she was still at school, her brother, Alfonso XII., begged his mother, the ex-Queen, to let Eulalia return to Spain, for the young girl was his favourite sister. So to Spain the little princess went, and although, to one of her nature and upbringing, Court life must have been stiff and unpleasant, she remained in Spain until after her brother’s death in 1885.

Her homes in Spain were the Escorial and La Granja, and she lived the usual life of a Spanish princess. Of that life nothing need be recorded here. The history of the Infanta Eulalia may be said to begin, for the readers of her book, with her marriage on March 6th, 1886, to Prince Antoine-Louis-Philippe-Marie, Infante of Spain, Duc de Galliera. After her marriage, the Infanta Eulalia again took up her residence in Paris. She has since spent most of her life in France and in England. In the latter country she frequently visited her sister-in-law, the Comtesse de Paris, and many English friends during the London season, being on one occasion the guest of Lord and Lady Clifford of Chudleigh at Ugbrooke.

The year 1893 is a memorable one in the life of the Infanta Eulalia, for it was then that she visited, in company with her husband, Cuba and the United Stales. In Cuba, one of the remnants of the old Spanish Empire—and that, too, soon to be torn away—they were received and entertained with much pomp and ceremony, in accordance with the requirements of Spanish etiquette. In America, most democratic of countries, they mingled freely with the people, and the contact doubtless stirred in the Infanta’s mind those liberal ideas concerning men and things which have brought her into such worthy prominence.

While in Cuba the royal visitors were entertained with a bull-fight, six bulls having been imported for the occasion from Spain, and a garden party was given in their honour by Captain-General Rodriguez Arrico at his summer residence, Los Molinos, the party being attended by all the chief officials and the Élite of Havana society. The Royal guests also visited the Asylum Beneficencia Domicilirria, were present at a performance at the Albizu Theatre, attended a great military review, and a ball at the Casino EspaÑol. On May 15th they sailed for New York on the Reina Maria Cristina, having been serenaded the night before by the firemen and volunteers of Havana.

Previous to the departure of the Infante and Infanta from Cuba, the people of Washington, New York, and Chicago, who had been preparing for the visit, were thrown into a state of anxiety by a rumour that the Infanta might not, after all, visit the United States owing to ill-health. Representatives of the newspapers, who called upon the Spanish Minister, SeÑor Murugua, were told that the Royal lady dreaded the burden of the social functions arranged for her entertainment in the cities she was expected to visit; she had read of the “lionising” of the Duke of Veragua, the lineal descendant of Christopher Columbus, and a noted breeder of bulls for the arena, who had preceded her, and she shrank from the fatigue that would accompany the round of pleasure prepared for one of her rank. The Spanish Court considered that, as the Infanta had been invited by Act of Congress to be the guest of the nation, as representative of the Queen-Regent of Spain, she ought to be received with the honours due to her exalted position. But, when it was learned that the President of the United States refused to return her proposed call, great was Spanish indignation, and it was at one time feared that she would return direct to Spain from Havana. However, the person most concerned disregarded the diplomatic hubbub and left for the States, as already stated.

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:—

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:

The following telegram in reply was sent by the Infanta:

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:—

To this telegram SeÑor Canalejas sent the following reply:—

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.

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