MARIA CRISTINA AS REGENT AND AS WIFE OF MUÑOZ

1833

The testimony of Ferdinand to Maria Cristina’s fidelity and devotion was indeed true, and, as the Queen said afterwards to her daughter Isabel, when pleading with her not to sacrifice duty to inclination, she herself had never wavered an instant in her loyalty to the King, in spite of the difference of their ages, and the tax upon her time and temper from his bad health and exacting ways. Even a Court bristling with intrigue could find no word of complaint against the Queen in her matrimonial relations with the King; and her grief was very genuine when she found herself a widow, with her two little girls. When General Cordova came to pay his respects to the Queen, he found her weeping bitterly, and the sight of the poor woman’s tears did more to win him over to her side than any arguments of policy, so he roundly declared that as he had been loyal to the father, so he would be faithful to the daughters.

When General Prim was invested as a grandee, on his return to Spain after his glorious campaign, he declared it was his first duty to do homage to his Queen and her Ministers for having raised him to such rank that he could consort with the noblest in the land. “It is the duty of a general,” he added, “as that of every soldier, to serve his Queen and country with all possible loyalty, and therefore I will defend your rights to the throne to the last drop of my blood and the last breath of my body.”

But Maria Cristina was not always surrounded by loyal subjects, for the clerical partisans of Don Carlos made her position very precarious. Men who had declared themselves Liberals became lax in their allegiance, and her only hope of saving the crown for her child was to bend to the widespread desire for the Constitution of 1812.

The Marquis of Miraflores, who was Ambassador of Spain in England at the time of the coronation of Queen Victoria, writes:

“Hardly was the corpse of the monarch cold when the Queen-Regent did me the honour of seeing me; and it was at this critical moment that I heard her say, amid her tears and sobs: ‘Nobody desires more than I do the welfare of the Spaniards, and for that I will do all that I can; and where I do not, it will be because I cannot.’”

And Miraflores also says, in his “Contemporaneous History,” that he had himself heard the King, referring to the codicil to his will by which the throne would have gone to Don Carlos, say that, both as a King and a father, he would have done wrong had this act not been abrogated.

The outbreak of cholera in the city soon after the King’s death cast additional gloom on the capital. Cristina’s partisans declared that the clerical party had poisoned the water, and a young man who was said to have been seen throwing powder into the fountain which was then in the Puerta del Sol was assassinated on the spot. Such animosity was stirred up against the clerics that the monasteries were invaded, and the friars killed at the very altars; and these deeds were not limited to the capital. Indignation against these attacks on the clerics added force to the Carlists in the north.

Martinez Rosa’s position as Prime Minister was fraught with difficulty. It was characteristic of the courage of the Queen-Regent that in such a time of danger and dissension she calmly repaired from the Pardo to Madrid to fulfil her duty of opening the Parliament.

It was very soon after this act that Don Carlos, in defiance of all political obligations, appeared in Madrid to join his troops; and Miraflores advised the Queen putting herself at the head of her army.

The immense power of the secret societies in Spain was now seen in La Granja. The Government flattered itself that the Royal Guard, at least, was proof against the power of these unions which permeated the country, and the Queen-Regent was considered safe with her little daughters in the Palace of San Ildefonso, with its barracks flanking the fine promenade in front of the royal domain. But the secret societies had gauged the force of money, and 12,000 crowns, distributed among those who were bound in honour to defend their Sovereign, were found sufficient to cause an insurrection of six or seven hundred soldiers within the precincts of the royal palace itself.

A hundred and fifty grenadiers on horseback sought to quell the émeute, but their superior officers seemed powerless to still the ever-increasing cries of “Hurrah for the Constitution!” “Death to Quesada and San Roman!” “Hurrah for England!” Maria Cristina was terrified at this unexpected uproar at her own gates, especially when she found herself obliged to receive a deputation of sergeants and soldiers, who pressed for an audience within the palace. In this historic scene the Queen was attended by Barrio Ayuso, the Minister of Grace and Justice; the Duke of Alagon, the Captain of the Guards, who had been such a favourite of the late King; the Count of San Roman; the Marquis of Cerralbo; and the commanding officers of the regiments.

The deputation was plain and curt in its demand that the Queen-mother should at once sign the Constitution of Cadiz of 1812. Maria Cristina sought to temporize by promising that the Cortes, which was about to open, would take the matter into consideration. But the insurgents insisted on their demand, so she sent them into the antechamber whilst she consulted with her advisers in the salon.

It was two o’clock in the morning when the deputation again appeared in the presence of the Queen, and in this audience the insolent and threatening tones of the leaders were emphasized by the accompanying cries and constant gunshots of the rebels without.

In this state of things, Barrio Ayuso resigned his portfolio, and the Mayor of the place also offered his resignation; and Izaga there and then drew up and presented to the Queen for signature the following decree:

Maria Cristina read the paper, and in despair put her name to it.

The rebels were not, however, contented with Maria Cristina signing this document. They insisted on the chiefs of the palace also swearing allegiance to it in front of the banners; and then, contented with their work, the rebels finally left the palace at four o’clock in the morning.

This was one of the most bitter experiences in the life of the Queen-Regent; and Barrio Ayuso’s laconic message to Madrid—“Send help at once, or I don’t know what will befall Their Majesties”—showed that in his opinion the Royal Family was in real danger.

By permission of a hurriedly summoned Council of Ministers, General Roman summoned the troops, but enthusiastic cries for the Constitution and Liberty were mingled with “Vivas” for the Queen and the Queen-mother; and when the soldiers filed past the palace, its shuttered windows were eloquent of the terror which reigned within.

It must have been with a heavy heart that Maria Cristina waited in La Granja till the time came for her to go to Madrid, for there were divisions amid the revels as to what she was to be permitted to do. Those hundred hours of deep humiliation and disillusion as to her influence in the land left their mark upon her face. The winged figures and mythological groups of statuary in the beautiful Italian gardens of the palace must have mocked her, with their air of jubilation, as she walked to and fro on the terrace and thought over her position; and the fountain, topped with the figure of the flying Pegasus draining the goblet of joy, was symbolical of the draughts of popularity which she had quaffed, until now there was nothing but the dregs of dismay.

At last, after much discussion with the rebels, the Queen-Regent set out for Madrid, after both Villiers, the English Ambassador, and the French Minister, had frankly explained to her the danger of withstanding the evident will of the nation with regard to the Constitution.

It was at this time that the gallant Espartero appeared upon the scene. The danger threatening Madrid brought him by forced marches to the city, where he led eleven battalions and several squadrons in review before the palace.

The severe rebuke administered in the Congress by General Sevanes to the commanding officers whose sergeants had rebelled at La Granja against all royal authority led to a duel between the speaker and Captain Fernando Fernandez de Cordova, in which the General was wounded.

Madrid was soon threatened by another revolution, for Don Carlos appeared before the city, with a large number of followers, but, annoyed at the threat, 20,000 citizens armed themselves in defence of their Queens. This remarkable body of loyal subjects was reviewed in the morning on which they assembled by the Infante Don Francisco; and when the Queen-mother, accompanied by Isabel, who was then seven years old, and her little sister, drove down the lines of Royalists in the afternoon, the enthusiasm of the assembly was intense.

When Espartero arrived at Madrid, Don Carlos withdrew from the capital, and from that time the General became the most influential man in the kingdom, though he had a powerful rival in Don Ramon Maria Narvaez.

It was certain that a Government which had witnessed twice in one year peril at the hand of rebels could hardly be called successful, and Espartero thought to put it on a more secure basis by instituting military rule. He seems to have wished to act the part of a Roman military consul, and the fact of Narvaez leading eleven battalions past the Palace of Madrid aroused his jealousy to a great degree.

Don Carlos, whose wife had died in England in 1834, now, in 1838, married the Princess of Beira, and when this lady came to Madrid she boldly proclaimed herself the Queen of Spain, and the eldest son of Don Carlos the Prince of Asturias. The effect of two Courts in the country was most disastrous, and, in this fresh struggle with the Portuguese Princess, Maria Cristina did not have the support of her sister Luisa Carlota, as in the early days of her arrival in Spain, when the same lady had, with her sister, been so jealous of her popularity in Spain; for Luisa Carlota, who had, indeed, been instrumental in the marriage of Maria Cristina to King Ferdinand, and who had always been the ally of her sister, was no longer on friendly terms with her.

The main reason for this quarrel with the Queen-Regent was evidently her secret marriage with Don Fernando Muñoz, whose rapid rise in the royal favour savoured very much of that of Godoy with Queen Maria Luisa.

The story of this passion of Ferdinand’s widow is graphically told in an unpublished manuscript by a Don Fermin Caballero, who was a contemporary of the episode.

Born in 1806, in Naples, Maria Cristina had had a very poor education, as her father, Francisco I. of the Two Sicilies, and her mother, Maria Isabel, Infanta of Spain, thought that much intellectual work was unnecessary for a girl, and the rollicking, jovial maiden herself preferred the pleasures of horsemanship and hunting to any kind of brain-work.

Gossip was busy with the name of the handsome Princess in connection with that of Luchessi Bailen before her marriage with Ferdinand, but from the time she came to Spain as the wife of Ferdinand VII. until three months after his death there was not a word to be said against her, as she was a model wife and mother. Her buxom form, clad in the brown garb of a Sister of the Carmelite Order, was never absent from the bedside of her husband, and for two months after his death she duly mourned his loss.

But the reaction came. The simple, somewhat ignorant, but affectionate nature of Maria Cristina was captivated by Muñoz, who certainly could not be said to belong to the upper classes, as his parents kept a tobacco-shop; and it was as the friend of the fiancé of the dressmaker Teresita, who exercised so much power over the Queen, that the young man was found a place at Court. The Queen’s new friend was bald, common, and of poor education, but the influence of his royal patroness soon raised him to be an officer of the bodyguard.[13]

It was about five months after Ferdinand’s death that Maria Cristina impetuously took the reins of her destiny into her own hands, and on December 17, 1833, she gave voice to her intention to go to La Granja, under the escort of the Adjutant-General, Don Francisco Arteaga y Palafox, General of the Guards, the gentil hombre Carbonell, and the honoured Muñoz. By chance or by arrangement, the favourite had the place in front of the Queen, and the party proceeded on the way. But the snow was so heavy that the road from the height of Navacerrada was quite impassable, and they had to turn back, though not before the royal carriage had collided with a bullock-cart, loaded with wood, and the broken glass of one of the windows had cut the hand of the Queen.

The three gentlemen were all loud in their sympathy, but it was the handkerchief of Muñoz which Cristina accepted, and she also distinguished him by allowing him to bandage her hand. Undaunted by the return to the capital rendered necessary by reason of the weather, the Queen commanded the same party to be in attendance for the same expedition on the following day.

As Arteaga and Carbonell watched their royal mistress and Muñoz on the long drive to Segovia, they saw that this expedition, undertaken without the attendance of any lady, signified a very serious predilection on the part of the Queen for the parvenu.

The carriage finally turned from the interminable road across the plain, which separates Segovia from La Granja, into the estate of Quitapesares, whose gates open on to the Spanish chestnut-lined avenue.

When the party took a walk in the gardens in the afternoon, the Queen soon suggested some commission to Carbonell, and Arteaga was also dismissed on the plea of an umbrella being wanted from the palace.

Thus designedly left alone with Muñoz, the Queen soon made known to him her royal favour.

“Who is a greater prisoner than a Princess?” the Queen may have exclaimed, says Don Fermin Caballero, “for she can never descend to the honest level of an ordinary woman to show her feelings and her inclinations with the honourable liberty dictated by the noble sentiment of her heart? Why should the glitter of a crown oblige me to stifle the purest and most disinterested feelings, which must necessarily bring upon me the disdain of those of my rank and the murmurs of the multitude? Do not let my words surprise and shock you, Fernando. My young heart requires a solace for the onerous weight of my affairs. It longs for the contact of a living soul to assuage the continual pain caused by the ambition of men and their party interests. It can never be said that in search of this consolation I turned my eyes to the brilliant position of a royal personage, or to the support of any of the great captains who defend my daughter’s throne, or to the influence of any of those occupied with the cares of the State. No, modest in my aspirations, and only obedient to the impulses of my heart, I have fixed upon a modest soldier in whose sympathy I believe I can trust. Yes, Ferdinand Muñoz, nothing need restrain you from accepting the hand of the Queen-Regent of Spain, who is disposed to grant it you.”

“Your hand as a wife?” asked Muñoz in astonishment. And Cristina replied: “What else do you think? Have I, like other unhappy Princesses, prostituted the throne by the caprice of a disordered appetite? Did you imagine, at the commencement of my discourse, that for the satisfaction of a voluptuous feeling I pursued gallantry to the injury of honesty? Did you think that I did not foresee from the first that religion must sanctify the bond which I desire? Is she, who was chaste and severe as the wife of Ferdinand, to be wanting in morality as his widow? My heart is only vexed that State reasons prevent my making public my modest inclinations.”

The soldier knelt in gratitude and adoration before the Queen who had distinguished him in such an unmerited fashion.

So when Cristina was satisfied with the result of her declaration, she took one or two others into her confidence, and on December 28, 1833, the morganatic marriage of the widowed Queen with the gentil hombre Don Fernando Muñoz took place at ten o’clock in the morning, the witnesses being Herrera y Acebedo and the cleric Gonzalez, who left a bed of sickness to perform the ceremony. Teresa Valcarcel and a lady in retreat called Antonia were the other witnesses of the rite.

The fact of this event, if not actually known by all the Court, was surmised, for Muñoz was seen wearing the cravat pins of the late Ferdinand; he had a room in the palace, a magnificent carriage; he dined with the Queen, and he was seen driving with her as an equal; moreover, he was created Duke of Rianzares, decorated with the Order of the Golden Fleece, and raised to the rank of grandee of the first order.

It was certainly a marriage which, if wanting in class distinction, was not failing in morality. The Queen-mother was now so taken up with “Fernando VIII.,” as he was called, that she preferred the more private life of the royal country-seats to that of the palace of the capital. So on March 15, 1834, we find her at Aranjuez, at Carabanchel on June 11, and then at La Granja, whose beautiful gardens formed a fitting scene for the happiness she had found with Muñoz. It was at Pardo that her child was born, and to an affectionate nature like Cristina’s the obedience to the law of circumstances, which took the baby from the mother’s arms, cost her many a tearful and sleepless night. The little daughter was confided to the care of the widow of the administrator Villarel, who had settled at Segovia, and for this reason La Granja was the favourite resort of the Queen-Regent, as she could have her child brought to her to Quitapesares, the beautiful estate on the road to the palace, where she had wooed its father.

Doña Teresa Valcarcel, the daughter of the Court dressmaker, was, as we have said, the great confidante of Queen Maria Cristina, and it was as her friend that she first met Muñoz, who soon exercised such a fascination over her.

When Teresa accompanied the Queen to Bayonne, she sent letters to her mother with the official correspondence, and the well-known leader of a gang of thieves, Luis Candelas, having discovered this fact, determined, with the complicity of a man in the employment of the dressmaker, to turn the fact to his advantage. Calling one day in the uniform of an official, the servant introduced him as an agent of the French post. The dressmaker was rather astonished at the visit, but she admitted him. Hardly had he entered the room than he was followed by others, and Candelas declared he had come to inspect the place. This act the dressmaker declared was illegal except in presence of the Mayor. Then, casting off all disguise, the robber and his gang proceeded to pillage the place, pocketing all the jewels and money they could find. Two ladies who called at this time were bound and gagged like the modiste and her workers.

The robbery proved considerable, and the fact of its having taken place in the house of the Queen’s dressmaker led to strong steps being taken for the capture of this Spanish Robin Hood. For be it known, that although the adventurer openly took all he could lay hands on, he never shed blood or injured anybody if he could help it.

The efforts of justice were successful, and the fact of the robbery being connected with the correspondence of the Queen-Regent led to the removal of the scourge from the capital, for hitherto the police of Madrid paid little heed to these open attacks against the safety and the property of the citizens.

Candelas was publicly hanged on December 6, 1837, but his partner in his burglarious campaigns escaped.

Of course, the luxurious carriage in which the child visited its mother, and the care which attended the drive from Segovia, opened the eyes of the people to the relation between Cristina and her little visitor, and the coach would be followed by cries of “There goes the Queen’s daughter!”

In the revolution of the sergeants in August, 1836, Muñoz was in the Palace of La Granja, but he did not make his appearance on the scene, as he was not supposed to be there. The apartments in which he spent his time with his wife were commonly termed “Muñoz’s cage,” and on the night of the insurrection he escaped from the royal domain by the channels and conduits of the fountains.

But the time spent thus with Muñoz in the royal retreats was not of unmixed joy; for whilst the Queen sought to please her husband and his relation by playing lottery with them, or battledore and shuttlecock with the chaplain, Muñoz soon showed that he preferred going out after pretty girls with the Duke of San Carlos. Naturally this conduct fired the heart of the Queen-Regent with jealousy, and, woman-like, she gave vent to her pique by allowing a play called “Making Love to a Wig” to be acted in the Conservatoire of Fine Arts, for the play made humorous allusions to the baldness of Muñoz.

The disaffection of her sister, the Infanta Luisa Carlota, was a fresh trouble to Maria Cristina, who was experiencing so many disillusions both in her private and public life. Naturally the sister, who had been so proud of the position to which she had been instrumental in bringing the Queen, was much aggrieved at the wild fancy shown for Fernando Muñoz. She called Cristina the “Muñonista,” and, in virtue of what she termed the nullity of Cristina’s position to be guardian to her daughter, she proposed herself and her husband as those fitted for the office. This fact outraged the poor Queen-Regent both as a wife and as a mother, and her anger was shown by her declining to authorize the appointment of her brother-in-law, Don Francisco de Paula, as a senator.

Thus war between the sisters was declared, and Luisa Carlota sought by every means to enlist the support of the powerful Espartero in her favour.

At this time there was some talk of the marriage of Isabel with a Prince of the House of Coburg. The report was without foundation; but the Infante Don Francisco sent for the Spanish Ambassador in Paris, and made a solemn declaration of his disfavour to any project of the Princess marrying with any but a Spaniard. The Ambassador was accompanied in the interview by his secretary, and he sent the Infante’s message to Madrid, adding his own opinion in its favour, and this was echoed by the Queen and the Government.

In the meantime Don Carlos was obliged by the foreign diplomats and Vergara to retire to the frontier of Spain, so the country once more settled down under the Queen.

But Espartero was the ruling power. The soldier who, but six short years before, had arrived in Madrid to take his orders as a brigadier officer was now Captain-General of the Army, Count of Luchana, Duke of Victoria and Morella, held decorations of the highest order, including that of the Golden Fleece, and was a grandee of Spain.

The enthusiasm for Espartero was unbounded, for not only was the country grateful for the way he had led the royal troops to the rout of the Carlist companies in the North, and thus put an end to the long Seven Years’ Civil War, but he represented the Progressive party, which was favoured by England.

Queen Maria Cristina wished to share the popularity of the hero, and so she arranged to meet him at Lerida, on her way to Barcelona, under the pretext that sea-baths were required for her daughter Isabella. In the interview with the General, the Queen suggested that he should take the post of Prime Minister; but this honour the soldier declined, unless the Congress were closed and the Bill for the election of the Mayors of the Corporations by royal order abandoned, as it was contrary to the Constitution of 1837. These conditions the Queen declined, and she did not see Espartero again until he entered the Catalonian capital in triumph, after giving the final blow to Carlism by the rout of Cabrera at Berga. The ovation given to the General was tremendous. “Viva Espartero! Viva la Constitution! Down with the Law of the Corporations! Down with the Government!” came the cries from the people.

The Queen-Regent was alarmed, and it is said on good authority that she sent for the Count of Lucena, the bizarre Don Leopold O’Donnell, and told him of the difficulty.

“Well, you have only to send for a company of grenadiers to shoot Espartero,” said the leader of the Moderate party; to which Maria Cristina returned: “Be silent! You frighten me.”

At last the military hero arrived at the palace, which then stood where there are now some little houses, opposite the old Custom-house.

The interview seems to have been somewhat stormy. Maria Cristina is reported to have said: “I have made you a Count, and I have made you a Duke, but I cannot make you a gentleman.”[14]

At last the Queen-Regent had to submit, and she had to agree to the conditions under which Espartero was willing to accept the post of Prime Minister.

On August 21 there was a meeting in Barcelona for the purpose of manifesting loyalty to Maria Cristina, and when the Queen-Regent appeared in her carriage, with her little daughters, the leaders of the meeting exclaimed: “This is the true expression, lady, of the opinions of Barcelona!” It was commonly known as the “frock-coat meeting,” as it consisted of those of a superior class; but the confusion caused by the “blouse” people led to a cessation of the cries of “Viva la Reina!” The matter would have blown over if Francisco Balmes, a lawyer partisan of the Queen-Regent, and Manuel Bosch de Torres, had not been shot in a street fray on the following day.

Then, unfortunately for Maria Cristina, she acted under the advice of the French Ambassador, M. de Redotte, who came to pay her his respects in the Palace of Barcelona, and declined to dissolve the Cortes or to withdraw the project for the Corporation elections by royal decree.

Maria Cristina was evidently now very unpopular, and the press was full of calumnious attacks about her secret marriage with Muñoz.

When, moreover, the Ministry suggested that the Queen’s post as Regent should be shared with Espartero, the Prime Minister, she proudly declared that, as she had decided to go abroad, it could be given to whom they thought fit.

The scene was worthy of Maria Cristina as Queen and mother. Fate had been against her. She had failed where success had seemed so easy, and the most dignified thing was to leave the field to him who, she declared, whilst pretending to maintain her influence, had never ceased to undermine it. So on August 28 the Queen-Regent left Barcelona for Valencia, without even bidding farewell to the Corporation.

The parting between the Queen-mother and her little girls was very sad, and, while going in the carriage of Espartero’s wife down to the port, she was eloquent in her injunctions to the General to protect her fatherless children; and when the ship left the port, it was to leave Espartero practically master of the situation.

The triumph of Espartero was accentuated by the banquet given in his honour on August 30, when he was given a crown of gold laurel-leaves.

From Valencia Maria Cristina strove to form a new Ministry, but, though she would not accept the Progressists’ programme, she was finally obliged to put the reins of power in Espartero’s hands, who was proclaimed in Madrid sole Regent of Spain; whilst Maria Cristina left her land for France. The well-known General O’Donnell accompanied his royal mistress into exile, and remained with her till Espartero’s overthrow in 1843.

So it was on October 12, 1840, that the royal children returned to Madrid for the opening of Parliament under the new condition of affairs, in which Espartero was Regent. It was said that he had the same solicitous affection for the little Queen and her sister as he had for his own children. He certainly did well in appointing Don Manuel José Quintana, the illustrious poet, as preceptor to the Queen his charge, Agustin Argüelles as tutor-guardian, and Martin de los Heros as steward of the royal household.

When Espartero had the Regency in his hands, he was practically ruler of the whole country, and this supremacy of an officer whose ideas of military rule left little room for constitutional liberty was bitterly resented by some of the other generals. La Concha, Leon, and O’Donnell, formed the bold idea of getting possession of the persons of the young Princesses, so as to use them as a lever for a less autocratic form of government. Espartero was also opposed by the Carlists, and before many months had gone the bold design was formed, by the disaffected chief, of getting hold of the royal children, and putting them in the hands of the Moderate party, under Maria Cristina, who was under the protection of the French.