Evening star., 1898-06-04
MADRID IN WAR TIME
A Frenchman's Impressions of the City and
Palace
The Old Latin Gayety In Still to the
Fore-DissemblinE Distrust
and DisQuietude.
Pierre Lott In Figaro.

Tleffe LOU IN Figaro
Three o'clock in the afternoon. As the
evening approaches the streets Of Madrid
grow more and more animated, filed with
crowd gay and vivacious.
Before the palace, in the avenues. off,
GERS and soldiers ride about in uniforms
Of charming elegance: white hussars; blue
hussars; red hussars. At the old historic
palace the white hussars are on guard.
On the staircases, in the courts, pace up
and down the halberdiers, striking with
their weapons the carpet or the sounding
stone when some prince or dignitary
passes before them. And see, down there,
traversing tho inner galleries and announc-
ed by the respectful salute Of the halber-
diers very NOBLE woman, with a beauti-
Iui fa,e ana white hair. with the bearing
OF d queen-her imperial nighness, tae
Ar.nuucness Isabel, mother or her majes-
~, the queen Regent.
Ihe facade OF the palace gives on sort
OF cirCuiar garden, pordered with antique
statues, when seem to be drawn up thus
ABOUT the trees, to dance some stately old
time dance.
TN the opposite side, the royal windows
overlook the country-a country which as
tunisneS because there, SO near the city, it
has already the aspect of desert; no
houses, apparently 10 ROADS; woods, under
brush, vast halt-savage extent, which
ends at the far-on mountains, and through
Sucn d view, seen between curtains of
bI Iocade, the colors of which age has de-
lIclUuSly SuDdueu, gives to the Slmp-
tuCus solitary apartments something more
OF melancholy and Of grandeur. A whole
pS ST OF ma6lfifIcence and OF glory seems
10 sleep IN Inose dusky salons which sue
ceed one another In al interminaDlL vista,
diversified at this point or that by the fam
taSy OF the artists OF other days, so that
one finds IN walking through them series
of surprises. The lofty casinss of the
ooors are all made of agates or of rare
marbles whose coiors. strangely vened.
harmonize with the brocaded tapestries of
the walls.
There is the salon of Charles III, all in
soft blue starred with silver. Other
salons, hung with exquisite old satins, are
of a dying rose, with the blazonries of
Louis XIV, or of an inimtable old rose
embroidered in gold, with exuberant
Renaissance ornamentation: or else of
green bizarrely mixed with saffron yellow,
or again Of royal blue emDlaZoned with
brilliant yellow, with furniture OF which
the magnificent stiffness dates from the
empire. certain grand salon, with
ceiling all in flowers and scrolls of faience,
has mural panels in pearl-gray satin, en-
broidered ABOVE and below with gar!ands
rose-colored or white, which must have
consumed the lives of a legion of patient
workwomen. And one feels that all these
precious thirgs, respected by human revO-
iutions, have dwelt here immobile during
years and centuries. The ghosts of the
here again, intact and only little faded
the splendors which they knew.
The throhe room, the most immense and
most superb of all, hung entirely with
ancient cramoisy velvet, embroidered in
gold, is peopled the length Of its walls by
great black statues holding in their hands
gold embiems, and standing out in
strangely agitdted poses from the bril-
lance OF the red pedestals. Four lions in
bronze guard the steps of the throne of
Spain. where on solemn occasions is seat
ed, also in the garb Of ancient days that
queen and admirable mother whom Europe
at this moment seems to wish to abandon
in the face of an unlooked-for peril of re-
voting aggressions.
This evening the approaches to the
palace are comparatively tranquil and 81
lent. But, as more than anywhere else
happens in Madrid, the crowd swells from
moment to moment, invades the streets
and the Fl on.enades, like a sea, mounting
at the approach of dusk. One divines asi-
tation. perhaps anxiety, in the attitude of
certain groups which are stationed before
the places where the telegraph brings
news. But the whole people is determined
and fun of confidence in it's good cause:
the whole people shows 4 beautiful and
joyous courage. The old Latin gayety
which is common to the Spaniards and the
French covers out of sight those dis
quietudes bravely dissembed One
hears music, guitars songs and laughter
And the noise, which one takes for the
noise Of fete, increases ever as the
light falls.