The secret history of the court of Spain during the last centuryChallice, Rachel
History
The secret history of the court of Spain during the last century
Challice, Rachel
Spain -- Court and courtiers; Spain -- History -- Bourbons, 1700-
When Teresa accompanied the Queen to Bayonne, she sent letters to her
mother with the official correspondence, and the well-known leader
of a gang of thieves, Luis Candelas, having discovered this fact,
determined, with the complicity of a man in the employment of the
dressmaker, to turn the fact to his advantage. Calling one day in the
uniform of an official, the servant introduced him as an agent of the
French post. The dressmaker was rather astonished at the visit, but
she admitted him. Hardly had he entered the room than he was followed
by others, and Candelas declared he had come to inspect the place.
This act the dressmaker declared was illegal except in presence of
the Mayor. Then, casting off all disguise, the robber and his gang
proceeded to pillage the place, pocketing all the jewels and money they
could find. Two ladies who called at this time were bound and gagged
like the modiste and her workers.
The robbery proved considerable, and the fact of its having taken place
in the house of the Queen’s dressmaker led to strong steps being taken
for the capture of this Spanish Robin Hood. For be it known, that
although the adventurer openly took all he could lay hands on, he never
shed blood or injured anybody if he could help it.
The efforts of justice were successful, and the fact of the robbery
being connected with the correspondence of the Queen-Regent led to the
removal of the scourge from the capital, for hitherto the police of
Madrid paid little heed to these open attacks against the safety and
the property of the citizens.
Candelas was publicly hanged on December 6, 1837, but his partner in
his burglarious campaigns escaped.
Of course, the luxurious carriage in which the child visited its
mother, and the care which attended the drive from Segovia, opened the
eyes of the people to the relation between Cristina and her little
visitor, and the coach would be followed by cries of “There goes the
Queen’s daughter!”
In the revolution of the sergeants in August, 1836, Muñoz was in the
Palace of La Granja, but he did not make his appearance on the scene,
as he was not supposed to be there. The apartments in which he spent
his time with his wife were commonly termed “Muñoz’s cage,” and on
the night of the insurrection he escaped from the royal domain by the
channels and conduits of the fountains.
But the time spent thus with Muñoz in the royal retreats was not of
unmixed joy; for whilst the Queen sought to please her husband and his
relation by playing lottery with them, or battledore and shuttlecock
with the chaplain, Muñoz soon showed that he preferred going out after
pretty girls with the Duke of San Carlos. Naturally this conduct fired
the heart of the Queen-Regent with jealousy, and, woman-like, she gave
vent to her pique by allowing a play called “Making Love to a Wig” to
be acted in the Conservatoire of Fine Arts, for the play made humorous
allusions to the baldness of Muñoz.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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