Romantic Spain Volume II Part 8

"Long life to ye, Mr. Hinery! and make haste, the people are getting onpatient."

Santa Cruz bit his way out of the toils, however, but not so his band.

They were surrounded at Vera, caught, with a few exceptions, disarmed, a.s.sembled and addressed in Spanish by the Marquis de Valdespina, whose remarks were translated to them into Basque by the Cura of Ollo. They cried "Viva el Rey!" Their arms were subsequently restored to them, and the men were distributed among other battalions. But they still regret their old leader, and Santa Cruz is popular by the firesides of the mountaineers of Guipuzcoa. One of his mountain guns fell into the hands of Lizarraga, but the other was buried in some spot only known to himself and a few trusted companions.

During my interview I made it my business to study the priest attentively, and this is what I honestly thought of him. He was a fanatic, a sullen self-willed man with but one idea--the success of the cause; and but one ambition--that it should be said of him that it was he, Santa Cruz, who put Don Carlos on the throne of his ancestors. The globe for him was bounded by the Pyrenees and the sea; he had but one antipathy after the heretics (all who did not worship G.o.d as he did) and the Liberals, and that was Lizarraga. I considered it a mistake that Lizarraga was not the Cura of Hernialde, and Santa Cruz the Commandant-General of Guipuzcoa. The priest had a natural military instinct--I would almost go so far as to say a spice of military genius; and had he had a knowledge of the profession of arms would probably have developed into a great general of the Cossack type. His hatred to Lizarraga led him into littleness and injustice. He chuckled at the idea of Lizarraga not being able to find the buried gun, as if that were any great triumph over him; and he sneered at the idea of Lizarraga, who was not able to take Oyarzun, meditating an attempt on Tolosa. I could thoroughly understand that the Carlist priest bore malice to the officer who supplanted him and condemned him to death. But what Lizarraga did was done in compliance with the King's will. At the same time there could be no doubt that Santa Cruz was treated with scant courtesy after all he had accomplished, and had a right to feel himself ill-used, and the victim of jealous rivalry. He said that he was prepared, any day the King permitted him, to traverse the four provinces, and hold his enemies _in terrorem_ with five hundred men. And he was the very worthy to do it. He complained bitterly that three of his followers had been shot by Lizarraga. One story relates that they stole into Guipuzcoa to levy blackmail, another that they merely went to dig up some money that was interred when the legion was disbanded. In any case they appeared in arms in a forbidden district, and incurred the capital penalty. Santa Cruz went to Bordeaux to beg for their lives at the feet of Dona Margarita. She received him most graciously, and promised to send a special courier to her husband to intercede in their behalf. Before the King's reprieve could possibly have arrived the three were executed.

As we were about to leave, a colleague who was with me asked the Cura if he would permit him to visit his camp, if it came to pa.s.s that he took up arms again in Spain.

"We shall see," said Santa Cruz; "wait till I am there."

My own conviction is that the priest held correspondents in abhorrence, and that his first impulse would have been to tie a zealous one up to a tree, and have thirty-nine blows given him with a stick. Perhaps I did him wrong, but if ever he did take up arms again, it was my firm intention to be south when he was north, for he was about the last person in creation to whose tender mercies I should care to entrust myself.

CHAPTER XI.

An Audible Battle--"Great Cry and Little Wool"--A Carlist Court Newsman--A Religious War--The Siege of Oyarzun--Madrid Rebels--"The Money of Judas"--A Manifesto from Don Carlos--An Ideal Monarch--Necessity of Social and Political Reconstruction Proclaimed--A Free Church--A Broad Policy--The King for the People--The Theological Question--Austerity in Alava--Clerical and Non-Clerical Carlists--Disavowal of Bigotry--A Republican Editor on the Carlist Creed--Character of the Basques--Drill and Discipline--Guerilleros _versus_ Regulars.

WHEN a man's office is to chronicle war and he is within hearing of the echoes of battle, but cannot reach a spot from which the scene of action might be commanded, it is annoying in the extreme. Such was my strait on the 21st of August, a few days after my arrival from San Sebastian. I was at Hendaye, the border-town of France. From the Spanish frontier the report of heavy firing was audible for hours, apparently coming from a point between Oyarzun and Renteria. First one could distinguish the faint spatter of musketry, and afterwards the undeniable m.u.f.fled roar of artillery. Then came a succession of sustained rolls as of volley-firing. About noon the action must have been at its height. The distant din was subsequently to be caught only at long intervals, as if changes of position were in course of being effected; but at three o'clock it regained force, and raged with fury until five, when it suddenly died away.

I was burning with impatience, and made several unavailing attempts to cross the Bida.s.soa. The ferryman, acting under instructions from the gendarmes, refused to take pa.s.sengers. By the evening train a delegate from the Paris Society for the Succour of the Wounded arrived from Bayonne with a box of medicine and surgical appliances. He, too, was unable to pa.s.s into Spain. Meantime, rumour ran riot. Stories were current that there had been fearful losses.

"At eleven o'clock men were falling like flies," said one eye-witness, who succeeded in running away from the field before he fell.

Not a single medical man would leave France in response to the call of the Paris delegate for volunteers to accompany him. Were they all Republicans? Did they fear that Belcha might take a fancy to their probes and forcipes? Or did they look upon the big battles and tremendous lists of casualties in this most uncivil of civil wars as ill.u.s.trations of a great cry and little wool? If the latter was their notion, they were right. Three days after this serious engagement, I learned the particulars of what had taken place. General Loma, a brigadier under Sanchez Bregua, with a column of 1,500 men, came out from San Sebastian to cover a working-party while they were endeavouring to throw up a redoubt for his guns on an eminence between Irun and Oyarzun, so as to put an end to the tussle over the possession of the latter hamlet, which was a perpetual bone of contention. The Carlists fired upon him from behind the rocks in a gorge to which he had committed himself, but were outnumbered. Word was sent to the cabecilla, Martinez, at Lesaca, and he arrived with reinforcements at the double, and encompa.s.sed Loma with such a cloud of sulphurous smoke that the Republicans had to fall back upon San Sebastian. The casualties in this Homeric combat were not appalling; there was more gunpowder than blood expended. The losses on the Republican side were one killed and fifteen wounded. On the Carlist side they were less, for the Carlists kept under cover of the fern and furze. But then it must be considered that the firing only lasted nine hours!

Don Carlos was not slow in calling the printing-press to his aid. One of his first acts after his entry into his dominions was to start an official gazette, _El Cuartel Real_, the first number of which is before me as I write. I have seen queer papers in my travels, from the _Bugler_, a regimental record brought out by the 68th Light Infantry in Burmah, to the _Fiji Times_, and the _Epitaph_, the leading organ of Tombstone City, in the territory of Arizona; but this a.s.suredly was the queerest. It was published by Cristobal Perez, on the summit of Pena de la Plata, a Pyrenean peak. There might be less acceptable reading than a _resume_ of its contents.

_El Cuartel Real_ does not impose by its magnitude. It is about one-eighth the size of a London daily journal; but if it is not great by quant.i.ty it is by quality. Over the three columns of the opening page figure the three watchwords of the Royal cause, "G.o.d, Country, King."

The paragraph which has the post of honour is headed "Oficial," and has in it a flavour of the _Court Newsman_. Here it is as it appears in the original, boldly imprinted in black type:

"S. M. el Rey (q.D.g.) continua sin novedad al frente de su leal y valiente ejercito.

"S. M. la Reina y sus augustos hijos continuan tambien sin novedad en su importante salud."

As it is not vouchsafed to everyone to understand Castilian, I may as well give a rough translation, which read herewith:

"His Majesty the King (whom G.o.d guard) continues without change at the front of his loyal and valiant army.

"Her Majesty the Queen and her august children also continue without alteration in their precious health."

Then _El Cuartel Real_ appends what takes the place of its leading article--a reproduction of a letter from Don Carlos to his "august brother," Don Alfonso, setting forth the principles on which he appeals for Spanish support. This doc.u.ment is so important that I must return to it anon. Then comes a circular from the "Real Junta Gubernativa del Reino de Navarra," in session at Vera. The purport of this, epitomized in a sentence, is to raise money. Next, we arrive at the "Seccion Oficial," the most important paragraph of which announces that the Chief, Merendon, has inaugurated a Carlist movement in Toledo, with a well-armed force, exceeding 280 men--to wit, 150 hors.e.m.e.n and 130 infantry--and that he hopes shortly to gather numerous recruits. The "Seccion de Noticias" makes up the body of the paper, and is richer in information. We are told that the most excellent and ill.u.s.trious Bishop of Urgel, accompanied by several sacerdotal and other dignitaries, arrived in the town of Urdaniz, at half-past seven on the previous Wednesday evening. His Lordship rested a night in the house of the Vicar, and left the following morning, escorted by his friend and host, the said Vicar, Brigadier Gamundi, and Colonel D. Fermin Irribarren, veterans of the Carlist army, for Elisondo. From that the prelate was reported to have started to headquarters, "to salute the King of Spain, august representative of the Christian monarchy, which is the only plank of safety in the shipwreck of the country."

The _Cuartel Real_ warmly congratulates the Bishop on the fact of his having come to the conviction that "the present war is a religious war, and on that account eminently social"--(social in Spanish must have some peculiar shade of meaning unknown to strangers, for otherwise there is no sequence here)--and proceeds to speak with an eloquence that recalls that wretched Republican, Castelar, of the standard of faith in which resides Spanish honour and--here come two words that puzzle me, _la hidalguia y la caballerosidad_; but I suppose they mean n.o.bility and chivalry, and everything of that kind. The next notice in the royal gazette is purely military, and makes known that the siege of the important town of Oyarzun has begun. "On the 20th the batteries opened fire, and, according to report, the enemy had one hundred men _hors de combat_." The batteries! There is a touch of genius in that phrase.

Reading it, one would imagine that the Royalists had a royal regiment of artillery, and that eight pieces of cannon, at the very least, played upon the unfortunate Oyarzun. A jennet with a 4-pounder at its heels would be a more correct representation of the strength of the Carlist ordnance.

To resume the story of the siege of Oyarzun. "On the 21st," adds _El Cuartel Real_, "there was talk of a capitulation, and it is possible that the place has surrendered at this hour." The paragraph that succeeds it is a gem: "Of the 1,010 armed rebels in Eibar (Guipuzcoa), 210 betook themselves to San Sebastian, when they suspected the approach of the Royal forces, and the 800 remaining gave up to General Lizarraga their rifles, all of the Remington system." There is no quibble about the latter statement. The Carlists had easier ways of procuring arms than by running cargoes from England. But is there not something inimitable in the epithet "rebels"? There can be no question but that everyone is a rebel in romantic Spain--in the opinion of somebody else.

The only question is, Who are the const.i.tuted authorities? Until that is settled the editor of _El Cuartel Real_ is perfectly justified in treating the volunteers of liberty, in those districts where Charles VII. virtually reigns, as armed rebels. Although this town of Eibar had frequently risen up against the legitimate authorities named by his Majesty, it is pleasant to learn that General Lizarraga did not impose the slightest chastis.e.m.e.nt on the population, thus giving a lesson of forbearance to the "factious generals." Next we are informed that on the day the Royal forces entered Vergara, the ignominious monument erected by the Liberals in record of the greatest of treasons (the treaty between the treacherous Maroto and Espartero in 1839) was destroyed amidst enthusiasm, and the parchment in the munic.i.p.al archives commemorating its erection was taken out and burned in the public square. I may add (but this I had from private sources) that the coin dug up from under the monument was cast to the wind as the money of Judas. Navarre, continues _El Cuartel Real_, is dominated by our valiant soldiers under the skilful direction of his Majesty; Lizarraga has occupied in a few days Mondragon, Eibar, Plasencia, Azpeitia, Vergara, and other important places in Guipuzcoa, and obtained "considerable booty of war;" the standard of legitimacy is waving triumphantly in Biscay, and Bilbao is blockaded. There the tale of victory ends; but we arrive at matters not less gratifying in another sense. The distinguished engineer, Don Mariano Lana y Sarto, has been appointed to look after the repair of the bridges destroyed by Nouvilas. Don Matias Schaso Gomez, a member of the press militant, has been promoted to be a commandant for his valour at Astigarraga, and is nominated for the laurelled cross of San Fernando; and the ill.u.s.trious doctor, Senor Don Alejandro Rodriguez Hidalgo, has been named chief of the sanitary staff, and entrusted with the establishment of military hospitals.

The last paragraph in this curious little gazette, printed up amid the clouds on the summit of the Silver Hill, states that the Royal quarters were at Abarzuzu on the 17th instant, and that Estella, close by, was stubbornly resisting, but would soon be in the power of the Royalists. A column which had attempted to relieve the garrison was energetically driven back towards Lerin by two battalions commanded by his Majesty in person. But by the time _El Cuartel Real_ came under my notice Estella had fallen, and the Carlists had put to their credit a genuine success.

As the question of Carlism is still one of prominent interest--is, indeed, what the French term an "actuality," and may crop up again any day, the letter of the claimant to the throne to Don Alfonso (alluded to some sentences above) is worth translating. It is the authoritative exposition of the aims of the would-be monarch, and of the line of policy he intended to pursue should he ever take up his residence in that coveted palace at Madrid. Its date is August 23rd, 1873, and the contents are these:

"MY DEAR BROTHER,

"Spain has already had opportunities enough to ascertain my ideas and sentiments as man and King in various periodicals and newspapers. Yielding, nevertheless, to a general and anxiously expressed desire which has reached me from all parts of the Peninsula, I write this letter, in which I address myself, not merely to the brother of my heart, but without exception to all Spaniards, for they are my brothers as well.

"I cannot, my dear Alfonso, present myself to Spain as a Pretender to the Crown. It is my duty to believe, and I do believe, that the Crown of Spain is already placed on my forehead by the consecrated hand of the law. With this right I was born, a right which has grown, now that the fitting time has come, to a sacred obligation; but I desire that the right shall be confirmed to me by the love of my people. My business, henceforth, is to devote to the service of that people all my thoughts and powers--to die for it, or save it.

"To say that I aspire to be King of Spain, and not of a party, is superfluous, for what man worthy to be a king would be satisfied to reign over a party? In such a case he would degrade himself in his own person, descending from the high and serene region where majesty dwells, and which is beyond the reach of mean and pitiful triflings.

"I ought not to be, and I do not desire to be, King, except of all Spaniards; I exclude n.o.body, not even those who call themselves my enemies, for a king can have no enemies. I appeal affectionately to all, in the name of the country, even to those who appear the most estranged; and if I do not need the help of all to arrive at the throne of my ancestors, I do perhaps need their help to establish on solid and immovable bases the government of the State, and to give prosperous peace and true liberty to my beloved Spain.

"When I reflect how weighty a task it is to compa.s.s those great ends, the magnitude of the undertaking almost oppresses me with fear. True, I am filled with the most fervent desire to begin, and the resolute will to carry out, the enterprise; but I cannot hide from myself that the difficulties are immense, and that they can only be overcome by the co-operation of the men of notability, the most impartial and honest in the kingdom; and, above all, by the co-operation of the kingdom itself, gathered together in the Cortes which would truly represent the living forces and Conservative elements of Spain.

"I am prepared with such Cortes to give to Spain, as I said in my letter to the Sovereigns of Europe, a fundamental code which would prove, I trust, definitive and Spanish.

"Side by side, my brother, we have studied modern history, meditating over those great catastrophes which are at once lessons to rulers and a warning to the people. Side by side, we have also thought over and formed a common judgment that every century ought to have, and actually has, its legitimate necessities and natural aspirations.

"Old Spain stood in need of great reforms; in modern Spain we have had simply immense convulsions of overthrow. Much has been destroyed; little has been reformed. Ancient inst.i.tutions, some of which cannot be revivified, have died out. An attempt has been made to create others in their place, but scarcely had they seen the light when symptoms of death set in. So much has been done, and no more. I have before me a stupendous labour, an immense social and political reconstruction. I have to set myself to building up, in this desolated country, on bases whose solidity is guaranteed by experience, a grand edifice, where every legitimate interest and every reasonable personality can find admittance.

"I do not deceive myself, my brother, when I feel confident that Spain is hungry and thirsty for justice; that she feels the urgent and imperious necessity of a government, worthy and energetic, severe and respected; and that she anxiously wishes that the law to which we all, great and small, should be subject, should reign with undisputed sway.

"Spain is not willing that outrage or offence should be offered to the faith of her fathers, believing that in Catholicity reposes the truth she understands, and that to accomplish to the full its divine mission, the Church must be free.

"Whilst knowing and not forgetting that the nineteenth century is not the sixteenth, Spain is resolved to preserve from every danger Catholic unity--the symbol of our glories, the essence of our laws, and the holy bond of concord between all Spaniards.

"The Spanish people, taught by a painful experience, desires the truth in everything, and that the King should be a king in reality, and not the shadow of a king; and that its Cortes should be the regularly appointed and peaceful gathering of the independent and incorruptible elect of the const.i.tuencies, and not tumultuous and barren a.s.semblies of office-holders and office-seekers, servile majorities and seditious minorities.

"The Spanish people is favourable to decentralisation, and will always be so; and you know well, my dear Alfonso, that should my desires be carried out, instead of a.s.similating the Basque provinces to the rest of Spain, which the revolutionary spirit would fain bring to pa.s.s, the rest of Spain would be lifted to an equality in internal administration with those fortunate and n.o.ble provinces.

"It is my wish that the munic.i.p.ality should retain its separate existence, and the provinces likewise, proper precautions being employed to prevent possible abuses.

"My cherished thought as constant desire is to give to Spain exactly that which she does not possess, in spite of the lying clamour of some deluded people--that liberty which she only knows by name; liberty, which is the daughter of the gospel, not liberalism, which is the son of disbelief (_de la protesta_); liberty, in fine, which is the supremacy of the laws when the laws are just--that is to say, conformable to the designs of nature and of G.o.d.

"We, descendants of kings, admit that the people should not exist for the King so much as the King for the people; that a king should be the most honoured man amongst his people, as he is the first caballero; and that a king for the future should glory in the special t.i.tle of 'father of the poor' and 'guardian of the weak.'

"At present, my dear brother, there is a very formidable question in our Spain, that of the finances. The Spanish debt is something frightful to think of; the productive forces of the country are not enough to cover it--bankruptcy is imminent. I do not know if I can save Spain from that calamity; but, if it be possible, a legitimate sovereign alone can do it. An unshakable will works wonders. If the country is poor, let all live frugally, even to the ministers; nay, even to the King himself, who should be one in feeling with Don Enrique El Doliente. If the King is foremost in setting the example, all will be easy. Let ministries be suppressed, provincial governments be reduced, offices be diminished, and the administration economized at the same time that agriculture is encouraged, industry protected, and commerce a.s.sisted. To put the finances and credit of Spain on a proper footing is a t.i.tanic enterprise to which all governments and peoples should lend aid."

Here follow a repudiation of free trade as applied to Spain, and a few well-turned periods dealing in the usual Spanish manner with the duties of the ruler, laying down, among other axioms, that "virtue and knowledge are the chiefest n.o.bility," and that the person of the mendicant should be as sacred as that of the patrician.

At the close there is a very sensible sentence, affirming that one Christian monarch in Spain would be better than three hundred petty kings disputing in a noisy a.s.sembly. "The chiefs of parties," continues the letter, "naturally yearn for honours or riches or place; but what in the world can a Christian king desire but the good of his people? What could he want to be happy but the love of his people?"