Romantic Spain Volume II Part 9

The letter winds up by the affirmation that Don Carlos is faithful to the good traditions of the old and glorious Spanish monarchy, and that he believed he would be found to act also as "a man of the present age."

The last sentence is a prayer to his brother, "who had the enviable privilege of serving in the Papal army," to ask their spiritual king at Rome for his apostolic benediction for Spain and the writer.

If this doc.u.ment was written _propria manu_, by Don Carlos, he must be endowed with higher intellectual faculties than most Kings or Pretenders possess. It is undeniably clever, and is more progressive than one would expect from an upholder of the doctrine of Divine right. It may be, as Tennyson sings, that the thoughts of men (even when they are Bourbons) are widened with the process of the suns. But I protest that there is such a masterly mistiness in it here and there, such a careful elusion of rocks and ruggednesses political, and such a fine wind-beating flourish of the banner of glittering generality, that I think there were more heads than one engaged in the concoction of the manifesto. I have studiously refrained from the introduction of the religious topic as far as I could in this work--it is outside my sphere; but I should be unjust to the reader did I not give him some information (not from the controversial standpoint) on a subject which will obtrude itself in any discussion on the merits of the conflict which has twice distracted Spain and may divide the country again. It is unfortunately indisputable that religion was poked into the quarrel. The struggle was described in _El Cuartel Real_ as a religious war; the theological allegiance of the partisans of Don Carlos was appealed to, and their ardent attachment to the Papacy was worked upon, as in the concluding sentence of the proclamation of Don Carlos. In those portions of the north where Carlism was all-powerful, the authorities were emphatically showing that those who served under them must be practical Roman Catholics _nolentes volentes_. An austere placard, signed by Barona, member of the Carlist war committee, was posted in the province of Alava, and ordained among other articles: Firstly, that the town councillors of every munic.i.p.ality should a.s.sist in a body at High Ma.s.s; secondly, that the mayors should interdict, under the most severe penalties, all games and public diversions, and the opening of all public establishments during Divine service; and thirdly, that all blasphemers, and all who worked on a holiday, who gave scandal, or who danced indecently, should be _scourged_. The first of these articles is lawful enough in a country which is almost exclusively Roman Catholic. In England nothing can be said against it, seeing that British soldiers of all denominations are compelled to attend Church parade, and the prisoners in all gaols have to register themselves as belonging to some religion. There is just this theoretical objection, however--the article implies that munic.i.p.al honours are to be limited to members of one creed, which is intolerant.

That which underlay the antipathy of numerous Conservatives outside Spain to the Royalist cause, was the belief entertained that the success of Don Carlos would lead to the re-a.s.sertion of clerical preponderance, would destroy liberty of conscience as understood in most European nations, and would set up a political priesthood. The manifesto of Don Carlos does not deal with those points in the full and categorical manner desirable. I was told there were two parties in the Carlist camp, the clerical and--for want of a better name, let it be called--the non-clerical The former, the Basques, and those who gave Carlism its great primary impulsion, were as zealously Roman Catholic as ever Manuel Santa Cruz was. They looked forward to the re-acquisition of the ecclesiastical domains and the re-establishment of the Catholic Church in all its ancient supremacy of wealth and power. The non-clericals knew that the Basques, even a.s.suming them all to be Carlists, were but 660,000 in number, a small minority of the population, and that the existence of a State unduly influenced by a Church--things temporal controlled by personages bound to things spiritual--was antagonistic to the feelings of the majority of Spaniards.

Having met a n.o.bleman distinguished for his services to Carlism, I put it to him bluntly, "Would Don Carlos on the throne mean a relapse into religious bigotry?"

He answered me with candour, "I am a Roman Catholic, and if I thought so I should be the last man to lend a penny to his cause."

"But," I urged, "that is the general impression in England, where he is trying to negotiate a loan, and if it is left uncorrected it does him injury. Why does he not repel the impeachment?"

"The truth is," he said, "Don Carlos has made too many public explanations."

I returned to the charge, challenging my acquaintance to deny that many of the supporters of Don Carlos would fall away if they had not the thorough belief that his cause was as much identified with the triumph of Roman Catholicism as with that of legitimacy. His reply was not a denial, but an admission of the fact, with the addition that in war one must not be too particular as to the means of enlisting aid, and stimulating the enthusiasm of supporters, which is an argument as true as it is old. Don Carlos, in his manifesto, goes on the a.s.sumption that the Republicans are all atheists, or something very like it. It is only fair to let the Republicans speak for themselves, and explain what is the Republican estimate of the Carlist religion. The San Sebastian newspaper, _El Diario_, may be a.s.sumed to be a fair exponent of the sentiments of the anti-Carlists, and thus emphatically, and not without a spice of ant.i.thesis, it delivers itself:

"The religion which has the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' forbids murder.

"The religion which has the commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' forbids robbery.

"The religion which is peace, obedience, and love, is no friend of war, rebellion, and ma.s.sacre.

"Resigned and joyous in other days, its martyrs went to death in the amphitheatre of Rome, and on the plains of Saragossa, pardon in their souls and prayer on their lips; to-day pardon is exchanged for wrath, and prayer for reproach. Instead of the martyr's palm, we have the Berdan breech-loader and the flash of petroleum.

"Anointed of the Lord, ministers of Him who died invoking blessings on His enemies, kindle the fires of fratricidal strife, which they call a sacred war, and lead on and inflame their dupes by the pretence that the gates of Paradise are to be forced open by gunshot.

"Meanwhile the bishops are silent, Rome is dumb, the moral law sleeps, the canon law is forgotten; and these pastors, transforming their flocks into packs of wolves, scour the plains, blessing murder and sanctifying conflagration.

"'King by Divine right,' they cry, like the legists of the Lower Empire; 'Die or believe,' like the sons of the Prophet. Apostles without knowing it, they seek to achieve the triumph of a Pagan principle by a Saracenic process.

"They say that religion is lost, because it is shorn of the honour and power their kings gave it; that the portals of heaven are barred, because they have forfeited their t.i.thes and first-fruits, their rents and fat benefices; and they try to convince us by discharges of musketry that our whole future life depends, on the one hand, on a question of vanity, and on the other, on a question of stomach.

"Holy Apostles, disciples of Him who had not a stone whereon to lay His head, you who conquered the earth with no arms but those of word and example, oh! would you not say if you returned here below, 'Those who preach by the voice of platoons; those who evangelize from the mouth of cannon; those are not, cannot be, our disciples and successors, for they are not fishers of souls, but fishers of snug posts under government'?

"And you, glorious martyrs of the Roman circus and Saragossan fields, oh! would you not say, 'No, this Christianity, which goes about sowing battle; desolation, tears, and blood wherever it pa.s.ses, is not ours--no, this Christianity at the bottom of the slaughter of Endarlasa, of the hecatomb of Cirauqui, of the sack of Igualada, and of a hundred other cruelties, is not ours. Our religion says "Kill not," and this murders; says "Steal not," and this robs. No, this is not the Christian, but the Carlist religion'?"

That is a good specimen of the rhetorical school of writing popular in Spanish newspapers; but all that is written is not gospel. From personal observation it was evident to me that these Republicans of the Spanish towns of the north were not so scrupulous in the outward observances of religion as the tone of this indignant Christian leading article would convey; neither were the Carlists the "packs of wolves" they were represented to be.

Let us see how this inflamed sense of so-called religion affected the rank and file among the adherents of Don Carlos.

Indubitably the Royalists, with a very few exceptions, were more than moral--they were sincerely pious, and esteemed it a grateful incense to the Most High to kill as many of their Republican countrymen as they could without over-exertion. They bowed their heads and repeated prayers with the chaplains who accompanied them; as the echoes of the Angelus bell were heard they were marched to Divine wors.h.i.+p every evening, when they were in the neighbourhood of a church; they were palpably impressed with deep devotional convictions, and yet they were not sour-faced like the grim Covenanters of Argyle, nor puritanically uncharitable like the stern propounders of the Blue Laws of Connecticut. Their beads returned to the pocket or the prayers finished, they laughed and jested, were frolicsome as schoolboys in their playhour, and the slightest tinkle of music set them dancing. Hospitable and fanatic, faithful and ignorant, temperate and dirty--such are some prominent traits in the character of the brave Basque people of the rural districts who wished to govern Spain, but who were Spaniards neither by race, nor language, nor temperament, nor feeling.

Taken all in all, they are a right manly breed, and, with education to correct inevitable prejudices, would be capable of great things. But before they could become efficient soldiers, they needed a severe course of training. In the flat country, south of the Ebro, it would be cruel and foolish to oppose them to regular troops. As guerrilleros, they were without parallel, being content with short commons, and ever ready to play ball after the longest march; but they were ignorant of soldiering as technically understood. In the copses and crags of their own provinces they were invincible, and could carry on the struggle while there was a cartridge or an onion left in the land. But where the tactics of the "contrabandista" no longer availed, where surprises were impossible and mysterious disappearances not easy, and where the bulk of the people were not willing spies, the aspect of affairs was different.

They were mediocre marksmen with long-range arms of precision, and had no proper conception of allowances for wind or sun. Target-practice was not encouraged, and yet it was not through thrift of ammunition, for the waste of powder in every skirmish was extravagant, and one could not rest a night in a village held by the Carlists without being disturbed by frequent careless discharges.

With the bayonet, as far as I could learn, they were impetuous in the onset, and stubborn, especially the Navarrese. But bayonet-charges cannot carry stone walls or mud-banks; and in the face of the almost incessant peppering of breech-loaders, rushes of the kind have become slightly old-fas.h.i.+oned. To the Carlists, in any case, was due the credit of readiness to have recourse to the steel whenever there was a rift for hand-to-hand fighting. Their military education unfortunately confined itself to the rudiments of the drill-book. They fell in, dressed up, formed fours by the right, extended into sections on column of march and went through the like movements very well--so well that it was a pity they had not an opportunity of adding to their stock of knowledge. They had an instinctive apt.i.tude for skirmis.h.i.+ng, and were expert at forming square, the utility of which, by the way, is as questionable nowadays as that of charging.

More attention was paid to discipline than to drill. Pickets patrolled the towns into which they entered, and repressed all disorder after nightfall; outpost duty was strictly enforced; "larking" was not tolerated, and punishments were always inflicted for known and grave breaches of order.

CHAPTER XII.

Barbarossa--Royalist-Republicans--Squaring a Girl--At Iron--"Your Papers?"--The Barber's Shop--A Carlist Spy--An Old Chum--The Alarm--A Breach of Neutrality--Under Fire--Caught in the Toils--The Heroic Tomas--We Slope--A Colleague Advises Me--"A Horse! a Horse!"--State of Bilbao--Don Carlos at Estella--Sanchez Bregua Recalled--Tolosa Invites--Republican Inept.i.tude--Do not Spur a Free Horse--Very Ancient Boys--Meditations in Bed--A Biscay Storm.

BARBAROSSA, who had never been over the border, suggested to me that I should take a trip to Irun, which was held by the anti-Carlists. It would be incorrect to write them down as Republicans; they were sprung from the Cristinos of the previous generation, and as such were opposed to any scion of the house against which their fathers had fought for years. All of them were _de facto_ Republicans, and had more knowledge and enjoyment of Republican freedom than those who prattled and raved of Republicanism in Madrid and the south; but they did not take kindly to the name. As my friend the late J. A. MacGahan wittily said of them--"They were the Royalist-Republicans of Spain." They were as fond of their fueros as any Carlist in the crowd, but they stood up for Madrid less that they cared for the policy or personages of the central government, than that they had a deep-seated hereditary hatred of their neighbours of the rural districts. At heart they were in favour of a restoration of the throne, and on that throne they would fain seat the young Prince of the Asturias. In those lat.i.tudes the lines of John Byrom a century before would well apply:

"G.o.d bless the King, I mean the faith's defender; G.o.d bless--no harm in blessing--the Pretender; But who Pretender is, or who is King, G.o.d bless us all--that's quite another thing!"

"If you go to Irun," said Barbarossa, stroking his moustache, "I am game to go with you."

"I am satisfied," said I; "but recollect, you undertake the job at your own risk. You are known as an a.s.sociate of Carlists, and suspected to be a Carlist agent. I am a stranger and comparatively safe."

He had weighed all that, and was ready to face possible perils. But he was not fit to undergo probable fatigues. He could sit at a green table in an ill-ventilated atmosphere the night long, but he could not walk three miles at a stretch. Neither could he (on account of his illness) venture on horseback. To effect a crossing by the railway bridge from Hendaye to Irun was out of the question; it was barrier impenetrable.

The Frenchman would not allow you to pa.s.s in your own interest; the Spaniard declined to admit you in his so-considered interest. To take the mountain-route was tedious, and in the case of Barbarossa not to be thought of; the bridge of Endarlasa was broken--a most contorted specimen of artistic dilapidation. To be sure, one could manage to creep to the other side by the submerged coping of the parapet, if endowed with the balancing powers of a rope-walker and the l.u.s.tihood of the navvy. But Barbarossa was not a Blondin, and had not a physical const.i.tution proof against a wetting. I had got across that bridge once, holding on by my teeth and nails, and retained recollection of it in a fit of the cold s.h.i.+vers; but I did not care to repeat the operation. In our dilemma, Barbarossa, who was a plucky knave, hit upon the plan which ought to have commended itself to us at first.

"Let us stray up the river-bank a few hundred yards," he said, "seize a boat, and row ourselves across."

No sooner was the proposition made than it was adopted; but we were saved from the ephemeral disgrace of posing as petty amphibious pirates, degenerate Schinderhannes of the Bida.s.soa. We saw a boat; a girl was near. The boat was her father's; she engaged to take us over for a consideration--I am certain she had set her heart on a string of straw-coloured ribbons and a sky-blue feather in a shop-window in Hendaye--and to await our return at nightfall. We arranged the signal, and stealthily stole across, drifting diagonally most of the way; and I entrusted the speculative French damsel with my revolver and my Carlist pa.s.s, and paid her a farewell compliment on her face and figure as I stepped ash.o.r.e. Giving her the revolver and pa.s.s enlisted her confidence. We strolled along with apparent carelessness, entered a posada on the road by the waterside and had refreshments. I said I should feel much obliged if they could let us have a trap to Irun and back, as we had business there, and my friend was tired and not much of a pedestrian. An open carriage was provided, and off we drove by the skirt of the hill of St. Marcial, where the Spaniards gave Soult such a dressing in 1813, pa.s.sed a series of outer defences with their covering and working parties, and entered one of the gates of the town, and never a question was asked. Ditches had been dug round the place and earthworks thrown up; but the princ.i.p.al reliance of the garrison seemed to be in loophooled breastworks made of sand-bags superimposed. Here and there were walls of loose stones--more of a danger than a protection--rude shelter-trenches, and mud-built, wattle-knitted refuges, round-topped, and disguised with branches. They had made the position strong; but they should have gone in for more spade and less stones, more mole and less beaver.

We trotted over the narrow paved street, with its flagged sidepaths, and drew up on the Plaza, overlooked by the solid square-stone mansion of the Ayuntamiento. The windows were screened with planks, and armed groups lounged in front; there were barrels of water and heaps of gravel at intervals upon the ground; memories of Paris rose to my mind--Irun was preparing for bombardment. If the Carlists had no serious artillery in fact, they had a powerful ordnance in the apprehensions of their adversaries. Perhaps this was the explanation of the rhodomontade about the batteries in _El Cuartel Real_. We were congratulating ourselves on the ease with which we had run the blockade, when an officer of the Miqueletes approached our carriage and demanded our papers. I showed my Foreign Office pa.s.sport, with the visa of the Spanish Consulate at London upon it. He gave a cursory look at it, bowed, and returned it to me. Then came the turn of Barbarossa, and there was a flash of shrewd spitefulness in his eyes.

"Your papers, senor?"

"I have none. I didn't think any were required."

"Ah! doubtless you thought Irun was in Carlist occupation. You are wrong."

"No; I knew it was not in Carlist occupation. What has that to do with me? I am an Englishman," producing a packet of letters.

"I don't want to see them. I know you. What do you want here?"

"To see a friend."

"Who is your friend?"

Barbarossa was not in the least nonplussed. He said he had heard a fellow-countryman, a comrade of his, was in the town.

"You will have to turn back the way you came, and thank your stars you are permitted."

"But I am hungry."

"And the horse wants a feed," interposed the driver, who no doubt had his own object to serve.

"Well, you may stay here for refreshment, but you must get outside our gates before dark."

We drove to the princ.i.p.al inn, where we alighted and ordered dinner.

Barbarossa sat down, and I went out to look at the place and search for a barber's shop, for I sorely needed a shave. Irun is a well-constructed town on the shelving slope of a smaller rise between Mounts Jaizquivel and Aya, not far from the coast. It has a population of some 5,000, and in ordinary years does a good trade in tiles and bricks, tanned leather, and smith's work, besides sending wood to Los Pasages for the purposes of the boat-builders. The Bida.s.soa at its base branches, and thus forms the islet of Faisanes, off which the prosperous fisherman can fill his basket with trout, salmon, and mullet, aye, and lumpish eels, if his predilections so tend.