Letters from Spain

While employed in this petty warfare, which must have soon ended in his dismissal, a circumstance occurred, which, though it was the means of reconciling the Queen to Jovellanos for a time, has finally consigned him to a fortress in Majorca, where to this day he lingers under a confinement no less unjust than severe.

The ceremony of Godoy’s marriage was scarcely over, when he resumed his intimacy with La Tudó in the most open and unguarded manner. The Queen, under a relapse of jealousy, seemed so determined to clip the wings of her spoiled favourite, that Jovellanos was deceived into a hope of making this pique the means of reclaiming his patron, if not to the path of virtue, at least to the rules of external propriety. Saavedra, better acquainted with the world, and well aware that Godoy could, at pleasure, resume any degree of ascendancy over the Queen, entered reluctantly into the plot. Not so Jovellanos. Treating this Court intrigue as one of the regular lawsuits on which he had so long practised his skill and impartiality, he could not bring himself to proceed without serving a notice upon the party concerned. He accordingly forwarded a remonstrance to the Prince of the Peace, in which he reminded him of his public and conjugal duties, in the most forcible style of forensic and moral eloquence. The Queen, in the mean time, had worked up her husband into a feeling approaching to anger against Godoy, and the decree for his banishment was all but signed before the offending gallant thought himself in such danger as to require the act of submission, which alone could restore him to the good graces of his neglected mistress. He owed, however, his safety to nothing but Saavedra’s indecision and dilatoriness. That minister could not be persuaded to present the decree of banishment for the royal signature, till the day after it had been agreed upon. Godoy, in the mean time, obtained a private interview with the Queen, who, under the influence of a long-checked and returning passion, in order to exculpate herself, represented the Ministers—the very men whom Godoy had raised into power—as the authors of the plot; and probably attributed the plan to Jovellanos, making him, from this moment, the marked object of the favourite’s resentment.

The baffled Ministers, though not immediately dismissed, must have felt the unsteadiness of the ground on which they stood, and dreaded the revenge of an enemy, who had already shewn, in the case of Admiral Malaspina, that he was both able and willing to wreak it on the instruments of the Queen’s jealousy. That officer, an Italian by birth, had just returned from a voyage round the globe, performed at the expense of this Government, when the Queen, who found it difficult to regulate the feelings of her husband towards Godoy, to the sudden and rapid variations of her own, induced her confidant, the Countess of Matallana, to engage him in drawing up a memorial to the King, containing observations on the public and private conduct of the favourite, and representing him in the blackest colours. Malaspina was at this time preparing the account of his voyage for publication, with the assistance of a conceited sciolist, a Sevillian friar called Padre Gil, who, in our great dearth of real knowledge, was looked upon as a miracle of erudition and eloquence. The Admiral, putting aside his charts and log-books, eagerly collected every charge against Godoy which was likely to make an impression upon the King; while the friar, inspired with the vision of a mitre ready to drop on his head, clothed them in the most florid and powerful figures which used to enrapture his audience from the pulpit. Nothing was now wanting but the Queen’s command to spring the mine under the feet of the devoted Godoy, when the intended victim, informed of his danger, and taking advantage of one of those soft moments which made the Queen and all her power his own, drew from her a confession of the plot, together with the names of the conspirators. In a few days, Malaspina found himself conveyed to a fortress, where, with his voyage, maps, scientific collections, and every thing relating to the expedition, he remains completely forgotten; while the reverend writer of the memorial was forwarded under an escort to Seville, the scene of his former literary glory, to be confined in a house of correction, where juvenile offenders of the lower classes are sent to undergo a salutary course of flogging.

The Queen was preparing the dismissal of Saavedra and Jovellanos, when a dangerous illness of the former brought forward a new actor in the intricate drama of Court intrigue, who, had he known how to use his power, might have worked the complete ruin of its hero.

The First Clerk of the Secretary of State’s Office—a place answering to that of your under-secretary of State—was a handsome young man, called Urquijo. His name is probably not unknown to you, as he was a few years ago with the Spanish Ambassador in London, where his attachment to the French jacobins and their measures could not fail to attract some notice, from the unequivocal heroic proof of self-devotion which he shewed to that party. It was, in fact, an attempt to drown himself in the pond at Kensington Gardens, upon learning the peace made by Buonaparte with the Pope at Tolentino; a treaty which disappointed his hopes of seeing the final destruction of the Papal See, and Rome itself a heap of ruins, in conformity to a decree of the French Directory. Fortune, however, having determined to transform our brave Sans-Culotte into a courtier, afforded him a timely rescue from the muddy deep; and when, under the care of Doctor V–, he had been brought to understand how little his drowning would influence the events of the French war, he returned to Madrid, to wield his pen in the office where his previous qualification of Joven de Lenguas,49 had entitled him to a place, till he rose, by seniority, to that of Under-Secretary.

Every Spanish minister has a day appointed in the course of the week—called Dia de Despacho—when he lays before the King the contents of his portfolio, to dispose of them according to his Majesty’s pleasure. The Queen, who is excessively fond of power,50 never fails to attend on the occasions. The minister, during this audience, stands, or, if desired, sits on a small stool near a large table placed between him and the King and Queen. The love of patronage, not of business, is, of course, the object of the Queen’s assiduity; while nothing but the love of gossip enables her husband to endure the drudgery of these sittings. During Saavedra’s ministry, his Majesty was highly delighted with the premier’s powers of conversation, and his inexhaustible fund of good stories. The portfolio was laid upon the table; the Queen mentioned the names of her protegés, and the King, referring all other business to the decision of the minister, began a comfortable chat, which lasted till bed-time. When Saavedra was taken with that sudden and dangerous illness which Godoy’s enemies were inclined to attribute to poison, (a suspicion, however, which both the favourite’s real good nature, and his subsequent lenity towards Saavedra, absolutely contradict) the duty of carrying the portfolio to the King devolved upon the Under-secretary. Urquijo’s handsome person and elegant manners made a deep impression upon the Queen; and ten thousand whispers spread the important news the next morning, that her Majesty had desired the young clerk to take a seat.

This favourable impression, it is more than probable, was heightened by a fresh pique against Godoy, whose growing disgust of his royal mistress, and firm attachment to La Tudó, offered her Majesty daily subjects of mortification. She now conceived the plan of making Urquijo, not only her instrument of revenge, but, it is generally believed, a substitute for the incorrigible favourite. But in this amorous Court even a Queen can hardly find a vacant heart; and Urquijo’s was too deeply engaged to one of Godoy’s sisters, to appear sensible of her Majesty’s condescension. He mustered, however, a sufficient portion of gallantry to support the Queen in her resolution of separating Godoy from the Court, and depriving him of all influence in matters of government.

It is, indeed, surprising, that the Queen’s resentment proceeded no farther against the man who had so often provoked it, and that his disgrace was not attended with the usual consequences of degradation and imprisonment. Many and powerful circumstances combined, however, in Godoy’s favour—the King’s almost parental fondness towards him—the new minister’s excessive conceit of his own influence and abilities, no less than his utter contempt of the discarded favourite—and, most of all, the Queen’s unextinguished and ever reviving passion, backed by her fears of driving to extremities a man who had, it is said, in his power, the means of exposing her without condemning himself.

During Saavedra’s ministry, and that interval of coldness produced by Godoy’s capricious gallantries, which enabled his enemies to make the first attempt against him; his royal mistress had conceived a strong fancy for one Mallo, a native of Caraccas, and then an obscure Garde du Corps. The rapid promotion of that young man, and the display of wealth and splendour which he began to make, explained the source of his advancement to every one but the King. Godoy himself seems to have been stung with jealousy, probably not so much from his rival’s share in the Queen’s affections, as from the ill-concealed vanity of the man, whose sole aim was to cast into shade the whole Court. Once, as the King and Queen, attended by Godoy and other grandees of the household, were standing at the balcony of the royal seat El Pardo, Mallo appeared at a distance, driving four beautiful horses, and followed by a brilliant retinue. The King’s eye was caught by the beauty of the equipage, and he inquired to whom it belonged. Hearing that it was Mallo’s—“I wonder,” he said, “how that fellow can afford to keep such horses.”—“Why, please your Majesty,” replied Godoy, “the scandal goes, that he himself is kept by an ugly old woman—I quite forget her name.”

Mallo’s day of prosperity was but short. His vanity, coxcombry and folly, displeased the King, and alarmed the Queen. But in the first ardour of her attachments, she generally had the weakness of committing her feelings to writing; and Mallo possessed a collection of her letters. Wishing to rid herself of that absurd, vain fop, and yet dreading an exposure, she employed Godoy in the recovery of her written tokens. Mallo’s house was surrounded with soldiers in the dead of night; and he was forced to yield the precious manuscripts into the hands of his rival. The latter, however, was too well aware of their value to deliver them to the writer; and he is said to keep them as a powerful charm, if not to secure his mistress’s affection, at least to subdue her fits of fickleness and jealousy. Mallo was soon banished and forgotten.

The two ministers, Saavedra and Jovellanos, had been rusticated to their native provinces; the first, on account of ill health; the second, from the Queen’s unconquerable dislike. Urquijo, who seems to have been unable either to gain the King’s esteem, or fully to return the Queen’s affection, could keep his post no longer than while the latter’s ever ready fondness for Godoy, was not awakened by the presence of its object. The absence of the favourite, it is generally believed, might have been prolonged, by good policy, and management of the King on the part of Urquijo, if his rashness and conceit of himself had ever allowed him to suspect that any influence whatever, was equal to that of his talents and person. Instead of strongly opposing a memorial of the Prince of the Peace, asking permission to kiss their majesties’ hands upon the birth of a daughter, borne to him by the Princess his wife, Urquijo imagined the Queen so firmly attached to himself, that he conceived no danger from this transient visit of his offended rival. Godoy made his appearance at Court; and from that moment Urquijo’s ruin became inevitable. His hatred of the Court of Rome had induced the latter to encourage the translation of a Portuguese work, against the extortions of the Italian Dataria, in cases of dispensations for marriage within the prohibited degrees. Thinking the public mind sufficiently prepared by that work, he published a royal mandate to the Spanish bishops, urging them to resume their ancient rights of dispensation. This step had armed against its author the greater part of the clergy; and the Prince of the Peace found it easy to alarm the King’s conscience by means of the Pope’s nuncio, Cardinal Casoni, who made him believe that his minister had betrayed him into a measure which trespassed upon the rights of the Roman Pontiff. I believe that Godoy’s growing dislike of the Inquisition spared Urquijo the horrors of a dungeon within its precincts. He had not, however, sufficient generosity to content himself with the banishment of his enemy to Guipuzcoa. An order for his imprisonment in a fortress followed him thither in a short time—a circumstance, which might raise a suspicion that Urquijo had employed his personal liberty to make a second attempt against the recalled favourite.

This supposition would be strongly supported by the general mildness of Godoy’s administration, if one instance of cruel and implacable revenge were not opposed to so favourable a view of his conduct. Whether the Queen represented Jovellanos to the Prince of the Peace as the chief actor in the first plot which was laid against him, or that he charged that venerable magistrate with ingratitude for taking any share in a conspiracy against the man who had raised him to power; Godoy had scarcely been restored to his former influence, when he procured an order to confine Jovellanos in the Carthusian Convent of Majorca. The unmanliness of this second and long-meditated blow, roused the indignation of his fallen and hitherto silent adversary, calling forth that dauntless and dignified inflexibility which makes him, in our days, so fine a specimen of the old Spanish character. From his confinement he addressed a letter to the King, exposing the injustice of his treatment in terms so removed from the servile tone of a Spanish memorial, so regardless of the power of his adversary, that it kindled anew the resentment of the favourite, through whose hands he well knew it must make its way to the throne. Such a step was more likely to aggravate than to obtain redress for his wrongs. The virtues, the brilliant talents, and pleasing address of Jovellanos had so gained upon the affections of the monks, that they treated him with more deference than even a minister in the height of his power could have expected. Godoy’s spirit of revenge could not brook his enemy’s enjoyment of this small remnant of happiness; and with a cruelty which casts the blackest stain on his character, he removed him to a fortress in the same island, where, under the control of an illiterate and rude governor, Jovellanos is deprived of all communication, and limited to a small number of books for his mental enjoyment. The character of the gaoler may be conceived from the fact of his not being able to distinguish a work from a volume. Jovellanos’s friends are not allowed to relieve his solitude with a variety of books, even to the number contained in the governor’s instructions; for he reckons literary works by the piece, and a good edition of Cicero, for instance, appears to him a complete library.51

Since his restoration to favour, the Prince of the Peace has been gradually and constantly gaining ascendancy. The usual titles of honour being exhausted upon him, the antiquated dignity of High-Admiral has been revived and conferred upon him, just at the time when your tars have left us without a navy. Great emoluments, and the address of Highness have been annexed to this dignity. A brigade of cavalry, composed of picked men from the whole army, has been lately given to the High-Admiral as a guard of honour. His power, in fine, though delegated, is unlimited, and he may be properly said to be the acting Sovereign of Spain. The King, by the unparalleled elevation of this favourite, has obtained his heart’s desire in a perfect exemption from all sorts of employment, except shooting, to which he exclusively devotes every day of the year. Soler, the minister of finance, is employed to fleece the people; and Caballero, in the home department, to keep them in due ignorance and subjection. I shall just give you a sample of each of these worthies’ minds and principles.—It has been the custom for centuries at Valladolid to make the Dominican Convent of that town a sort of bank for depositing sums of money, as it was done in the ancient temples, under similar circumstances of ignorance, of commerce and insecurity of property. Soler, being informed that the monks held in their hands a considerable deposit, declared “that it was an injury to the state to allow so much money to lie idle,” and seizing it, probably for the Queen, whose incessant demands form the most pressing and considerable item of the Spanish budget, gave government-paper to the monks, which the creditors might sell, if they chose, at eighty per cent. discount.—Caballero, fearing the progress of all learning, which might disturb the peace of the Court, sent, not long since, a circular order to the Universities, forbidding the study of moral philosophy: “His Majesty,” it was said in the order, “was not in want of philosophers, but of good and obedient subjects.”

Under the active operation of this system, the Queen has the command of as much money and patronage as she desires; and finding it impracticable to check the gallantries of her cher ami, has so perfectly conquered her jealousy as to be able not only to be on the most amicable terms with him, but to emulate his love of variety in the most open and impudent manner.

I wish to have done with the monstrous heap of scandal, which the state of our Court has unavoidably forced into my narrative. Much, indeed, I leave untold; but I cannot omit an original and perfectly authentic story, which, as it explains the mystery of the King’s otherwise inexplicable blindness respecting his wife’s conduct, justice requires to be made public. The world shall see that his Majesty’s apathy does not arise from any disgraceful indifference for what is generally considered by men as a vital point of honour; but that the peace and tranquillity of his mind is grounded on a philosophical system—I do not know whether physical or moral—which is, I believe, peculiar to himself.

The old Duke del I– (on the authority of whose lady I give you the anecdote) was once, with other grandees, in attendance on the King, when his Majesty, being in high gossiping humour, entered into a somewhat gay conversation on the fair sex. He descanted, at some length, on fickleness and caprice, and laughed at the dangers of husbands in these southern climates. Having had his fill of merriment on the subject of jealousy, he concluded with an air of triumph—“We, crowned heads, however, have this chief advantage above others, that our honour, as they call it, is safe; for suppose that queens were as much bent on mischief as some of their sex, where could they find kings and emperors to flirt with? Eh?”

LETTER XI

Madrid, – 1807.

In giving you a sketch of private life at Madrid, I shall begin by a character quite peculiar to the country, and well known all over Spain by the name of Pretendientes, or place-hunters. Very different ideas, however, are attached to these denominations in the two languages. Young men of the proudest families are regularly sent to Court on that errand, and few gentlemen destine their sons either for the church or the law, without calculating the means of supporting them three or four years at Madrid, as regular and professed place-hunters. The fact is, that, with the exception of three stalls in every cathedral, and in some collegiate churches, that are obtained by literary competition, there is not a single place of rank and emolument to which Court interest is not the exclusive road. Hence the necessity for all who do not possess an independent fortune, in other words, for more than two thirds of the Spanish gentry, to repair to the capital, there to procure that interest, by whatever means their circumstances may afford.

The Pretendientes may be divided into four classes. Clergymen, who aspire to any preferment not inferior to a prebend; lawyers, who wish to obtain a place on the bench of judges in one of our numerous courts, both of Spain and Spanish America; men of business, who desire to be employed in the collection of the revenue; and advocates, whose views do not extend beyond a Corregimiento—a kind of Recordership, with very limited judicial powers, which exists in every town of any note where there is not an Audiencia, or superior tribunal. I shall dispatch the last two classes in a few words.

Between our advocates or barristers, and the superior judges, called Oidores, there is such a line of distinction as to be almost an insuperable barrier. A young man, who, having studied Roman law at the University, attends three or four years at an acting advocate’s chambers, is, after an examination on Spanish law, qualified to plead at the courts of justice. But once engaged in this branch of the law, he must give up all hopes of rising above that doubtful rank which his profession gives him in society. Success may make him rich, but he must be contented with drudging for life at the bar of a provincial court, and bear the slighting and insolent tone with which the judges consider themselves at liberty to treat the advocates. It is, therefore, not uncommon among young lawyers, who cannot command interest enough to be placed on the bench, to offer themselves as candidates for a Corregimiento. Having scraped together a little money, and procured a few letters of recommendation, they repair to Madrid, where they are seen almost daily in the minister’s waiting-room with a petition, and a printed list of their university degrees and literary qualifications, called Papél de Méritos, which, after two or three hours attendance, they think themselves happy if his excellency will take from their hands. Such as can obtain an introduction to some of the grandees who have the right to appoint magistrates on their estates, confine themselves to the easier, though rather more humiliating task, of toad-eating to their patron.

The Pretendientes for the higher branches of finance, must be able to make a more decent appearance at Court, if they hope for success. It is not, however, the minister for that department, who is most to be courted in order to obtain these lucrative places. A recommendation from the Queen, or from the Prince of the Peace, generally interferes with his views, if he allows himself to have any of his own. To obtain the first, a handsome figure, or some pleasing accomplishment, such as singing to the guitar in the Spanish style, are the most likely means, either by engaging her Majesty’s attention, or the affections of some of her favourite maids of honour. The no less powerful recommendation of the Prince of the Peace is, I must say in justice to him, not always made the reward of flattery, or of more degrading servility. Justice and a due regard for merit, are, it is true, far from regulating the distribution of his patronage: yet, very different from the ministers who tremble before him, he can be approached by every individual in the kingdom, without an introduction, and in the certainty of receiving a civil, if not a favourable answer. His great failing, however, being the love of pleasure, none are so sure of a gracious reception as those who appear at his public levees, attended by a handsome wife or blooming daughter. The fact is so well known all over the country, and—I blush to say it—the national character is so far sinking under the influence of this profligate government, that beauties flock from every province for the chance of being noticed by the favourite. His public levee presents every week a collection of the handsomest women in the country, attended by their fathers or husbands. A suit thus supported is never known to fail.

The young aspirants to a toga, or judge’s gown, often succeed through some indirect influence of this kind. The strange notion that an advocate—one that has pleaded causes at the bar—has, in a manner, disqualified himself for the bench, leaves the administration of justice open to inexperienced young men, who, having taken a degree in Roman law, and nominally attached themselves for a short time to an advocate, as practitioners, are suddenly raised to the important station of judges, either by marrying any of the Queen’s maids of honour, or some more humble beauty on whom the Prince of the Peace has cast a transient gleam of favour. I have known such a reward extended to the sister of a temporary favourite, who, being poor, and in love with a young man of family, poor himself, and hopeless of otherwise obtaining a place, enabled him to marry, by bringing a judge’s gown for her portion. Yet so perfectly can circumstances alter the connexion which some moral feelings have between themselves under certain forms and modifications of society, that the man I allude to, as having owed his promotion to such objectionable influence, is an example of justice and impartiality in the difficult station in which he has been placed. I do not mean, however, that a person who degrades his character with a view to promotion, gives a fair promise of honourable principles when called to discharge the duties of a public office: the growing venality of our judges is too sad and clear a proof of the reverse. But when a Government becomes so perfectly abandoned as to block up with filth and pollution every avenue to wealth, power, and even bare subsistence, men who, in a happier country, would have looked upon the contaminated path with abhorrence, or, had they ventured a single step upon it, would have been confirmed in their degradation by the indelible brand of public censure; are seen to yield for a moment to the combined influence of want and example, and recover themselves so far, as almost to deserve the thanks of the people for having snatched a portion of authority from the grasp of the absolutely worthless.