“You should be careful not to say anything about the Jesuits in those letters you are always writing,” he said. “In Madrid or Barcelona it may be all very well, but in a little country town like this you can never be sure how much the ‘good Fathers’ will find out. It is well known that Paco, who attends to the registered letters here, is the son of a Jesuit. Many of the clerks in the post-offices are the sons of priests or _frailes_, and that is why honest lads like my sons have no chance of getting a place there. The Jesuits have a plan by which their sons slip in without the examination imposed on others. Do you think that fool Paco would be where he is if he had had to pass a competitive examination? But be warned! He has been clever enough to learn how to open letters and seal them up again. The ‘good Fathers’ have taken care of that. And if they suspect that you write stories about them, they will take care to read your letters before they leave the post-office.” In this connection I may mention a curious incident. A book sent to me from England went astray, and some six months later, after inquiry made by the English post-office, reached me minus its wrapper, with a note of apology from the local post-office, explaining that it had been recovered from a Jesuit college at least fifty miles from the place to which it had been addressed and registered by the publisher. Why it was delivered at the college instead of to me was not explained. I thought at the time it was merely a piece of characteristic Spanish carelessness, but I was reminded of the occurrence by my friend’s remarks about “Paco” and the post-office. THE MONARCHY AND THE PEOPLE [Illustration: THE QUEEN AND THE QUEEN-MOTHER OF SPAIN. [To face page 111.] CHAPTER VI THE MONARCHY AND THE PEOPLE If Spain at large had attributed the misfortunes of 1909--the war in Melilla, the outbreak in Cataluña, the suspension of the Constitution, the attacks on the country made by the foreign Press--to the influence of Don Alfonso, the throne would have been in greater danger than at any time since the expulsion of Isabel II., for the whole nation was roused to indignation by the general conduct of the Clericalist Ministry then in power. But happily for Spain, and indeed for Europe, since civil war in the Peninsula would be an European disaster, not even the most violent of the Republicans or Socialists taxed the King, the Queen, or any member of the Royal Family with indifference to the feelings of the people or a disregard of the sufferings of the poor. A fact not recognised in England is the extent to which conscription tends to consolidate the Monarchy in a country where the King, the head of the Army, enjoys personal popularity among his working-class subjects.