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Page 6
In 1833 Ferdinand VII died, and his daughter Isabel II ascended to the
throne under the regency of her mother Cristina. As the conservatives
espoused the cause of the pretender, Don Carlos, the regency was forced
to favor the liberals. The rigid press censorship was abolished, and a
general amnesty was granted all the victims of Ferdinand's tyranny. In
politics the year 1833 marks the beginning of the Carlist war, and
in literature of Spanish Romanticism. Espronceda was one of many
_emigrados_ who returned to Spain, bringing with them new ideas for the
revitalizing of Spanish literature. He did not arrive soon enough to
see his aged father. Brigadier Espronceda's death certificate is dated
January 10, 1833.
Shortly after Jos�'s arrival he joined the fashionable Guardia de Corps
or royal guard regiment. This step, apparently so inconsistent with
his revolutionary activities, has puzzled all his biographers. But
Espronceda was only following the family tradition. His elder brother
had done the same. Doubtless he believed, in his first enthusiasm, that
Spain was now completely liberalized. Besides, he was a dandy always
eager for social distinction, and he had to live down the fact that his
mother was proprietress of an _establecimiento de coches_. The conduct
of his fellow-Numantino, Escosura, who had found it possible to accept
a commission under Ferdinand, is far more surprising. Espronceda's
snobbishness, if he had any, cannot have been extreme, for he took up
residence with his mother over the aforementioned livery stable, in the
Calle de San Miguel. Teresa was prudently lodged under another roof.
Do�a Carmen was as indulgent as ever, and especially desirous that her
son dress in the most fashionable clothes procurable. What with her
rent from the house, her widow's pension, and the yield of her business
venture, she was comfortably circumstanced. When Teresa abandoned the
child Blanca, Do�a Carmen became a mother to her. When Do�a Carmen died
in 1840 everything went to her son.
Espronceda's career as a guardsman was brief. As a result of reading a
satirical poem at a public banquet, he was cashiered and banished to the
town of Cu�llar in Old Castile. There he wrote his "Sancho Salda�a o
el Castellano de Cu�llar," a historical novel in the manner of Walter
Scott, describing the quarrels of Sancho el Bravo with his father
Alfonso X. This six-volume work was contracted for in 1834 and completed
and published the same year. For writing it the author received six
thousand reales. Many writers in Spain were striving to rival the Wizard
of the North at this time. Ram�n L�pez Soler had set the fashion in
1830 with "Los Bandos de Castilla." Larra's "Doncel de Don Enrique
el Doliente" appeared in the same year with "Sancho Salda�a." But
Espronceda was probably most influenced by his friend Escosura, who had
printed his "Conde de Candespina" in 1832. The latter's best effort in
this genre, "Ni Rey ni Roque," 1835, was written when its author was
undergoing banishment for political reasons in a corner of Andalusia. To
employ the enforced leisure of political exile in writing a historical
novel was quite the proper thing to do. The banishment to Cu�llar must
have taken place in late 1833 or early 1834, for Espronceda's novel is
unquestionably inspired by his enforced visit to that town, and the
contract with his publisher is dated in Madrid, February 5, 1834. On
reading the contract it is apparent that the novel had hardly been begun
then, as it was to be paid for in installments. Whether it was written
mostly in Cu�llar or Madrid we do not know and care little. In January
of that year _El Siglo_ was founded, a radical journal with which
Espronceda was prominently connected. During the brief existence of this
incendiary sheet (January 21 until March 7) Espronceda contributed to it
several political articles. The last issue came out almost wholly blank
as an object lesson of the censor's activity. There follow a few
months of agitation and political intrigue, the upshot of which
was Espronceda's imprisonment for three weeks without trial. After
protesting in the press and appealing to the queen regent, he was
released and banished to Badajoz. How long he was absent from the
capital we do not know, except that this banishment, like the others,
was of short duration. During all this commotion there was produced at
the Teatro de la Cruz, in April, an indifferent play, "Ni el T�o ni el
Sobrino," whose authors were Espronceda and his friend Antonio Ros y
Olano. It is difficult to paint anything but a confused picture of
Espronceda's life during the remaining years of this decade. We catch
glimpses of him debating questions of art and politics at caf�s and
literary _tertulias_ like the Parnasillo, where Mesonero Romanos saw him
faultlessly attired and "darting epigrams against everything existing,
past, and future." C�rdoba in his memoirs bears witness that he was
still the _buscarruidos_ of old. Espronceda with Larra, Escosura, Ros
De Olano, and C�rdoba constituted the "Thunder Band" of the Parnasillo
(_partida del trueno_). After a long literary discussion they would
sally forth into the streets, each armed with a peashooter and on
mischief bent. A favorite prank was to tie a chestnut vender's table to
a waiting cab and then watch the commotion which followed when the cab
started to move. On one occasion, finding the Duke of Alba's coachman
asleep on the box, they painted the yellow coach red, so altering it
that the very owner failed to recognize it when he left the house where
he had been calling. In politics Espronceda is always a leader in
revolt, fighting with pen and sword for his none-too-clearly-defined
principles. Even the Mendiz�bal ministry, the most advanced that Spain
has ever had, does not satisfy him. His ideal is a republic and the
downfall of "the spurious race of Bourbon." His love affairs are equally
stormy. In literature he is attempting everything, plays, a novel,
polemical articles, lyric poems, and one supreme work which is to be the
very epic of humanity.
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