The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-30 00:00:00

KING ALFONSO'S FIRST LEVEE.

The Special Correspondent of The Times at Madrid,
writes :

Don Alfonso has come over from France alone. He
is utterly destitute of advisers, for the faithful friends
who constitute his immediate entourage are simply
bound to him by personal affection, and are placed
above or below political partisanship. Had any one
been desirious to form an idea of the helpless isolation
of the King's position, he had only to attend the Levee
for which the doors were open to all comers last Sunday
in the afternoon. It had been announced that the King
would receive his visitors at 2 p.m., and nothing else had
been said as to the rank or station that might qualify a
person for admission. A man had only to walk, or
ride, or d ive to the Alcazar in his uniform, if he had
one, or in plain evening dress if he had not; it was as
free to the whole world as a Reception of the President
of the United States of North America, with this
single exception—that here you were expected to make
a polite bow to the Head of the State, while in Wash-
ington you are entitled to lay hold of his hand and
shake his arm as if it were a pump-bandle. The
visitors entered en masse; they invaded the State
apartments at their pleasure, except inasmuch as
they were soon so jammed together that motion and
circulation were at an end, and hats were flattened into
pancakes; and after all had been jostled, hustled,
and crushed out of breath till about a quarter-past
two, a signal was made by the clapping of hands in
the Moorish fashion, a little opening or avenue was
obtained, the crowd falling asunder upon a gentle
pressure, and away the multitude began to file towards
the throne-room, higgledy-piggledy, just as they hap-
pened to have been thrown together, no card being
demanded, and no question put as to name or condi-
tion, an archbishop with jewelled cross and ring going
in cheek by jowl with a young cornet in a hussar
jacket and tights, a grand chamberlain flashing with
lace and blazing with stars being elbowed by the side
of citizens in the plain black suits of under-
taker's men. In we all went; we stood still one by
one for a second; we made such an obeisance as our
dancing master had taught us, and went our way,
taking leave by another bow at the door. The State
apartments in the Alcazar are grand; the furniture is
costly; the works of art, so far as the subdued light
allows one to see, are things of price; but I only had
eyes for one object—for the slim, sallow, diminutive
youth standing alone on the crimson carpet which
covered the steps of the throne.
The young King, I freely avow, has all my sym-
pathies and good wishes. But as I looked at him and
saw him pale and fagged and evidently put out by the
length of the idle ceremony, and by the stiff composure
and solemn silence to which it condemns him, I con-
fess that the sensation uppermost in my heart was
that of profound pity. How lonely he looked, and
how far removed from human interests and affections!
The novelty of the popular clamour, of the triumphant
ride, of the flattering addresses, had seemingly all
worn off; the intoxicating cup had been drained, and
only weariness, disenchantment, and the headache
remained. What are even horses and plays, and a
toy sword, and fine clothes, and sweetmeats to a
schoolboy without friends? For, however earnestly a
King's heart may warm to his old friends, he finds
that histold friends, if they are honest, will have none
of him. The crowned head is placed by its position
at an immeasurable distance above his subjects—a
height dreaded as well as revered and honoured. If
isolation is the doom of a grown Sovereign, it is in-
finitely more the lot of a boy King, inasmuch as the
men by whom he is surrounded are all new and strangers
to him, and they have age as well as rank to remove
them from him. There can be no being so solitary in
the world as this poor sinzpatico, and, I dare say, sym-
pathizing Alfonso XII.