(Hymn sung May, 1908, for the centenary of Dos de Mayo.)
WE reached Segovia at five o'clock in the early morning of November first after an indescribably fatiguing day and night of travel, the one confusion of our tour in Spain, and partly owing to a mistake in the usually reliable guide book. It may be of help to other travelers if I describe this misadventure. On returning from Galicia, we had left the express route at Astorga, and pausing there a night, took the local line south to Zamora and Salamanca. After a stay of some days in the old university city, we were lured out to a small town, fifteen miles away, Alba de Tormes, where St. Teresa died. It seemed unnecessary to return to Salamanca in order to go on to Avila, since a diligence ran to Avila from a town not far from Alba de Tormes. Our book gave the distance of this ride as fourteen miles, whereas fourteen leagues, more than three times fourteen miles, would be nearer the truth. For, on reaching Alba we found it was a diligence journey of over ten hours; with the roads in a frightful condition after a month's rain, the trip was out of the question. So spending the night at Alba de Tormes, we went back to Salamanca, there to find it was not the special day for the train that connects directly with the express route south. Whereupon it seemed best, rather than to wait a couple of days for this train, to take the long trip round by Zamora and Toro to the junction Medina del Campo, whence the express route to Madrid branches, one line passing by Avila, another by Segovia.
It happened to be eight minutes before the starting of the train, when I went to the ticket office at Salamanca with my carnet kilomÉtrique, yet nevertheless the agent refused me the tickets, saying that his office closed five minutes before the starting of each train. "But there are yet eight minutes," I exclaimed. His personal watch said five; so we were obliged to start without the usual complementary tickets. We decided to descend at the first stop and there have our kilometrics torn off, but before reaching this station the conductor came to collect tickets, and by his face, false and mobile, we knew we were in for a struggle. We explained our dilemma and offered the one peseta, ninety centimes, which was marked in his book and our own, as the full first class tariff for twelve kilometers. He contemptuously refused and demanded eight pesetas each for that short ride of eight miles. We did not hesitate to refuse; whereupon when we reached the stopping station he tried by confused explanations to prevent the agent there from giving us the necessary complementary tickets. But fortunately in the hurry to procure them during the few minutes of our pause, I had stumbled in stepping from the carriage and slightly cut my hand on the pebbles. This roused the Spanish sense of chivalry and the agent moved aside the conductor and gave me what I asked. We again offered this latter the lawful fare for the eight miles we had ridden without tickets, and again he demanded eight pesetas. On reaching Zamora, he boldly brought up the Chief of that station, a trickster in league with him, and both demanded the unjust fare. A Spanish gentleman was passing, and seeing two ladies in trouble, stopped to ask if he could be of assistance. When we explained the case, he asked us to give him the lawful fare and turning to the station-master and the conductor, presented it to them with a scathing rebuke: like beaten dogs they slunk away. Several times gentlemen came to our aid in this way, as if it hurt their pride to have their race so misrepresented.
It is this petty thieving among a class that should be above it, such as postal clerks and railway officials, that rouses the traveler's harsh criticisms of Spain and makes him so unjust to her. The radical cure lies in the men being better paid, for their salaries are such pittances that many of them look on extortion as their right. The tourist can do something toward lessening the abuse, by firmly refusing to be cheated. Our experience was that firmness always won the battle; if one is of a fiery temperament there is a scene, if one is phlegmatic, one sits immovable as a rock and lets the other storm. If one yields finally one has the scene as well as the putting of oneself in the wrong.
To continue our day of ill-luck. From Zamora, we crawled along the dull, local line to the junction Medina del Campo, which we reached at eleven at night. We then changed our plans and got tickets for Segovia, deciding to leave Avila till later. At Medina we spent six weary hours in the waiting room, strolling up and down the windy platform, entering the buffet now and then to drink coffee, trying to rouse imaginative interest by thinking this was the spot where Isabella the Queen had died. But in vain, it was too dismal. How we abused Baedeker! And how we abused Spain and her railway system! Trains came and went, men muffled in their cloaks entered and left the dark waiting room, we the only impatient ones. A Spaniard accepts such things in full piety. Whoever heard of going faster than twenty miles an hour and what more natural than to wait in a station between trains half a night?
At two o'clock that raw windy morning we boarded the express to Segovia and finding the ladies' compartment full, for we were now on the direct route from Paris, we had to force ourselves into the carriage with two furiously cross, sleepy Frenchmen.
High, cold Segovia, almost 3,000 feet above the sea! A wind, de todos los demonios, was blowing that bleak first of November, and to give the final small touch of ill-luck, it lifted and bore away to the mysterious darkness outside, a treasured veil that the sun had at length toned to a rare tint. We stumbled into the ill-lighted station-buffet for more hot coffee, sending the luggage ahead to the sleeping hotel; for the faithful hotel-omnibus had been there waiting as usual. Strange memories remain of Spain's station restaurants,—the flitting waiters filling the bowls of coffee for the silent travelers, (no man is more silent than a traveling Spaniard);—frugal enduring scenes, not a touch of comfort, one eats to live indeed. "The French taste, the Germans devour, the Italians feast, the Spaniards se alimentan!"
As the dawn was breaking we left the station and walked, buffeted by the gale, through the mournful streets that lead to the town, passing on the way the Artillery Academy, where the country's crack regiments are trained. As we descended to the market place below the steep hill on which Segovia is built, a sight greeted us that repaid a thousand fold for the dreary day and night of unnecessary travel, for guide-book blunders, personal stupidity, dishonest officials, collarless, cross Frenchmen and even lost automobile veils. For there, rising one hundred and fifty feet in noble dignity and proportion, its boulders held together by their own weight, without cement or clamping, stood the giant Roman aqueduct that Trajan left his native land, and framed by its arches were hills, villages, and churches, under a sky of delicate rose. Never was there a lovelier sunrise, fragile, shell-like, dewy.
We climbed the steps that mount to the city beside the aqueduct, pausing again and again to look at the stupendous thing. Then we passed through quiet streets, with Romanesque doorways at every step (Segovia with Avila has the best portals in Spain) till we reached the hotel. Though, later, the night in Medina del Campo station revenged itself in a twenty hours' sleep, we were now too deeply fatigued to rest, and so soon were afoot again. A stone's throw brought us to the central square of Segovia, on one side of which is prominent the apse of the late-Gothic Cathedral. We pushed beyond it, here and there pausing to study some ancient doorway or to enter a carved courtyard, till at length the street ended in the big open space before the superbly set AlcÁzar, and we looked out on that memorable view.
With the towering Roman aqueduct on one side of the town and this Castle at the other, Segovia may claim to be one of the most picturesquely set cities in the world. The view from the Plaza de la Reina Victoria before the AlcÁzar is one of the unforgettable sights of the Peninsula, of the inmost fiber of Castile. On the horizon lies one of Spain's sad, isolated villages. A winding road leads to it, along which plod the familiar carriers of the land, brothers of Sancho's patient Rucio; the rocky hills stretch away, dotted with ancient churches. Close to the city lie oases of trees and gardens such as the monastery enclosure of La Parral, with its noticeable stone pines. The AlcÁzar with its bartizan towers is built on a lofty crag that rises like the prow of a giant ship above the meeting of two bosky little streams, the Eresma which yielded the "trout of exceeding greatness" whereon Charles I of England supped in this castle, and the peaceful brook, Clamores. Thus in one landscape are united hardy uplands, leafy parks, a mediÆval town with church towers and fortified castle, making a scene whose individuality is beyond beauty, whose profound charm never palls. Here one communes with the silent, inner soul of Spain, the land of Isabella, of Garcilaso, of Teresa, of Cervantes, not a trace of whose spirit is found in Madrid, but in such spots as Toledo and Avila and this.
Segovia merits a prolonged stay. There were two Englishwomen in our hotel, who had passed months painting in the unfrequented city and found it a treasure house for the artist. It is full of Romanesque churches of the 11th and 12th centuries; so many are there that some are unused and falling into decay. The two best are San MartÍn and San MillÁn; the first, in the center of the town, surrounded by noticeable houses, has outside cloisters, that serve as a sunny lounging place for the people. From San MartÍn you can descend to San MillÁn by the steps beside the Plaza Isabel II. Apart from the church itself, with colossal animals carved on its capitols, the view from its porch is a most beautiful one, including the aqueduct, the Cathedral, and climbing houses, part of whose foundations it is plain to see are the apses of ancient churches.
Segovia's Cathedral is not Romanesque like most of her churches, but late-Gothic, designed by the same architect who did Salamanca's new Cathedral, and like it, though a poor thing exteriorly, the inside is dignified and effective: it is more fortunate than its sister church in having a curved east end, not Salamanca's cold hall-like apse. The cloisters of Segovia belonged to the earlier Cathedral; they were taken down and skillfully reset here; the pillars being elliptical in shape like Oviedo, are not thoroughly pleasing. In a chapel opening out of the cloisters is the touching, small tomb of the prince whose nurse dropped him by accident from a window of the AlcÁzar, back in the 14th century; and a good example of the countless rare tombs of Spain is the bishop, with an exquisite ascetic face of chiseled marble, who lies in the passage leading to the cloisters.
As we were in Segovia on All Saints' Day, we went to the celebration in the Cathedral, saw the prelate—the train of his red robe held by bearers—met at the church door by the canons and conducted in state to his throne. The vergers were very gorgeous; the leader carried a silver staff and wore a white wig and a white robe, his two assistants also in white wigs but with red velvet robes. The following day, All Souls', these vergers were dressed in mourning, and in the center of the black-draped church was placed, with true Spanish realism, a covered bier. On All Saints' Day there was really good music on the organ whose pipes flared out over aisles and choir; also an excellent sermon to which all listened in rapt attention, officers, peasants, and grave faced hidalgos standing in a characteristic group around the pulpit. The best way to learn Spanish and to learn more than the lip language of this race, is to listen to the sermons. Their eloquence is natural and contagious, and the peroration, delivered with brio, is often an artistic treat. Attend the sermons and frequent the early morning services, and you stumble on scenes of unobtrusive piety that tell you, despite some Spanish pessimists, that the soul of religion still lives in this land of the latest crusaders. As Sunday was the day we had set for the trip to La Granja, I went early to the Cathedral, and at Mass in a dark chapel of the apse, I watched long two gallant little lads of twelve and fourteen, smart in their artillery uniforms, swords, and white gloves. They went to Communion with their mother, who, like most Spanish women in church, was dressed in black with a draped veil, a fashion that lends an air of distinction to the plainest. This group of three remained to pray after the others had left the chapel, remained as a pleasure really to pray, the serious, high-browed, little faces bent over their books of devotion as they read the After-Communion devotions by the light of a tall candle placed on the floor beside them; then their blue eyes closed in such sweet, unconscious piety that it touched the heart strangely. And when, their prayers over, they left the Cathedral, each seized the mother's arm with a gay scamper of delight—she probably on a visit to them—and now for a whole day of vacation and enjoyment!
In the same uniform as the small Communicants of Segovia Cathedral, other embryo artillery officers fill the city. At our hotel was a table where a number of the older students dined each day. They were well-bred lads with inborn sedateness, never boorish nor loud-voiced; noblesse oblige still is a reality in spite of the dissipated, smart set in Madrid by which we too often generalize. I shall not soon forget the look of pained displeasure with which they watched the over familiar treatment of the waiter by a foreign lady.
It does not seem to me too harsh a statement to make that Spain's neighbor across the Pyrenees, has little of this chivalrous idealism among her boys. There are exceptions of course; the manly carriage of the brancardiers of Lourdes, those bands of young men who voluntarily serve as bearers of the crippled and stricken, show that a remnant still exists of the race of the Rochejacqueleins, of the Montalemberts, of those who can serve, unpaid, an ideal. Frenchmen themselves will not maintain that such are the average. Whereas the average Spanish, like the average English lad, has a strong dash of the Quixote and is capable of disinterested enthusiasm. Proof of this radical difference is that first important step in manhood, marriage. In Spain there is not the pernicious system of dowries; as a rule it is personal attraction that wins a husband. French people will assure you, that though one may be hump-backed and villainously ill-tempered, if there is a dot one is married; one may be grace and intelligence incarnate, without the dot one goes unwedded to the grave; the shrewd, interested love of money is in young as well as old. Spanish young people are romantic. Midnight serenades and evening hours of chatting by the reja are signs that hint marriage here is more than material settlement, love more than an impulse of nature; Spain's novels tell of this idealism. In many vital points the Spanish people are more akin to the English than to their Latin brothers.
The Sunday morning that we took the diligence for our country excursion started cloudless. La Granja lies seven miles outside Segovia, on the Guadarrama Mountains, and is the residence of the Court for part of each summer. The diligence rattled down the precipitous streets of Segovia, passed under the towering aqueduct, "the devil's bridge" the peasantry call it, then mounted the swelling hills to the palace at San Ildefonso. It had formerly been a farm belonging to the monks of La Parral; Philip V turned it into an artificial French pleasure ground, and built a formal chateau, a Bourbon creation that is strangely out of place on the rugged hills. The park is well-wooded but all rural charm is spoiled by the neo-classic fountains, some of them like monstrous dreams. Before we reached the leafy avenues of San Ildefonso, the sky became overcast and a heavy rain began. Five minutes after leaving the diligence we were so drenched that it seemed as sensible to explore the palace grounds as to pause chilled and wet in a miserable hotel. Then when we found the diligence did not return to Segovia till the evening and that no carriage would start in the storm, in an ill moment we decided to walk back to the city. A wind that cut like a knife made it a feat beyond our strength, and some miles along that bleak way, when a cart passed, we abjectly begged a passage. Yet, standing patiently under the drenching rain, oblivous to the tearing wind, the contented young shepherd girls watched their flocks.
If this poor imitation of Versailles has little in itself to charm the tourist, La Granja has been the scene of so many striking events in modern Spanish history that it merits a visit. It was there that Godoy, favorite of Charles IV's wife, signed away Spain to Napoleon, the criminal act that led to such glorious consequences. For then Spain, the country which had lain downtrodden under three centuries of misrule, shedding her blood in wars for her wretched kings' personal ambitions and giving her treasure for their extravagance, awoke suddenly to life when she found the king had outraged her. Two young heroes, Daoiz and Velarde, artillery officers, turned the cannon on the French invaders in Madrid, that memorable Dos de Mayo, 1808, and the War of Independence began, the starting point of regeneration, the second Cavadonga.
That outburst of national vigor has never had justice done it. We know the Peninsula War from the English point of view, a ceaseless disparagement of Spain's part in it.[16] It is true that without the English armies the war would have dragged on in disorderly, guerrilla fashion, for misrule had robbed the people of skill in self-government and organization. But remember the glorious year 1808, whose centenary all Spain was celebrating during the months of our visit, was before the arrival of Wellington's troops. The Dos de Mayo, the Battle of BailÉn, where a Spanish general with Spanish troops brought about the surrender of twenty thousand of Napoleon's trained soldiers, and the sieges of Saragossa and Gerona, unmatched in all modern history for heroism, were in 1808-1809. It is just to remember that when Germany, Austria, Italy, and Russia yielded in part to the invader, Spain stood firm against him, and the nation that Europe thought unnerved and debased "presented a fulcrum upon which a lever was rested that moved the civilized world."
La Granja has witnessed later historic scenes. When Charles IV betrayed his people, the nation chose as their king his son, the miserable Ferdinand VII, who ungratefully repaid their loyalty. Poor Spain, she has had kings who would have wrecked a less vigorous race. At La Granja, in 1832, Ferdinand VII changed his will and made his infant daughter, Isabel II, his heir, instead of his brother, Don Carlos, whom he had previously acknowledged, thus leaving behind him an inheritance of civil war. From the days of Urraca and Isabella the Catholic, women could inherit the throne in Spain, just as they can in England. But in the 18th century under the Bourbon kings, who loved all things French, the Salic Law was introduced and continued in force till Ferdinand VII changed it at La Granja. The king had a full right to revert to the earlier custom, as the Salic Law was an innovation in Spain, and the grandson of Ferdinand's daughter, Isabel II, the present young Alfonso XIII, is in truth the legitimate king of the Spains. Don Carlos, on Ferdinand's death, rose in rebellion, and for seven years a frightful, fraticidal struggle ravaged the country. This civil war, stamped out in 1840, again burst into flames during the disorders of 1872. To-day, however, the Carlist faction claims but scattered adherents, chiefly in the northern provinces. The peaceful termination of these troubles has been solidified by that noble and truly wise woman, the present queen dowager, MarÍa Cristina, whose strength of character and sincerity of aim may be said to have safeguarded her son's inheritance during his long minority.
Another scene took place at La Granja in the early years of Isabel II' reign, while her mother was regent, a far different regent from the later Cristina. Though the Constitutional factions had rallied round Isabel, as the Absolutists had gathered about Don Carlos, it was only through force, inch by inch, that the Spanish Crown yielded to the people's demand for a constitutional monarchy. Thus, at La Granja in 1836, the queen mother was intimidated by the army into affirming again the Constitution of 1812.
This last century in Spain has been a period of such ceaseless insurrection, such rapid, ill-considered changes of ministries, that it seems, on hasty survey, to be a hundred years of political chaos. Perhaps a slight sketch of the events may help to a better understanding, for running through the century, a thread to the labyrinth, is the nation's slow, stumbling, but ever forward advance to constitutional rule. With each disorderly, seemingly unconnected insurrection, a step ahead was taken, so that to-day an absolute monarchy is an impossibility in Spain. She may have taken longer than many European powers to shake off the incubus of the divine right of kings, but on the other hand, she has achieved her comparative independence without a king's execution or a terrible, bloody cataclysm. There has never been in Spain the bitter separation of nobles and people; together they both worked for their freedom, keeping a fraternal relationship that is uncommon in history. The Spanish temperament, like the English, has an intense loyalty and love of tradition; it finds its happiest condition under a monarchy, but the history of the 19th century shows it must be a constitutional monarchy; a modern king rules for the good of the people since he rules by will of the people.
To give a hasty sketch of political progress. Godoy, Charles IV's unscrupulous minister, brought Napoleon's armies into Spain under the pretext that they were on their way to conquer Portugal. When some seventy thousand French troops were on Spanish soil and the people found their king a slave to the so-called visitors, they suddenly awoke to the truth, the tocsin of alarm sounded in Madrid, and from one end of the land to the other they took up arms. Then followed the Guerra de la Independenzia, 1808 to 1814, that proved to Europe Spain was alive and vigorous, again in the arena of the world's struggle. During the war a representative body met at Cadiz, thus renewing the Cortes that had flourished before the Hapsburg dynasty stamped it out. At Cadiz, in an outburst of patriotism, the Constitution of 1812 was drawn up: for the invader, war to the knife; Ferdinand VII to be their lawful king; abuses such as the Inquisition abolished; the sovereignty of the people upheld; "religiÓn y rey, patria É independencia," truly Spanish watchwords.
When in 1814 Napoleon was forced to accept Ferdinand VII as King of Spain, that ungrateful king came back to his loyal people, and his first act was to restore the absolute monarchy of his ancestors, to declare the Constitution of 1812 null and void, to try to galvanize the Inquisition into life. It was not long before the disorders of his government led some of the colonies in America to declare their independence, and finally Spain too uprose. The Riego insurrection of 1820, proclaiming again the Constitution of 1812, was the first of the frequent pronunciamientos (the uprising of the army against absolute monarchy) that continued down to 1870. Louis Philippe declared this insubordination of the army a menace to other thrones of Europe, and took this pretext to send French troops into Spain to uphold Ferdinand's absolutism: the Trocadero defense was during this second invasion of the French.
Always ceaselessly agitating, despite temporary defeat, went on the people's struggle for a constitution. While Ferdinand VII lived there was little hope for modern ideas, but when he died, the Constitutionalists espoused the cause of his infant daughter, Isabel II. All advance was retarded by the Carlist War that followed Isabel's accession, during which war occurred what a Spanish quaker has called the "pecado de sangre," the brutal massacre of the monks and destruction of such unrivaled centers of art as Poblet in Catalonia, more a political act than a religious, as the monks were Carlists. This war so confused and embittered the issues at stake that it is difficult to follow with consistency the political parties. The government was consistent only in its instability, having now a Queen Regent, now an Espartero, banishments, executions, riots, barricades, revolts,—it seemed indeed as if Spain were sown with Cadmus teeth.
Still through the darkness one can follow a light. The Constitution of 1837 asserted boldly the sovereignty of the people. Though the Constitution of the forties was lenient to absolute power, the Cortes was now included in the government, a marked advance since Ferdinand VII's day. The Constitution of the fifties was a further advance toward national independence. In the midst of political rancors, the war with Africa, 1860, came as a noble interval when feuds were put aside and all fought together against a common enemy. As in the old days, poets and novelists enrolled themselves in the army, and the young grandees served as common soldiers, in fidelity to the vow of their ancestors, knights of Santiago, of Calatrava, and of AlcÁntara, that when Spain was threatened by the Saracen, their descendants would serve in the ranks, on foot, and in person.
Then, this brilliant war over, the old strifes returned in force, Prim, O'Donnell,[17] and twenty minor parties. Queen Isabel II was banished in 1868, and the first interregnum since Spain was a monarchy occurred. Then followed the short-lived rule of Amadeus I, Duke of Aosta and son of Victor Emmanuel, called by invitation to rule in Spain. His chief upholder, Prim, was assassinated before Amadeus reached Madrid, and the new king found himself in so equivocal a position, that after two unhappy years he resigned gladly. Under the influence of Castelar, most brilliant of orators and a man who sincerely loved his country, a Republic of two years' duration followed. Spain was never intended for a republic; discontent continued general, the ministry changed eight times in this short period, and at length all warring factions agreed that the only hope for stable government lay in the restoration of Spain's lawful king, Isabel II's eldest son.
Isabel in Paris abdicated in his favor, and in 1875 Alfonso XII returned to his native land. He came not in the same spirit as had Ferdinand VII in 1814. The sixty years of disorders had led to a solid result, Alfonso XII came back as a constitutional king. The Constitution of 1876 was a reconciliation of monarchical principles and those of a democracy. The new king died before he had reached the age of thirty, and his son Alfonso XIII, born after his father's death, was represented by his mother till his majority. To MarÍa Cristina of Austria, Spain owes an unending debt of gratitude. Under her wise rule the country had some years of the peace she so needed; and even what is termed disaster, the recent loss of colonies, is a blessing in disguise. Spain to-day needs all her strength for herself.
As the abuses of centuries are not reformed in a year and as nothing on earth can be perfect, there is much to be desired still in Spain's political life. Her constitution is an excellent one in theory, but in practice it is crippled by the dishonest elections. Political power is left in the hands of an unscrupulous minority who work for personal, not national aggrandizement, and the distrust such elections have engendered keeps the better element of the people aloof from the government. Only fifteen per cent of the Spanish people vote. The king has, like England's ruler, the right of absolute veto. If Spain is now so blessed as to have for her king a worthy descendant of Isabella the Catholic, the remedy for the political dishonesty may be close at hand. Young Alfonso XIII has an intelligence of the first order; he has been trained under a high-minded and truly Christian woman; he has married the daughter of a race that well understands constitutional rule; personally he is loved by his people with an affection not hard to understand, for despite his thin, plain face, the young king is eminently distinguished and simpÁtico. Often in Seville, seeing him galloping back from polo, or returning from a week's hunt in the wilds of the sierras, our intense hopes went out to him. In his hands, it is slight exaggeration to say, lies Spain's future. If Alfonso XIII gives his intelligence and life-blood to his people, who can foresee to what heights this strong, uncontaminated race may climb? The past century's outburst in literature and art hint the possibility of a second siglo de oro.
La Granja has led me far afield. It does not stand for Spain's best, an artificial, foreign creation where passed hours of the nation's abasement. Segovia is the real Spain. Descend from the AlcÁzar to the river, cross the bridge, mount to the ten-sided chapel of the Knights Templars, and sitting on the steps of the granite cross, look back on the stretching city. There lies the Spain whose fiber is capable of regeneration: generous, patient, indomitable, faulty, but with manly faults, untouched by taint of luxury and greed, with blood in her veins, and ideals in her soul. Wander down by the Eresma past the hermitage, and encircle the town by the footpath beside the tree-hidden Clamores. High above, its yellow stones gleaming in the sunset light, rises the fortress which stood firm for Isabella in her critical hour, and from whence she started in state to claim her heritage. Will the young king of Spain to-day show the world that Isabella's heritage is worth the claiming?
The AlcÁzar of Segovia
The AlcÁzar of Segovia
