The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-07-02 00:00:00

THE "GRAND ACT" OF QUEEN
ISABELLA,

The abdication of Queen Isabella was enacted with
very great pewit, and c,remony. So far from making
a mournful business of renouncing a throne, she made
a gala toilette for the occasion. Her Majesty wore a
rose coloured silk dress prof osely covered with white
lace; a splendid parser of pearls, and a diamond girdle,
and with that commend of countenance which seldom
fails to reward long practice in the performance of royal
functions put on au extremely merry look. As she
took her seat in a throne-room, Don Alfonso, Prince of
Asturias, her eldest son (who in about the age
of the Prince Imps rial of France) stood on her
right hand simply dressed in a short black jacket
and knickerbockers; next to him Was the In-
fant Don Sebastian, the youngest and only
surviving son of Charles IV. ; on the left of the
Queen were Queen Christina, her children, and the
Count d'Arquila. Don Francisco d'Assise (Isabella's
husband) was, it seems, invited, but did not come. The
young Duke of Seville, son of Don Henry de Bourbon,
lately killed in a duel by the Duke de Montpensier,
who is now in Paris, was also invited, hut excused him-
self from attendis g. Ile is in the service of the present
Provisional Government of Spain, and will not in any
way countenance the pretensions of Isabella to dispose
of the Crown. Among the witnesses of what in the
Hotel Bemilewski Was called the "grand act," wore
Generals Leraundi Gassel and Son Roman ; the Dukee
of Modica Coll. de Sesto, de Riaurdres, d'Arco, de
RiVAR, and de Rirslda ; the Marquises de Besirnar,
de Casa Irujo, HMI Penis Flenides; Counts Mares. de
Goveneche, d'Espeleta, d'Alba:sete, de Rubio,
de Guel y Rents, de Coelho, ego. When every one of the
company had taken the place assigned by the
mater ef the ceremonies, Queen Isabella made
a short speech announcing her intention to abdi-
cate. She read a manifesto to the Spanish
people, in which she traced the history of her reign.
She had been called upon to reign, she said, when in
her cradle, and had grown up amid the turmoil of civil
discord. Whether as a child, a girl, or a woman, she
had always had to contend with positical parties and
factions, and to their incessant attempts to obtain
power for themselves she attributed her failure to do
all the good whlch she could have wished. She wished,
h drover, to avoid all recrimination, she pardoned all
her enemies, and confided her son to the noble character
of the Spanish people. She then read her abdication
in (nearly) these terms:—" I Isabella IL, etc., declare
that of my own free will and mere motion, and with-
out any foreign pressure, I cede and assign to my son
Alfonso all my political rights, reserving only the civil
rights of a mother and a guard:au."
All the personagre present seoaed their names as
witnesses to the document. Then the company. with
Dowager Queen Christina at the head kissed the Prince
of Aaturias' band by way of doing homage, and se
knowledging his sovereioity. When the ceremony was
over the youthful King of Spain in parttlnia by the
will of his depesed mother, who had doubtless been
considerably bored by the solemn mummery, ran up to
the Duke de Sento, and said, 'You haven't seen my
new velocipede; come into the garden and look at it."