Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 374, December, 1846

Compelled to abandon the design of marrying Isabella to a French prince, Louis Philippe, like a wary and prudent general, applied himself to improve the next best position, to which he had fallen back, and where he determined to maintain himself. Aumale could not have the Queen, but Montpensier should have the Infanta; and the aim must now be to increase the value of prize No. 2, by throwing prize No. 1 into the least worthy hands possible. In other words, the Queen must be married to the most incapable and uninfluential blockhead, who, being of Bourbon blood, could possibly be foisted upon her and the Spanish nation. To this end Count Trapani was pitched upon; and the first Narvaez ministry – including Señor Pedal and other birds of the same disreputable feather – which succeeded the one presided over by that indecent charlatan Gonzales Bravo, did all in its power to forward the pretensions of the Neapolitan prince, and accomplish his marriage with the Queen. To this end it was absolutely necessary to dispense with the approbation of the Cortes, required by the constitution. For although those Cortes had been chosen without the concurrence of the Progresista party – whose chiefs were all in exile, in prison, or prevented by the grossest intimidation from voting at the elections – on the question of the Trapani marriage they were found indocile. This profound contempt and marked antipathy with which Spaniards view whatever comes from Naples, and the offence given to the national dignity by the evident fact, that this candidate was imposed upon the country by the French government, convinced the latter, and that of Spain, which was its instrument, that even the Cortes they themselves had picked and chosen, lacked baseness or courage to consent to the Trapani alliance. Then was resolved upon and effected the constitutional Reform, suppressing the article that required the approbation of the Cortes, and replacing it by another, which only rendered it compulsory to announce to them the husband chosen by the Queen. But the manœuvres of France were too clumsy and palpable. It was known that Christina had promised the hand of the Infanta to the Duke of Montpensier; Louis Philippe's object in backing Trapani was easily seen through; and so furious was the excitement of the public mind throughout Spain, so alarming the indications of popular exasperation, that the unlucky Neapolitan candidate was finally thrown overboard.

Here we must retrace our steps, and consider Queen Christina's motives in sacrificing what remained to her of prestige and popularity in her adopted country, to assist, through thick and thin, by deceit, subterfuge, and treachery, the ambitious and encroaching views of her French uncle. There was a time – it is now long past – when no name was more loved and respected by the whole Spanish nation, excluding of course the Carlist party, than that of Maria Christina de Borbon. She so frankly identified herself with the country in which marriage fixed her lot, that in becoming a Spanish queen she had apparently become a Spanish woman; and, in spite of her Neapolitan birth, she speedily conquered the good-will of her subjects. Thousands of political exiles, restored to home and family by amnesties of her promotion, invoked blessings on her head: the great majority of the nation, anxious to see Spain governed mildly and constitutionally, not despotically and tyrannically, hailed in her the good genius who was to accord them their desires. Her real character was not yet seen through; with true Bourbon dissimulation she knew how to veil her vices. She had the credit also of being a tender and unselfish parent, ever ready to sacrifice herself to the interests of her children. Her egotism was as yet unsuspected, her avarice dormant, her sensuality unrevealed; and none then dreamed that a day would come, when, impelled by the meanest and most selfish motives, she would urge her weeping daughter into the arms of a detested and incompetent bridegroom.

By her liaison with Muñoz, the first blow was given to Christina's character and popularity. This scandalous amour with the son of a cigar-seller at Tarançon, a coarse and ignorant man, whose sole recommendations were physical, and who, when first noticed by the queen, occupied the humble post of a private garde-de-corps, commenced, in the belief of many, previously to the death of Ferdinand. Be that true or not, it is certain that towards the close of the king's life, when he was helpless and worn out by disease, the result of his reckless debaucheries, she sought the society of the stalwart lifeguardsman, and distinguished him by marks of favour. It was said to be through her interest that he was promoted to the rank of cadet in the body-guard, which gave him that of captain in the army. Ferdinand died, and her intrigue was speedily manifest, to the disgust and grief of her subjects. In time of peace her degrading devotion to a low-born paramour would doubtless have called forth strong marks of popular indignation; but the anxieties and horrors of a sanguinary civil war engrossed the public attention, and secured her a partial impunity. As it was, her misconduct was sufficiently detrimental to her daughter's cause. The Carlists taunted their opponents with serving under the banner of a wanton; and the Liberals, on their part, could not but feel that their infant queen was in no good school or safe keeping.

The private fortune of Ferdinand the Seventh was well known to be prodigious. Its sources were not difficult to trace. An absolute monarch, without a civil list, when he wished for money he had but to draw upon the public revenue for any funds the treasury might contain. Of this power he made no sparing use. Then there was the immense income derived from the Patrimonia Real, or Royal Patrimony, vast possessions which descend from one King of Spain to another, for their use and benefit so long as they occupy the throne. The whole of the town of Aranjuez, the estates attached to the Pardo, La Granja, the Escurial, and other palaces, form only a portion of this magnificent property, yielding an enormous annual sum. Add to these sources of wealth, property obtained by inheritance, his gains in a nefariously conducted lottery, and other underhand and illicit profits, and it is easy to comprehend that Ferdinand died the richest capitalist in Europe. The amount of his savings could but be guessed at. By some they were estimated at the incredibly large sum of eight millions sterling. But no one could tell exactly, owing to the manner in which the money was invested. It was dispersed in the hands of various European bankers; also in those of certain American ones, by whose failure great loss was sustained. No trifling sum was represented by diamonds and jewels. It was hardly to be supposed that the prudent owner of all this wealth would die intestate, and there is scarcely a doubt that he left a will. To the universal astonishment, however, upon his decease, none was forthcoming, and his wole property was declared at sixty millions of francs, which, according to the Spanish law, was divided between his daughters. No one was at a loss to conjecture what became of the large residue there unquestionably was. It was well understood, and her subsequent conduct confirmed the belief, that the lion's share of the royal spoils was appropriated by the young widow, whose grief for the loss of the beloved Ferdinand was not so violent and engrossing as to make her lose sight of the main chance. After so glorious a haul, it might have been expected that she would hold her hand, and rest contented with the pleasing consciousness, that should she ever be induced or compelled to leave Spain, she had wherewithal to live in queenly splendour and luxury. But her thirst of wealth is not of those that can be assuaged even by rivers of gold. Though the bed of the Manzanares were of the yellow metal, and she had the monopoly of its sands, the mine would be all insufficient to satiate her avarice. After appropriating her children's inheritance, she applied herself to increase her store by a systematic pillage of the Queen of Spain's revenues. As Isabella's guardian, the income derived from the Patrimonio Real passed through her hands, to which the gold adhered like steel-dust to a loadstone. Whilst the nation strained each nerve, and submitted to the severest sacrifices, to meet the expenses of a costly war – whilst the army was barefoot and hungered, but still stanch in defence of the throne of Isabella – Christina, with her mouth full of patriotism and love of Spain, remitted to foreign capitalists the rich fruits of her peculations, provision for the rainy day which came sooner than she anticipated, future fortunes for Muñoz's children. The natural effect of her disreputable intrigue or second marriage, whichever it at that time was to be called, was to weaken her affection for her royal daughters, especially when she found a second and numerous family springing up around her. To her anxiety for this second family, and to the influence of Muñoz, may be traced her adherence to the King of the French, and the cruel and unmotherly part she has recently acted towards the Queen of Spain.

Previously to Christina's expulsion from the Regency in the year 1840, little was seen or known of her children by Muñoz. During her three years' residence at Paris, a similar silence and mystery was observed respecting them, and they lived retired in a country-house near Vevay, upon the Lake of Geneva, whither those born in the French capital were also dispatched. This prudent reserve is now at an end, and the grandchildren of the Tarançon tobacconist sit around, almost on a level with, the throne of the Spanish Queen. Titles are showered upon them, cringing courtiers wait upon their nod, and the once proud and powerful grandees of Spain, descendants of the haughty warriors who drove the Saracens from Iberian soil, and stood covered in the presence of the Fifth Charles, adulate the illegitimate progeny of a Muñoz and a Christina. Subtile have been the calculations, countless the intrigues, shameful the misdeeds that have led to this result, so much desired by parents of the ennobled bastards, so undesirable for the honour and dignity of Spain. It is obvious that, with the immense wealth, whose acquisition has been already explained, Christina would have had no difficulty in portioning off her half-score children, and enabling them to live rich and independent in a foreign county. But this arrangement did not suit her views; still less did it accord with those of the Duke of Rianzares. He founded his objections upon a patriotic pretext. He wished his children, he said, to be Spanish citizens, not aliens – to hold property in their own country – to live respected in Spain, and not as exiles in a foreign land. It may be supposed there was no obstacle to their so doing, and that in Spain, as elsewhere, they could reckon at least upon that amount of ease and consideration which money can give. But here came the sticking-point, the grand difficulty, only to be got over by grand means and great ingenuity. Christina had been the guardian of the Queen and Infanta during their long minority: guardians, upon the expiration of their trust, are expected to render accounts; and this the mother of Isabel was wholly unprepared to do, in such a manner as would enable her to retain the plunder accumulated during the period of her guardianship. She had certainly the option of declining to render any – of taking herself and her wealth, her husband and her children, out of Spain, and of living luxuriously elsewhere. But it has already been seen, that neither she nor Muñoz liked the prospect of such banishment, however magnificent and numerous the appliances brought by wealth to render it endurable. What, then, was to be done? It was quite positive that the husbands of the Queen and Infanta would demand accounts of their wives' fortune and of its management during their minority. How were their demands to be met – how such difficulties got over? It was hard to say. The position resembled what the Yankees call a "fix." The cruel choice lay between a compulsary disgorgement of an amount of ill-gotten gold, such as no moral emetic could ever have induced Christina to render up, and the abandonment of Muñoz's darling project of making himself and his children lords of the soil in their native land. The only chance of an exit from this circle of difficulties, was to be obtained by uniting the Queen and her sister to men so weak and imbecile, or so under the dominion and influence of Christina, that they would let bygones be bygones, take what they could get and be grateful, without troubling themselves about accounts, or claiming arrears. To find two such men, who should also possess the various qualifications essential to the husbands of a Queen and Infanta of Spain, certainly appeared no easy matter – to say nothing of the odious selfishness and sin of thus sacrificing two defenceless and inexperienced children. But Christina's scruples were few; and, as to difficulties, her resolution rose as they increased. Had she not also a wise and willing counsellor in the most cunning man in Europe? Was not her dear uncle and gossip at hand to quiet her qualms of conscience, if by such she was tormented, and to demonstrate the feasibility – nay, more, the propriety of her schemes? To him she resorted in her hour of need, and with him she soon came to an understanding. He met her half-way, with a bland smile and words of promise. "Marry one of your daughters," was his sage and disinterested advice, "to a son of mine, and be sure that my boys are too well bred to pry into your little economics. We should prefer the Queen; but, if it cannot be managed, we will take the Infanta. Isabella shall be given to some good quiet fellow, not over clever, who will respect you far too much to dream of asking for accounts. Of time we have plenty; be stanch to me, and all shall go well." What wonder if from the day this happy understanding, this real entente cordiale, was come to, Christina was the docile agent, the obedient tool, of her venerable confederate! No general in the jaws of a defile, with foes in front and rear, was ever more thankful to the guide who led him by stealthy paths from his pressing peril, than was the daughter of Naples to her wary adviser and potent ally. And how charming was the union of interest – how touching the unanimity of feeling – how beautifully did the one's ambition and the other's avarice dovetail and coincide! The King's gain was the Queen's profit: it was the slaughter with one pebble of two much-coveted birds, fat and savoury mouthfuls for the royal and politic fowlers.

In the secret conclave at the Tuileries, "all now went merry as a marriage bell." In the ears of niece and uncle resounded, by anticipation, the joyous chimes that should usher in the Montpensier marriage, proclaim their triumph, drown the cries of rage of the Spanish nation, and the indignant murmurs of Europe; – not that the goal was so near, the prize so certain and easy of attainment. Much yet remained to do; a false step might be ruinous – over-precipitation ensure defeat. The King of the French was not the man to make the one, or be guilty of the other. With "slow and sure" for his motto, he patiently waited his opportunity. In due season, and greatly aided by French machinations, the downfall of the impracticable and incorruptible Espartero was effected. But the government of Spain was still in the hands of the Progresistas. For it will be remembered that the immediate cause of Espartero's fall was the opposition of a section of his own party, which, united now in their adversity, unfortunately tunately knew not, in the days of their power, how to abstain from internal dissensions. The Lopez ministry held the reins of government. It was essential to oust it. As a first step, a Camarilla was organised, composed of the brutal and violent Narvaez, the daring and disreputable Marchioness of Santa Cruz, and a few others of the same stamp, all ultra-Moderados in politics, and fervent partisans of Christina. So successfully did they use their backstairs influence, and wield their weapons of corruption and intrigue, that, within four months, and immediately after the accelerated declaration of the Queen's majority, Lopez and his colleagues resigned. Olozaga succeeded them; but he, too, was a Progresista and an upholder of Spanish nationality; there was no hope of his giving in to the plans of Christina the Afrancesada. Moreover, he was hated by the Camarilla, and especially detested by the Queen-mother, whose expulsion from Paris he had demanded when ambassador there from Espartero's government. She determined on a signal vengeance. The Palace Farce, that strange episode in the history of modern Spanish courts, must be fresh in every one's memory. An accusation, as malignant as absurd, was trumped up against Olozaga, of having used force, unmanly and disloyal violence, to compel Isabella to sign a decree for the dissolution of the Cortes. No one really believed the ridiculous tale, or that Salustiano de Olozaga, the high-bred gentleman, the uniformly respectful subject, could have afforded by his conduct the shadow of a ground for the base charge. Subsequently, in the Cortes, he nobly faced his foes, and, with nervous and irresistible eloquence, hurled back the calumny in their teeth. But it had already served their turn. To beat a dog any stick will do; and the only care of the Camarilla was to select the one that would inflict the most poignant wound. Olozaga was hunted from the ministry, and sought, in flight, safety from the assassin's dagger. Those best informed entertained no doubt that his expulsion was intimately connected with the marriage question. With him the last of the Progresistas were got rid of, and all obstacles being removed, the Queen-mother returned to Madrid.

Were the last crowning proof insufficient to carry conviction, it would be easy to adduce innumerable minor ones of Christina's heartless selfishness – of her disregard to the happiness, and even to the commonest comforts, of her royal daughter. We read in history of a child of France, the widow of an English king, who, when a refugee in the capital of her ancestors, lacked fuel in a French palace, and was fain to seek in bed the warmth of which the parsimony of a griping Italian minister denied her the fitting means. It is less generally known, that only six years ago, the inheritress of the throne of Ferdinand and Isabella was despoiled of the commonest necessaries of life by her own mother, a countrywoman of the miserly cardinal at whose hands Henrietta of England experienced such shameful neglect. When Christina quitted Spain in 1840, she not only carried off an enormous amount of national property, including the crown jewels, but also her daughter's own ornaments; and, at the same time, even the wardrobe of the poor child was mysteriously, but not unaccountably, abstracted: Isabella was left literally short of linen. As to jewels, it was necessary immediately to buy her a set of diamonds, in order that she might make a proper appearance at her own court. Such was the considerate and self-denying conduct of the affectionate mother, who, in the winter of 1843, resumed her place in the palace and counsels of the Queen of Spain. In her natural protector, the youthful sovereign found her worst enemy.

Persons only superficially acquainted with Spanish politics commonly fall into two errors. They are apt to believe, first, that the two great parties which, with the exception of the minor factions of Carlists and Republicans, divide Spain between them, are nearly equally balanced and national; secondly, that Moderados and Progresistas in Spain are equivalent to Conservatives and Radicals in other countries. Blunders both. Eccentric in its politics, as in most respects, Spain cannot be measured with the line and compass employed to estimate its neighbours. It is impossible to conceal the fact, that to-day the numerous and the national party in Spain is that of the Progresistas. The tyranny of Narvaez, the misconduct of Christina, and, above all, the French marriage, have greatly strengthened their ranks and increased their popularity. Their principles are not subversive, nor their demands exorbitant: they aim at no monopoly of power. Three things they earnestly desire and vehemently claim: the freedom of election guaranteed by the existing constitution of Spain, but which has been so infamously trampled upon by recent Spanish rulers, liberty of the press, and the preservation of Spain from foreign influence and domination.

Let us examine the composition and conduct of the party called Moderado. This party, now dominant, is unquestionably the most split up and divided of any that flourish upon Spanish soil. It is not deficient in men of capacity, but upon none of the grave questions that agitate the country can these agree. When the Cortes sit, this is manifest in their debates. Although purged of Progresistas, the legislative chambers exhibit perpetual disagreement and wrangling. At other times, the dissensions of the Moderados are made evident by their organs of the press. In some of these appear articles which would not sound discordant in the mouths of Progresistas; in others are found doctrines and arguments worthy of the apostles of absolutism. Between Narvaez and Pacheco the interval is wider than between Pacheco and the Progresistas. The first, in order to govern, sought support from the Absolutists; the second could not rule without calling the Liberals to his aid. Subdivided into fractions, this party, whose nomenclature is now complicated, relies for existence less upon itself than upon extraneous circumstances, foreign support, and the equilibrium of the elements opposed to it. The anarchy to which it is a prey, has been especially manifest upon the marriage question. Whilst one of its organs shamelessly supported Trapani, others cried out for a Coburg; and, again, others insisted that a Spanish prince was the only proper candidate – thus coinciding with the Progresistas. In fact, the Moderados, afraid, perhaps, of compromising their precarious existence had no candidate of their own; and in their fluctuations between foreign influence and interior exigencies, between court and people, between their wish to remain in power and the difficulty of retaining it, they left, in great measure, to chance, the election in which they dared not openly meddle. This will sound strange to the many who, as we have already observed, imagine the Moderado party to be the Conservative one of England or France; but not to those aware of the fact, that it is a collection of unities, brought together rather by accidental circumstances than by homogeneity of principles, united for the exclusion of others, and for their own interests, not by conformity of doctrines and a sincere wish for their country's good.

Such was the party, unstable and unpatriotic, during whose ascendancy Christina and her royal confederate resolved to carry out their dishonest projects. The Queen-mother well knew that the mass of the nation would be opposed to their realisation; but she reckoned on means sufficiently powerful to render indignation impotent, and frustrate revolt. She trusted to the adherence of an army, purposely caressed, pampered, and corrupted; she felt strong in the support of a monarch, whose interest in the affair was at least equal to her own; she observed with satisfaction the indifferent attitude assumed by the British government with respect to Spanish affairs. A Progresista demonstration in Galicia, although shared in by seven battalions of the army – an ugly symptom – was promptly suppressed, owing to want of organisation, and to the treachery or incapacity of its leader. The scaffold and the galleys, prison and exile, disposed of a large proportion of the discontented and dangerous. Arbitrary dismissals, of which, for the most part, little was heard out of Spain, purified the army from the more honest and independent of its officers, suspected of disaffection to the existing government, or deemed capable of exerting themselves to oppose an injurious or discreditable alliance. Time wore on; the decisive moment approached. Each day it became more evident that the Queen's marriage could not with propriety be much longer deferred. Setting aside other considerations, she had already fully attained the precocious womanhood of her country; and it was neither safe nor fitting that she should continue to inhale the corrupt atmosphere of the Madrid court without the protection of a husband. At last the hour came; the plot was ripe, and nothing remained but to secure the concurrence of the victim. One short night, a night of tears and repugnance on the one hand, of flatteries, of menaces and intimidation, on the other decided the fate of Isabella. With her sister less trouble was requisite. It needed no great persuasive art to induce a child of fourteen to accept a husband, as willingly as she would have done a doll. It might have been thought necessary to consult the will of the Spanish nation, fairly represented in freely elected Cortes. Such, at least, was the course pointed out by the constitution of the country. It would also have been but decorous to seek the approval and concurrence of foreign and friendly states, to establish beyond dispute, that the proposed marriages were in contravention of no existing treaties; for, with respect to one of them, this doubt might fairly be raised. But all such considerations were waived; decency and courtesy alike forgotten. The double marriage was effected in the manner of a surprise; and, if creditable to the skill, it most assuredly was dishonourable to the character of its contriver. Availing himself of the moment when the legislative chambers of England, France, and Spain, had suspended their sittings; although, as regards those of the latter country, this mattered little, composed, as they are, of venal hirelings – the French King achieved his grand stroke of policy, the project on which, there can be little doubt, his eyes had for years been fixed. His load of promises and pledges, whether contracted at Eu or elsewhere, encumbered him little. They were a fragile commodity, a brittle merchandise, more for show than use, easily hurled down and broken. Striding over their shivered fragments, the Napoleon of Peace bore his last unmarried son to the goal long marked out by the paternal ambition. The consequences of the successful race troubled him little. What cared he for offending a powerful ally and personal friend? The arch-schemer made light of the fury of Spain, of the discontent of England, of the opinion of Europe. He paused not to reflect how far his Machiavelian policy would degrade him in the eyes of the many with whom he had previously passed for wise and good, as well as shrewd and far-sighted. Paramount to these considerations was the gratification of his dynastic ambition. For that he broke his plighted word, and sacrificed the good understanding between the governments of two great countries. The monarch of the barricades, the Roi Populaire, the chosen sovereign of the men of July, at last plainly showed, what some had already suspected, that the aggrandisement of his family, not the welfare of France, was the object he chiefly coveted. Conviction may later come to him, perhaps it has already come, that le jeu ne valoit pas la chandelle, the game was not worth the wax-lights consumed in playing it, and that his present bloodless victory must sooner or later have sanguinary results. That this may not be the case, we ardently desire; that it will be, we cannot doubt. The peace of Europe may not be disturbed – pity that it should in such a quarrel; but for poor Spain we foresee in the Montpensier alliance a gloomy perspective of foreign domination and still recurring revolution.