The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1870-12-12
THE PRESS.
Monday Morning, December IL, 1870
Tfalv and Suaiu,

Italy and spnin.
The Duke of Aosta is said to be better |
man than his father, Victor Emmanuel, who |
is unusually profigate even for monarch,
and better than his elder brother, Prince |
Humbert, who is heir to the throne OF United
Italy. For young man of twenty-five, and
especially for prince of the house of Savoy,
he is remarkably correct in his habits and has
other pursuits than Of sensual indulgence
But when he concluded to accept the throne
of Spain he chose a dangerous trade-for
kingcrait in this age is nothing but a trade to
which "divine right" no longer gives any
sanctity. Though he resembles the virtuous
princes of the Orleans family more than the
gilded young roughs of the other royal houses OF
Europe, it is doubtful if his merits are appre
GATED in Spain. In the first place there as
not unanimity enough about the "calr' he re-
ceiyed from the Spaniards. A good third OF
the members of the Cortes voted against him.
The Republicans are irreconcilably opposed to
him or to any other king. The eloquent
CASTELAR,, whose ford and fervent oratory
would be laughed at in an American, but is
excusable and even creditable in Spanard,
drew most gloomy picture of the future OF
the new king, in speech which he made dur.
ing the debate in the Cortes. One passage is
so characteristic of this now famous orator,
and is in itself so impressive, that we quote it
here:
"Ob, you may give TO monarch great
people over whom to rule, great crown to
wear, the palace of Madrid in which to dwell,
the throne of San Fernando for footstool,
glorious records to hatter his pride, magical
seats in the heart of the Guadarrama noun
tains, or by the banks of the majestic river
immortalized by Garciaso, to recruit his
frame, the Spanish glories as notices for his
shield, and the Escorial for his tomb, but be-
You'd all these grandeurs joined in the shad-
ow of Gen. Prim, he will see floating those
two figures of the Emperor and Empress of
Mexico, like the two figures of the Inferno
Dante, shedding rivers of tears and rivers of
blood, and teaching by their sad example how,
under the same antecedents, the same catas
trophies are repeated in the pages of history"
Yet the young man will set out for Spain
about the 23d inst, and will, if Providence
and the Republicans and the Carlists and the
Legitimists permit, take formal possession of
his nice new kingdom aboat New Years. II
the Spaniards do not lead him dogs life it
will be more than they have ever done for any
sovereign previously imported. The French
Bourbons in Spain were probably a trifle more
corrupt and wretched than ever the Guelphs
of England, while everybody knows that poor
Joseph Bonaparte, who played king there
awhile to please his big brother, the Emperor,
found his position a very uneasy one. If
young Amadeus doesn't get sick Of the in
trigues of Gen. Prim and other Spanish poll
ticians, and of the Cuban trouble, the slavery
great wonder. 1t is hardly within the bounds
of possibility that he should succeed in paci-
flying in any considerable degree the hostile
elements in Spanish politics. Tt is lesson of
modern times that nothing but disposition
submit to the will of majority of the pee
ance of the permanence OF civil institutions
many country. For Spain and her new mon
arch, therefore, we may expect nothing better
than an interminable series of political trou-
bles, involving financial and industrial ruin
with the usual slaughter of men.
Young Amadeus royal father, the first king
of United Italy, is also in trouble, though the
withdrawal of French troops from Rome, in
consequence of the Franco-Prussan war, has
enabled him to realize the long cherished
dream of all Italian patriots by adding that
city to his domains. But the Pope is not to
be comforted or even bullied. He long since
placed the Italian king under the ban of the
church, and he has just issued an encyclical
letter of portentous length, in which he de-
Cares that all Victor Emanuel has done is
null and void, and that he does not and will
not abate one jot of his claims to temporal
sovereignty. This is unpleasant for the King,
who is about to leave Florence for the purpose
of making Rome his Capital, especially as the
Pope declares, with much emphasis and with
that wonderful amplitude of expression and
accumulation of sonorous phrases for which
the pontifical writings are remarkable, that
the monarch has rendered himself liable to
major accommodation and to eternal DAM
nation. With this view of the case Catholics
all over the world sympathize, especially in
this country, where both clergy and laity are
strongly ultramontane. OF course his preten-
SONS seem intensely absurd to us outsiders
but it is pity that there is not better man
than Victor Emanuel to dispute them.