No nation in the world is more innately democratic than Spain--none, perhaps, so attached to monarchy; but one lesson has been learned, probably alike by King and people--that absolutism is dead and buried beyond recall. The ruler of Spain, to-day and in the future, must represent the wishes of the people; and if at any time the two should once more come into sharp collision, it is not the united people of this once-divided country that would give way. For the rest, so long as the monarch reigns constitutionally, and respects the rights and the desires of his people, there is absolutely nothing to fear from pretender or republican. At a recent political meeting in Madrid, for the first time, were seen democrats, republicans, and monarchists united; amidst a goodly quantity of somewhat "tall" talk, two notable remarks were received with acclamation by all parties: one was that Italy had found freedom, and had made herself into a united nationality, under a constitutional monarch; and the other, that between the Government of England and a republic there was no difference except in name--that in all Europe there was no country so democratic or so absolutely free as England under her King, nor one in which the people so entirely governed themselves. Among the many mistaken ideas which obtain currency in England with regard to Spain, perhaps none is more common or more baseless than the fiction about Don Carlos and his chances of success. A certain small class of journalists from time to time write ridiculous articles in English papers and magazines about what they are pleased to call the "legitimatist" cause, and announce its coming triumph in the Peninsula. No Spaniard takes the trouble to notice these remarkable productions of the fertile journalistic brain of a foreigner. There are still, of course, people calling themselves Carlists--notably the Duke of Madrid and Don Jaime, but the cult, such as there is of it in Spain, is of the "Platonic" order only,--to use the Spanish description of it, "a little talk but no fight,"--and it may be classed with the vagaries of the amiable people in England who amuse themselves by wearing a white rose, and also call themselves "legitimatists," praying for the restoration of the Stuarts. The truth about the Carlist pretension is so little known in England that it may be well to state it. Spain has never been a land of the Salic Law; the story of her reigning queens--chief of all, Isabel la Católica, shows this. It was not until the time of Philip V., the first of the Bourbons, that this absolute monarch limited the succession to heirs male by "pragmatic sanction"; that is to say, by his own unsupported order. The Act in itself was irregular; it was never put before the Cortes, and the Council of Castile protested against it at the time. [Illustration: A CORNER IN OLD MADRID]