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Page 37
In reading Irving's letters written during his third visit abroad, you
are conscious that the glamour of life is gone for him, though not his
kindliness towards the world, and that he is subject to few illusions;
the show and pageantry no longer enchant,--they only weary. The novelty
was gone, and he was no longer curious to see great sights and great
people. He had declined a public dinner in New York, and he put aside
the same hospitality offered by Liverpool and by Glasgow. In London he
attended the Queen's grand fancy ball, which surpassed anything he had
seen in splendor and picturesque effect. "The personage," he writes,
"who appeared least to enjoy the scene seemed to me to be the little
Queen herself. She was flushed and heated, and evidently fatigued and
oppressed with the state she had to keep up and the regal robes in
which she was arrayed, and especially by a crown of gold, which weighed
heavy on her brow, and to which she was continually raising her hand to
move it slightly when it pressed. I hope and trust her real crown sits
easier." The bearing of Prince Albert he found prepossessing, and he
adds, "He speaks English very well;" as if that were a useful
accomplishment for an English Prince Consort. His reception at court and
by the ministers and diplomatic corps was very kind, and he greatly
enjoyed meeting his old friends, Leslie, Rogers, and Moore. At Paris, in
an informal presentation to the royal family, he experienced a very
cordial welcome from the King and Queen and Madame Adelaide, each of
whom took occasion to say something complimentary about his writings;
but he escaped as soon as possible from social engagements. "Amidst all
the splendors of London and Paris, I find my imagination refuses to take
fire, and my heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." Of an
anxious friend in Paris, who thought Irving was ruining his prospects by
neglecting to leave his card with this or that duchess who had sought
his acquaintance, he writes: "He attributes all this to very excessive
modesty, not dreaming that the empty intercourse of saloons with people
of rank and fashion could be a bore to one who has run the rounds of
society for the greater part of half a century, and who likes to consult
his own humor and pursuits."
When Irving reached Madrid the affairs of the kingdom had assumed a
powerful dramatic interest, wanting in none of the romantic elements
that characterize the whole history of the peninsula. "The future career
[he writes] of this gallant soldier, Espartero, whose merits and
services have placed him at the head of the government, and the future
fortunes of these isolated little princesses, the Queen and her sister,
have an uncertainty hanging about them worthy of the fifth act in a
melodrama." The drama continued, with constant shifting of scene, as
long as Irving remained in Spain, and gave to his diplomatic life
intense interest, and at times perilous excitement. His letters are full
of animated pictures of the changing progress of the play; and although
they belong rather to the gossip of history than to literary biography,
they cannot be altogether omitted. The duties which the minister had to
perform were unusual, delicate, and difficult; but I believe he
acquitted himself of them with the skill of a born diplomatist. When he
went to Spain before, in 1826, Ferdinand VII. was, by aid of French
troops, on the throne, the liberties of the kingdom were crushed, and
her most enlightened men were in exile. While he still resided there, in
1829, Ferdinand married, for his fourth wife, Maria Christina, sister of
the King of Naples, and niece of the Queen of Louis Philippe. By her he
had two daughters, his only children. In order that his own progeny
might succeed him, he set aside the Salique law (which had been imposed
by France) just before his death, in 1833, and revived the old Spanish
law of succession. His eldest daughter, then three years old, was
proclaimed Queen, by the name of Isabella II., and her mother guardian
during her minority, which would end at the age of fourteen. Don Carlos,
the king's eldest brother, immediately set up the standard of rebellion,
supported by the absolutist aristocracy, the monks, and a great part of
the clergy. The liberals rallied to the Queen. The Queen Regent did
not, however, act in good faith with the popular party: she resisted all
salutary reform, would not restore the Constitution of 1812 until
compelled to by a popular uprising, and disgraced herself by a
scandalous connection with one Mu�os, one of the royal body guards. She
enriched this favorite and amassed a vast fortune for herself, which she
sent out of the country. In 1839, when Don Carlos was driven out of the
country by the patriot soldier Espartero, she endeavored to gain him
over to her side, but failed. Espartero became Regent, and Maria
Christina repaired to Paris, where she was received with great
distinction by Louis Philippe, and Paris became the focus of all sorts
of machinations against the constitutional government of Spain, and of
plots for its overthrow. One of these had just been defeated at the time
of Irving's arrival. It was a desperate attempt of a band of soldiers of
the rebel army to carry off the little Queen and her sister, which was
frustrated only by the gallant resistance of the halberdiers in the
palace. The little princesses had scarcely recovered from the horror of
this night attack when our minister presented his credentials to the
Queen through the Regent, thus breaking a diplomatic dead-lock, in which
he was followed by all the other embassies except the French. I take
some passages from the author's description of his first audience at the
royal palace:--
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