Seis crónicas inéditas - A QUEEN'S BABY

III ) A QUEEN'S BABY

The Rites and Vexations that Attend the Birth of Royal Infante in Spain

The Queen of Spain is going to have a baby. The cable has records of the agitation in Madrid and the aspect of the court. Never was the birth of an heir to the throne awaited with greater anxiety. The Liberals, confident of the progress of democracy, await the events with smiles: but bitter quarrels are fomenting among the partisans of the sister of the King and the enemies of her friend, Premier Canovas. And yet in the monarchical ranks you can hear only shouts of joy. The courtiers cannot see what is at their feet. They believe that the birth of the child of the King will permanently establish the Spanish monarchy.

The Spaniards will be charmed by the majestic pomp that will attend the birth of the child. The Spanish women, who regard every son of their King as in a measure their own child, will openly express their delight. For the sake of the royal baby, they will pardon the Queen's Austrian birth. But the singular disdain which all the democratic journals have shown for the absurdities of court etiquette on this occasion shows the little importance that they attach to the birth of a son of Alphonso.

No efforts have been spared to give to this event a solemn aspect. All the old etiquette is to be revived. The mother is forbidden to nurse her first baby. They have compelled this woman, when taken with the first pains of childbirth, to consent to receive strangers in her presence. Three habitations, furnished modestly to please the poor people, are set apart for the expected heir, and all the ceremonies that gave such éclat to the birth of Alphonso will be reenacted for his son. One rite, neglected then, will be performed to-day. The name of the child will be written in the Civil Register. Kings, therefore, are the sons of citizens, the same as other people. They are no longer the sons of Gods. The King will acknowledge this by the registry. It is a fair sign of the progress of the times. It shows the inevitable subordination in Spain, as elsewhere, of royal authority to the authority of the people. The essential ideas of revolutions are recognized in this concession. Such reactions are hours of repose for the growing strength of democratic ideas.

Not a single movement of the Queen mother will escape the notice of the envious public. With the first pains of her approaching maternity, Premier Canovas and his Minister of Justice, dressed in court uniform, will walk into the apartments of Queen Christine. The doctor will certify that she is about to become a mother, and the Ministers will announce the news to the great crowd of guests invited by the King's decree of the 6th of August.

A brilliant assembly will fill the superb salons of the palace. Numbers of ladies, with long-trained dresses, will majestically move up the grand staircase, one of the handsomest and largest in the world. Glance at the salons, and you will see an historical procession. The old, however, must take warmth from the new. The different military orders will stand at the side of committees of Congress and of the Senate. Near them will stand the deputies of Asturias, privileged province from the time when King Pelayo and his bear killing sons made it the rampart of Spanish liberty. All will appear in uniforms embellished in gold and silver. Plumed hats and silk stockings are to be worn. The cavaliers of Santiago, wrapped in long cloaks, will march at the side of the chevaliers of the orders of the good King Charles III, and of that strong woman called Isabella the Catholic. Christian Rome, which has played so important a part in the history of Spain, will be represented by the Archbishop of Toledo, by the Patriarch of the Indies, and by a committee from the Tribunal de las Rota, a unique tribunal created specially for Spain, an offshoot from the Papacy rooted in the heart of the faithful nation.

The nobility are to be represented by a committee dressed in sumptuous and picturesque costumes, and the army by the Minister and Captain-General of Castile, of which Madrid is the capital. The people will also be represented by a committee from the Ayuntamiento, a corporation elected by them. Representatives of great nations are also to contribute to this pompous display, made exclusively in the interests of the dying Bourbon dynasty. All the diplomatic corps have been invited.

When the child is born the venerable Marchioness de Santa Cruz, who performs the functions of chief lady of the bedchamber, will announce to Señor Canovas the happy event, the sex of the child, and the condition of its august mother. Then Señor Canovas, in his sharp and telling voice, will give the news to the invited guests. The times are tempestuous. Monarchy seems to be on its last legs. This birth in a salon so crowded, so gay, so excited, so full of all sorts of passions, will actually be saluted as the birth of an established monarchy. Alphonso will appear bearing his newly born son or daughter on a salver. Señor Canovas will raise the tray aloft and exhibit the child to the diplomatic corps and to all the assembled guests. The Minister of Justice will act as notary and register the birth. Then the roar of the artillery will announce to all Madrid that the child has seen the light of the beautiful land of Spain. If a boy, twenty-five guns will be fired; if a girl, only fifteen. A white flag will also be raised if it is a girl, and if it is a boy the red and yellow flag of the nation will be hoisted. The baptismal ceremonies are to be new and gorgeous. It is intended to welcome the child as a redeemer, who comes, according to monarchists, to save his father. Like Jesus, he will be baptized with the water of the Jordan. The Marquesa de Villa y Mantilla has sent to the King water from the holy river in a magnificent vessel of Bohemian crystal, adorned with silver ornaments. The King received it with extreme pleasure.

Royalty and religion travel through life together, and religion, grateful for the good services of King Alphonso, has consented to emerge from its home to meet the child that comes to it so apropos. The nuns of the Meson de Paredes have sent to the palace the font in which Santo Domingo de Guzman, a saint, born in Madrid, and profoundly revered, was baptized. From this font the son of the King will receive his baptism.

But what a great ado is made over this little innocent unborn! The ambitions of the court are pursuing the child before its birth. The powerful hand of the King's sister has made itself felt in all his decisions and decrees in reference to the birth of his child. From the old times of the weak King, Don Juan II., the first son of the Kings of Spain was proclaimed and acknowledged as the inheritor of the crown. They called him Prince d'Asturias. His patrimony was the province of Asturias and the splendid lands of Jean Ubeda, Baeza, and Andijar. Three daughters of Spanish kings have been proclaimed Princess the daughter-by-law of Don Enrique IV., the famous Juana la Beltraneja; Queen Isabella, mother of the present King; and Maria Francisca Isabella, the sister of the King. As the son of Alphonso must naturally be the Prince d'Asturias, his birth will rob the King's sister of her title of Princess, a dignity that makes her the superior of all her sisters. She cannot avoid this terrible blow to her pride, if the child is a boy, but she has tried to escape it, and to remain Princess, or at least to prevent anybody else from gaining the title, provided the child should prove to be a girl. Señor Canovas is the servile fanatic of royalty in Spain, and the despotic master of the monarch. He is a thorough believer in the importance of the actual Princess, who has the same hatred of the people and the same supercilious airs as himself. He is sincere in his belief that the energy and intelligence of the Princesses are necessary for the prestige of the monarchy in Spain, and he has desired to spare her by compelling the King to sign a decree confirming her title, even if he should be the father of a daughter. Even if the daughter were made Princess d'Asturias she might lose the title, for the King is still young, and he may yet have a son. A son's birth would rob the daughter of the dignity. It remains to be seen whether Queen Christine, who does not love her sister-in-law, will consent to allow her to retain a dignity claimed by the Liberal party for her child. The same Canovas, who holds in 1880 that the daughters of kings ought not to be Princesses of Asturias, forced the honor upon the sister of the King in 1875. In 1875 he wished to honor and elevate her, and to-day he tries to confirm her dignity and power.

The reactionary nobles, the most powerful soldiers, and all those who form the Liberal opposition in the monarchy, hate and fear the sister of the Queen, and have united in a protest against the proposed robbery of the daughter of a monarch of a rightful title. They act thus with the object of shaking the indisputable power of the Princess, and of flattering the Queen by fanning the antipathies that are supposed to exist between the two women, thereby gaining for themselves a foothold in the court.

If the child is a son, the cross of Victoria, in memory of the oak cross which was the only banner of Pelayo when from the Asturian Mountains he began his struggles with the Moors, will be presented to the inheritor of the crown, together with the insignia of Golden Fleece, and the crosses of Isabella the Catholic, Charles III., and San Juan de Jerusalem, which will secure for him the dignity of Prince d'Asturias.

The Sun, August 29, 1880