Romantic Spain

s of Climate-The Carlists, Norwegians, and English, all Republicans!-Notions on Heredity-The Five Spanish Parties-The Army the Lever of Power-Th

ate disclosures would bar the inquisitiveness of some females, judging by the ingenuity with which they intrigue for seats at the trials in the Divorce Court, and the avidity with which

dlesticks, bronze statuettes, damascened daggers, and what is known as the merchandise of bijouterie and vertu. There were few papers there, and but one book, a Spanish Army List in gorgeous green velvet cover with gilt clasps. In fact, it was more

ngaged in mining. He was well educated, had travelled widely, was pronounced in his views, and as he expressed them with candour and was possessed of a high or

re, was the primal fatality. As Count O'Neil remarked when he heard the natal salute stop at the nineteenth cannon-shot, unhappy Spain was doomed, because of the gender of the newly-born, to be over-shadowed with the pall of grief and mourning. But the primal error was the unnatural

The people were a people that improved upon intercourse, and had some grand qualities. But the curses of Spain were the ignor

for its existing form

aism, the ablutions of Mahometanism, are the simple useful dictates of some wise man skilled in sanitary science. People of warm southern natures c

ion," I interrupted, "but I am anxious

brave privations and work hard for a living are Republicans

I thought they

d-they will have no unwilling soldiers taken from their midst. So Republican are they that they will not tolerate a Bishop in their ecclesiastical organiza

ans are Monarchi

ou are likewise a Republic-that is, you enjoy Republican freedom, only you choose to call the President a Queen. The Queen is but a figure-

y legislature in Europe, how do you account for its exis

day, to be succeeded by a Senate on the French or American model. Life-peerages can be justified; the hereditary principle has been tried and found wanting. The male off

not believe in blood? Would you place the descendant of a line of brave and cultured men, with traditions to look bac

ities long worked up to, by judicious crossing, shall not be lost or deteriorated; but there is no such selection in the case of a lord; he follows his own figary, and his figary is usually money, to regild a faded shield. Blood, sir, has less to d

and three of Republicans. These were-1st, the Alfonsists, or those who wished that the son of the deposed Queen should be raised to the throne; 2nd, the Legitimists or Carlists (embracing a large body of the clergy); 3rd, the Republicans of long standing, who were actu

sm would be to reduce this capital to the plane of a third-rate provincial town. Federalism is Spanish dismemberment. If such a system were adopted, you would have a Royalist North, a Red Republican Catalonia, a

nce of Amadeus be

laugh that em

t is always an insult even when admi

ation at the moment?" (This wa

imb, but that they fear to fall. Thus, as you perceive, the disorganization of the army is at the bottom of all the difficulties, for that it is which leaves the mastery with the dreaded Intransigents. Those, the 'partisans of action' as they are aptly called sometimes, have more energy than either the Ministry or the Radicals, and if this dilly-dallying goes on much longer they may make a bold attempt to get the reins into their own hands. The Radicals are opposed to a dissolution of the Assembly becau

n exclusively Iberian production, but that possibly

he proposed battalions of volunteers, is less to put down Carlism than to have a force to fall back upon in case of the army giving itself furlough. I have reason to know that one Minister at least is very uneasy on account of the want of discipline of the troops, and urges upon his colleag

low in taking ordinary resolutions. "Ma?ana" is the watchword of the nation: a favourite proverb is twisted into "Never do to-day what you can poss

ou think o

single-minded, too amiable, too much of a student to play the C?sar. Picture to yourself a doctrinaire who can quote

y we look for

moustache in the Balearic Islands, or sipping c

e. The talk was of bloodshed; but I had grown so sceptical that I would hardly believe in bloodshed in Madrid until what looked a liquid red had been chemically analyzed and proved to be blood. We had false alarms every other night, and shops were shut for an hour or two; but

t for themselves, must before this have discovered the gross blunder they have made. The Republic is a splendid word; but Order is a word more wholesome. The present so-called rulers are incapable of preserving order. They sowed the wind when they taught the soldiers to be malcontent under the Monarchy, because an army was an artificial need in a free nation.

chy is no remedy. It is never fin

sm, the dominance of some successful General who has the knack of

ely as not to come from the

," he said; "outside the northern and a portion o

e frontier again, turn out to be a spell-word? They tel

"he commanded a regiment

ba at the outbreak of host

rlos in the civil war from 1836 to 1840, and that did not hinder him from donning a uniform under Isabella. Cosas de Espa?a! Have yo

's name was

Court, and sent an address to the palace, praying that his regiment might have the honour of wearing chains emblazoned on the colours in testimony of attachment to the King. The prayer was magnanimously acceded to, and the chains

the Vascongadas and Navarre to the soldiers of the Spanish army. He calls upon them to lay down their arms, promising them fr

rations shall be increased. Such men as go over to Dorregaray only act as too many of their predecessors have acted. In this instance they have an excuse; they can say, 'We were Royalist soldiers a few weeks ago; we are transformed into Republican soldiers now. Our will was never consulted. We are Royalist still, therefo

le class of women. The common Spaniard took his faith as he would his heritage; he was a Christian because his fathers were so before him-it was an affair of family-and his calling himself a Christian, which signifies Christian exclusively of t

e Republic last, the Church will be separated from the State, and every congregation will have to pay its own minister. That would be frank, at all events; but so long as the

Spanish politics are confusing. My usual reflections upon them resolved themselves into the uneasy conviction that they were a Lincoln morass overlaid by a London fog, and that it w