The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-25 00:00:00

SPI:RIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

•
The VIM to rot find that the rising is yet national.
It is a rebellion of old Court favourites, statesmen, and
generals. The Queen has abandoned the principles which
placed her on the throne, and taken into her counsels the
reactionary party. It would have been easy for her, as a ,
.constitutional sovereign, to have made herself popular ;
but instead of that she is accounted an apostate. As to
the attitude of England, the Times remarks that
nothing has at present transpired to make this country
feel a personal and selfish interest in this Spanish move-
ment. But our English attitude of non-intervention,
even to the extent, so far as practicable, of withholding
the intimation of a mere sympathy, would be unchanged
were its ends and aims as manifest as they are now
obscure. So far as the interests of this country are con-
cerned, the result most to be deprecated would be the
establishment of a weak Government one inviting
domestic intrigues and plots for its overthrow, or the
seizure of power under it—a Government which might
seek desperately to divert the attacks of the various
plrties in the country from itself to some external object.
But we desire a strong Government, of whatever form, for
Spain in the interests of Spain herself. Her Administrations
have not given her a fair chance of development for the
last century and a half ; but at the rare intervals when her
rulers have shewn a public spirit the prosperity of the
country has ever risen as if by magic. There have even
been periods under the present reign—at the time
preceding, for instance, the Morocco war—when the
kingdom seemed ready to emerge and resume its natural
rank among European Powers. Its unused wealth of
material resources is abundantly ascertained. But a race
with a history like its, of sturdy resistance at home to
foreign oppression and of stubbornly grasped predomi-
nance, at one epoch, abroad, must have, too, a solid
national spirit lying somewhere hidden. We believe that
this would appear if duly summoned, and when evoked
would produce in Europe a different opinion of Spain from
any which it has been able to form from the Court of
Queen Isabella. If the pending revolution only throw
this spirit to the surface, there will be little cause to
regret the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty.

The Herald concludes that the days of the present
dynasty are numbered. The hapless Queen, who has so
sadly disappinted the hopes, so grievously trifled with the
destinies of a proud and sensitive people, will have herself
only to blame if the world looks on coldly while she is
driven forth from her kingdom, if no tears are shed for
her degradation, if scarcely any pitying eye follows her
into exile, if that sympathy which in other lands is so
widely and loyally felt for the Throne makes an excep-
tion of hers. That they never learned and never forgot
has been said of the Bourbons before, but her subjects
aver that they have other causes of discontent with
Isabella 11., Queen of Spain. If the present move-
ment succeeds, and the Queen is forced to abdicate, we
cannot believe for a moment that the generals or the
Cortes will pay any attention to the choice which she may
snake of her successor. She is not likely to choose her
sister, of whom she is jealous, nor does it seem that any
influential party in Spain is in favour of the Infanta Louisa
as Queen of Spain, with the Duc de Montpensier, son of
Louis Philippe, as King Consort. As far as we can see,
the design which was attributed to the Citizen King, at the
time of the Spanish marriages, of placing his descendants
on the Throne of Spain in default of the direct
line of Louis XIV., is likely to be frustrated.
Nor is there said to be much chance of the eldest son of
the Queen, the Prince of the Asturias, who is now eleven
years old, being allowed to succeed her ; nor of her
daughter, the Countess Girgenti, being chosen by the
Cortes. There is a report that the Queen, if driven to
abdicate, has some thought of putting forward her cousin,
Don Carlos, the representative of the direct male line ;
but though this Prince has made public profession of his
Liberal principles, we no reason to suppose that
he would prove acceptable to the leaders, who seem deter-
mined to set their faces against the whole Bourbon family.
Mention has been made of the king of the border country
of Portugal, but though such a choice would seem to corn-
mend itself on many grounds, we are not sure that the
Iberian party is strong enough in Spain to justify any
attempt just now at the union of the whole of the Penin-
piula under one sceptre. The Herald cannot believe that
any dream so wild as the establishment of a republic has
entered the heads of the leaders of the party.