The Bible in Spain. Volume 1 of 2

“Now for it,” thought I.

“Bu – ” And then he began to talk once more of the wearisome Council of Trent and I found that his writing in the paper, the offer of the cigar, and the long and prosy harangue were – what shall I call it? – mere φλυαρία.140

By this time the spring was far advanced; the sides, though not the tops, of the Guadarrama hills had long since lost their snows; the trees of the Prado had donned their full foliage, and all the campiña in the neighbourhood of Madrid smiled and was happy. The summer heats had not commenced, and the weather was truly delicious.

Towards the west, at the foot of the hill on which stands Madrid, is a canal running parallel with the Manzanares for some leagues, from which it is separated by pleasant and fertile meadows. The banks of this canal, which was begun by Carlos Tercero141 and has never been completed, are planted with beautiful trees, and form the most delightful walk in the neighbourhood of the capital. Here I would loiter for hours, looking at the shoals of gold and silver fish which basked on the surface of the green sunny waters, or listening, not to the warbling of birds – for Spain is not the land of feathered choristers – but to the prattle of the narangero, or man who sold oranges and water by a little deserted water-tower just opposite the wooden bridge that crosses the canal, which situation he had chosen as favourable for his trade, and there had placed his stall. He was an Asturian by birth, about fifty years of age, and about five feet high. As I purchased freely of his fruit, he soon conceived a great friendship for me, and told me his history; it contained, however, nothing very remarkable, the leading incident being an adventure which had befallen him amidst the mountains of Granada, where, falling into the hands of certain gypsies, they stripped him naked, and then dismissed him with a sound cudgelling. “I have wandered throughout Spain,” said he, “and I have come to the conclusion that there are but two places worth living in, Malaga and Madrid. At Malaga everything is very cheap, and there is such an abundance of fish, that I have frequently seen them piled in heaps on the seashore; and as for Madrid, money is always stirring at the Corte, and I never go supperless to bed. My only care is to sell my oranges, and my only hope that when I die I shall be buried yonder.” And he pointed across the Manzanares, where, on the declivity of a gentle hill, at about a league’s distance, shone brightly in the sunshine the white walls of the Campo Santo, or common burying-ground of Madrid.

He was a fellow of infinite drollery, and, though he could scarcely read or write, by no means ignorant of the ways of the world: his knowledge of individuals was curious and extensive, few people passing his stall with whose names, character, and history he was not acquainted. “These two gentry,” said he, pointing to a magnificently dressed cavalier and lady, who had dismounted from a carriage, and arm-in-arm were coming across the wooden bridge, followed by two attendants; “those gentry are the Infante Francisco Paulo, and his wife the Neapolitana, sister of our Christina. He is a very good subject, but as for his wife —vaya– the veriest scold in Madrid; she can say carrajo with the most ill-conditioned carrier of La Mancha, giving the true emphasis and genuine pronunciation. Don’t take off your hat to her, amigo – she has neither formality nor politeness; I once saluted her, and she took no more notice of me than if I had not been what I am, an Asturian and a gentleman, of better blood than herself. Good day, Señor Don Francisco. Que tal.142 Very fine weather this —vaya su merced con Dios. Those three fellows, who just stopped to drink water, are great thieves, true sons of the prison. I am always civil to them, for it would not do to be on ill terms; they pay me or not, just as they think proper. I have been in some trouble on their account: about a year ago they robbed a man a little farther on beyond the second bridge. By the way, I counsel you, brother, not to go there, as I believe you often do; it is a dangerous place. They robbed a gentleman and ill-treated him, but his brother, who was an escribano, was soon upon their trail, and had them arrested; but he wanted some one to identify them, and it chanced that they had stopped to drink water at my stall, just as they did now. This the escribano heard of, and forthwith had me away to prison to confront me with them. I knew them well enough, but I had learnt in my travels when to close my eyes and when to open them; so I told the escribano that I could not say that I had ever seen them before. He was in a great rage, and threatened to imprison me; I told him he might, and that I cared not. Vaya, I was not going to expose myself to the resentment of those three and to that of their friends; I live too near the Hay Market for that. Good day, my young masters. Murcian oranges, as you see; the genuine dragon’s blood. Water sweet and cold. Those two boys are the children of Gabiria, comptroller of the queen’s household, and the richest man in Madrid; they are nice boys, and buy much fruit. It is said their father loves them more than all his possessions. The old woman who is lying beneath yon tree is the Tia Lucilla; she has committed murders, and as she owes me money, I hope one day to see her executed. This man was of the Walloon guard —Señor Don Benito Mol, how do you do?”

This last-named personage instantly engrossed my attention. He was a bulky old man, somewhat above the middle height, with white hair and ruddy features; his eyes were large and blue, and, whenever he fixed them on any one’s countenance, were full of an expression of great eagerness, as if he were expecting the communication of some important tidings. He was dressed commonly enough in a jacket and trousers of coarse cloth of a russet colour; on his head was an immense sombrero, the brim of which had been much cut and mutilated, so as in some places to resemble the jags or denticles of a saw. He returned the salutation of the orange-man, and bowing to me, forthwith produced two scented wash-balls, which he offered for sale, in a rough dissonant jargon, intended for Spanish, but which seemed more like the Valencian or Catalan.

Upon my asking him who he was, the following conversation ensued between us: —

“I am a Swiss of Lucerne, Benedict Mol143 by name, once a soldier in the Walloon guard, and now a soap-boiler, at your service.”

“You speak the language of Spain very imperfectly,” said I; “how long have you been in the country?”

“Forty-five years,” replied Benedict; “but when the guard was broken up, I went to Minorca, where I lost the Spanish language without acquiring the Catalan.”

“You have been a soldier of the king of Spain,” said I; “how did you like the service?”

“Not so well, but that I should have been glad to leave it forty years ago; the pay was bad, and the treatment worse. I will now speak Swiss to you, for, if I am not much mistaken, you are a German man, and understand the speech of Lucerne. I should soon have deserted from the service of Spain, as I did from that of the Pope, whose soldier I was in my early youth, before I came here; but I had married a woman of Minorca, by whom I had two children; it was this that detained me in those parts so long; before, however, I left Minorca my wife died, and as for my children, one went east, the other west, and I know not what became of them. I intend shortly to return to Lucerne, and live there like a duke.”

“Have you, then, realized a large capital in Spain?” said I, glancing at his hat and the rest of his apparel.

“Not a cuart,144 not a cuart; these two wash-balls are all that I possess.”

“Perhaps you are the son of good parents, and have lands and money in your own country wherewith to support yourself.”

“Not a heller, not a heller; my father was hangman of Lucerne, and when he died, his body was seized to pay his debts.”

“Then, doubtless,” said I, “you intend to ply your trade of soap-boiling at Lucerne. You are right, my friend; I know of no occupation more honourable or useful.”

“I have no thoughts of plying my trade at Lucerne,” replied Benedict; “and now, as I see you are a German man, lieber Herr, and as I like your countenance and your manner of speaking, I will tell you in confidence that I know very little of my trade, and have already been turned out of several fabriques as an evil workman; the two wash-balls that I carry in my pocket are not of my own making. In kurzem,145 I know little more of soap-boiling than I do of tailoring, horse-farriery, or shoe-making, all of which I have practised.”

“Then I know not how you can hope to live like a Herzog in your native canton, unless you expect that the men of Lucerne, in consideration of your services to the Pope and to the King of Spain, will maintain you in splendour at the public expense.”

“Lieber Herr,” said Benedict, “the men of Lucerne are by no means fond of maintaining the soldiers of the Pope and the King of Spain at their own expense. Many of the guard who have returned thither beg their bread in the streets; but when I go, it shall be in a coach drawn by six mules, with a treasure, a mighty Schatz which lies in the church of Saint James of Compostella, in Galicia.”

“I hope you do not intend to rob the church,” said I; “if you do, however, I believe you will be disappointed. Mendizabal and the liberals have been beforehand with you. I am informed that at present no other treasure is to be found in the cathedrals of Spain than a few paltry ornaments and plated utensils.”

“My good German Herr,” said Benedict, “it is no church Schatz, and no person living, save myself, knows of its existence: nearly thirty years ago, amongst the sick soldiers who were brought to Madrid, was one of my comrades of the Walloon Guard, who had accompanied the French to Portugal; he was very sick and shortly died. Before, however, he breathed his last, he sent for me, and upon his death-bed told me that himself and two other soldiers, both of whom had since been killed, had buried in a certain church at Compostella a great booty which they had made in Portugal; it consisted of gold moidores and of a packet of huge diamonds from the Brazils; the whole was contained in a large copper kettle. I listened with greedy ears, and from that moment, I may say, I have known no rest, neither by day nor night, thinking of the Schatz. It is very easy to find, for the dying man was so exact in his description of the place where it lies, that were I once at Compostella, I should have no difficulty in putting my hand upon it; several times I have been on the point of setting out on the journey, but something has always happened to stop me. When my wife died, I left Minorca with a determination to go to Saint James;146 but on reaching Madrid, I fell into the hands of a Basque woman, who persuaded me to live with her, which I have done for several years. She is a great Hax,147 and says that if I desert her she will breathe a spell which shall cling to me for ever. Dem Gottsey Dank,148 she is now in the hospital, and daily expected to die. This is my history, lieber Herr.”

I have been the more careful in relating the above conversation, as I shall have frequent occasion to mention the Swiss in the course of these journals; his subsequent adventures were highly extraordinary, and the closing one caused a great sensation in Spain.

CHAPTER XIV

State of Spain – Isturitz – Revolution of the Granja – The Disturbance – Signs of Mischief – Newspaper Reporters – Quesada’s Onslaught – The closing Scene – Flight of the Moderados – The Coffee Bowl.

In the mean time the affairs of the moderados did not proceed in a very satisfactory manner; they were unpopular at Madrid, and still more so in the other large towns of Spain, in most of which juntas had been formed, which, taking the local administration into their own hands, declared themselves independent of the queen and her ministers, and refused to pay taxes; so that the government was within a short time reduced to great straits for money. The army was unpaid, and the war languished – I mean on the part of the Cristinos, for the Carlists were pushing it on with considerable vigour; parties of their guerillas149 scouring the country in all directions, whilst a large division, under the celebrated Gomez, was making the entire circuit of Spain. To crown the whole, an insurrection was daily expected at Madrid, to prevent which the nationals were disarmed, which measure tended greatly to increase their hatred against the moderado government, and especially against Quesada, with whom it was supposed to have originated.

With respect to my own matters, I lost no opportunity of pushing forward my application; the Aragonese secretary, however, still harped upon the Council of Trent, and succeeded in baffling all my efforts. He appeared to have inoculated his principal with his own ideas upon this subject, for the duke, when he beheld me at his levees, took no farther notice of me than by a contemptuous glance; and once, when I stepped up for the purpose of addressing him, disappeared through a side-door, and I never saw him again, for I was disgusted with the treatment which I had received, and forbore paying any more visits at the Casa de la Inquisicion. Poor Galiano still proved himself my unshaken friend, but candidly informed me that there was no hope of my succeeding in the above quarter. “The duke,” said he, “says that your request cannot be granted; and the other day, when I myself mentioned it in the council, began to talk of the decision of Trent, and spoke of yourself as a plaguy pestilent fellow; whereupon I answered him with some acrimony, and there ensued a bit of a funcion between us, at which Isturitz laughed heartily. By-the-by,” continued he, “what need have you of a regular permission, which it does not appear that any one has authority to grant? The best thing that you can do under the circumstances is to commit the work to the press, with an understanding that you shall not be interfered with when you attempt to distribute it. I strongly advise you to see Isturitz himself upon the matter. I will prepare him for the interview, and will answer that he receives you civilly.”

In fact, a few days afterwards, I had an interview with Isturitz at the palace, and for the sake of brevity I shall content myself with saying that I found him perfectly well disposed to favour my views. “I have lived long in England,” said he; “the Bible is free there, and I see no reason why it should not be free in Spain also. I am not prepared to say that England is indebted for her prosperity to the knowledge which all her children, more or less, possess of the sacred writings; but of one thing I am sure, namely, that the Bible has done no harm in that country, nor do I believe that it will effect any in Spain. Print it, therefore, by all means, and circulate it as extensively as possible.” I retired, highly satisfied with my interview, having obtained, if not a written permission to print the sacred volume, what, under all circumstances, I considered as almost equivalent – an understanding that my biblical pursuits would be tolerated in Spain; and I had fervent hope that, whatever was the fate of the present ministry, no future one, particularly a liberal one, would venture to interfere with me, more especially as the English ambassador was my friend, and was privy to all the steps I had taken throughout the whole affair.150

Two or three things connected with the above interview with Isturitz struck me as being highly remarkable. First of all, the extreme facility with which I obtained admission to the presence of the prime minister of Spain. I had not to wait, or indeed to send in my name, but was introduced at once by the doorkeeper. Secondly, the air of loneliness which pervaded the place, so unlike the bustle, noise, and activity which I observed when I waited on Mendizabal. In this instance, there were no eager candidates for an interview with the great man; indeed, I did not behold a single individual, with the exception of Isturitz and the official. But that which made the most profound impression upon me, was the manner of the minister himself, who, when I entered, sat upon a sofa, with his arms folded, and his eyes directed to the ground. When he spoke there was extreme depression in the tones of his voice, his dark features wore an air of melancholy, and he exhibited all the appearance of a person meditating to escape from the miseries of this life by the most desperate of all acts – suicide.

And a few days showed that he had, indeed, cause for much melancholy meditation: in less than a week occurred the revolution of La Granja,151 as it is called. La Granja, or the Grange, is a royal country seat, situated amongst pine forests on the other side of the Guadarrama hills, about twelve leagues distant from Madrid. To this place the Queen Regent Christina had retired, in order to be aloof from the discontent of the capital, and to enjoy rural air and amusements in this celebrated retreat, a monument of the taste and magnificence of the first Bourbon who ascended the throne of Spain. She was not, however, permitted to remain long in tranquillity; her own guards were disaffected, and more inclined to the principles of the constitution of 1823 than to those of absolute monarchy, which the moderados were attempting to revive again in the government of Spain. Early one morning, a party of these soldiers, headed by a certain Sergeant Garcia, entered her apartment, and proposed that she should subscribe her hand to this constitution, and swear solemnly to abide by it. Christina, however, who was a woman of considerable spirit, refused to comply with this proposal, and ordered them to withdraw. A scene of violence and tumult ensued, but the Regent still continuing firm, the soldiers at length led her down to one of the courts of the palace, where stood her well-known paramour, Muñoz, bound and blindfolded. “Swear to the constitution, you she-rogue,” vociferated the swarthy sergeant. “Never!” said the spirited daughter of the Neapolitan Bourbons. “Then your cortejo shall die!” replied the sergeant. “Ho! ho! my lads; get ready your arms, and send four bullets through the fellow’s brain.” Muñoz was forthwith led to the wall, and compelled to kneel down, the soldiers levelled their muskets, and another moment would have consigned the unfortunate wight to eternity, when Christina, forgetting everything but the feelings of her woman’s heart, suddenly started forward with a shriek, exclaiming, “Hold, hold! I sign, I sign!”

The day after this event152 I entered the Puerta del Sol at about noon. There is always a crowd there about this hour, but it is generally a very quiet motionless crowd, consisting of listless idlers calmly smoking their cigars, or listening to or retailing the – in general – very dull news of the capital; but on the day of which I am speaking, the mass was no longer inert. There was much gesticulation and vociferation, and several people were running about shouting, “Viva la constitucion!” – a cry which, a few days previously, would have been visited on the utterer with death, the city having for some weeks past been subjected to the rigour of martial law. I occasionally heard the words, “La Granja! La Granja!” which words were sure to be succeeded by the shout of “Viva la constitucion!” Opposite the Casa de Postas153 were drawn up in a line about a dozen mounted dragoons, some of whom were continually waving their caps in the air and joining the common cry, in which they were encouraged by their commander, a handsome young officer, who flourished his sword, and more than once cried out with great glee, “Long live the constitutional queen! Long live the constitution!”

The crowd was rapidly increasing, and several nationals made their appearance in their uniforms, but without their arms, of which they had been deprived, as I have already stated. “What has become of the moderado government?” said I to Baltasar, whom I suddenly observed amongst the crowd, dressed as when I had first seen him, in his old regimental great coat and foraging cap; “have the ministers been deposed and others put in their place?”

“Not yet, Don Jorge,” said the little soldier-tailor; “not yet; the scoundrels still hold out, relying on the brute bull Quesada and a few infantry, who still continue true to them. But there is no fear, Don Jorge; the queen is ours, thanks to the courage of my friend Garcia, and if the brute bull should make his appearance – ho! ho! Don Jorge, you shall see something – I am prepared for him, ho! ho!” and thereupon he half opened his great coat, and showed me a small gun which he bore beneath it in a sling, and then moving away with a wink and a nod, disappeared amongst the crowd.

Presently I perceived a small body of soldiers advancing up the Calle Mayor, or principal street which runs from the Puerta del Sol in the direction of the palace; they might be about twenty in number, and an officer marched at their head with a drawn sword. The men appeared to have been collected in a hurry, many of them being in fatigue dress, with foraging caps on their heads. On they came, slowly marching; neither their officer nor themselves paying the slightest attention to the cries of the crowd which thronged about them, shouting, “Long live the constitution!” save and except by an occasional surly side glance: on they marched with contracted brows and set teeth, till they came in front of the cavalry, where they halted and drew up in rank.

“Those men mean mischief,” said I to my friend D-, of the Morning Chronicle, who at this moment joined me; “and depend upon it, that if they are ordered they will commence firing, caring nothing whom they hit. But what can those cavalry fellows behind them mean, who are evidently of the other opinion by their shouting? Why don’t they charge at once this handful of foot people and overturn them? Once down, the crowd would wrest from them their muskets in a moment. You are a liberal, which I am not; why do you not go to that silly young man who commands the horse and give him a word of counsel in time?”

D- turned upon me his broad red good-humoured English countenance, with a peculiarly arch look, as much as to say… (whatever you think most applicable, gentle reader), then taking me by the arm, “Let us get,” said he, “out of this crowd and mount to some window, where I can write down what is about to take place, for I agree with you that mischief is meant.” Just opposite the post-office was a large house, in the topmost story of which we beheld a paper displayed, importing that apartments were to let; whereupon we instantly ascended the common stair, and having agreed with the mistress of the étage for the use of the front room for the day, we bolted the door, and the reporter, producing his pocket-book and pencil, prepared to take notes of the coming events, which were already casting their shadow before.

What most extraordinary men are these reporters of newspapers in general, I mean English newspapers! Surely if there be any class of individuals who are entitled to the appellation of cosmopolites, it is these; who pursue their avocation in all countries indifferently, and accommodate themselves at will to the manners of all classes of society: their fluency of style as writers is only surpassed by their facility of language in conversation, and their attainments in classical and polite literature only by their profound knowledge of the world, acquired by an early introduction into its bustling scenes. The activity, energy, and courage which they occasionally display in the pursuit of information, are truly remarkable. I saw them during the three days at Paris, mingled with canaille and gamins behind the barriers, whilst the mitraille was flying in all directions, and the desperate cuirassiers were dashing their fierce horses against these seemingly feeble bulwarks. There stood they, dotting down their observations in their pocket-books as unconcernedly as if reporting the proceedings of a reform meeting in Covent Garden or Finsbury Square; whilst in Spain, several of them accompanied the Carlist and Cristino guerillas in some of their most desperate raids and expeditions, exposing themselves to the danger of hostile bullets, the inclemency of winter, and the fierce heat of the summer sun.