Théophile Gautier

Travels in Spain (Voyage en Espagne, 1840)

Parts VII to IX - Madrid

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Part VII: The Bullfight – Sevilla the Picador – The Estocada (Death-Blow) known as Vuela Pies
Part VIII: The Prado – The Mantilla and the Fan – The Spanish Type – Water-Sellers; The Cafés of Madrid – Newspapers – The Politics of the Puerta de Sol – The Post-Office – The Houses of Madrid – Evening Gatherings (Tertulias) – Spanish Society – The Prince’s Theatre – The Queen’s Palace, that of the National Assembly, and the Monument Commemorating the Second of May 1808 – The Armoury – The Parque de Buen Retiro – Goya
Part IX: The Escorial – The Thieves

Part VII: The Bullfight – Sevilla the Picador – The Estocada (Death-Blow) known as Vuela Pies

Nonetheless, we still had to wait two days for the bullfight. Never did the hours seem longer to me, and to overcome my impatience I reread, more than ten times, the poster, copies of which were affixed to the corners of the main streets; this poster promised mountains and marvels: eight bulls from the most famous pastures; Sevilla and Antonio Rodriguez, as picadors; Juan Pastor, also called el Barbero, and Arjona Guillen, known as Cúchares, as espadas; all with a notice prohibiting the audience from throwing orange peel into the arena, or other projectiles capable of harming the bullfighters.

In Spain, the word matador, to designate the one who kills the bull, is rarely employed; he is termed the espada (sword), which is a nobler name possessing greater character; nor does one say toreador, but rather torero. I am giving, in passing, this useful information to those who seek to add local colour to their romances and comic-operas. Our bullfight was a media corrida, a half-corrida, since in the past there used to be two, every Monday, one in the morning, the other at five in the afternoon, which made up the entire corrida (coursing of the bulls): the afternoon corrida alone is still performed.

It has been said, and repeated, on all sides, that the taste for the bullfight is waning in Spain, and that civilisation will soon render such events obsolete; if so, it will nonetheless be mourned, as the bullfight is one of the greatest spectacles that can be imagined; but that day has not yet arrived, and sensitive writers who declare the opposite only need to visit the Puerto de Alcalá on a Monday, between four and five o’clock, to convince themselves that the taste for this savage entertainment is not about to be lost as yet.

Monday, the day of the bulls, dia de toros, is a public holiday; no one remains at work, the whole town is in uproar; those who have not yet purchased a seat stride towards the Calle de Carretas, where the ticket office is located, in the hope of securing a vacant place; since, in an arrangement that cannot be praised enough, the enormous amphitheatre is divided into stalls and numbered throughout, a practice that should be imitated in the theatres of France. Calle de Alcalá, which is the artery into which the city’s populous streets discharge, is filled by pedestrians, horse-riders and carriages; it is for this solemn ritual that the most baroque and extravagant calessines and carioles emerge from their dusty sheds, and the most fantastic teams, the most phenomenal mules, come to light. The calessines recall the corricoli (curricles) of Naples: large red wheels, a box without springs, decorated with more or less allegorical paintings, and lined with old damask or tired serge with fringes and frays of silk, achieving a certain rococo air to most entertaining effect; the driver sits on the bench, from where he can harangue, and apply his cane to, his mule at his ease, thus leaving more room for that practice. The mule is adorned with as many feathers, pompoms, tassels, fringes and bells as can be attached to the harness of any quadruped. A calessine usually also contains a manola and her female friend, with her manolo, without prejudice to a bunch of muchachos hanging from the rear. All this flies along like the wind in a tornado of screams and dust. There are also carriages drawn by four or five mules whose equivalents can only be found in the paintings of Adam Frans van der Meulen representing the conquests and hunting expeditions of Louis XIV. Every vehicle is involved, because the great thing among the manolas, who are the grisettes of Madrid, is to travel in a calessine to the Plaza de Toros; they pawn their mattresses to have money for the day, and, without being exactly virtuous the rest of the week, are certainly much less so on Sundays and Mondays. One also sees country-folk arriving on horseback, rifles on their saddles; others alone, or with their wives, on donkeys; all this without counting the carriages of the society people, and a crowd of honest townspeople and señoras in mantillas who hasten onwards; for here is a detachment of the National Guard advancing on horseback, trumpets to their lips, to clear the arena, and not for anything in the world would we wish to miss the emptying of the arena, and the precipitous flight of the alguazil, after throwing the lad in charge the key to the toril where the horned gladiators are imprisoned. The toril faces the matadero, where the slaughtered creatures are skinned. The bulls are brought, on the previous evening and night, to a meadow near Madrid, which is called el arroyo, the destination for aficionados on foot, a walk not without some danger; for the bulls roam freely, and their drivers have a hard time restraining them. Thence they are delivered to the encierro (the arena’s stable), using mature oxen, accustomed to that function, mixed in with the savage herd.

The Plaza de Toros is located on the left, outside the Puerto de Alcalá which, incidentally, is a rather beautiful gate, in the style of a triumphal arch, with trophies and other heroic ornaments; the plaza is an enormous arena appearing nothing remarkable on the outside, whose walls are whitewashed; as everyone buys their ticket in advance, entry takes place without the slightest disorder. Everyone climbs to their place and seats themselves according to their number.

Here follows the interior layout. Around the arena, of truly Roman grandeur, runs a circular barrier, made of planks six-feet in length painted oxblood-red and decorated on each side, which is about two feet from the ground, with a wooden ledge, on which the chulos and banderilleros place their feet in order to jump to the other side when they are pressed too hard by the bull. This barrier is called las tablas. It is pierced with four doors, serving for the entry of the bulls, the removal of carcasses, etc. Behind this barrier, there is another one, a little higher, which forms, with the first, a kind of corridor where tired chulos stand; the picador sobre-saliente (the replacement), who must always be there fully dressed and fully caparisoned in case his leader is injured or killed; the cachatero; and a few aficionados who, through sheer perseverance, manage, despite the regulations, to slip into this blissful corridor whose entrances are as much sought after in Spain as those to the backstage of the Opéra in Paris.

As the exasperated bull often penetrates the first barrier, the second is also furnished with a rope-net intended to prevent a second lunge; several carpenters equipped with axes and hammers stand ready to repair any damage that may result to the fences, so that accidents are virtually impossible. However, we saw bulls of muchas piernas (strong-legged), as they are technically called, penetrating the second barrier, as evidenced by an engraving from La Tauromaquia of Goya, the famous creator of Los Capricos; an engraving (number twenty-one) which represents the death of the mayor of Torrejón de Ardoz, miserably skewered by a rampant bull.

From this second enclosure rise the stands intended for the spectators: those which are near the ropes are called barrera places, those in the middle tendido, and the others which back onto the first row of grada cubiertas, take the name of tabloncillos. These stands, which recall those of the amphitheatres of Rome, are made of bluish granite, and have no other roof than the sky. Immediately after come the covered places, gradas cubiertas, which are divided as follows: delantera, the front; centro, the middle; and tabloncillo, the rear. Above, rise the lodges called palcos, and palcos por asientos, to the number of a hundred and ten. These boxes are large and can accommodate around twenty people. The palco por asientos offers this difference from the simple palco, that you occupy a single seat, like a balcony stall at the Opéra. The boxes of la Reina Gobernadora y de la inocente Isabel are adorned with silk draperies and hidden by curtains. Next to them is the box belonging to the ayuntamiento (municipality) which has charge of the place, and is obliged to resolve any difficulties that arise.

The arena, thus organised, contains twelve thousand spectators, all seated at ease and with a perfect view, something essential in a purely ocular spectacle. The immense enclosure is always full, and those who cannot get sombra seats (places in the shade) would rather be cooked alive on the stands in the sun than miss a bullfight. It is de rigueur, for people who pride themselves on elegance, to have their box at the Taureaux, as in Paris, a box at Le Théâtre des Italiens.

On emerging from the corridor to find my seat, I felt a sort of dazzled vertigo. Torrents of light flooded the arena, for the sun has a superior lustre and the advantage of not shedding oil, which gas itself will not eclipse for a long time yet. An immense murmur floated above the arena, like a mist of noise. On the sunlit side, thousands of fans and small round parasols fixed to reed-sticks throbbed and sparkled; it looked like a swarm of birds of varying colour attempting to take flight: there was not a single empty space. I assure you that it is a more than admirable spectacle to view twelve thousand spectators in a theatre so vast that only the deity can paint its ceiling that splendid blue drawn from the urn of eternity.

The National Guards on horseback, very well mounted and very well dressed, toured the arena, preceded by two alguazils in costume, with plumes and hats in the style of Henri IV, black jerkins and capes, and riding boots, chasing before them a few stubborn aficionados and a few stray dogs. The arena remaining empty, the two alguazils went to seek out the toreros, consisting of the picadores, the chulos, the banderilleros and the espada, the main actor in the drama, who made their entrance to the sound of a fanfare. The picadores rode horses which had been blindfolded, as the sight of the bull could frighten them and cause a dangerous situation for them all. The picador’s costume is very picturesque: it consists of a short jacket, which does not button, of orange, crimson, green or blue velvet, burdened with gold or silver embroidery, sequins, piping, fringes, filigree buttons and decorations of all kinds, especially on the shoulder pads where the fabric completely disappears under a luminous and phosphorescent jumble of intertwined arabesques; a waistcoat in the same style, a frilled shirt, a colourful and carelessly knotted tie, a silk belt, and tawny buffalo-skin pants padded, and lined with sheets of metal internally, like a postilion’s boots, to defend the legs against blows from the bull’s horns; a grey hat (sombrero) with an enormous brim, low in shape, embellished with an enormous tuft of favours; a large bun, or cadogan of black ribbons, which is called, I believe, a moño, and which ties the gathered hair behind the head, completes the adjustment. The picador’s weapon is an iron-shod spear with a point one or two inches long; this spear is unable to cause the bull any grievous harm, but is enough to irritate and deter it. An inch of leather tailored to the picador’s hand prevents the spear from slipping; the saddle is very high in front and behind, and resembles the steel-clad harness in which knights of the Middle Ages were encased for tournaments; the stirrups are made of wood and form sabots, like Turkish stirrups; a long iron spur, sharp as a dagger, arms the horseman’s heel; to direct the horses, often only half-alive, no ordinary spur would be sufficient.

Sevilla the Picador

The chulos possess a very agile and gallant air, in their short satin breeches, green, blue or pink, embroidered with silver on all the seams, their white or flesh-coloured silk stockings, their jackets decorated with designs and motifs, their tight belts, and their hats, monteras, tilted coquettishly towards the ear; They bear cloth capes (capas) on their arm, which they unfurl, and flutter in front of the bull to irritate, dazzle, or confuse it. They are well-shaped, lean and slender young people unlike the picadores who are generally noted for their tall height and athletic shape: some require strength, others agility.

The banderilleros wear a similar costume, their specialty consisting of planting sticks equipped with iron barbs, and embellished with strips of paper, into the shoulders of the bull; these pointed darts are called banderillas, and are intended to revive the bull’s fury, and arouse in him the degree of exasperation needed for him to present himself correctly to the matador’s sword. The banderillero must set two banderillas in place at a time, and to do this must pass both of his arms between the horns of the bull, a delicate operation during which any distraction might prove dangerous.

The espada differs from the banderilleros only in his richer, more decorative costume, sometimes of purple silk, a colour particularly displeasing to the bull. His weapons are a long sword with a hilt in the form of a cross, and a piece of scarlet cloth sewn onto a transverse rod; the technical name for this kind of fluttering shield is a muleta.

Here then you have the theatre and the actors; we will now display them in action.

The picadores escorted by the chulos first salute the box belonging to the ayuntamiento from which the keys of the toril are thrown down to them; the keys are collected, and handed to the alguazil, who takes them to the lad appointed for the fight, who races away at full speed; all this amid the jeers and cries of the crowd, since the alguazils, like all the representatives of government, are hardly more popular in Spain than are the gendarmes and city officials among us. Meanwhile, the two picadores place themselves to the left of the gates of the toril which faces the queen’s box, since the exit of the bull is one of the most interesting features of the bullfight; they are posted at a short distance from each other, leaning against the tablas, secure in their saddles, spears in hand, and prepared to receive the savage beast in a most valiant manner; the chulos and banderilleros remain at a distance or scatter themselves about the arena.

All these preparations, which take longer to describe than in reality, ignite one’s interest to the highest degree. All eyes are fixed anxiously on the fatal door, and among these twelve thousand glances there is not one turned in any other direction. The most beautiful woman on earth would scarcely receive a glance at that moment.

I admit that, for my part, my heart was gripped as if by an invisible hand; my temples were moist, and hot and cold sweats ran down my back. It was one of the strongest emotions I have ever felt.

A loud fanfare sounded, the two red doors were released with a crash, and the bull rushed into the arena amidst an immense cry from the audience.

The bull was a superb animal, almost completely black and gleaming, with an enormous dewlap, a square muzzle, sharp and polished crescent-shaped horns, slender legs, and a tail constantly in motion, bearing between his shoulders a tuft of colourful ribbons of his Ganaderia (cattle-ranch), fixed into the hide with a needle. He stopped for a second, sniffed the air two or three times, dazzled by the broad daylight, and astounded at the tumult; then, spotting the first picador, he rushed towards him at a gallop with furious momentum.

Sevilla, was the picador so attacked. I cannot resist the pleasure of describing here the renowned Sevilla, truly the ideal of his kind. Imagine a man about thirty years old, with a grand manner and fine figure, robust as a Hercules, swarthy as a mulatto, with superb eyes and a physiognomy like one of Titian’s Caesars; the expression of jovial and disdainful serenity which reigned in his features and his posture, in truth, possessed something heroic. On that day, he was wearing an orange jacket embroidered and interlaced with silver, which remains inscribed in my memory in indelible detail: he lowered the point of his spear, stood stock still, and withstood the shock of the bull so impressively, that the savage beast staggered, and passed by, bearing a wound which soon streaked his black hide with crimson; he halted, seeming uncertain, for a few moments, then rushed with added rage upon the second picador posted some distance away.

Antonio Rodriguez dealt the bull a good blow of the spear, which opened a second wound immediately adjoining the first, since one must only stab at the shoulder; but the bull returned on him headlong and plunged its entire horn into the horse’s belly. The chulos came running, shaking their capes, and the foolish beast, attracted and distracted by this new bait, began to chase them at full speed; but the chulos, setting foot on the ledge of which we have spoken, jumped lightly over the barrier, leaving the animal most surprised at their vanishing.

The blow from the bull’s horn had split the horse’s belly, so that its entrails spilled out and flowed almost to the ground; I thought the picador would retire to mount another: not in the least; he touched the animal’s ear to see if the blow was likely to be fatal. The horse was only unseamed; the wound, though dreadful to look on, could be healed; they replaced the intestines in the horse’s belly, added two or three stitches, and the poor creature was fit for another bout. The rider gave him the spur, and, after a brief gallop, placed himself further away.

The bull began to comprehend that little more than a spear thrust was to be gained from the picadores, and felt the desire to return to his pasture. Instead of charging without hesitation, he returned, after a few paces, to his querencia with an air of imperturbable obstinacy; the querencia, in terms of the art of the bullfight, is any corner of the place that the bull chooses to rest in, and to which he always returns after having attempted the cogida; a goring by the bull is termed the cogida, while the torero’s pass is termed the suerte, or diestro.

A swarm of chulos came, waving brightly coloured capas before the bull’s gaze; one of them pushed his insolence so far as to cover the bull’s head with his rolled-up cape, which thus resembled the sign outside Le Bœuf à la Mode, which everyone in Paris must have noted. The furious bull rid himself of this untimely ornament as best he could, and sent the innocent fabric flying into the air, trampling it in rage when it fell to the ground. Taking advantage of his increased wrath, a chulo began to taunt him and draw him towards the picadores; finding himself face to face with his enemies, the bull hesitated, then, choosing his target, rushed on Sevilla with so much force that the horse rolled over with all four shoes in the air, for Sevilla’s arm proved a buttress of bronze that nothing could move. Sevilla fell beneath the horse, which is for the best, since the man is protected from a blow from the bull’s horn, and the body of his mount serves as a shield. The chulos intervened, and the horse was left with only a cut to the thigh. Sevilla was helped to his feet, and returned to the saddle with perfect tranquility. The horse ridden by Antonio Rodriguez, the other picador, was less fortunate: it received such a violent blow in the chest that the horn sank in up to the hilt, and vanished entirely within the wound. While the bull tried to free his head from the horse’s body, Antonio clung with his hands to the edge of the tablas which he traversed with the help of the chulos, since the picadores, once unhorsed, weighed down by the steel fitments of their boots, can no more move than could Medieval knights encased in their armour.

The poor horse, left to his own devices, began to stagger across the arena, as if he were drunk, entangling his feet in his bowels; streams of black blood gushed impetuously from his wound, and streaked the sand with intermittent zigzags which betrayed the unevenness of his gait; finally, he approached, and collapsed close to, the tablas. He raised his head two or three times, rolling one already glazed blue eye, drawing back his lips whitened with foam, which revealed his bony teeth; his tail beat weakly on the earth; his hind feet moved convulsively and launched a last kick, as if he wanted to break the dense skull of death with his hard hoof. His agony was barely over when the muchachos on duty, seeing the bull was occupied elsewhere, ran to remove the saddle and bridle. The horse remained lying on his side, disembowelled, and forming a dark silhouette on the sand. He was so thin, so flattened, that one might have taken him for a cut-out made of black paper. I had already noted, at Montfaucon, what strangely fantastic forms horses take in death: without doubt, the corpse of such a creature is the saddest one can view. The head, so nobly and purely structured, now gripped and laid flat by the dreadful hand of nothingness, seems as if once inhabited by human thought; the dishevelled mane, the outspread tail, have something picturesque and poetic about them. A dead horse is a corpse; any other animal whose life is spent merely a carcase.

I emphasise the death of the horse, because it delivered the most painful sensation I experienced while watching the bullfight. It was not, however, the only victim: fourteen horses occupied the arena that day; a single bull killed five of them.

The picador returned with a fresh horse, and there were several more or less successful exchanges. But the bull began to tire and his fury to subside; the banderilleros arrived with their barbed darts lined with paper, and soon the bull’s neck was adorned with a collar of these, which the efforts he made to free himself fixed even more immovably. A little banderillero, named Majaron, thrust in his darts with great delight and audacity, and sometimes even beat an entrechat with his feet before retiring; he was therefore greatly applauded. When the bull had seven or eight banderillas trailing from him, whose iron barbs tore his hide and whose paper rustled in his ears, he began to run here and there, bellowing frightfully. His black muzzle was white with foam, and, in the intoxication of his rage, he dealt such harsh blows with his horn against one of the doors that he sent it flying from its hinges. The carpenters, who followed his movements with their gaze, immediately replaced it; a chulo attracted the bull from another direction, and was pursued so vigorously that he barely had time to leap the barrier. The bull, exasperated and enraged, made a prodigious effort and rode over the tablas. Those who found themselves in the corridor leapt about where they were with marvellous agility, and the bull was returned to the arena through another door, driven back with canes and hats by the spectators in the front row.

The picadores withdrew, leaving the field open to the espada, Juan Pastor (‘El Barbero’), who went to salute the box belonging to the ayuntamiento, and ask permission to kill the bull; permission being granted, he threw his hat, his montera, in the air, as if to show that he was going to exert his all, and marched towards the bull with a deliberate step, concealing his sword beneath the red folds of his muleta.

The espada fluttered the scarlet cloth, towards which the bull was blindly rushing, several times; a slight movement of his body was enough for him to avoid the momentum of the fierce beast, which soon returned to the charge, violently butting its head against the light fabric which it moved without being able to pierce it. The favourable moment having arrived, the espada placed himself straight in front of the bull, waving his muleta with his left hand, and holding his sword horizontally, the point at the height of the animal’s horns; it is difficult to convey in words the degree of interest, full of anguish, the frenetic attention which this situation arouses, one worth all of Shakespeare’s dramas; in a few moments, one of the two actors will be killed. Will it be the man, or the bull? They are both there, face to face, alone; the man has no defensive armour; he is dressed as if for a ball, in pumps and silk stockings; a woman’s pin would pierce his satin jacket; he possesses a scrap of cloth, a frail sword, that is all. In this duel, the bull has all the material advantage: he has two dreadful horns, sharp as daggers, immense power when in motion, the anger of a brute unaware of danger; yet the man has his sword, and his courage, and twelve thousand eyes fixed on him; and beautiful young women will soon applaud him, with the tips of their white fingers!

The muleta was moved aside, leaving the matador’s chest exposed; the bull’s horns were only an inch from his chest; I thought him lost! A flash of silver passed, with the rapidity of thought, between the twin crescents; the bull fell to his knees uttering a bellow of pain, with the hilt of the sword between his shoulders, like Saint Hubert’s stag bearing a crucifix between the base of its antlers as represented in that marvellous engraving by Albrecht Durer.

Thunderous applause echoed throughout the amphitheatre; the palcos of the nobility, the gradas cubiertas of the bourgeoisie, the tendido of the manolos and manolas, erupted, and vociferated, with all the ardour and exuberance of the south: Bueno! Bueno! Viva El Barbero! Viva!!!

The blow that the espada had just delivered is, in fact, highly esteemed and is called the estocada a vuela piés: the bull dies without losing a drop of blood, which is the height of elegance, and falling to his knees seems to recognise the superiority of his opponent. The aficionados (dilettanti) claim that the inventor of this move was Joaquín Rodríguez Costillares, a famous bullfighter of the eighteenth century.

If the bull does not die instantly, one sees a small mysterious fellow, dressed in black, leap the barrier; one who has taken no part in the preceding events: he is the cachetero. He advances in a furtive manner, observes the bull’s final convulsions, determines if he is still capable of rising, which is sometimes the case, and treacherously thrusts into him, from behind, a cylindrical dagger tipped with a lance-head, which severs the spinal cord, and ends the bull’s life with the speed of lightning; the correct placement is behind the head a few inches from the base of the horns.

Military music announced the death of the bull; one of the doors opened, and four mules magnificently harnessed, with plumes, bells, woollen tassels, and small yellow and red flags, in the colours of Spain, trotted into the arena. This team is equipped to remove the carcasses which are attached to the end of a rope fitted with a grappling-iron. First the horses were dragged away, then the bull. Those four brightly-adorned and sonorous mules which drew over the sand, at a furious speed, all those corpses which had themselves been racing about so furiously a moment ago, had a strange wild appearance, which somewhat concealed the lugubrious nature of their function; a lad arrived with a basket of earth which he sprinkled on the pools of blood in which the bullfighters’ feet might slip. The picadores resumed their places next to the door, the orchestra played a fanfare, and another bull rushed into the arena; because this show has no interval, nothing delays it, not even the death of a torero. As I have said, their understudies are already there fully dressed and armed in case of accident. It is not my intent to recount, successively, the death of the eight bulls which were sacrificed that day; but I will mention a few noteworthy variants and incidents.

The bulls are not always so ferocious; some are even quite gentle and ask nothing better than to lie down quietly in the shade. One perceives, from their honest and good-natured appearance, that they prefer their pasture to the arena: they turn their backs on the picadores and, most phlegmatically, allow the chulos to shake capes of all colours in front of their noses; the banderillas are not even enough to rouse them from their apathy; it is therefore necessary to resort to violent means, to banderillas de fuego: these are a kind of firework-dart, which flare up a few minutes after being planted in the shoulders of the cobarde (cowardly) creature, and burst forth in energetic sparks and detonations . The bull, by this ingenious invention, is therefore at the same time pricked, burned, and stunned: even if he is the most aplomado (leaden) of bulls, he cannot but choose to be enraged. He indulges in a host of extravagant antics, which one would not credit such a heavy beast of being capable; he roars, he foams, and twists in all directions to free himself from the ill-placed fireworks that fry his ears and scorch his hide.

The banderillas de fuego are only employed, however, in the last extremity; it is a mark of dishonour, if the bullfighters are obliged to resort to them; but when the alcalde takes too long to wave his handkerchief as a sign of his consent, there is such a commotion that he is forced to yield. There are unimaginably loud cries and vociferations, howls, and the stamping of feet. Some shout for the Banderillas de fuego! Others for the Perros! Perros! (the dogs). They heap insults on the bull; he is called a brigand, an assassin, a thief; they offer him a place in the shade, they make him the butt of a thousand jests, often very witty. Soon a chorus of canes, beaten against the woodwork, join the vociferations which have become insufficient. The planks of the palcos creak and split, and the paint from the ceilings descends in whitish films like snow mingled with dust. The audience’s exasperation rises to its peak: Fuego al alcalde! Perros al alcalde! (fire and dogs take the alcalde)! shout the enraged crowd, shaking their fists at the box reserved for the ayuntamiento. At last, the blessed permission is granted, and calm restored. In these kinds of shouting-matches, pardon the term, since I can’t think of a better one, quite clever jokes are sometimes made. I will report a quite brief and vivid one: a picador, magnificently dressed in a brand-new outfit, was resting on his horse without doing anything, and at a place in the arena where he was in no danger. Pintura! Pintura! cried those members of the crowd who noticed his lack of movement – A painting! A painting!

Often the bull is so cowardly that even the banderillas de fuego are insufficient. He returns to his querencia and refuses to engage. The cries of: Perros! Perros! start up again. Then, after a sign from the alcalde, messieurs les chiens are introduced. They are admirable creatures, of an extraordinary purity of breed, and great beauty; they rush straight at the bull, who tosses half a dozen into the air, but who fails to prevent one or two of the strongest and bravest dogs from ending up by grabbing his ear. Once they have taken hold, they are like leeches; one could drag them backwards without making them let go. The bull shakes his head, knocks them against the barriers: nothing helps. When this has lasted for some time, the espada, or the cachatero, thrusts a sword into the side of the victim, who staggers, bends his knees and falls to the ground, where he is then done to death. They also, on occasion, employ a kind of instrument called a media luna (half-moon), which severs his hind hocks and renders him incapable of any resistance; then it is no longer a fight, but a disgusting act of butchery. It often happens that the matador’s blow misses its target: the sword strikes a bone and recoils, or it enters the throat and makes the bull vomit blood in large quantities, which is a grave fault according to the laws of tauromaquia. If at the second blow the beast is not despatched, boos, whistles and insults, are heaped on the espada, for the Spanish public is an impartial one; it applauds the bull and the man according to their respective merits. If the bull disembowels a horse and fells a man: Bravo toro! if it is the man who wounds the bull: Bravo torero! but it refuses to tolerate cowardice either in man or beast. One poor devil, who did not dare dart the banderillas into an extremely ferocious bull, excited such tumult that the alcalde was forced to promise to have the man imprisoned so that order could be re-established.

During this same bullfight, Sevilla, who is an admirable picador, was greatly applauded for the following action: a bull of extraordinary strength caught his horse beneath the belly, and, raising its horns, lifted him completely from the ground. Sevilla, in this perilous position, scarcely wavered in his saddle, kept his feet in the stirrups, and managed his horse so well that it fell back onto all four feet.

The bullfight had been excellent: eight bulls, and fourteen horses killed, one chulo slightly injured; we could not have wished for anything better. Each session must bring in twenty or twenty-five thousand francs; the amount is granted by the queen to the main hospital, where injured toreros find all imaginable manner of help; a priest and a doctor, wait in a room in the Plaza de Toros, ready to administer, one, remedy to the soul, the other, remedy to the body; I believe a Mass used to be said, and still is, for them during the bullfight. You can see that, clearly, nothing is neglected, and that the impresarios are people of foresight. When the last bull has been slain, all the folk leap into the arena to view it more closely, and the spectators then retire, discussing the merits of the different suertes or cogidas which most impressed them. And the women, you will ask me, what of them? Is that not one of the first questions asked of the traveller? I confess I know nothing about it. I seem to recall, vaguely, that there were some very pretty ones not far from me, but cannot affirm it with any degree of certainty.

Let us visit the Prado, to clarify this important point.

Part VIII: The Prado – The Mantilla and the Fan – The Spanish Type – Water-Sellers; The Cafés of Madrid – Newspapers – The Politics of the Puerta de Sol – The Post-Office – The Houses of Madrid – Evening Gatherings (Tertulias) – Spanish Society – The Prince’s Theatre – The Queen’s Palace, that of the National Assembly, and the Monument Commemorating the Second of May 1808 – The Armoury – The Parque de Buen Retiro – Goya

Drop Cap W

When one speaks of Madrid, the first two ideas that the name awakens in the imagination are the Prado and the Puerta del Sol: since we have the inclination to do so, let us go to the Prado; at the hour when the promenade begins. The Prado, comprising several alleys and side-alleys, with a roadway in the middle for vehicles, is shaded by tall and stocky trees, the bases of which bathe in a narrow pool bordered by bricks, to which channels bring water at specific hours; without this precaution they would soon be consumed by dust and scorched by the sun. The promenade begins at the monastery of Atocha, passes in front of the gate of that name, then the Alcala Gate, and ends at the Recoletos Gate. But the fashionable world haunts the space circumscribed by the fountain of Cybele and that of Neptune, from the Alcala Gate to the Carrera de San Jerónimo. The large space there is called the salon, lined with chairs, like the main avenue of the Tuileries; on the side of the living room, there is a side alley which bears the name Paris; it is the city’s Boulevard de Gand (now the Boulevard des Italiens), and Madrid’s fashionable meeting-place; and, as the imagination of fashionable people does not exactly chime with the picturesque, they have chosen the dustiest, least shaded, least convenient place on the whole promenade. The crowd is so large in this narrow space, squeezed between the salon and the roadway, that it is often difficult to put one’s hand in one’s pocket to extract a handkerchief; you have to conform, and follow the line like a queue at the theatre (in the days when theatres saw queues). The only thing that could have led to this place being selected is that one can see and greet people in their carriages traversing the roadway (it is always honourable for a pedestrian to salute a carriage). The equipages are less than brilliant; most of them are dragged by mules whose blackish coats, full bellies, and pointed ears have a most unsightly effect; they look like mourning carriages following a hearse: the carriage of the queen herself is quite simple and bourgeois. An Englishman with pretensions of being a millionaire would certainly disdain it; no doubt, there are exceptions, but they are rare. What does charm the eye are those fine Andalusian saddle-horses, seated on which the most fashionable people of Madrid parade about. It is impossible to view anything more elegant, nobler, or more graceful than an Andalusian stallion with his beautiful erect mane, long, well-furnished tail which descends to the ground, harness decorated with red tufts, arched head, glowing eyes, and neck bulging like a pigeon’s throat. I saw one ridden by a woman, as pink in colour (the horse, not the woman) as a Bengal rose glazed with silver, and of marvellous beauty. How great the difference between these noble beasts which have retained their beautiful primitive form, and those locomotive ‘machines’ of muscle and bone which we call English coursers; and which feature no more of the equine than four legs and a backbone to support a jockey!

Fountain at Madrid

The spectacle embodied by the Prado is truly one of the liveliest that can be seen, and it is one of the most beautiful promenades in the world, not regarding its location which is quite ordinary, despite all the attempts that Charles III of Spain made to correct that defect, but because of the astonishing crowds that attend there every evening, from half past seven to ten o’clock.

One sees very few women’s hats along the Prado; with the exception of a few sulphur-yellow pancakes, which must once have adorned educated donkeys, there are only mantillas. The Spanish mantilla is therefore a reality; I had thought it only existed in the romances of Monsieur Crevel de Charlemagne: it is woven of black or white lace, more often black, and is placed over the back of the head on top of the comb; a few flowers set on the temples complete this hairstyle which is the most charming imaginable. With a mantilla, a woman would need to be as ugly as the three theological virtues not to appear pretty; sadly, this is the only part of the Spanish costume that has been retained: the rest is à la francaise. The last folds of the mantilla rest on a shawl, an odious shawl, and the shawl itself is accompanied by a dress of ordinary material, which in no way resembles a basquin. I cannot help being astonished at such blindness, and I do not understand why women, ordinarily clairvoyant as regards their beauty, do not realise that this, their supreme effort at elegance, exhibits merely provincial pretension, with mediocre results. The ancient native costume is so perfectly suited to the beauty, proportions, and manners of Spanish women that it is surely the only garb possible. The fan somewhat corrects this pretension to Parisianism. A woman without a fan is something I have not yet seen in this happy country; I saw women with satin shoes and no stockings, but they carried a fan; the fan accompanies them everywhere, even to church where you meet groups of women of all ages, kneeling, or squatting on their heels, who pray and fan themselves with fervour, interspersing everything with Spanish signs of the cross, which are much more complicated than ours, and which they execute with a precision and speed worthy of Prussian soldiers. Manoeuvring the fan, is an art completely unknown in France. The Spanish excel at it; the fan opens, closes, turns in their fingers, so quickly, so lightly, that a conjurer could do no better. Some elegant folk create collections of fans at great cost; we saw one that contained more than a hundred different styles; from every country and every era: ivory, tortoiseshell, sandalwood, sequined fans, fans painted in gouache from the days of Louis XIV and Louis XV, rice-paper fans from Japan and China, no style was lacking; several were studded with rubies, diamonds and other precious stones: it is a luxury in good taste, and a charming hobby for a pretty woman. The fans as they open and close produce a little whistling sound which, repeated more than a thousand times a minute, projects its note through the confused noise which enwraps the promenade, and contains something alien to a French ear. When a woman meets a person she knows, she grants them a little wave of the fan, and emits in passing the word agur (good evening) which is pronounced abour. Now let me address the subject of Spanish beauty.

Ladies on the Prado

What is understood in France as the Spanish type does not exist in Spain, or at least I have not yet encountered it. We usually imagine, when we say the words señora and mantilla, an elongated and pale oval face, large black eyes surmounted by velvety eyebrows, a thin, slightly-arched nose, a pomegranate-red mouth, and, above all, a warm and golden tone justifying the Romantic phrase: She is yellow as an orange. That is the Arab or Moorish type, not the Spanish type. The Madridleñas are charming in the full sense of the word: out of every four there are always three pretty ones; but they in no way correspond to the idea we have of them. They are small, neat, well turned-out, with slim feet, arched waists, and breasts rich in contour; but they have extremely white skin, delicate and lined features, and heart-shaped mouths, and exactly mimic certain Regency portraits. Many have light brown hair, and you cannot take two turns on the Prado without meeting seven or eight blondes of all shades, from ash-blond to a red as vehement as the red beard of Charles V. It is an error to believe that there are no blondes in Spain. Blue eyes abound there, but are not as greatly esteemed as black ones.

At first I had some difficulty accustoming myself to viewing women with low necklines as if for a ball, with bare arms, satin shoes on their feet, flowers on their heads, and fans in their hands, walking alone in a public place, because there one does not offer a woman one’s arm, unless one is her husband or a close relative: one must be content to walk beside them, at least as long as it is daylight, though after dark they are less rigorous about this etiquette, especially with foreigners who are unused to it.

We have heard great praise bestowed on the manolas of Madrid: the manola is a type that has vanished like the Parisian grisette, and the trasteverine of Rome; she still exists, but stripped of her primitive character; she no longer displays so bold and picturesque a costume; ignoble Indian cotton has replaced those skirts in dazzling colours embroidered with exorbitant motifs; the frightful leather shoe has displaced the satin slipper, and, dreadful to think of, the dress has lengthened by a good two finger-widths. In the past they relieved the drab appearance of the Prado with their lively looks and singular costume: today it is difficult to distinguish them from petty-bourgeois women and tradesmen’s wives. I searched for a sign of the purebred manola in every corner of Madrid, at the bullfight, at the Jardin de las Delicias, at the Nuevo Recreo, at the feast of Saint Anthony, and never came across a perfect example. Once, while walking through the Rastro quarter, the Temple district of Madrid, and having passed a large number of beggars who were lying asleep on the ground clothed in dreadful rags, I found myself in a small deserted alley, and there I saw, for the first and last time, the sought-after manola. She was a tall, well-built girl, of about twenty-four years old, the highest age at which girls may still be termed manolas or grisettes. She had a dark complexion, a strong, sad look, a somewhat coarse mouth, and something African in the lines of her face. An enormous braid of hair, blue by dint of being almost black, braided like the rushes of a basket, coiled around her head and attached itself to a large tortoiseshell comb; clusters of coral hung from her ears; her tawny neck was adorned with a necklace of the same material; a black velvet mantilla framed her head and shoulders; her dress, as short as that of the Swiss women of the Canton of Berne, was made of embroidered cloth, and revealed thin, sinewy legs enclosed in well-made black silk stockings; her shoes were satin, in the traditional fashion; a red fan trembled like a cinnabar butterfly between fingers laden with silver rings. The last of the manolas turned the corner of the alley, and vanished before my eyes, amazed at having seen, if only the once, an Opéra character in a Henri Duponchel costume, alive and walking about the real world! I also saw at the Prado some pasiegas from Santander in their national costume; these pasiegas are reputed to be the best nursemaids in Spain, and their affection towards children is as proverbial as the probity of Auvergnats in France; they have a skirt of red cloth with large pleats, bordered with a wide braid, a black velvet corset also braided with gold, and for hairstyle a madras variegated with dazzling colours, the whole accompanied by jewellery, silver, and other native coquetries. These women are very beautiful, possessing a most striking air of strength and grandeur. The habit of rocking children in their arms gives them an upright, arched attitude which encourages chest development. Viewing a pasiega in costume is a species of luxury comparable to having a klepht ride behind your carriage.

As yet I have said nothing regarding the male mode of dress: consult the fashion plates published six months ago, in some tailor’s shop, or reading room, and you will gain a perfect idea. The thought of Paris occupies everyone, and I remember seeing on a shoe-shiner’s stall: ‘Boots polished here in the Parisian style (estilo)’ Paul Gavarni’s delightful designs are the modest aim of the modern hidalgo: ignorant of the fact that only the finest Parisian dandies can achieve it. However, to do the men justice, we must say that they are far better dressed than the women: they are as varnished, as white-gloved as possible. Their clothes are correct, and their trousers commendable; but the tie is not of the same excellence, and the waistcoat, the only part of the modern costume where fantasy can be displayed, is not always in impeccable taste.

There is a trade in Madrid that we lack the idea of in Paris: that of the retail water-seller. His ‘shop’ consists of a cántaro (pitcher) of white clay, a small basket, woven from rushes or made of tin, which contains two or three glasses, a few azucarillos (sticks of caramelized and porous sugar), and sometimes a couple of oranges or lemons; others have small barrels surrounded by foliage which they carry on their backs; some, along the Prado for example, even have illuminated counters topped with yellow-copper emblems and flags that are in no way inferior to the magnificence of the coco-sellers of Paris (coco being a herbal tea made of liquorice and lemon water). These water-sellers are usually young Galician muchachos in tobacco-coloured jackets, and short trousers, with black gaiters, and a pointed hat; there are also a few Valencianos with their white canvas breeches, their cloth cape worn over the shoulder, their tanned legs and their alpargatas (sandals) edged with blue. A few women and little girls, in insignificant costumes, also sell water. They are called, according to their sex, aguadores or aguadoras; from every corner of the city one can hear their high-pitched cries, modulated in all tones, and varied in a hundred thousand ways: Agua, agua, quien quiere agua? Agua helada, fresquita como la nieve! This lasts from five in the morning till ten in the evening; These same cries inspired Breton de Los Herreros, an esteemed poet of Madrid, to write a song called La Aguadora, which gained success throughout Spain. The lack of water in Madrid is truly an extraordinary thing: all the output from the springs, all the snow from the mountains of Guadarrama, fails to suffice. There are many pleasantries spoken about the poor Manzanarès, and its naiad’s dry urn; I would like to see the appearance of the river in any other city consumed by such thirst. The Manzanarès is drunk from at source; the aguadores anxiously look for the least sign of water, the slightest humidity, to appear between its dry banks, and carry it away in their cantaros and siphons; the laundresses wash clothes with sand, and even in the midst of its river-bed a Muslim would lack the means to perform his ablutions. No doubt you remember that delightful article by Joseph Méry on the lack of water in Marseille, multiply it sixfold and you will have but a slight idea of Madrid’s thirst. A glass of water sells for a cuarto (a few sous); what Madrid needs most, after water, is a coal to light its cigarettes; the cry: Fuego, fuego, is heard on all sides and mingles incessantly with the cry of: Agua, agua. The struggle between the two elements is fierce, it being a question of which can make the greater noise: the fire, more inextinguishable than that of the Roman goddess Vesta, is carried by young people in small cups, full of coals and fine ash, equipped with a handle so as not to burn the fingers.

Now it is half-past nine, the Prado’s population is beginning to disperse, and the crowd are heading towards the cafés and botillerias (refreshment places) which line the long Calle de Alcalá and the surrounding streets.

The cafés of Madrid seem to us, who are accustomed to the dazzling and magical luxury of the cafés of Paris, to be, in truth, drinking dens of the lowest order; the manner in which they are decorated is reminiscent of those booths in which bearded women and live mermaids are shown; yet this lack of luxury is more than compensated for by the excellence and variety of the refreshments served there. It must be admitted that Paris, so superior in everything, is behind in this respect: the art of the café-owner here is still in its infancy. The most famous cafés are La Bolsa, on the corner of Calle de Carretas; Nuevo, where the exaltados (radicals) meet; the café... (I forget the name), a customary gathering-place for people who belong to moderate opinion, whom they term cangrejos, that is to say crabs; and Levante, close to the Puerta del Sol; which is not to say that others are inferior; merely that these are the most frequented. And let us not forget the Café del Principe, next to the theatre of that name, a common meeting-place for artists and writers.

We will enter the Café de la Bolsa, if you wish, which is decorated with small mirrors cut in intaglio beneath, so as to form designs, as we see in certain pieces of German glassware: here the menu consists of bebidas heladas, sorbetes and quesitos. The bebida helada (frozen drink) is contained in glasses that can be distinguished as grande or chico (large or small), and a wide variety is offered; there is the bebida of naranja (orange), of limon (lemon), of fresa (strawberry), and of guindas (cherries), which are also as superior to those awful jugs of sour redcurrant and citric acid that they are not ashamed to serve you in Paris, in the most splendid of cafés, as genuine sherry is to authentic wine from Brie: the bebida is a kind of liquid ice, a snowy puree with the most exquisite taste. The bebida de almendra blanca (white almonds) is a delicious drink, unknown in France where we swallow, under the pretext of sipping barley-syrup, I don't know what abominable medicinal mixtures; it is also offered as iced milk, half strawberry or cherry, which, while your body is boiling in the torrid zone, allows your throat to enjoy all the frost and snow of Greenland. During the day, before the iced drinks are available, there is agraz, a type of drink made from green grapes and contained in bottles with oversized necks; the slightly tangy taste of agraz is most pleasant; you can also drink a bottle of cerveza de Santa Barbara con limon; but this requires a degree of preparation: first a bowl and a large spoon are brought, like that with which punch is stirred, then a waiter approaches carrying the beer-bottle, fastened with wire, which he uncorks with infinite care; the cork pops, and one pours the beer into the bowl, into which one has previously emptied a carafe of lemonade, then one stirs everything with the spoon, fills one glass and swallows. If you dislike such mixtures, you need only enter the chufas horchaterías, usually run by Valencians. The chufa (tigernut) is a small tuber, from a species of sedge, grown in the neighbourhood of Valencia, which is roasted and crushed, and from which an exquisite drink is made, especially when mixed with snow: this preparation is extremely refreshing.

To complete the menu, allow me to say that sorbetes differ from those in France in possessing more consistency; that quesitos are small hard ice-creams, moulded in the shape of a cheese: there are all kinds, made with apricots, pineapples, oranges, as known in Paris; but they are also made with butter (manteca) and with as yet unformed eggs, removed from the bodies of disembowelled hens, which is a method unique to Spain, since I have only ever heard of this singular refinement in Madrid. One is also served chocolate, coffee and other spumas; these are a type of whipped ice-cream, in nature extremely light, and sometimes sprinkled with very finely grated cinnamon; accompanied by barquilos, biscuits rolled into long cones with which you taste your bebida, as with a straw, by sucking slowly through one of the ends; a small refinement which allows you to enjoy the freshness of the beverage for longer. Coffee is not offered in cups, but in glasses; it is quite rarely taken otherwise. All these details may seem tedious to you; but, if like us you were exposed to heat of thirty to thirty-five degrees Centigrade, you would find them of the greatest interest. One sees many more women in the Madrid cafés than in those of Paris, though cigarettes and even Havana cigars are smoked there. The newspapers most frequently found in them are the Eco del Comercio, the Nacional and the Diario, which prints the events of the day, the times of masses and sermons, the temperature, and notices regarding lost dogs, young peasant girls looking to be employed as nursemaids, parlour maids seeking a position, etc., etc. – But now eleven o’clock strikes; it is time to retire; Barely a few lingering strollers line the Calle de Alcalá. The streets are occupied only by the serenos with their lantern on the end of a pike, their coat the colour of a stone wall, and their measured cry; all you can hear is a chorus of crickets singing, in little cages adorned with beads, their disyllabic lament. In Madrid, they have a taste for crickets: each house has its own, in a miniature cage made of wood or wire hanging in the window; they also have a strange passion for quails which they keep in slatted wicker-baskets, and which, with their eternal pick-per-wick, provide a pleasant alternative to the crick-crick of the crickets. As is said of the cup-and-ball game, those who like the sound must be exceedingly tolerant.

The Puerta del Sol is not a gate, such as one might imagine, but rather a church facade, painted pink and embellished with a clock-dial lit at night, and a large sun with gilded rays, hence the name Puerta del Sol. In front of this church, there is a kind of square or crossroads; where the length of the Calle de Alcalá is crossed by the Calle de Carretas, and the Calle de la Montera. The Post Office, a large formal building, occupies the corner of the Calle de Carretas, with its facade facing the square. The Puerta del Sol is a meeting-place for the city’s idlers, and many there appear to be, since a dense crowd occupies it from eight in the morning. All those grave personages, stand about, wrapped in their coats, despite it being excruciatingly hot, under the frivolous pretext that what protects against cold must also protect against heat. From time to time, we see emerge, from the motionless folds of a cape, a thumb and index finger, yellow as gold, rolling a papelito, containing a few pinches of chopped tobacco, and soon from the mouth of the grave personage a cloud of smoke rises, which proves that he is endowed with lungs, which one might have doubted given his perfect immobility. Speaking of papel espanol para cigaritas, let me note in passing that I have not yet seen a single booklet of cigarette-papers; the natives of the country use ordinary writing paper cut into small pieces; all such liquorice-tinted booklets, with grotesque colourful drawings and the texts of letrillas (little lyric verses) or farcical romances, are exported to France, to our lovers of local colour. Politics is the general topic of conversation; the theatre of war greatly occupies their imaginations, and more strategy is composed at the Puerta del Sol than on all the battlefields, and in all the campaigns in the world. Juan Manuel Balmaseda, Ramón Cabrera, the Palillos brothers, and other more or less important guerilla leaders, may reappear on the scene at any moment, tales are told of things that make one shudder, cruelties that are outdated, and have long been considered tasteless by the Caribs and the Cherokees. Balmaseda, in his last campaign, advanced to within twenty leagues of Madrid, and, having surprised a village near Aranda del Duero, amused himself by breaking the teeth of the ayuntamiento and the alcalde, and concluded the entertainment by having horseshoes nailed to the feet and hands of a constitutional priest. As I expressed my astonishment at the perfect tranquility with which this story was received, I was told that it took place in Old Castile, and there was thus no need to worry about it. This reply sums up the entire situation in Spain, and provides the key to many things which seem incomprehensible to us, when viewed from France. Indeed, for an inhabitant of New Castile, what happens in Old Castile is as uninteresting as what occurs on the moon. Spain does not yet exist as a united entity, it is still Las Españas: Castile and Leon, Aragon and Navarre, Granada and Murcia, etc.; folk who speak different dialects and cannot stand each other. As a naive foreigner, I protested at such refinements of cruelty; but it was pointed out to me that the priest was a constitutional priest, which greatly attenuated the matter. Baldomero Espartero’s victories, victories which seem mediocre to us, accustomed as we are to the colossal battles of the empire, frequently serve as a text for the politics of the Puerta del Sol. Following such triumphs, where a couple of men were killed, three prisoners taken, and a mule, bearing a sabre and a dozen cartridges, was seized, fireworks were lit, and oranges or cigars, arousing an enthusiasm easy to conceive, distributed to the soldiers. In the past, grandees visiting the shops near the Puerta del Sol, on being granted a seat, remained there for a large part of the day, chatting to the customers, to the great displeasure of the owners, distressed by such a mark of familiarity; and they still do so, even today.

Let us, if you please, visit the Post Office to see if there are any letters from France; this pre-occupation with letters is truly unhealthy; you may be sure that on arriving in a city, the first building a traveller will visit is the post office. In Madrid, letters marked poste restante are each given a number; this number and the name of the recipient are written on a list which is displayed on pillars; there is a pillar for January, for February, and so on; you look for your name, make a note of the number, and request your letter at the depot, where it will be delivered to you without any further formalities. After a year, if a letter has not been claimed, it is burned. Under the arcades of the Post Office courtyard, shaded by large blinds made of esparto-grass, every sort of reading-room is established, as under the arcades of the Odéon in Paris, and there one may read the Spanish and foreign newspapers. Postage charges are not very great, and, despite the innumerable dangers to which the mail is exposed on its journey, the roads being almost always infested with rebels or bandits, the service is maintained as regularly as possible. It is also on these pillars that offers of service are displayed, by poor students, who seek to polish one’s riding boots in order to complete their courses in rhetoric or philosophy.

Let us now traverse the city at random, since chance is the best of guides, especially in Madrid which is not rich in architectural splendour, and where one street is as interesting as another. The first thing you see when you gaze up at the corner of some house or street, is a small earthenware plaque on which is written: Visita. G(eneral). Manzana. and a number ‘n’ (indicating block ‘n’, on the general visitation route for tax purposes). These plaques were formerly used to number the houses, grouped into islands or blocks. Today everything is numbered as in Paris. You would also be surprised at the various plaques proclaiming ‘Asegurada de incendios’ (insured against fire) adorning the facades of houses, especially in a country where there are no chimneys, and where fires are never lit. Everything is insured, even the public monuments, even the churches; the civil war, it is said, is the cause of the great eagerness for such insurance (which funded teams of firefighters); since no one can be sure they will not be more or less roasted alive by some Balmaseda or other, all try at least to save their homes.

The houses in Madrid are constructed with lath, bricks, and adobe, except for the jambs, masonry-piers, and corbels, which are sometimes of grey or blue granite, and are all carefully plastered and painted in rather fanciful colours, celadon-green, ash-blue, buff, canary-tail yellow, rose pompadour, and other more or less anacreontic hues; the windows are framed by decorations, and simulated architectural features, with many a volute, scroll, little cupid, or vase of flowers; and adorned with Venetian blinds striped in wide blue and white bands, or esparto-grass matting which is watered to charge the breeze that passes through it with humidity and freshness. The wholly modern houses content themselves with being plastered with lime, or whitewashed with milk-white paint, like those in Paris. The projecting balconies and miradores break somewhat their monotonous straight lines, casting sharp shadows, and varying the naturally flat aspect of buildings all of whose projecting reliefs are painted and treated like theatre decorations: illuminate all of this with a glowing sun, plant at various distances, in these streets flooded with light, a few señoras in long veils holding their fans, spread in the manner of parasols, against their cheeks; a few sunburnt, wrinkled beggars, draped in shreds of canvas, and mossy rags; a few half-naked Valencians with the appearance of Bedouins; and bring forth, from between the roofs, the small humped domes, and bulging pinnacles ending in lead cones, of a church or monastery, and you will obtain an interesting enough view; one which will prove to you that you are, at last, no longer in the Rue Laffitte, and that you have definitely left the asphalt behind, even if your feet torn by the sharp stones of Madrid’s pavements have not already convinced you of the fact.

One thing that truly surprises is the frequency of the following inscription: Juego de villar, which recurs every twenty steps. Lest you imagine that there is something mysterious in these three sacred words, I hasten to translate them: they only mean Billiard Parlour. I cannot understand what the devil the need is for so many billiards tables; the whole universe could take a turn. After the juegos de villar the most frequent inscription is that of despacho de vino (wine-shop). Val-de-Peñas and other full-bodied wines are sold there. The counters are painted in vibrant colours, decorated with draperies and foliage. The confiterías (confectioneries) and pastelerías (baker’s-shops) are also numerous and quite attractively decorated: the Spanish confitures deserve a particular mention; those known as angel-hair (cabello de angel) are exquisite. The pastry is as good as it can be in a country where there is little butter, or at least it is so expensive and of such poor quality that it can hardly be used; it is close to what we call petit-four pastry. All the street signs are written in abbreviated characters, the letters intertwined with each other, which initially makes them difficult to understand for foreigners, the great readers of signs, if ever there were any.

The house interiors are vast and comfortable; the ceilings are high, and space is nowhere constrained; in Paris an entire house would be built in the shafts of certain staircases; you traverse long lines of rooms before arriving at the section that is actually inhabited; all these rooms being decorated only with lime plaster or in a flat yellow or blue shade, enhanced with coloured strips and panels of simulated woodwork. Paintings, darkened by smoke, of a blackish hue, representing the beheading or disembowelling of some martyr, a favourite subject of Spanish artists, hang from the walls, most of them unframed and merely tacked to their stretchers. Parquet is something unknown in Spain, or at least I have never seen it there. All the rooms are tiled with brick; but, as the bricks are covered with matting, of reeds in winter and rushes in summer, the inconvenience is greatly reduced; these reed and rush mats are woven with great taste; the natives of the Philippines or the Sandwich Islands could do no better. There are three things which for me are precise thermometers of the state of civilisation of a people: pottery, the art of weaving either wicker or straw, and the method of harnessing beasts of burden. If the pottery is beautiful, of pure form, correct as in ancient times, with the natural hues of pale or red clay; if the baskets and mats are finely made, skilfully woven, enhanced with arabesques of admirably chosen colours; if the harnesses are embroidered, stitched, and decorated with bells, woollen tassels, designs of the most discerning choice, you can be sure that the people are primitive and still very close to the state of nature: civilised people have no idea how to make pottery, or matting, or a harness. As I write, I have in front of me, hanging from a pillar by a string, the jarra that is filled with the water I have to drink: it is an earthen pot worth twelve quartos, which is to say about six to seven French sous; the shape is charming and I know of nothing purer except the Etruscan. The rim is flared, and forms a four-leafed clover, each leaf hollowed out like a spout, so that you can pour water from whichever one you wish; the handles, fluted with a small moulding, attach with perfect elegance to the neck and sides, in a delightful curve; to these charming vases, fashionable people prefer those abominable English containers, swollen, pot-bellied, humped, and coated with a thick layer of glaze, which one might take for riding boots polished with whiting. But, in speaking of boots and pottery, I stray far from my description of domiciles; let me return to them without further ado.

The small amount of furniture that is found in Spanish homes is in dreadful taste, reminiscent of Messidor taste or Pyramide taste. The art of the Empire flourishes there in all its integrity. Here you will find those mahogany pilasters terminating in the heads of sphinxes in green bronze, those copper rods and framed Pompeii garlands, which have long since disappeared from the face of the civilised world; not a single piece of furniture sculpted in wood, not a table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, not a lacquer cabinet, nothing; ancient Spain has vanished completely: only a few Persian carpets and damask curtains remain. On the other hand, there is an abundance of truly extraordinary chairs and sofas of straw; the walls are defaced by false columns, false cornices, or daubed with some tint of tempera paint. Scattered about the tables and shelves are little biscuit-fired or porcelain figurines representing troubadours, or the opera-characters Mathilde and Malek Adel, or other equally ingenious subjects fallen into disuse; poodles in spun glass, plated candlesticks garnished with candles, and a hundred other magnificent items which it would take too long to describe, but of which what I have said above must offer sufficient token; I lack courage to speak of the atrocious illuminated engravings that possess the misplaced pretension of embellishing the walls.

There may be a few exceptions to all this, but the number is small. Nor should you imagine the homes of upper-class people as being furnished with greater taste and opulence. The description, applies with the most scrupulous accuracy, to the houses of those with carriages and eight or ten servants. The blinds are always lowered, the shutters half-closed, so that the apartments are left with a third of the usual daylight, something one must get used to, in order to discern objects, especially when one enters from outside; those who are in the room see perfectly, but those who have arrived are blind for eight or nine minutes, especially when one of the previous rooms is fully lit. It is said that skilful mathematicians have calculated the optics required for perfect comfort during an intimate tête-à-tête in an apartment so arranged. The heat is excessive in Madrid, it comes on suddenly without the usual transition to spring; and they say of the temperature in Madrid: ‘three months of winter, nine months of hell’. One can only shelter oneself from this storm of fire by staying in the lower rooms, where almost complete darkness reigns, and where perpetual moistening maintains the humidity. This need for freshness gave rise to the fashion for búcaros, which would seem a strange and savage refinement offering nothing pleasurable as regards our French amours, but which seems a most desirable thing in the best taste to lovely Spanish women.

Búcaros are a kind of vase, in red earthenware from America similar to that from which the chimneys of Turkish pipes are made; they come in all shapes and sizes; some are decorated with threads of gilt and strewn with roughly painted flowers. As they are no longer made in America, búcaros are becoming rare, and in a few years will be as unobtainable, and legendary as old Sèvres ware; then everyone will want one.

To deploy búcaros, one places seven or eight of them on marble pedestals or corner tables, fill them with water, and seat oneself on a sofa to wait for them to produce their effect, so as to savour the pleasure while meditating appropriately. The clay takes on a darker shade, the water penetrates its pores, and the bucaros soon exude and spread an aroma resembling the smell of wet plaster, or a damp cellar that has remained unopened for a length of time. This transpiration of the búcaros is so profuse that after an hour half the water has evaporated; that which remains in the vase is cold as ice, and has acquired a taste of wells and cisterns which is quite nauseating, but which is found delicious by its aficionadas. Half a dozen búcaros are enough to permeate the air of a boudoir with such humidity that it strikes you when you enter; it is a kind of cold vapour-bath. Not content with smelling the aroma and drinking the water, some people chew small fragments of búcaros, reduce them to powder, and end up by swallowing them.

I attended a few evening gatherings, or tertulias; there is nothing remarkable about them; people dance to the piano as in France, but in an even more modern and more lamentable way, if possible. I cannot imagine why people who dance so little do not, instead, resolve to abandon dancing completely; which would be simpler and just as amusing. Their fear of being accused of favouring the bolero, the fandango, or the cachucha renders the women perfectly immobile. Their costume is very simple, compared to that of the men, who are always dressed like fashion plates. I made the same remark at the Palace of Villa-Hermosa, at a performance for the benefit of foundlings (niños de la cuna), attended by the queen mother, the ‘little queen’, and all the grand and beautiful people Madrid contains. Women who were duchesses two times over, and marquises four times, wore dresses that, in Paris, a milliner visiting a dressmaker’s house would disdain; they no longer know how to dress in the Spanish, but do not yet know how to dress in the French manner, and, if they were not so pretty, would often run the risk of appearing ridiculous. Only once, at a ball, did I see a woman in a pink satin basquin, trimmed with five or six bands of pale black, like that of Fanny Elssler in Alain-René Lesage’s Le Diable Boiteux; but she had danced in Paris, where the Spanish costume had been revealed to her. Tertulias cannot cost much to those who give them. Refreshments are conspicuous by their absence: no tea, no ices, no punch; only a dozen glasses of perfectly clear water, and a plate of azucarillos, on a table in the main salon; while one would be taken generally for an indiscreet man, and sur sa bouche (a glutton), as Henri Monnier’s Madame Desjardins would say, if one took the Sardanapalian to the point of sweetening one’s water with sugar; that only occurs in the wealthiest houses: it is not out of miserliness, merely that such is the custom; moreover, the ascetic sobriety of the Spaniards is perfectly adapted to this regime.

As regards morals, it takes one more than six weeks to understand the character of a people and the customs of a society. Nonetheless, novelty creates a first impression which may fade during a long stay. It seemed to me that women in Spain had the upper hand, and enjoyed greater freedom than in France. The attitude of the men towards them seemed to me most humble and submissive; they render them service with scrupulous exactitude and punctuality, and express their passion in poems of every measure, rhyming and assonant, sueltos (blank verse) and others; from the moment they have placed their hearts at the feet of a beautiful woman, they are only permitted to dance with their great-grandmothers. The conversation of women of fifty years of age, and of noted ugliness, alone is granted them. They can no longer make visits to houses where there is a young woman: a frequent visitor vanishes suddenly and reappears after six months or a year; his mistress has forbidden him the house: he is received as if he had been there the day before; this is quite accepted. As far as one can judge at first glance, Spanish women are not capricious in love, and the relationships they form often last several years. After a few evenings spent at a gathering, the couples are easily discernible, being visible to the naked eye – if you wish to receive Madame X, you must invite Monsieur Y, and vice versa; the husbands seem admirably civilised, and a match for the most good-natured of Parisian husbands: with no sign of the ancient Spanish jealousy, which is the subject of so many dramas and melodramas. To completely dispel all illusions, everyone speaks perfect French, and, thanks to those few elegant people who spend the winter in Paris, and make visits backstage at the ballet, the puniest little Opéra ‘rat’ (trainee), the most insignificant little marcheuse (extra), are perfectly well-known in Madrid. There I found what exists perhaps in no other place in the universe, a passionate admirer of Mademoiselle Louise Fitzjames, whose name will serve as a transition from the tertulia to the theatre.

The Teatro del Principe has quite a wide repertoire; dramas, comedies, sketches and interludes are performed there. I saw a play by Don Antonio Gil y Zárate performed there, Carlos II el Hechizado, composed entirely in the Shakespearean manner. Carlos strongly resembled the Louis XIII of Victor Hugo’s Marion de Lorme, and the scene with the monk in prison is imitated from the same author’s Notre Dame de Paris where Claude Frollo visits Esmeralda in the dungeon where she awaits death. The role of Carlos was filled by Julián Romea Yanguas, an actor of admirable talent, to whom I know no rival, except Frédérik Lemaître, in a completely different genre; it is impossible to carry truth through illusion further. Matilde Diez is also a first-rate actress: her role is played with every nuance, exquisite delicacy, and surprising finesse of intent. I only find one fault with her, and that is her extreme speed of delivery, a fault which is not one of Spanish performers alone. Don Antonio Guzmán, the gracioso (comic actor), would not be out of place on any stage; he is very reminiscent of the mime Paul Legrand, and, in certain moments, of Étienne Arnal. At the Teatro del Principe they also perform fairy-tales, interspersed with dances and entertainment. I saw there represented, under the title of La Pata de Cabra (The Goat’s Foot, by Juan de Grimaldi), an adaptation of Ribié and Martainville’s Le Pied de Mouton, formerly played at the Gaieté. The choreographed section was singularly mediocre: the leads were less able than the Opéra’s least understudies; on the other hand, the secondary parts displayed extraordinary intelligence; the Cyclop’s dance was executed with rare precision and clarity: as for the baile nacional, it no longer exists. We had been told in Vitoria, Burgos and Valladolid that the best dancers were in Madrid; in Madrid, we were told that true cachucha dancers only existed in Andalusia, in Seville. That remained to be seen; but we were afraid that when it came to Spanish dances, we would be obliged to return to Fanny Elssler and the two Noblet sisters (Marie-Élisabeth and Félicité). Dolorès Serral, who caused such a sensation in Paris, where I was one of the first to point out the passionate audacity, the voluptuous flexibility, and the petulant grace which characterized her dancing, appeared at the Madrid theatre several times without producing the slightest effect, so forgotten is the feeling for, and understanding of, their traditional and national dances, in Spain. When the jota aragonesa or the bolero is performed, everyone rises and leaves, only the foreigners remain, and the lower orders, in whom the poetic instinct is always more difficult to extinguish. The most famous French author in Madrid is Frédéric Soulié; almost all the dramas translated from French are attributed to him: he seems to have acceded to the role of Monsieur Eugène Scribe.

There, we are finished with the subject; it is merely a question now of completing our survey of public buildings: this is quickly done. The queen’s palace is a large, very square, very solid construction, of beautiful, well-dressed stone, with many windows, an equivalent number of doors, Ionic columns, Doric pilasters, and everything else that constitutes a building in good taste. The immense terraces which support it and the snow-laden mountains of the Guadarrama against which it is outlined, enhance whatever of its silhouette might have seemed tedious or vulgar. Vélasquez, Mariano Maella, Francisco Bayeu, and Tiepolo painted fine ceilings there, in more or less allegorical styles; the grand staircase is very beautiful, and Napoleon found it preferable to that of the Tuileries.

The building that houses the Cortes (the legislative chambers) is fronted by Paestumnian columns, and lions in wigs, in most abominable taste: I doubt that good laws can be enacted in such architecture. A bronze statue of Miguel Cervantes stands opposite the Cortes in the middle of the square (Plaza de las Cortes); it is undoubtedly laudable to erect a statue to the immortal author of Don Quixote, but it should have been better done.

The monument to the victims of Dos de Mayo (the uprising of the Second of May, 1808) is located on the Prado, not far from the art gallery. On seeing it, I thought for a moment that I was transported to the Place de la Concorde in Paris, and viewed, like a fantastic mirage, the venerable obelisk of Luxor, which until now I had never suspected of vagrancy; it is a kind of grey granite slab, surmounted by a reddish granite obelisk quite similar in tone to that of the Egyptian needle; the effect is quite beautiful and does not lack a certain funereal gravity. It is to be regretted that the obelisk is not all of a piece; inscriptions in honor of the victims are engraved in gold letters on the sides of the base. The Dos de Mayo is a heroic and glorious episode, the depiction of which the Spaniards somewhat overdo; everywhere we see engravings and paintings on this sole subject. You will have no difficulty believing that we French are not represented in the finest manner: we are made to seem as dreadful as the Prussians are at the Cirque Olympique.

The Armeria (the Armoury) fails to correspond to the idea we have of it. The Musee d’Artillerie, in Paris, is incomparably richer and more complete. There are few whole suits of armour, and of authentic manufacture, in the Armeria of Madrid. Helmets from earlier or later periods are placed on breastplates in a different style. The reason given for this disorder is that, during the French invasion, all these interesting relics were hidden in attics, and there they became confused, and were jumbled together, without it being possible to reunite them, and remount them with any degree of certainty. Therefore, one should in no way trust the claims of one’s guide. A wooden carriage carved with admirable workmanship, and which obviously could not date back further than the reign of Louis XIV, was shown to us as being that of Jeanne la Folle, the mother of Charles V. Charles V’s own vehicle, with its leather cushions and curtains, seemed to us a more credible exhibit. There were very few Moorish weapons: two or three shields, a few yatagans (Turkish short sabres), that was all. What are more interesting are the embroidered saddles, studded with gold and silver, and coated with steel blades, which are of great number and in bizarre shapes; but there is nothing certain about their date or the person to whom they belonged. The English greatly admire a kind of triumphal iron-plated hackney-carriage, offered to Ferdinand VII around 1823 or 1824.

Let us mention in passing, purely for the record, various fountains in a most corrupt, but quite amusing rococo style; the Toledo Bridge, ornately decorated, in poor taste, with urns, ovoids, and sculpted leaves; and some oddly colourful churches, topped with Muscovite bell-towers; and head towards the Buen-Retiro, a royal residence located a few steps from the Prado. We French, owning to Versailles, Saint-Cloud, and, formerly, the Château de Marly, are hard to please when it comes to royal residences; the Buen-Retiro seems to us the dream made real of some wealthy tradesman: it is a garden filled with ordinary but showy flowers, little ponds decorated with rockeries, vermicular bossed surrounds, and fountains, in the style of grocers’ shopfronts, greening ponds on which float wooden swans painted white, and other mediocre marvels of tastelessness. The natives of the country are rendered ecstatic by a certain rustic pavilion built of logs, the interior of which has somewhat Hinduistic pretensions; the first Turkish garden, the naïve, ancestral Turkish garden, its kiosks glazed with coloured tiles, through which blue, green and red views of the landscape could be seen, was far superior in taste and magnificence. Above all, there is a certain chalet which is indeed the most ridiculous and farcical thing that one could imagine. Next to this chalet is a stable furnished with a stuffed goat and its kid, and a grey stone sow suckling its male litter of the same material. A few steps from the chalet, the guide detaches himself from you, and, full of mystery, opens the door. When he calls to you and finally allows you to enter, you are met with a dull sound of cogs and counterweights, and find yourself face to face with hideous automatons pounding butter, spinning a spinning-wheel, or rocking, with wooden feet, wooden children asleep in carved cradles; in the next room, their grandfather is sick, lying abed, his medicine next to him on a table; scrupulousness has gone so far as to place an indescribable but very well-imitated urn under the bed; this is a most accurate summary of the main splendours of the Retiro. A fine bronze equestrian statue of Philip V, the pose resembling that of Louis XIV on the Place des Victoires, somewhat relieves all this mediocrity.

The Madrid Museum, a description of which would fill an entire volume, is extremely fine: works by Titian, Raphael, Paulo Veronese, Rubens, Velázquez, Ribeira, and Murillo abound there; the paintings are very well lit, and the building’s architecture is not lacking in style, especially within. The facade which overlooks the Prado is in rather bad taste; but in brief the construction does honor to the architect Juan de Villanueva, who devised the plan – having visited the galleries, go to the natural history rooms and view the mastodon-like deinotherium giganteum, a wondrous fossil with bones like bars of brass, which must at the very least match the behemoth of the Bible; a piece of gold ore which weighs sixteen pounds; Chinese gongs whose sound, whatever they say, closely resembles that of a cauldron being kicked; and a series of tables representing all the variations which can arise from the inter-breeding of the white, black and copper-skinned races. Do not forget, in the Academy, three admirable paintings by Murillo: the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (two works), and Saint Elizabeth tending the sick and leprous; two or three admirable efforts by Ribeira; a funeral by El Greco, some portions of which are worthy of Titian; a fantastic sketch by the same El Greco, representing monks performing penances, which far exceeds the most mysteriously funereal scene that Monk Lewis or Ann Radcliffe could have dreamed up; and a charming woman in Spanish costume lying on a couch, by dear old Goya, the national painter par excellence, who seems to have been born into this world expressly to gather together the last fading vestiges of Spain’s ancient customs.

Museum, Madrid

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes is, recognisably, Velasquez’s grandson. After him come José Aparicio, and Vincente López Portaña; decadence is complete, the circle of art is closed. Who will reopen it?

Goya is a strange painter, a singular genius! – Never was originality more obvious, never was a Spanish artist more Spanish – a sketch by Goya, four strokes of the brush in a cloud of aquatint say more about the customs of the country than the longest descriptions. In his adventurous existence, his enthusiasm, his multiple talents, Goya seems to belong to the golden era of art, and yet in some way is our contemporary: he died in Bordeaux in 1828.

Before attempting an appreciation of his work, let us briefly outline his biography. Don Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born in Aragon to parents in a position of moderate wealth, but nonetheless adequate enough not to hinder his natural disposition. His taste for drawing and painting developed early. He travelled, studied in Rome for a time, and returned to Spain, where he rapidly made his fortune at the court of Charles IV, who granted him the title of painter to the king. He was received by the queen, by the Duke of Bénavente, and the Duchess of Alba, and led that life of a great lord, shared by Rubens, Van-Dyck and Velasquez, which is so favourable to the blossoming of artistic genius. He owned a delightful casa de campo (country house), near Madrid, where he held dinners, and had his workshop.

Goya was prolific; he produced sacred subjects, frescoes, portraits, scenes of everyday manners, etchings, aquatints, lithographs, and everywhere, even in the vaguest sketch, he left the imprint of a vigorous talent; a lion’s claw always scrapes at his wildest drawings. This talent, though perfectly original, is a singular mixture of Velasquez, Rembrandt and Reynolds; his work recalls those three masters in turn, or even simultaneously but as a son suggests his forefathers, without servile imitation, or rather through a congenial pre-disposition rather than by formal intent.

His two equestrian portraits of Charles IV and Maria Luisa, both on horseback, can be seen in the Madrid Museum: the heads are wonderfully painted, full of life, finesse and wit; also, one of a Picador, and a scene from the invasion, The Massacre of the Second of May. The Duke of Osuna owns several paintings by Goya, and there is hardly a great house that does not have some portrait or sketch by him. The dome of the church of San Antonio de la Florida, where a fairly well-attended celebration of his works often takes place, half a league from Madrid, was frescoed by Goya with the freedom, audacity and effects which characterise his art. In Toledo, in one of the cathedral-chapter rooms, we saw a painting by him representing Jesus delivered up by Judas, a night-time scene that Rembrandt would not have disavowed, and to whom I would have attributed it, at first, if a canon had not pointed out the signature of that expert painter of Charles IV. In the sacristy of the Cathedral of Seville there is also a painting by Goya, of great merit, showing Saint Justina and Saint Ruffina, two virgin martyrs, the daughters of a potter, as indicated by the alcarazas (white-glazed ceramics) and cantaros (pitchers) grouped at their feet.

Goya’s method of painting was as eccentric as his talent: he took coloured paint from tubs, and applied it with sponges, brooms, cloths, or whatever came to hand; he trowelled and rendered his canvas like mortar, and added touches of emotion with great strokes of his thumb. Using such expeditious and peremptory processes, he could cover almost thirty feet of wall in a day or two. All this seems to me to pass somewhat beyond the bounds of simple ardour and enthusiasm; the most passionate artists by comparison merely lick the canvas. He executed, using a spoon as a brush, a scene from the Dos de Mayo, where we see the French shooting at Spaniards. It is a work of incredible verve and fury. This interesting painting is relegated, without any show of honour, to the antechamber of the Madrid Museum.

The artist’s individuality is so strong and definite that it is difficult to render even an approximate idea of him. He is not a caricaturist like Hogarth, William Bunbury, or George Cruikshank: Hogarth, serious, phlegmatic, exact and meticulous as a Richardson novel, always revealing a moral intent; Bunbury and Cruikshank, remarkable for their malignant verve, their farcical exaggeration, owning nothing in common with the creator of Los Caprichos. Jaques Callot would come closer, Callot, half-Spanish, half-Bohemian; but Callot is clean, clear, fine, precise, faithful to the truth, despite the nature of his outlines and the boastful extravagance of his forms; his most singular devilries are strictly possible; his etchings are set in broad daylight, where refinement of detail obviates striking effects or chiaroscuro, which are obtained only through the sacrifice of certain elements. Goya’s settings are in the depths of night, where a sudden ray of light outlines pale silhouettes and strange phantoms.

His work is a composite of Rembrandt, Watteau, and Rabelais’ entertaining dreams; a singular mixture! Add to this a high Spanish flavour, a strong dose of the picaresque spirit of Cervantes’ portrayals of Escalanta and Gananciosa, in his short story Rinconete and Cortadillo, and you will still have only a very imperfect idea of Goya’s talent. We will try to convey this, if possible, in words.

Goya’s drawings are executed in aquatint, pricked out and vivified by etching; nothing is freer, simpler, or more direct; a line indicates a whole physiognomy, a streak of shadow serves for background, or suggests dark, half-sketched landscapes; gorges in the sierra, stages prepared for a murder, a sabbath, or a tertulia of Bohemians; though this is rare, because backgrounds scarcely exist in Goya. Like Michelangelo, he disdains external nature completely, and employs only enough of it against which to pose his figures, and even then, he places many of them in obscurity. From time to time a section of wall cut across by a broad width of shadow, a black prison-arcade, a barely indicated arbour; that is all – I have said that Goya was a caricaturist, for want of a better word. It is caricature in the mode of Hoffmann, where fantasy always mingles with extreme states of mind, and which often extends to the lugubrious and terrifying; all those grimacing heads seem as if drawn by the claw of Charles Nodier’s demon, Smarra, on the wall of some suspect alcove, by the intermittent glow of a dying night-light. One feels as if transported to some world, incredible, impossible, and yet real – tree trunks look like phantoms, men like hyenas, owls, cats, mules, or hippos; nails may be claws, pointed shoes fit goats’ feet; the young rider is an old corpse, and his beribboned hose envelop a gaunt femur, a meagre tibia and fibula; never have more mysteriously sinister apparitions emerged from behind Doctor Faust’s stove.

Goya’s caricatures are said to contain various political allusions, though few in number; they relate to Manuel Godoy, to the old Duchess of Benavente, to the queen’s favourites, and to certain lords of the court, whose ignorance or vices they stigmatize. But we must search for their likenesses through the thick veil which obscures them – Goya made other drawings for the Duchess of Alba, his friend, which have not yet been published, undoubtedly because of the ease of identification – Some treat of fanaticism, gluttony, and the stupidity of the monks; the others represent contemporary manners or witchcraft.

Goya’s self-portrait serves as a frontispiece to Los Caprichos. Here is a man of about fifty years, with narrow slanting eyes covered by large eyelids, adorned with malignant and mocking crow’s-feet, his chin curved like a sabot, the upper-lip thin, the lower prominent and sensual; the whole framed in those sideburns adopted in the south, and topped with a Bolivar hat; a characterful and powerful physiognomy.

The second plate represents a money-marriage, a poor young girl sacrificed to a decrepit and monstrous old man by greedy parents. The bride is charming with her little black velvet mask and her basquin with fringed sleeves since Goya captures Andalusian and Castilian grace perfectly; the parents are hideous in their rapacity and jealous misery. They look unimaginably like sharks or crocodiles; the child smiles through tears, like April rain; while they are mere eyes, claws, and teeth; the intoxication produced by her adornments prevents the young girl from feeling the full extent of her misfortune – This theme often returns to the tip of Goya’s pencil, and he always knows how to draw from it piquant effects. Next, is El Coco, a bogeyman, who comes frightening the little children, and who would frighten many another; since, after the shade of Samuel in the painting of The Pythoness of Endor, by Salvator Rosa, we know of nothing more terrible than this scarecrow. Then there are the majos who court bold lasses on the Prado – lovely girls in well-made silk stockings, in little mules with pointed heels, which cling to the foot by a toenail, their hair adorned with a long-toothed open-cut comb, taller than Cybele’s mural crown; wearing a mantilla of black lace arranged like a hood, casting its velvety shadow on the most beautiful black eyes in the world; lead-weighted petticoats to highlight the opulence of the hips, beauty spots placed in ambush at the corner of the mouth, and near the temples; kiss-curls from which to hang all the lovers in Spain, and large fans spread like peacock tails – the majos are hidalgos in pumps, in prodigious tailcoats, with bicorn hats under their arms and clusters of trinkets adorning their stomachs, making triple-step curtsies, leaning over the backs of chairs to blow crazy clouds of madrigals like cigar smoke into a beautiful lock of black hair, or pawing with the tip of a white glove some more or less suspect divinity. Then come officious mothers, giving their overly obedient daughters the advice of Mathurin Régnier’s hypocritical Macette, and washing and waxing them ready for the Sabbath. The type of the officious mother is wonderfully well rendered by Goya, who, like all Spanish painters, has a lively and profound feeling for the ignoble; one could not imagine anything more grotesquely horrible, more viciously deformed; each of these shrews exhibits the ugliness of the seven deadly sins in one; the devil is charming compared to her. Imagine wrinkles like ditches and counterscarps; eyes like hot coals drenched in blood; noses like the fluted spout of an alembic, all buboed with warts and excrescences; hippopotamus jaws bristling with stiff hair, tigerish moustaches, mouths like money-boxes contracted by hideous sneers; somewhat reminiscent of a spider and a woodlouse, and which stirs in you the same disgust as when you set foot on the soft belly of a toad – so much for the real; but it is when he abandons himself to his bent for demonography that Goya is especially admirable; no one knows better than him how to send dense black clouds burdened with vampires, stryges, demons into the close atmosphere of a stormy night, or outline a cavalcade of witches on a strip of sinister horizon.

Above all, there is a page of utter fantasy which is indeed the most dreadful nightmare ever dreamed; it is entitled: Y aún no se van! (And, still, they don’t go!) It is frightful; Dante himself could not achieve that effect of suffocating terror; imagine a bare and gloomy plain over which a slanted cloud hangs painfully like a disembowelled crocodile; and a large stone slab, the lid to a tomb, which a lean toiling figure attempts to raise. The stone, too heavy for the gaunt arms which support it, which feel as if they are close to cracking, falls back despite the efforts of the spectre and other shorter shades who simultaneously stiffen their shadowy arms; several are already trapped beneath the stone, now momentarily displaced. The expression of despair which is painted on all these cadaverous faces, in these eyeless sockets, finding their efforts all in vain, is truly tragic; it is the saddest symbol of laborious impotence, the darkest poetry, and the bitterest derision that anyone has ever created concerning the dead. The sheet Buen viage (Bon voyage), where we see a flight of demons, of students from the seminary of Barahona de las Brujes, who take to the wing, and hasten towards some nameless deed, is notable for its liveliness and energy of motion. It seems as if one can hear those long-haired, spiny membranes palpitating in the dense night air like the wings of a bat – the collection ends with these words: Ya es ora (It is time) the rooster crows, and the phantoms vanish as the light dawns.

As for the aesthetic and moral significance of his work? We are ignorant of it. Goya seems to have given his opinion on it, in one of his drawings in which a man is represented, his head resting on his arms, around whom eagle owls, tawny owls, and cocquecigrues flutter – the caption to this image is: El sueno de la razon produce monstruos: the sleep of reason produces monsters. True, but harsh indeed.

These Caprices are all that the Bibliothèque Royale in Paris has by Goya. However, he produced other works: the Tauromaquia, a suite of thirty-three plates, the Disaster of War containing twenty drawings, which must have included more than forty (eighty-two are now known); his etchings after Velasquez, etc., etc.

The Tauromaquia is a collection of scenes depicting various episodes of bullfighting, from Moorish times to the present day – Goya was a consummate aficionado, and spent much of his time with the toreros. He was also the artist most competent of all to handle the subject in depth. Although the attitudes, poses, defences and attacks, or, to speak technical language, the different suertes and cogidas are of impeccable accuracy, Goya shrouds these scenes in his mysterious shadows and fantastic colours – what fierce and bizarre faces! What strange wild details! What a fury of movement! His Moors, expressed somewhat in the manner of the imperial Turks, in terms of costume, have the most characteristic physiognomies – A scratched-in feature, a black blot, a strip of white, and here is a character who lives, moves, and whose physiognomy is etched forever in the memory. The bulls and horses, though sometimes of a somewhat fabulous form, possess a life and a spirit that are often lacking in the creatures displayed by zookeepers: the exploits of Gazul, El Cid, Carlos V, Pedro Romero, Falces’ student, and Pepe Illo, who perished miserably in the arena, are retraced with entirely Spanish fidelity – like those of the Caprichos, the plates of the Tauromaquia are executed in aquatint, enhanced with a burin.

The Disasters of War would offer a curious connection with the Misfortunes of War, by Jacques Callot – here are hanged corpses, heaps of the naked dead, women being raped, the wounded being borne away, prisoners being led away, folk being shot dead, monasteries and convents being pillaged, populations fleeing, families reduced to begging, patriots being strangled, all this treated with those fantastic details and exorbitant touches which might make one believe this in an invasion of Tartars in the fourteenth-century. But what finesse, what profound knowledge of anatomy, is displayed in all these groups which seem born by chance and caprice from the pencil-point! Tell me if ancient Niobe could have surpassed, in desolation and nobility, that mother kneeling in the midst of her family before the French bayonets? – Amongst these drawings which are easily understood, there is one quite terrible and mysterious, and whose meaning, vaguely glimpsed, is dark with the frissons of terror. It is a dead man half-buried in the earth, raising himself on his elbow, and, with his bony hand, writing, blindly, on a sheet of paper placed next to him, a word which is well worth the blackest of Dante’s: Nada (nothingness). Around his head, which has retained just enough flesh to be more dreadful than a stripped skull, swirl, barely visible in the depth of the night, monstrous nightmarish faces illuminated here and there by livid lightning. A fateful hand supports a scale whose scales are unbalanced. Do you know of anything more sinister or more desolate?

At the very end of his life, which was a long one, as he died in Bordeaux at the age of over eighty, Goya improvised some lithographic sketches on stone, which bear the title of Dibersión de España – these are of bull fights. We can still recognize, in these leaves, pencilled by the hand of an old man who had been deaf for a long time, and was almost blind, the vigour and movement of the Caprichos and the Tauromaquia. The appearance of these lithographs is most reminiscent, curiously enough, of the manner of Eugène Delacroix in his illustrations of Faust.

In Goya’s tomb is buried the ancient art of Spain, the forever-vanished world of bullfighters, majos, manolas, monks, smugglers, thieves, alguazils and witches, all the local colour of the Peninsula – he came just in time to gather up and record it all. Believing that he was only indulging his whims, he depicted the portrait and the history of the old Spain, while believing he was serving the ideas and beliefs of the new. His caricatures will soon be seen as monuments to that history.

Part IX: The Escorial – The Thieves

To visit the Escorial, we rented one of those fantastic carriages decorated in shades of grey, and embellished within in pink, which we have already had occasion to speak of; this, harnessed to four mules, complemented by a fairly well camouflaged zagal. The Escorial is located seven or eight leagues from Madrid, not far from Guadarrama, at the foot of a mountain range; one cannot imagine anything more arid and more desolate than the countryside that one must traverse to get there: not a tree, not a house; long slopes rising one after another, dry ravines, which the presence of several bridges designates as the beds of torrents, and here and there a view of blue mountains capped with snow or clouds. This landscape, such as it is, does not, however, lack grandeur: the absence of any vegetation gives the contours of the land an extraordinary severity and starkness; as one draws further away from Madrid, the stones with which the countryside is dotted become larger and show an ambition to become rocks; these stones, of a bluish-grey, mottling the flaky ground, have the effect of warts on the roughened back of a hundred-year-old crocodile; they sharpen the silhouette of the hills, which resemble the rubble of gigantic buildings, in a thousand bizarre and jagged edges.

The Escorial

Midway along the road, at the conclusion of a fairly steep climb, one reaches a poor isolated house, the only one encountered in a space of eight leagues, opposite a spring which produces clear water, drop by drop, and ice-cold; one drinks as many glasses of water as there are in the spring, allows the mules to regain their breath, and then sets off again. One soon sees, detached from the vaporous mountainous background by a bright ray of sunlight, the Escorial, that leviathan of architecture. The effect, from a distance, is very fine: it resembles an immense oriental palace: the dome and the balls of stone that terminate all the spires contribute greatly to this illusion. Before arriving, one traverses a large grove of olive trees decorated with crosses bizarrely perched on large slabs of rock with the most picturesque effect; after crossing the woods, one emerges and enters the village, and finds oneself face to face with the colossus, which loses a lot when seen near to, as do all the colossi of this world. The first thing that struck me was the immense number of swallows and swifts circling in the air in innumerable swarms, uttering shrill, strident cries. These poor little birds seemed frightened by the dead silence which reigned in this Thebaid, and tried to inject a little life and noise into it.

Everyone knows that the Escorial was built following a pledge made by Philip II at the siege of Saint-Quentin (in 1557), when he was obliged to cannonade the church of Saint-Laurent; he promised the saint to compensate him for the church, he was robbing him of, with another larger and more beautiful one, and kept his word better than the kings of the earth usually keep it. The Escorial, begun by Juan Bautista, finished by Juan de Herrera, is undoubtedly, after the pyramids of Egypt, the largest pile of granite that exists on earth; in Spain it is called the eighth wonder of the world; each major country has its eighth wonder, which makes at least thirty-eight wonders of the world.

It embarrasses me extremely to give my opinion of the Escorial. So many serious, well-placed people, who, I like to believe, had never seen it, have spoken of it as a masterpiece, and a supreme effort of human genius, that it might give me, a poor devil of a wandering journalist, the air of wishing to demonstrate a biased originality, by taking pleasure in countering the general opinion; and yet, in my soul and conscience, I cannot help finding the Escorial the most tedious and sullen monument that a morose monk and a suspicious tyrant could dream of, for the mortification of their fellow human beings. I know well enough that the Escorial fulfilled an austere religious purpose, but gravity is not dryness, melancholy is not sluggishness, meditation is not boredom, and beauty of form can always be married happily to an elevated idea.

The Escorial is arranged in the shape of a gridiron, in honour of Saint Lawrence. Four towers or square pavilions represent the feet of that instrument of torture; the main buildings connect these pavilions together, and form the framework; other transverse buildings simulate bars of the grid; the palace and the church are located in the handle. This odd design, which must have given the architect much trouble, is not easily grasped by the eye, though it is very clear on paper, and, if one were not advised of it beforehand, one would certainly not perceive it. I do not blame its puerile symbolism on the taste of that age, since I am convinced that a given manner, far from harming artists of genius, aids them, supports them, and obliges them to find resources within it, of which they would not otherwise have thought; but it seems to me that one could have made completely different use of them. People who love good taste and sobriety in architecture will find the Escorial a thing quite perfect, since the only line employed is the straight line, and the only order, the Doric order, the saddest and poorest of all.

One of the first things that strikes you unpleasantly is the earthen-yellow colour of the walls, which one might think made of adobe, if the joints of the stones, marked by lines of a garish white, did not reveal the opposite. Nothing is more monotonous to view than its six or seven storey buildings, without mouldings, pilasters, or columns, but with little narrow windows which look like the cells of a beehive. Its plan is that of a barracks or a hospital; the only merit of it all is that it is made of granite. A merit thrown away, since from a hundred yards away you could well mistake it for oven clay. A humped dome squats heavily on top, which I cannot do better than compare to the dome of Val-de-Grâce, and which has no other ornament than balls of granite in profusion. All around it, so that nothing is lacking in terms of symmetry, are edifices in the same style, that is to say with rows of small windows, and not the slightest ornament; these main buildings communicate with each other by galleries, in the form of bridges thrown over the streets, which lead to the village, which today is only a heap of ruins. All the surrounds are paved with granite, and the boundaries are marked by little three-foot high walls, embellished with the inevitable granite balls at every corner and indentation. The main portal, which is flat with the body of the monument, fails to break the aridity of line and is barely visible, though it is in fact gigantic.

One first enters a vast courtyard at the end of which rises the portal of a church, which has nothing remarkable other than colossal statues of prophets, gilded ornamentation, and figures tinted with pink. This courtyard is paved, damp, and cold; grass greens the corners; simply on setting foot there, tedium weighs upon your shoulders like a lead cope; your heart is constricted; it seems as if all is over and all joy is dead. Twenty paces from the door, and you smell an icy stale odour of holy water and sepulchral vaults, brought to you by a current of air blessed with pleurisy and catarrh. Though it is thirty degrees outside, the marrow freezes in your bones; it feels as if the heat of life will never be able to warm the blood in your veins, which is now colder than the blood of a viper. The walls, impenetrable like the tomb, prevent the air of the living from filtering through their thick walls. And yet! Despite this claustral and Muscovite cold, the first thing I saw on entering the church was a Spanish woman kneeling on the stone pavement, who was striking herself on the chest with one hand, and fanning herself with the other with at least equal fervour; the fan was, I remember perfectly, green in colour like the sea or an iris-blade, which sends a shiver down my spine when I recall it.

Our guide to the interior of the building was blind, and it was truly a wondrous thing to note with what precision he halted in front of the paintings, of which he pointed out the subject and artist without hesitation and without error. He made us climb to the dome, and walked us through an infinity of ascending and descending corridors which equal in complexity those of the Confessional of the Black Penitents (The Italian) by Ann Radcliffe, or Les visions du château des Pyrénées (Catherine Cuthbertson, 1803). The guide was named Cornelio; he was in the best of moods, and seemed very happy despite his infirmity.

The interior of the church is melancholy and bare. Enormous mouse-grey granite pilasters with large micaceous grains like those of kitchen-salt rise to the vaults painted with frescoes, whose azure and vaporous tones blend poorly with the cold and meagre colour of the architecture; the retablo, gilded and carved in the Spanish style with very beautiful paintings, amends this aridity of decoration a little, where all is sacrificed to I know not what tasteless symmetry; the gilded bronze statues kneeling on both sides of the retablo, which represent, I believe, Don Carlos and various princesses of the royal family, are in the grand style and produce a fine effect; the nave, which faces the great altar, is in itself an immense church; the stalls which surround it, instead of being leafed and flowered in fanciful arabesques like those of Burgos, contribute to the general rigidity, and have only simple mouldings for decoration. We were shown the place where, for fourteen years, the sombre Philip II seated himself, that king born to be a grand inquisitor; his stall occupies an alcove; a door made in the thickness of the woodwork communicates with the interior of the palace. Though not possessed by any very fervent feelings of devotion, I have never entered a Gothic cathedral without experiencing a mysterious, profound, and extraordinary emotion, and without a vague fear of meeting the Eternal Father himself at the corner of some group of pillars – with his long silver beard, purple cloak and azure robe, gathering in the folds of his tunic the prayers of the faithful. In the basilica of the Escorial, we are so dejected, so crushed, we feel so firmly under the domination of an inflexible and gloomy power, that the uselessness of prayer is thereby demonstrated. The god of a temple so made would never allow himself to weaken.

After visiting the church, we descended to the Pantheon. This is the name given to the vault where the bodies of the kings are deposited; it is an octagonal room thirty-six feet in diameter by thirty-eight high, located precisely under the main altar, so that the priest, when saying Mass, has his feet on the stone which forms the keystone; you descend to it by a staircase of granite and coloured marble, fronted by a beautiful bronze gate. The Pantheon is entirely covered in jasper, porphyry and other no less precious stones. In the walls there are niches with ancient ornate coffers intended to contain the bodies of the kings and queens who have departed their lives. There is a penetrating and deadly chill in this vault; the polished marble shimmers icily with reflections, in the trembling rays of the torch; they appear as if streaming with water, and one might believe oneself in a submarine grotto. The monstrous edifice presses upon you with all its weight; it surrounds, embraces, and suffocates you; you feel caught as if in the tentacles of a gigantic granite polyp. The dead in their sepulchral urns appear more dead than others, and it is difficult to believe that they could ever be resurrected. There, as in the church, the impression is sinister, desperate; among all these dreary vaults there is not a single hole through which one can see the sky.

In the sacristy, some good paintings remain (the best having been transferred to the Royal Museum in Madrid), among others, two or three paintings on wood from the German school, of rare perfection; the ceiling of the grand staircase was frescoed by Luca Giordano, and represents in allegorical manner Philip II’s vow, and the foundation of the monastery. What Luca Giordano painted on these acres of Spanish plaster is truly prodigious, and we, we moderns, already out of breath in the midst of the shortest task, cannot but find the possibility of such work hard to imagine. Pellegrino Tibaldi, Luca Cambiaso, Vicente Carducho, Romulo Cincinato, and several other artists painted cloisters, vaults and ceilings at the Escorial. The one in the library, which is by Carducho and Pellegrino, is in fine, clear and luminous fresco tones; the composition is rich, and the arabesques which intertwine with it are in the best taste. The Escorial library is peculiar in that the books are arranged on the shelf with their backs to the wall and their edges towards the viewer; I am unaware of the reason for this oddity. The library is rich in Arabic manuscripts especially, and must contain priceless, completely unknown treasures. Now that the conquest of North Africa has made Arabic a fashionable and contemporary language, we must hope that this rich mine will be explored in detail by our young orientalists; the rest of the books seemed to me to be generally books on theology and scholastic philosophy. We were shown some manuscripts on vellum with historiated and miniaturised margins; but, as it was Sunday and the librarian was absent, we wer unable to view more, and had to leave without having seen a single incunable edition, a much more noticeable inconvenience for my companion than for myself, who unfortunately lack the passion for bibliography or anything else.

In one of the corridors there is a life-size white marble Christ, attributed to Benvenuto Cellini, and some very singular fantastic paintings, in the style of the ‘Temptations’ created by Jacques Callot and David Teniers the Younger, but of less recent date. As for the rest, one cannot imagine anything more monotonous than those endless corridors of grey granite, narrow and low, which penetrate the building like veins in the human body; you truly need to be blind to find your way about; we ascended, we descended, we made a thousand detours, and one would only have to walk there for more than three or four hours to completely wear out the soles of one’s shoes, since the granite is as harsh as a file and as rough as sandpaper. When we reached the dome, we saw that the balls of stone, which from below appear as large as bells, are of enormous size, and might be used to create monstrous globes of the world. An immense horizon unfolds at your feet, and you embrace, at a glance, the mountainous country which separates you from Madrid; on the other side, the mountains of Guadarrama rise: you can therefore comprehend the whole layout of the monument; you can immerse yourself in its courtyards and cloisters, with their rows of superimposed arcades, their fountains or central pavilions, and their sloping roofs, as in a bird’s eye view.

When we ascended the dome, there was on a chimney-top, in a large straw nest like an upside-down turban, a stork with her three fledglings. This interesting family presented the strangest profile in the world; the mother was standing on one leg in the middle of the nest, her neck buried in her shoulders, her beak majestically placed on her crop, like a philosopher in meditation; while the little ones stretched out their long beaks and necks to beg for food. I hoped to witness one of those sentimental scenes from natural history, where we see the great white pelican bloodying its side in order to nourish its young children; but the stork seemed very little moved by these demonstrations of hunger, and stirred no more than do the storks in the wood-engraving that adorns the frontispiece of those books Sébastian Cramoisy printed. The melancholic group further added to the profound solitude of the place, and added a further Egyptian touch to that Pharaonic pile. Descending, we viewed the garden, where there is more architecture than vegetation; there are large terraces and beds of trimmed boxwood which present designs like branches of old damask, with a few fountains and a few greenish water features; a dull and solemn garden, starched like a golilla (correctly a valona, a seventeenth century Spanish linen collar) and entirely worthy of the gloomy building it accompanies.

There are, they say, a mere one thousand one hundred and ten windows visible on the exterior, which causes great astonishment to the bourgeoisie; I did not count them, preferring to believe the number rather than engage in such activity; but there is nothing improbable in it, for I have never seen so many windows together; the number of doors is also fabulous.

I left this granite wasteland, this monastic necropolis with a feeling of satisfaction and extraordinary relief; it seemed to me that I was returning to life, and that I might still be young and rejoice in the creation of the good Lord, a thing of which I had lost all hope beneath those funeral vaults. The warm, luminous air enveloped me like a soft fabric of fine wool, and warmed my body frozen by their cadaverous atmosphere; I was freed from that architectural nightmare, which I had believed unending. I advise people who are conceited enough to pretend that they are bored, to go and spend three or four days in the Escorial; they will learn there what true boredom is, and may entertain themselves for the rest of their lives with the thought that they could be at the Escorial and are not.

When we returned to Madrid, there was joyful astonishment among the folk there to see us still alive. Few people return from the Escorial; you die of consumption there in two or three days, or you blow your brains out, if you are English. Fortunately, we are of robust temperament, and, as Napoleon said of the cannonball that sought to carry him off, the monument that could kill us has not yet been built. The thing which caused the most surprise was to see that we returned with our watches; since, on the roads of Spain, there are always folk very interested in knowing the time, and, as there is neither clock nor sundial there, they are forced to ‘consult’ the watches of travellers – Speaking of thieves, let me recount a story of which we were almost the heroes. The coach from Madrid to Seville, in which we were to leave, but in which there was no more room, was stopped in La Mancha by a band of rebels or thieves, which amounts to the same thing; the thieves divided the loot and were preparing to take their prisoners to the mountains and force their families to pay a ransom (might one not have thought this took place in Africa?), when another, more numerous band arrived, who attacked the first, stole their prisoners, and indeed led them off to the mountains.

On the way, one of the travellers took a box of cigars from a pocket they had neglected to search, removed one, and struck a light. ‘Would you care for a cigar?’ he said to the bandit, with Castilian politeness, ‘They are from Havana.’ ‘Con mucho gusto,’ replied the bandit, flattered by this attention; and there were the traveller and the bandit, cigar alongside cigar, inhaling and puffing to light them fully. A conversation began, and one thing led to another. The thief, like all tradesmen, began to complain about his trade: times were hard, business was going badly, too many honest people were becoming involved and ruining his profession; people were lining up to rob these wretched stagecoaches, and often three or four gangs were obliged to fight over the spoils of the same vehicle and its convoy of mules; thus travellers, certain of being plundered, took only the bare necessities and donned their worst clothes. ‘Look,’ he said with a gesture of melancholy and discouragement, pointing to his worn and patched coat, which would have merited enveloping Probity itself, ‘is it not shameful to be forced to steal such rags? Is not my jacket most virtuous? Could the most honest man on earth be worse dressed? We take travellers hostage, but these days their families are so hard-hearted they can’t bring themselves to untie the purse strings; there’s the cost of our food, and, after a month or two, more cost yet for a charge of powder and lead to shatter the skulls of our prisoners, which is always unpleasant after becoming acquainted with them. To carry on this trade, you have to sleep on the ground, eat acorns which are frequently bitter, drink melted snow, make immense journeys on abominable paths, and risk your skin at every moment.’ So spoke this brave bandit, more disgusted with his profession than a Parisian journalist whose turn it is to provide copy. ‘Well, why,’ said the traveller, ‘if your trade displeases you, and brings you so little, not take up another?’ – ‘I’ve dreamed of doing so, and my comrades too; but what would you do? We are hunted, pursued; we’d be shot like curs if we went near a village; we must pursue our livelihood.’ The traveller, who was a man of some influence, remained thoughtful for a moment. ‘So, you’d willingly quit your role if you were granted an indulto (amnesty)?’ ‘Indeed,’ they all replied, ‘do you think it's fun, being a thief? You have to work like slaves, while sick as a dog. We’d rather be honest.’ – ‘Well!’ the traveller replied, ‘I undertake to obtain your pardon, on the condition that you grant us our freedom.’ ‘So be it: go to Madrid; here’s a horse and money to make the journey, and a pass so that our comrades will let you by. Return quickly; we’ll wait for you at a certain place with your companions, whom we’ll treat as best we can.’ The man rode to Madrid, obtained an indulto for the bandits, and returned to free his comrades in misfortune; he found them sitting quietly among the bandits, eating a La Mancha ham glazed with sugar, and granting frequent embraces to a skin full of wine from Val-de-Penas stolen expressly for them: what delicate attentions! They were singing, and having a fine time, and were possessed of a greater desire to become thieves, like the rest, than return to Madrid; but the leader of the band gave them a severe moral dressing-down which brought them to themselves, and the whole troop then set off, arm in arm, for the city, where both travellers and thieves were welcomed with enthusiasm, since brigands captured by travellers are something truly rare and curious.

The End of Parts VII-IX of Gautier’s Travels in Spain

Bookmarks

Notes

Images

Théophile Gautier

Travels in Spain (Voyage en Espagne, 1840)

Parts VII to IX - Madrid

Contents

Part VII: The Bullfight – Sevilla the Picador – The Estocada (Death-Blow) known as Vuela Pies

Part IX: The Escorial – The Thieves