IF it is one of the coveted sensations of a traveler to stumble unexpectedly on some rare spot that is overlooked and unheralded, as was our experience at CÁceres, there is a second emotion that is close to it,—the return to a favorite picture gallery, especially if in the meantime one has gone further afield, has learned to know other schools, and adjusted ideas by comparison. A return to the Prado can give this coveted sensation.

The winter in the south had familiarized us with the Spanish painters; Murillo now seemed more than a sentimentalist, had he painted for different patrons he had been a decided realist; Toledo had showed that El Greco was to be taken seriously. No sooner were we back in Madrid than I hurried off to the Museum, and, looking neither to the right nor left, to give freshness to the impression, walked straight to the Velasquez room. In the autumn the last look had been for the "Surrender of Breda," and to that unforgettable, soul-stirring picture I paid my first return homage. It impressed me even more powerfully than before. Never was there a more sensitively-rendered expression of a high-minded soul than that of the Marquis SpÍnola[35] as he bends to meet his enemy. It is intangible and supreme, only equalled by some of Leonardo da Vinci's expressions. For those who hold enshrined a height to which man can rise, the face of this Italian general will ever be a stimulus; he would appeal to the English sense of honor, the chivalry of a Nelson; the heart-history of such a man could be told only by a novelist of true distinction, such as Feuillet; there is something in SpÍnola's reserved tenderness that Loti might seize in words. Velasquez shows us a man of the world, but he has conveyed as only genius could how this warrior for EspaÑa la herÓica kept himself unspotted from the world, and this the painter could convey, because he himself was nobly idealistic, realist of the realists though he was. Not only in her mystics and novelists but in her painters and sculptors, Spain shows this union of the real with the ideal.

Hours in the Velasquez room slip by unnoticed. The portrait of the sculptor MontaÑÉs was of more interest now that we had seen his polychrome statues in Seville, those especially memorable ones of St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Borgia in the University Church. The hidalgo heads by El Greco, the flesh tints, alas, turned to a deathly green, called up Professor Domenech's words on the grave Spanish gentlemen in their ruffs—"sad with the nostalgia for a higher world, the light in their eyes holds memories of a fairer age that will not return; images of the last warrior ascetics." This eccentric artist has in the Prado a striking study of St. Paul, an intensity in his face on the verge of fanaticism, a true Israelite, such as only a semi-oriental like El Greco could seize. Another picture that struck me with even profounder admiration than before was Titian's Charles V on horseback. And again I studied long the portraits of the pale Philip II, of his dainty little daughters, his sisters, his most lovely mother, and that pathetic English wife of his. Probably no northerner can see fairly both sides of Philip's strange character, just as I suppose no Spaniard can judge Elizabeth Tudor as does an Englishman. Nevertheless, there is a trait in Philip that all can admire—his filial loyalty.

We could have lingered in Madrid for weeks just for this gallery, but we had to tear ourselves away. A journey south to Murcia and Valencia had been planned, but the necessity of passing a cold night on the train made us decide now against it. Those two provinces, with Navarre, are the gaps of our tour in Spain: health and weather will change the firmest of plans. We left Madrid for Aragon, pausing in a couple of the Castilian cities to the east.

In the capital the parks had been bursting into leaf, but it was still chill winter outside on the plains. Treeless and verdureless AlcalÁ, the city of Ximenez and birthplace of Cervantes, looked far from inviting. When we left the train at Guadalajara, the landscape was so depressing that its Arab name, "river of stones," seemed dismally appropriate. Again, as at Segovia in the autumn, a wind de todos los demonios was blowing over the land,—raging would be the more exact word. The town was melancholy, so was the weather, and we had a distressing personal experience. When the diligence set us down at the inn, we were told there was not a bed to be had that night in all Guadalajara, for it was the election, and even the hotel corridors would be used; we would have to go on to SigÜenza by the night train. The wind and the cold made the prospect a dismal one; early spring travel in northern Spain is not a bed of roses.

We went out to explore Guadalajara and its chief lion, the Mendoza palace, built by the MÆcenas family of the Peninsula whose history has been called the history of Spain for four hundred years, so prominent were they as statesmen, clerics, and writers. The palace is in the MudÉjar style, the exterior studded with projecting knobs; the inner courtyard is coarsely carved with lions and scrolls, capriciously extravagant and yet within bounds enough to be effective. The Duke del Infantado entertained Francis I here, and surely the French king with memories of Blois and the chaster styles which his race follows, must have examined with curiosity this very different architecture of his neighbor, the intense individuality of whose conceptions could almost silence criticism. The Mendoza palace is now a school for the orphans of officers, and when the little nun, happy and fond of laughter as the cloistered usually are, showed us about, we saw pleasant circles of young girls sewing under the forgotten gorgeousness of the artesonado ceilings.

Then at midnight, wind howling and rain pelting, we crossed the muddy square that lay between the SigÜenza station and the town's most primitive inn. There they did the best they were able for us, but nothing could lessen the glacial damp of those linen sheets: the illness begun at AlcÁntara went on increasing. With chattering teeth and beating our frozen hands together to put some sensation into them, we realized we were back again on the truncated mountain which is central Spain, thousands of feet above the roses and oranges of Seville.

The following day was Sunday, with a sacred concert of stringed instruments in the Cathedral, a good Gothic church, noticeably rich in sepulchers. In one chapel especially, that dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury by an English bishop who accompanied Queen Eleanor to Spain, when you stand among the tombs of those warriors, bishops, and knights of Santiago, you feel the thrill of the past. Cardinal Mendoza, "Tertius Rex," was at one time bishop of this Cathedral, having for vicar-general the priest Ximenez: Don Quixote's friend, the delightful cura, was "hombre docto graduado en SigÜenza."

The Cathedral of SingÜenza
The Cathedral of SingÜenza

The chill, little city was far from stimulating; at another time it may appear differently, impressions are so dependent on weather and health. The peasants wrapped in their blankets had a beggarly aspect after the dandy majo of Andalusia. I daresay were Seville three thousand feet above the sea, the bolero would be worn less jauntily. The Cathedral visited, there was little to detain us, so we bade a ready farewell to glacial sheets and ice-crusted water pitchers to continue the route to Aragon, west past Medinaceli, where a Roman arch stood boldly on the edge of its hill.

The semi-royal family of Cerda, Dukes of Medinaceli, has possessions all over the country: forests near Avila, the Casa de Pilatos in Seville, lands near Cordova, a castle at Zafra, and vast tracts in Catalonia. It descends from Alfonso el Sabio, whose eldest son, called la Cerda, from a tuft of hair on his face, was married to a daughter of St. Louis of France, and left two infant sons, who were dispossessed by their uncle, Sancho el Bravo. For generations they continued to put forward their claims on every fresh coronation.

After entering Aragon the climate grew warmer. We were descending gradually, and soon fruit trees in blossom, and vineyards, appeared among the broken, irregular hills. Calatayud, birthplace of the Roman poet Martial, was extremely picturesque, with castle and steeples. The long hours of the journey were whiled away watching the Sunday crowds in the stations, many of the men and women in the astonishingly original costume of the province. By the time we had reached Saragossa we had descended to about five hundred feet altitude, and it was pleasantly warm.

The capital of Aragon is commonplace in appearance, flat, modern, and prosperous. The noisy electric cars and the bustling streets made it an abrupt change from the small Castilian cities just left. As always, our first walk was to the Cathedral—Saragossa has two, and the chapter lives for six months in each alternately. The Seo is an ancient and beautiful structure, the Pilar is a tawdry, cold-hearted object, such as the eighteenth century knew how to produce, a mixture of the styles of Herrera and Churriguera. It is a pity that one of the most revered shrines in Spain should be housed in such vulgarity. Outside, seen from the bridge over the Ebro, the many domes of different sizes, covered with glazed tiles of green, yellow, and white, are not bad, but within is a soul-distressing mass of plaster walls, and ceilings of Sassoferrato-blue. The High Altar, however, has a treasure, the celebrated alabaster retablo of DamiÁn Forment, one of the best of national sculptors, who worked between the Gothic and Renaissance periods, and who was helped to ease of expression by Berruguete, lately returned from Italy.

The holy of holies of this new Cathedral is, of course, the chapel of the Pilar, and about it are always gathered devotional crowds. To a Spaniard it is naturally a sacred spot, associated as it is with his earliest memories; there is not a hut in all Aragon that has not an image of the Pilar Madonna; but to the Catholic of another land, who never heard of this cult till coming to Spain, it is impossible to feel the same devotion, especially when it is surrounded with such bad taste. I tried to arouse imagination by recalling what the Pilar had meant for this city in its hours of danger, how during the siege of 1808 they kept up courage by exclaiming, "The holy Virgen del Pilar is still with us!": one of the witticisms of the siege was:

Just as in Andalusia the chief ejaculation is "Ave MarÍa PurÍsima!" and in the mountains of the north, "Nuestra SeÑora de Nieve!" so in Aragon, "Virgen Mia del Pilar!" springs to the lips in time of joy or trouble. However, emotion cannot be summoned on command, and I left Saragossa unmoved by her special shrine of devotion. Had it been in the solemn old Cathedral, sympathy had come more readily. The Seo, like most Spanish churches, is spoiled outside by restoration, but within it is not unworthy of the coronations and councils held there. Ferdinand el CatÓlico was baptized at its font; and near the altar is buried the heart of Velasquez's handsome little Don Baltazar Carlos, who died of the plague at seventeen. The church is high and square, like a hall; it is rich in mediÆval tombs, Moorish ceilings, pictures, and jewels. Some truly glorious fourteenth century tapestries were still hanging in place after the Easter festivals, on the day of our visit; and as a council was to be held in the church on the following day, a row of gold busts of saints, Gothic relic holders, stood on the altar. The sacristy was a treasure house, from its floor of Valencian tiles to its vestments heavy with real pearls. The enthusiasm of the priest who showed us the Cathedral told of the personal pride most of his countrymen feel in the house of God; again, as at Burgos, I felt that these people considered their churches as much their abode as their own simple homes, that one supplemented the other, and hence much of the contentment of their frugal lives.[36]

We were stupid enough to go hunting for the leaning tower of Saragossa, not knowing that it had come down in 1893, and the search led us through the narrow streets of the older town, where the mansions of dull, small bricks, as a rule, have been turned into stables and warehouses, like the former palaces of Barcelona. Outside the city, flat on the plain, stands what was once the Moorish, later the Christian, palace, the Aljuferia, now serving as barracks, in which are embedded a few good remains, such as a small mosque and a noble hall of Isabella's time, with that suggestive date, 1492,—Granada and America.

On our first arrival at the hotel in Saragossa, they had informed us we could stay but a few days, as the centenary celebration of May 2d, 1808, was approaching, and every hotel room was engaged. The town so hum-drum to-day has a stirring history to look back on. In modern times she has stood a siege as heroic as any in the Netherlands, but Spain has lacked a Motley to make her popular. I can only repeat, justice has never been done to the outburst of patriotism which began in Madrid with the Dos de Mayo, 1808. Murat's savage slaughter on that May day made the whole of Spain rise in almost simultaneous defense, to the astonishment and admiration of Europe. Saragossa chose for her leader against the invader the young Count Palafox, assisted by the priest Santiago Sas, and by TÍo Jorge ("Uncle George") with two peasant lieutenants. The French closed in round the city, but the victory of BailÉn in the south raised this first siege.

Then in December of 1808 four French marshals with twenty thousand men again surrounded Saragossa, and it must not be overlooked that, built on the plain, she had slight natural means of defense. "War to the knife" was the historic answer of the town when called on to surrender, and the bones of over forty thousand citizens at the end of the siege bore testimony to the boast. To embarrass the enemy they cut down the olive plantations around the city, thus destroying with unselfish courage the revenue of a generation, for it takes some twenty years for the olive tree to bear fruit. They sacrificed all personal rights to private property by breaking down the partitions from house to house till every block was turned into a well-defended fortress. Organized by the intelligent Countess of Burita, the women enrolled themselves in companies to serve in the hospitals and to carry food and ammunition to the fighters; a girl of the people, Ajustina of Aragon, whom Byron immortalized as the Maid of Saragossa, worked the gun of an artillery-man through a fiery assault. Ajustina lived for fifty years after her famous day, always showing the same vigorous equilibrium of character; though Ferdinand VII rewarded her with the commission of an officer, she seldom made use of the uniform of her rank nor let adulation change the humble course of her life. The siege lasted up to the end of February. In the beginning of that month the daily deaths were five hundred, the living were not able to bury the dead, and a pest soon bred; the atmosphere was such that the slightest wound gangrened. Sir John Carr, who visited Spain the year of the siege, heard detailed accounts from officers who had taken part in it: "The smoke of gunpowder kept the city in twilight darkness, horribly illumined by the fire that issued from the cannon of the enemy. In the intervals which succeeded these discharges, women and children were beheld in the street writhing in the agonies of death, yet scarcely a sigh or moan was heard. Priests were seen, as they were rushing to meet the foe, to kneel by the side of the dying, and dropping their sabers, to take the cross from their bosoms and administer the consolations of their religion, during which they exhibited the same calmness usually displayed in the chambers of sickness." Even after the French had forced an entrance into the city, there continued for weeks a room to room struggle: "Each house has to be taken separately," Marshall Lannes wrote to Napoleon, "it is a war that horrifies." "At length the city demolished, the inhabitants worn out by disease, fighting and famine, the besieged were obliged with broken hearts to surrender, February 21, 1809, after having covered themselves with glory during one of the most memorable sieges in the annals of war, which lasted sixty-three days." (Travels in Spain, Sir John Carr K.C.). Truly can the testarudo aragonÉs of Iberian blood boast of the title of his capital, siempre herÓica!

The Aragonese is manly, enduring, and stubborn; the special laws of this independent province, the Fueros, are worth close study from those interested in the gradual steps of man's self-government; under an ostensible monarchy they gave republican institutions. This is an address to the King: "We, who count for as much as you and have more power than you, we elect you king in order that you may guard our privileges and liberties; and not otherwise." Nice language for a Hapsburg or a Bourbon to hear! Aragon was united early, by a royal marriage, to Catalonia, and a few centuries later Ferdinand's union with Isabella bound both provinces to Castile, Ferdinand also conquering Navarre; it was under the first of the Bourbon kings, Philip V, that Aragon lost her treasured Fueros.

We saw nothing of the neighboring Navarre, and I cannot say we saw much of sturdy Aragon, since Saragossa was the only stopping-place, but a long day on the train going south gave us a fair idea of its general character. And constantly through the day rose the remembrance that it was here in this kingdom happened the delightful Duchess adventure. Never has the scene been equaled,—that witty, high-bred lady and hermano Sancho of the adorable platitudes and proverbs—("Sesenta mil satanases te lleven Á ti y Á tus refranes"! even the patient Don exclaimed)—brother Sancho quite unembarrassed—was he not a cristiano viejo?—stooping to kiss her dainty hand.

The landscape of the province was rather desolate, though relieved from monotony by the snow-covered wall of the Pyrenees that continued unbroken in the distance to our left. The Spanish side of the great range of mountains is abrupt in comparison with the French slopes, which are gay with fashionable spas, and fertile with slow, winding rivers, such as the Garonne. In Spain the rivers descend with such rapidity that they pour away their life-giving waters in prodigal spring floods, and during the rest of the year the land suffers from drought; there is a saying here that it is easier to mix mortar with wine than with water.

It happened that on our train was a band of young soldiers returning to their homes after their military service, as irrepressible as escaped young colts. Such songs and merriment! Such family scenes at each station! Mothers and little sisters, blushing cousins and neighbors had flocked down from the villages on the Pyrenees slopes to welcome them. A touch of nature makes the world akin; we found ourselves waving, too, as the train drew away, leaving the returned lad in the midst of his rejoicing family. At the fortress-crowned town of MonzÓn we saw the last of our happy fellow travelers. There a young soldier led his comrades to be presented to a majestic old man with a plaid shawl flung over his shoulder like a toga, and the son's expression of pride in the noble patriarch was a thing not soon forgotten. In Spain few journeys lack a primary human interest, something to give food to heart or soul.