The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-22
ouARPER,S.o

From Turner. Brothers & Co. we have
received the August number of 'Harpers
Magazine, from which we quote the follow
inc naper on ''Slavery in Palaces:"-
The old Latin adage, 'tompora nutanttr,
et NOS qautan,ar IN Mjs" (times change, and
we change with them), applies to all the
world excepting the royal palaces of Spain;
for the same slavish ceremonial to which so
many bright young princesses were sacrificed
during the three centuries preceding our own
has held in thraldom the unfortunate dwellers
of the Escorial up to the day when the fatuous
folly of the weak, if not positively vile, Isa-
bella Segunda opened the gates of the royal
palace in Madrid to a deluge which swept
away crown, courtiers, and ceremony into, it
is to be hoped, an irrecoverable past
There are few stories more sadly interest
ing than that of the wife of Charles III of
Spain, Marie Louise, daughter of the Due
d'Orleans, niece of Louis XIV, and grand
daughter of Charles l of England a fair and
amiable girl, forced to marry man she had
never seen, but whom she knew only too well
as most repulsive in appearance. with mental
faculties little above idiocy. Marie Louise
had been educated at the court of her uncle.
Louis XIV, when it was the gayest and most
brilliant in Europe, years before Madame de
Mantenon and the priests had cast a super
stitious gloom over its splendor and its vice.
Her aspect is described as mild, rmien grace
full; she was good musician and composed
operas: her eyes were black, her eyebrows
! gracefully arched, her lips remarkably rosy,
her hair profuse and of a dark chestnut.
But like all the unhappy prince5ses of
France doomed to marry Spanish kings, she
| regarded her destiny with dread and aversion
Transferred from the gay Court and brilliant
intellectual life of France, these young
creatures were killed off fast by the sombre
dullness monotony, and iron etiquette of the
palaces of Spain. None of the queens of
| Spain were long-lived Philip II used up
four in his lifetime.
Marie Louise made more than one pathetic
appeal to her royal uncle to be saved from
such fate, but all in vain. She was married
by proxy at Fontainebleau, and escorted to the
Spanish frontier, where the sad-hearted bride
was delivered over to the tender merces of
the Duchess de Terra Nueva, her Camarera
Mayor, and the Marquis de Astorgas, her
| Mayordomo.
A female familiar of the Inquisition could
not wear a more repulsive face than that of
the Duchess. She was a bronze incarnation
of Spanish rigidity and gravity. Not a step in
her gait, not q movement in head or hand
which was not performed with the regularity
and stiffness of machine. She was lean
colorless, long-faced, and wrinkled; her eyes
small, black, and sharp. Her ''guj6rO" and
''nO 10 QuierO' made people tremble; and she
was generally insupportable to her EQUALS
naughty and dignifed to her sovereign,
but, nevertheless, tolerably gentle to her
interiors. She was penetrating in obser-
walton, ready of wit, and infexible in de-
cision. She would spare no extremites
of violence to serve her interest or re-
venge, and had cousin of her own assassi-
mated because he contested her right to an
estate.
Marie Louise took leave at the Bidassoa of
| most of her French female attendants who
adored her, and knelt and kissed her hand
with tears, which were answered with tears
in the eyes of their mistress. Imme-
diately on crossing the frontier, visages
grew longer and life fearful On setting
foot in Spain she travelled partly on horse
back and partly by coach; when she rode it
was by the side of the Terra Nueva, who
looked, in her stiff Spanish dress, and with
her gaunt form seated on a mule, STRANGE
figure too terrible to be ridiculous. The Mar
quis de Astorgas or the Duke de Ossuna, her
Master of the Horse, both in large spectaces,
which all grandees of Spain wore at that time
to give them greater gravity of appearance,
rode next on the other side, when they could
settle their disputes about presidency as to
which they quarrelled the whole way. The
young Queen supped and slept the first night
of the food that she could eat nothing. No
particular incident appears to have occurred
on the route, nothing so humorous as the
incident which happened to Maria Anna, the
mother of Charles ii, who, on her way
across Spain as the bride of Philip ".
stopped at a town famous for the manu-,
facture of stockings, some of which the
alcalde of the place was Offering to her
Majesty, when he was thrust out bv the
Mayordomo with, 'Habens de saber que las
reynas de Espana no tienen piernas7 (You
must know the queens of SPANS have no
legs). Upon hearing which declaration the
young Queen began to cry, saying, II must
go back to Vienna. If / had known before
set out that they would have cut my legs off
l would have died rather than come here j
One of the two occasions on which her hus.
band laughed in the course of his life was
when this story was repeated to him How.
ever, the young bride of Charles III had inn
mediately hard experience of the unyieldino
tyranny of Spanish etiquette, for she was moi
allowed to have her way in any thing on the
whole road, and found that she was expected
to be mere machine without volitioa in the
hands of her household, and to conduct her.
self at once as if she had been in Spain her
whole life.
Charles II had advanced in impatience ms
far as Burgos; but when he had news of tbo
approach of the cortege from Vittoria, his de-
sire to see the Queen made him, in spite nj
all remonstrances, rush forward to meet her
at Qulntanapalla, wretched village of q few
peasants houses three leagues beyond Burgos.
and he resolved to have the marriage cele-
brated there. Marie Louise saw him arri We
from the balcony of peasants hovel in
which she had restad Praparad oS cha ,,,,,