And, Climbing Out Of This Labyrinth Of Slums, You Pass Under The
Gloomy Gates That Lead To The Plaza Mayor.
This once magnificent square
is now as squalid and forsaken as the Place Royale of Paris, though it
dates from a period comparatively recent.
The mind so instinctively
revolts at the contemplation of those orgies of priestly brutality which
have made the very name of this place redolent with a fragrance of
scorched Christians, that we naturally assign it an immemorial
antiquity. But a glance at the booby face of Philip III. on his
round-bellied charger in the centre of the square will remind us that
this place was built at the same time the Mayflower's passengers were
laying the massive foundations of the great Republic. The Autos-da-Fe,
the plays of Lope de Vega, and the bull-fights went on for many years
with impartial frequency under the approving eyes of royalty, which
occupied a convenient balcony in the Panaderia, that overdressed
building with the two extinguisher towers. Down to a period
disgracefully near us, those balconies were occupied by the dull-eyed,
pendulous-lipped tyrants who have sat on the throne of St. Ferdinand,
while there in the spacious court below the varied sports went
on, - to-day a comedy of Master Lope, to-morrow the gentle and joyous
slaying of bulls, and the next day, with greater pomp and ceremony, with
banners hung from the windows, and my lord the king surrounded by his
women and his courtiers in their bravest gear, and the august presence
of the chief priests and their idol in the form of wine and wafers, - the
judg-ment and fiery sentence of the thinking men of Spain.
Let us remember as we leave this accursed spot that the old palace of
the Inquisition is now the Ministry of Justice, where a liberal
statesman has just drawn up the bill of civil marriage; and that in the
convent of the Trinitarians a Spanish Rationalist, the Minister of
Fomento, is laboring to secularize education in the Peninsula. There is
much coiling and hissing, but the fangs of the ser-pent are much less
prompt and effective than of old.
The wide Calle Mayor brings you in a moment out of these mouldy shadows
and into the broad light of nowadays which shines in the Puerta del Sol.
Here, under the walls of the Ministry of the Interior, the quick,
restless heart of Madrid beats with the new life it has lately earned.
The flags of the pavement have been often stained with blood, but of
blood shed in combat, in the assertion of individual freedom. Although
the government holds that fortress-palace with a grasp of iron, it can
exercise no control over the free speech that asserts itself on the very
sidewalk of the Principal. At every step you see news-stands filled with
the sharp critical journalism of Spain, - often ignorant and unjust, but
generally courteous in expression and independent in thought.
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