Women of the Romance Countries (Illustrated)

The religious fanaticism which was responsible in part at least for the fate of Juana soon took shape in a modified form as a definite national policy, and the grandson and great-grandson of Isabella, Charles V. and his son, King Philip, showed themselves equally ardent in the defence of the Catholic faith, even if their ardor did not lead them to treat with inhumanity some member of their own family. Spain gloried in this religious leadership, exhausted herself in her efforts to maintain the cause of Rome in the face of the growing force of the Reformation, and not only sent her sons to die upon foreign battlefields, but ruthlessly took the lives of many of her best citizens at home in her despairing efforts to wipe out every trace of heresy. This whole ecclesiastical campaign produced a marked change in the character of the Spanish people; they lost many of their easy-going ways, while retaining their indomitable spirit of national pride, and became stern, vindictive, and bigoted. In the process of this transformation, the women of the country were perhaps in advance of the men in responding to the new influences which were at work upon them. The number of convents increased rapidly, every countryside had its wonder-working nun who could unveil the mysteries of the world while in the power of some ecstatic trance, and women everywhere were the most tireless supporters of the clergy. It was natural that this should be the case, for there was a nervous excitement in the air which was especially effective upon feminine minds, and the Spanish woman in particular was sensitive and impressionable and easily influenced. Among all of the devout women of this age living a conventual life, the most distinguished, beyond any question, was Teresa de Cepeda, who is perhaps the favorite saint of modern Spain to-day.

Teresa's early life resembled that of any other well-born young girl of her time, although she must have enjoyed rather exceptional educational advantages, as her father was a man of scholarly instincts, who took an interest in his daughter's development and sedulously cultivated her taste for books. When Teresa was born in 1515, the Spanish romances of chivalry and knight-errantry were in the full tide of their popularity; and as soon as the little girl was able to read, she spent many hours over these fascinating tales. Endowed by nature with a very unusual imagination, she was soon so much absorbed in these wonder tales, which were her mother's delight, that she often sat up far into the night to finish the course of some absorbing adventure. At this juncture, her father, fearing that this excitement might be harmful, tried to divert her mind by putting in her way books of pious origin, wherein the various trials and tribulations of the Christian martyrs were described in a most graphic and realistic style. Soon Teresa was even more interested in these stories than in those of a more worldly character, and the glories of martyrdom, which were described as leading to a direct enjoyment of heavenly bliss without any purgatorial delay, made such a profound impression upon her youthful mind that she resolved at the early age of seven to start out in search of a martyr's crown. Prevailing upon her little brother to accompany her in this quest for celestial happiness, she started out for the country of the Moors, deeming that the surest way to attain the desired goal. While this childish enthusiasm was nipped in the bud by the timely intervention of an uncle, who met the two pilgrims trudging along the highway, the idea lost none of its fascination for a time; and the two children immediately began to play at being hermits in their father's garden, and made donation to all the beggars in the neighborhood of whatever they could find to give away, depriving themselves of many customary pleasures to satisfy their pious zeal. With the lapse of time, however, this morbid sentiment seemed to disappear, and Teresa was much like any other girl in her enjoyment of the innocent pleasures of life. Avila, in Old Castile, was her home, and there she was sent to an Augustinian convent to complete her education, but without any idea that she would eventually adopt a religious life for herself. This convent, indeed, seemed to make little impression upon her, and it was only after a chance visit made to an uncle who was about to enter a monastery, and who entreated her to withdraw from the vanities of the world, that she seems to have gone back with undimmed ardor to her childish notions. In spite of her father's opposition, Teresa, in her eighteenth year, left home one morning and went to install herself at the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation, which was situated in the outskirts of her native city. The lax discipline and somewhat worldly tone of the place proved a great surprise to her, as she had imagined that the odor of sanctity must be all-pervasive in a religious house; but she evidently accommodated herself to the conditions as she found them, for she made no decided protest and gave evidence of no special piety until twenty years after she had formally given up the world. Then, saddened and sobered by her father's death, Teresa began to have wonderful trances, accompanied by visions wherein Christ, crucified, appeared to her time and time again. Although in later times these unusual experiences have been adduced to prove her saintship, at the time of their occurrence they were not looked upon in the same light, and there were many who said that Teresa was possessed of devils. She was more than half inclined to this view of the case herself, and the eminent religious authorities who were consulted in the matter advised her to scourge herself without mercy, and to exorcise the figures, both celestial and infernal, which continued to appear before her. The strange experiences continued to trouble her, however, in spite of all that she could do, and to the end of her days she was subject to them. Constantly occupied with illusions and hallucinations, she soon became a religious mystic, living apart from the world and yet deeply interested in its spiritual welfare. One of her visions in particular shows into what a state of religious exaltation she could be thrown. She imagined herself a frameless mirror of infinite size, with Christ shining in the middle of it, and the mirror itself, she knew not how, was in Christ!

In the midst of these experiences Teresa began to wonder what she could do for the real advancement of the Church, and her first thought was that there must be reform in the convents if the cause of religion was to prosper. Discouraged by the members of her own convent, who looked upon any reform movement as a reflection upon their own establishment, Teresa was nevertheless encouraged to go on with her work by certain far-seeing ecclesiastics who were able to appreciate its ultimate value. It was her plan to establish a convent wherein all the early and austere regulations of the Carmelite order were to be observed, and, by working secretly, she was able to carry it out. There was violent protest, which almost led to violence, and it was only after full papal approval that she was allowed to go about her business unmolested. The reorganizing spirit of the Counter-Reformation which was now at work within the Catholic Church gave her moral support, and the remaining years of her life were devoted to the work of conventual reorganization and regeneration which she had begun with so stout a heart. It was her wont to travel everywhere in a little cart which was drawn by a single donkey, and winter and summer she went her way, enduring innumerable hardships and privations, that her work might prosper. Sixteen convents and fourteen monasteries were founded as the result of her efforts; and as her sincerity and single-mindedness became more and more apparent, she was everywhere hailed by the people as a devout and holy woman, and was even worshipped by some as a saint on earth. Disappointment and failure were her lot at times, and she found it difficult to maintain the stern discipline of which she was such an ardent advocate. On one occasion, it is said that her nuns in the convent of Saint Joseph, at Avila, went on a strike and demanded a meat diet, which, it may be added, she refused to grant; and a prioress at Medina answered one of her communications in a very impertinent manner and showed other signs of insubordination; but Teresa was calm and unruffled, in her outward demeanor at least, and found a way by tactful management, and by a judicious show of her authority, to settle all differences and disputes without great difficulty. When death overtook her in 1582, miracles were worked about her tomb, and when the vault was opened, after a period of nine months, it is asserted that her body was uncorrupted. Removed to a last resting place at Avila at a somewhat later date, her bones were finally carried off by pious relic hunters, who believed them to possess miraculous properties. In the forty years which followed her death, Teresa was so revered throughout her native land that she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV. in 1622. To her exalted spirit were joined a firm judgment and a wonderful power of organization, and in placing her among the saints she was given a merited reward for her holy labors.

The harsh intolerance which came with the Spanish Counter-Reformation manifested itself oftentimes in acts of cruelty and oppression which are almost beyond belief. So eager were the zealots for the triumph of pure and unadulterated Catholicism, that no consideration whatever was shown for the Moriscoes, or Spanish Moors, whose form of belief was Catholic, but tinged with Moslem usages, and even women and children were made to suffer the unreasoning persecution of the Christians. One offensive measure after another was adopted for the discomfiture of the thrifty sons of the Prophet, and finally, with the purpose of wiping out all distinctions of any kind which might lead to a retention of national characteristics, it was decreed in 1567 that no woman should walk abroad with a covered face. Such a measure was certainly short-sighted. For hundreds of years this Oriental custom had been common in southern Spain; it was significant of much of their idea of social order and decency, and any attempt to abolish it with a single stroke of a Catholic pen was both unwise and imprudent. According to Hume, "this practice had taken such a firm hold of the people of the south of Spain that traces of it remain to the present day in Andalusia, where the women of the poorer classes constantly cover the lower part of the face with the corner of a shawl. In Peru and Chili (originally colonized by the Spanish) the custom is even more universal." Yet it was this firmly rooted habit that the Christians tried to destroy! As the result of this order, the majority of the Spanish women showed themselves in public as rarely as possible, and then they tried to evade the law whenever they could. Other measures, equally severe and equally impossible, which were enacted at the same time, ended finally, as might have been expected, in a desperate revolt. A horde of Moslem fanatics, goaded to desperation, swept down upon the Christians of Granada, and there was a terrible massacre. This was all that was necessary to start the Spaniards upon a campaign which was still more cruel than any which had preceded it, for now the avowed object was revenge and not war. Six thousand helpless women and children were slaughtered in a single day by the Marquis de los Velez, and this is but a single instance of the bloodthirsty spirit which was rampant at the time.

Even among the Spanish people, the officers of the Inquisition found many victims, and women quite as often as men had to endure its rigors. In spite of the many centuries of Christian influence, there were still to be found in various parts of the country remnants of the old pagan worship which were difficult to eradicate. It was claimed that sects were in existence which not only denied the Christian faith, but openly acknowledged the Devil as their patron and promised obedience to him! In the ceremonies attendant upon this worship of the powers of darkness, women played no unimportant part, and many were the reputed witches who were supposed to be on terms of intimate acquaintance with the arch-fiend in person. As the suppression of this heresy was assumed by the Church, the Inquisition, as its punitive organ, took charge of the matter and showed little mercy in its dealings with suspected persons, for whom the rack and other instruments of torture were put to frequent use. In the year 1507 the Inquisition of Calahorra burned more than thirty women as sorceresses and magicians, and twenty years later, in Navarre, there were similar condemnations. So frequent, indeed, were these arrests for magic and sorcery, that the "sect of sorcerers," as it was called, seemed to be making great headway throughout the whole country, and the Inquisition called upon all good Christians to lodge information with the proper authorities whenever they "heard that any person had familiar spirits, and that he invoked demons in circles, questioning them and expecting their answer, as a magician, or in virtue of an express or tacit compact." It was also their duty to report anyone who "constructed or procured mirrors, rings, phials, or other vessels for the purpose of attracting, enclosing, and preserving a demon, who replies to his questions and assists him in obtaining his wishes; or who had endeavored to discover the future by interrogating demons in possessed people; or tried to produce the same effect by invoking the devil under the name of holy angel or white angel, and by asking things of him with prayers and humility, by practising other superstitious ceremonies with vases, phials of water, or consecrated tapers; by the inspection of the nails, and of the palm of the hand rubbed with vinegar, or by endeavoring to obtain representations of objects by means of phantoms in order to learn secret things or which had not then happened." Such orders led to the arrest of hundreds of women all over Spain, and many of them went to death in the flames, for women rather than men were affected by this crusade, as they were generally the adepts in these matters of the black art. That such things could be in Spain at this time may cause some surprise, but it must be remembered that superstition dies hard and that many of the things which are here condemned are still advertised in the columns of the newspapers, and the belief in the supernatural seems to have taken a new lease of life as the result of certain modern investigations. Superstition has ever gone hand in hand with civilization, in spite of the repeated efforts of the latter to go its way alone.

Witches and sorceresses, however, were far outnumbered in the prisons of the Inquisition by the numerous Spanish women who were accused of Lutheranism, for the reformed doctrines had succeeded in making great progress even here in this hotbed of popery, and many persons were burned for their lack of faith in the old formulas of belief. An auto de fé was a great public holiday, celebrated in some large open square, which had been especially prepared for the event, with tiers upon tiers of seats arranged on every side for the accommodation of the thousands of spectators; and to this inspiring performance came many noble ladies, decked out as if for a bull fight, and eager to witness each act of atrocity in its slightest detail. The names of scores of the women who perished in this way might be cited to show that from all classes the Church was claiming its victims; and even after death, condemnation might come and punishment might be inflicted. To illustrate the possibilities of this religious fury, the case of Doña Eleanora de Vibero will more than suffice. She had been buried at Valladolid, without any doubt as to her orthodoxy, but she was later accused of Lutheranism by a treasurer of the Inquisition, who said that she had concealed her opinions by receiving the sacraments and the Eucharist at the time of her death. His charges were supported by the testimony of several witnesses, who had been tortured or threatened; and the result of it all was that her memory and her posterity were condemned to infamy, her property was confiscated, and at the first solemn auto de fé of Valladolid, held in 1559, and attended by the Prince Don Carlos and the Princess Juana, her disinterred body was burned with her effigy, her house was razed to the ground, and a monument with an inscription relating to this event was placed upon the spot.

Such is this sixteenth century in Spain, an age of strange contrasts, where the greatest crimes are committed in the holy name of Religion!

CHAPTER XIX

THE SLOW DECAY OF SPANISH POWER

When the long and unfortunate reign of Philip the Catholic came to an end on the eve of the seventeenth century, Spain, sadly buffeted by the rough waves of an adverse fortune, was in a most pitiful condition. With the downfall of the great Armada which was so confidently destined to humble the pride of England, national confidence had begun to slip away, the wars at home and in the Netherlands had sadly depleted the treasury, the credit of the country was far from good, and gradually, as a natural reaction after the religious exaltation which had marked the whole of the sixteenth century, a spirit of irreligion and licentiousness became prevalent in all classes of society. As Philip had grown older and more ascetic in his tastes, he had gradually withdrawn from society and had left his court to its own devices. With his death, in 1598, the last restraint was gone, and there was no limit to the excesses of the insensate nation. Having failed in their great and zealous effort to fasten Spanish Catholicism upon the whole of Europe, they had finally accepted a milder philosophy, and had decided to enjoy the present rather than continue to labor for a somewhat doubtful reward in the life which was to come. The young king, Philip III., who began to reign under these circumstances, was wedded in 1599 to the Archduchess Margaret of Austria, and the feasts and celebrations which were organized in honor of this event outrivalled in their magnificence anything of the kind that had taken place in Spain for many years, and there was a free and libertine spirit about all of this merrymaking which did not augur well for the future. The Duke of Lerma, the king's favorite and prime minister, was in full charge of the affair, and he spared no pains in his desire to make a brave show, in spite of the critical financial condition of the country. The young Austrian princess, upon her arrival at Madrid, was fairly dazzled by the reception she was given; and well she may have been, for the money expended for this purpose reaches proportions which almost surpass belief. The Cortes appropriated one million ducats for the occasion, and the nobles spent three million more, three hundred thousand of this sum having been contributed by Lerma from his own private revenues.

The Spanish court now changed its character completely, and the sombre simplicity of the elder Philip's day gave place to a gayety and brilliant ceremonial which were more in accord with the new spirit of the times. Lerma filled the palace at Madrid with brilliant ladies in waiting, for he believed, with the gallant Francis I. of France, that a royal court without women is like a year without spring, a spring without flowers; and a marvellous round of pleasures began, all governed by a stately etiquette. But this gay life was rotten at the core; the immodest and shameless conduct of the women in particular shocked and surprised all visiting foreigners; and as time went on, the social evil increased and became more widespread. Virtue in women was a subject for jest, the cities were perfect sinks of iniquity, to quote Hume, and, in Madrid in particular, immorality was so common among the women that the fact passed into a proverbial saying. Homer has said: "Than woman there is no fouler and viler fiend when her mind is bent on ill;" and even were the superlatives to be lopped from this expression, it might still help to express the fact that the moral degeneracy of Spain in her new career of wantonness was at least shared by the women. At the court, the king, who was in many ways what might be termed a mystic voluptuary, spent his time in alternate fits of dissipation and devotion, wasted his time in gallantry, and neglected his royal duties; and the all-powerful Lerma was the centre of a world of graft, where the highest offices in the land were bartered for gold, and every noble had an itching palm. In this scene of disorder women played no little part, and through intrigue and cajolery they often won the day for their favored lovers. Religion gave place to recklessness, valor disappeared in vanity, and a splendid idleness replaced a splendid industry. One Cortes after another protested, measures were adopted which sought to bring the nation to its senses, new sumptuary laws were enacted, but all to no avail; for the nobility continued to set an example of glittering prodigality, and the common people were not slow to follow.

When another Philip, the fourth of this name, came to the throne in 1621, the situation was almost hopeless. The country was involved in the Thirty Years' War, one failure after another befell the Spanish arms, the taxes had become unbearable, and in many quarters revolt was threatened. The king was not equal to his task, government was an irksome duty for him, and he found his greatest pleasure in two things, hunting and the theatre. Madrid at this time was theatre-mad, playhouses were numerous, and the people thronged them every night. The ladies of the nobility had their special boxes, which were their own private property, furnished in a lavish way, and there every evening they held their little court and dispensed favors to their many admirers. It was the first time in the history of the theatre that women's rôles were being played quite generally by women, and, as was most natural, certain actresses soon sprang into popular favor and vied with each other for the plaudits of the multitude. In theory the stage was frowned at by the Church, the plays were very often coarse and licentious in character, and the moral influence of this source of popular amusement was decidedly bad; but the tinsel queens of that age, as in the present time, were invested with a glamour which had an all-compelling charm, and noble protectors were never wanting. Among the actresses of notoriety in this Spanish carnival of life, the most celebrated were Maria Riquelme, Francisca Beson, Josefa Vaca, and Maria Calderon, familiarly known to the theatre-goers as la bella Calderona. Philip IV., as much infatuated as the meanest of his subjects by the glitter of the footlights, never lost an opportunity when at his capital to spend his evenings in the royal box, where he showed his appreciation by most generous applause; and he was soon on familiar terms with many of the reigning favorites. Among them all, La Calderona seemed to please him most, and she was soon the recipient of so many royal favors that no one could doubt her conquest. Other lovers were discarded, she became Philip's mistress, and she it was who bore to him a son, the celebrated Don Juan, who became in later years a leader in revolt against his father's widowed queen.

In the midst of this troubled life, divided between the pleasures of the chase, the excitements of the theatre, and the many vexations of state, Philip was reserved in his dealings with his fellow men, and few fathomed the depth of his despair in the face of the approaching national ruin. One person seemed to have read the sadness of his heart, however, and that person, with whom he had a most extended correspondence, was, strange to relate, a woman, and a nun of the most devout type, Sister Maria de Agreda! The history of this woman is most interesting, and she seems to have been the one serious and restraining element in all that scene of gay riot. The Agreda family, belonging to the lesser nobility, lived on the frontiers of Aragon, and there, in their city of Agreda, they had founded in 1619 a convent, following a pretended revelation which had directed them to this holy undertaking. The year after the convent was completed, Maria de Agreda, who was then eighteen, and her mother, took the veil at the same time and retired from the vanity of the world. In seven years the young girl was made the mother superior of the institution, and, beginning from that date, she was subject to frequent visions of a most surprising character. God and the Virgin appeared to her repeatedly, commanding her each time to write the life of Mary; but in spite of these supernatural admonitions, she resisted for ten long years, fearing that she might be possessed of demons who came in celestial shape to urge her to a work which she felt to be beyond her powers. Finally, impressed by the persistence of these holy visitants, she referred the matter to a priest who had long been her father confessor, and at his suggestion she decided to write as she had been commanded. For some months she busied herself with this task, and then one day, in an unlucky moment, she ventured to confide her plans to another monk, in the absence of her regular spiritual adviser. This time her plans of literary work were discouraged, and she was advised to burn her manuscripts as worthless paper and to content herself with the usual routine of conventual life. Following this advice, she destroyed the fruits of her labor, and prepared to resume her interrupted duties, when, to her consternation, God and the Virgin again appeared in her cell at night and again commanded her to write as before. Again she resisted, and again the vision came, and finally, encouraged by her old confessor, who had returned upon the scene, she began anew the once abandoned work. This time there was no interruption; the book was finished, and printed first in Madrid, and then at Lisbon, Perpignan, and Antwerp. Naturally, the claim was made that the book was written under divine inspiration, and the curious and oftentimes revolting details with which its pages were filled were soon the talk and scandal of the religious world. Maria, in spite of her mysticism, had proved to be a realist of the most pronounced type, and in many quarters her book was openly denounced. In Paris, the great court preacher Bossuet proclaimed it immoral; and the Sorbonne, which was then a faculty of theologians, condemned the book to be burned. Although the facts are not clearly known, it must have been during this time of publicity that the nun was brought to the attention of the world-weary king. He was attracted by her professed visions, he sought for consolation of a spiritual character in the midst of his unhappy career, and there resulted this correspondence between the two, which has since been published. To quote Hume, it was "the nun Maria de Agreda who, alone of all his fellow-creatures, could sound the misery of Philip's soul as we can do who are privileged to read the secret correspondence between them." Pleasures of all sorts were beginning to pall now upon the jaded monarch. Court festivities became a hollow mockery, the glitter of the stage had vanished, only to leave its queens all daubed with paint and powder in the garish light of reality, and the broken-hearted Philip, bereft of wife and heir, was induced to marry for a second time, in the hope that another son might come to inherit his throne.