[In the following excerpt, Lovett discusses the role of Larra's satirical writings during the 1833-40 Spanish civil war between the Carlists and the Liberals.]

-2-

In the war against Carlism Larra's pen played an active part. In a number of articles he poked fun at the pretender's cause, ridiculing Carlism and the Carlists with his incomparable satire. He saw them as backward, attempting to annul all progress, and even history itself, in their desire to take Spain back to the order of the sixteenth century. The Carlists, according to Larra, displayed their ignorance through their propensity for pure negation; they denied both the necessities of the new day and also the progress made in the nineteenth century. It seemed as if the Carlists supported a system which had no place in the modern era. One of his most ingenious anti-Carlist papers is the one entitled “Nadie pase sin hablar al portero o los viajeros en Vitoria” (18 October, 1833) published in La Revista Española. In this article the author begins by asking the question “why should not the country have its portero” and then proceeds to give a fictitious scene which transpires in the northern town of Vitoria.

Two travellers to Spain, a Frenchman, ignorant of the current situation in Spain, and a Spaniard, all too aware of the way of the Carlists, are accosted by Spain's doorman, the Carlist priest, as they are about to cross into Castile. Through ironic inversion Larra demonstrates precisely that Spain needs no doormen, no Carlists, by describing the predicament of the travelers and ridiculousness of the situation in the North and the absurdity of Spain's porteros.

At first, all the travelers see are well-fed priests; then guerrilleros pop out of the woodwork. The travelers' bags are searched, passports confiscated, and personal articles declared contraband, and therefore to be at the disposal of the “government” of the region. Their possessions are placed with other confiscated “contraband” in a well-filled room resembling a general mercantile store. As arbitrarily as they were detained, the travelers are allowed to pass, but only after being issued a “legitimate” passport, one given under the authority of his Majesty, King Carlos.

This article manifests Larra's grievances with the Carlists. They harass travelers for no reason, obstructing and threatening the safe passage of law-abiding individuals. They are a nuisance and a potential menace, for they could, upon the slightest provocation, take human life. Larra also criticizes the Carlist propensity to deny reality. They do not recognize the authority of the king of France:

¿Quién es ese rey? Nosotros no reconocemos a la Francia, ni a ese don Luis. Por consiguiente, este papel no vale. ¡Mire usted—añadió entre dientes—, si no habrá algún sacerdote en todo París que pueda dar un pasaporte, y no que nos vienen con papeles mojados!¹

Larra also paints the priests as ignorant and avaricious. They burn books and steal watches:

¿Qué trae usted en la maleta? Libros … pues … Recherches sur… al sur, ¿eh? Este Recherches será algún autor de máximas; algún herejote. Vayan los libros a la lumbre. ¡Qué más? ¡Ah! una partida de relojes: a ver … London… ése será el nombre del autor. ¿Qué es esto?—Relojes para un amigo relojero que tengo en Madrid.

—De comiso—dijo el padre, y al decir de comiso, cada circunstante cogió un reló, y metióselo en la faltriquera. Es fama que hubo alguno que adelantó la hora del suyo para que llegara más pronto la del refectorio.

—Pero, señor—dijo el francés—, yo no los traía para usted …

—Pues nosotros los tomamos para nosotros.²

Another ingenious, cleverly executed article is “La planta nueva, o el faccioso” (10 November, 1833). The essay is subtitled “Articulo de historia natural,” and is both an extended metaphor, comparing the Carlist to a vine-like plant, a weed and a sub-lineage of the human species, and also, at the same time, a parody of a natural history article. The Carlist is portrayed as a weed, a vine clinging to the Church, taking nutrients from the Spanish soil, but giving nothing good back to its life source or other neighboring plants. The Carlists sap Spain and its people, destroying the country and its institutions. Larra says the Carlists are indigenous to northern Spain, and in this manner illustrates their regionalism and abundance in that area. He also claims that there are wild and domestic varieties, meaning they inhabit both rural and urban areas. They are a new variety, modern rebels, seemingly human, but really not, because they lack reason. For this lack of reason the author places them in a sub-branch of the human species, and thereby emphasizes Carlist ignorance and stupidity. Some passages are worth quoting at length:

Verdad es que hay en España muchos terrenos que producen ricos facciosos con maravillosa fecundidad; país hay que da en un solo año dos o tres cosechas; puntos conocemos donde basta dar una patada en el suelo, y a un volver de cabeza nace un faccioso. Nada debe admirar por otra parte esta rara fertilidad, si se tiene presente que el faccioso es fruto que se cria sin cultivo, que nace solo y silvestre entre matorrales, y que así se aclimata en los llanos como en los altos; que se trasplanta con facilidad y que es tanto más robusto y rozagante cuanto más lejos está de población. Esto no es decir que no sea también en ocasiones planta doméstica.³

Larra concludes the article with a discussion of means to eradicate the unwanted vegetation. He determines that the best method is a combination of two measures—“Pólvora,” gun shot, and education, in order to inform the general population as to the true nature of the Carlists, to the danger presented by this new variety. This last idea on education foreshadows Larra's later, more profound contention—that the general population is not integrated into the search for a workable political order and is ill-informed with regard to the importance of saving Spain, not only from Carlists, but also from moderate conservatives, the “justo medio,” or from any other partisan group which might inhibit the liberalization, democratization, and progress of Spain.

-3-

Meanwhile, in Cristino-held territory, that is, in most of Spain, liberalism, repressed under Fernando VII, had once more broken through the barriers of absolutism. An attempt on the part of the governing Queen-Regent at administering the country in an enlightened but despotic manner with Cea Bermúdez had met too much popular opposition and concessions were made to Liberalism. A moderately liberal ministry under Martínez de la Rosa was handed the reins of government in early 1834 and a constitution, the Estatuto Real, was granted the nation by the Crown. The Estatuto provided for a Cortes with two chambers, the Procuradores and the Próceres, with a suffrage considerably narrowed by property qualifications. It was a far cry from the Constitution of 1812, but liberals felt it was a step in the right direction.

Martínez de la Rosa represented the moderate wing of the liberal party, eschewing the more radical program of those who were later to be known as progresistas and who were strongly anticlerical and emphasized political democracy and local self-government. In the phrase of Raymond Car “los moderados eran los oligarcas del liberalismo.”⁴ In their ranks were the landowners of Vizcaya who feared that the lawyers and businessmen of Bilbao and San Sebastián would infringe upon their monopoly of local administration. There were also representatives of the Spanish nobility like the Marquis of Miraflores, well disposed toward the Queen-Regent and wary of the clerical court of Don Carlos. And there were “funcionarios de carrera”⁵ like Javier de Burgos, who had been minister of fomento under Cea Bermúdez and who was a member of the Próceres, a man of letters who translated the works of Horace and was the author of several comedies. Other moderates were “burócratas poco aficionados al nuevo estilo de la vida política pero dispuestos a acomodarse a ella aliándose a las fuerzas más respetables de la nueva situación. Los abogados establecidos que llevaban los asuntos de los terratenientes aristocráticos, y los periodistas afrancesados, reacios al exclusivismo patriótico del radicalismo, que sabían bandearse dentro del liberalismo conservador.”⁶ They wanted liberty with law and order, and progress while respecting Spanish tradition. Their radical opponents called them jovellanistas, that is, followers of the conservative ideology of Gaspar de Jovellanos, the statesman and writer who had been one of the key members of the Supreme Central Junta during the War of Independence. Martínez de la Rosa was not successful in giving liberal Spain a strong government. The war against the Carlists was not being won and French help, which had been expected after the signing of the Quadruple Alliance, joining Spain to Portugal, England, and France against the Carlist and Miguelist threats, did not materialize. The public debt rose and the more radical liberals were eyeing the properties of the Church, whose sale might solve the impossible financial situation, especially since a considerable number of Spanish churchmen supported Carlism.⁷

Martínez himself was not about to seize the property of the Church. He would rather turn to England and France for loans. This brought about his downfall and in June, 1835, he was replaced by his finance minister Count Toreno. The latter proceeded to abolish the Society of Jesus and suppress convents and monasteries with less than twelve members. He also won a decisive victory over the Carlists at Mendigorría on July 16. But despite this the growing radical faction was not pacified. In July a series of provincial rebellions created a situation which Toreno was powerless to combat, much less control. In order to salvage as much as possible of the order established in 1834, the government shifted its center of power to the left. On September 14, 1835, Toreno was replaced by Juan Alvarez Mendizábal, a liberal from Cádiz, who had lived in London as a banker and had financed the liberal campaign against Dom Miguel in Portugal. He had the reputation of a financial wizard and when he became prime minister liberal Spain expected miracles from him.

-4-

Upon Martínez de la Rosa's ascension to power, the political evolution of Larra becomes most evident. Under the influence of his friend Espronceda Larra began to sympathize more and more with the radicals. He became a decided liberal, preferring the exaltados to Martínez de la Rosa. From February of 1834 until March of 1835 Larra wrote scathing satires against Martínez and his ministry in a number of articles such as “Los tres no son más que dos y el que no es nada vale por tres” and “Ventajas de las cosas a medio hacer.”

Larra, at this point in his life, sees the “middle ground” position as being one which is held by traitors to Liberalism, as being in no way a viable liberal position. The Martínez ministry, in Larra's opinion, is at fault for not making reforms and for its failure to grant freedom of the press, to call truly representative Cortes, to guarantee civil liberties, and furthermore for favoring conservatives by giving them positions in the ministry.

While Larra criticized the political regime and the society in which he lived, this same society applauded heartily his articles and the periodicals for which he wrote—La Revista Española and El Observador and later El Español—paid him handsomely. His private life, however, was a disaster. The affair with Dolores Armijo broke up his home; his wife with her baby returned to her parents, and the two older children were placed under the care of his father and mother. In his relationship with Dolores some crisis occurred, and Dolores, to put an end to the affair and to stop gossip, left Madrid and went to stay with some relatives at Badajoz.

In April of 1835, Larra left Madrid under the pretense of collecting money owed to his father by a client in Belgium. On the way out of the country he passed through Badajoz, spending several days at the house of his friend Campo Alange. After an unsuccessful attempt to communicate with Dolores, Larra left Spain on his way to Lisbon, London, and Paris. Why did Larra leave Spain? Was it really in order to collect some money abroad? Or had he left the capital under circumstances which suggest that he may have wished to escape a duel? At any rate he did go to Belgium and settled his father's business. Later, in Paris, he met most of the prominent French authors of the day, including Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo. He was still outside Spain when the Toreno ministry fell and Mendizábal came into power. For a while the latter had his full support, especially since the new Prime Minister had promised to end the Carlist War within six months, to put Spanish finances on a sound basis, and to institute sweeping social and administrative reforms.

Mendizábal realized that one way to finance the war was through confiscation of church property. Accordingly, he issued the decrees of February 19 and March 8, 1836, which, with few exceptions, suppressed the religious orders and confiscated their property, putting them up for sale. The hope was that a landowning middle class supporting liberalism would thus be formed, but unfortunately only the richest bidders acquired the auctioned property. “Monastery buildings as well as lands were put on the block, with the result that some of Spain's finest architectural treasures fell into the hands of men who cared little for their artistic value and tore them down or used them as factories or farm buildings.”⁸

Mendizábal's main support came from the more radical wing of the liberal party, who were opposed by the moderates. Strange as it may seem the radicals favored indirect elections, which would benefit wealthy liberals, supporters of Mendizábal, while the moderates fought for direct elections, certainly a more democratic form of choosing the nation's representatives. Larra, who had been a supporter of the more radical liberals, withdrew his support of Mendizábal over this issue and threw in his lot with the more moderate liberals like Istúriz. The radicals' position on indirect elections caused Larra to write in his article “Dios nos asista,” published in El Español on April 3, 1836: “Para que no fuesen las elecciones muy populares, bastante amaño era ya la propia ley electoral, en virtud de la cual debían elegir los electores nombrados por los ayuntamientos y los mayores contribuyentes. No hay cosa para elegir como las muchas talegas: una talega difícilmente se equivoca; dos talegas siempre aciertan, y muchas talegas juntas hacen maravillas. Ellas han podido decir a su procurador por boca de los mayores contribuyentes la famosa fórmula aragonesa: ‘Nos, que cada uno de nos valemos tanto como vos, y todos juntos mucho más que vos, os hacemos procurador.’”⁹

As Carlos Seco Serrano has pointed out, the decision of Larra to join the Istúriz faction was not an aberration but consistent with his beliefs.¹⁰ Larra looks with more and more distrust on the men who turn their eyes back to the Constitution of 1812 with nostalgia, who seek old solutions to new problems. As Seco Serrano puts it: “… si se enemistó con Mendizábal al comprobar que los que había creído intereses del progreso eran simplemente los concretos intereses de un grupo de banqueros empeñados en monopolizar simultáneamente el poder económico y el poder político, es porque Larra se mantiene siempre fiel a la consigna de limpia rebeldía que nos lo perfila, con una nobleza inalterable, desde que prepara sus primeras armas literarias hasta que, en víspera de su despedida final, denuncia el olor de pudridero en la revolución española, que lo ha trocado todo para crear un nuevo sistema de injusticias más agudas que las que quiso suprimir.”¹¹

Mendizábal fell in May, 1836 and the moderate Istúriz came to power. Istúriz dissolved the Cortes and called for new elections. Through these elections Larra was assured of a seat in the Parliament, but his debut as a politician was not fated to be. Agitation against the moderate ministry on the part of the radicals in the country grew, and in August a revolt by some army elements at la Granja, apparently paid for by Mendizábal's wealthy clique, forced the Queen-Regent to annul the results of the elections and to accept the reinstatement of the Constitution of 1812. Larra's hopes were thus shattered. No matter how consistent his action had been with his previous beliefs, he had joined “forces which were antagonistic to the liberal policies he had always espoused. Now these forces had suffered an overwhelming defeat, and he was identified with them. It was a severe blow to his personal prestige. His disappointment made him lose all faith in any political salvation for Spain.”¹²

This disappointment and despair is particularly evident in the article entitled “Día de difuntos de 1836,” published in El Español on November 2, 1836. The author narrates his tour through the vast cemetery that is Madrid. Each edifice is the crypt, with epigraph, of some dead institution or ideal, of some unrealized hope, of some unfulfilled desire, or of some national failure. Through this narrated tour Larra summarizes his view of the current state of Spain. It is a dismal picture. The royal palace is the crypt of a defunct monarchy, its legitimacy destroyed. Castilian valor rests in peace in the armory. Half of Spain lies in the buildings housing the different government departments; the other half is dead. The Constitution of 1812 died; its body was then moved to Cádiz in 1823. The Inquisition died of old age. Liberty of thought lies in jail.

The final image is that of a city smelling of death. The narrator is repelled and desires to turn inward, to take refuge within his own heart, which a short time ago was full of life, but he now finds within himself only another sepulcher: “¡Aquí yace la esperanza!” Larra is bereft of his life force—his illusions and hopes—left with only his disillusion and despair.

On February 13, 1837, Larra and Dolores met for the last time. Instead of accepting reconciliation as Larra had hoped, she demanded the return of her letters. For Larra her unexpected demand was one more disappointment added to all the others which had accumulated since the summer of 1836. The last illusion left to him—that of reconciliation with Dolores—had become another disillusion, and after the meeting Larra shot himself, ending his life at the age of twenty eight.

Notes

1. Obras de Mariano José de Larra (Fígaro), I, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 192, Madrid: Atlas, 1966, p. 80.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., p. 304.

4. Raymond Carr, España, 1808-1939, Barcelona: Ariel, 1969, p. 163.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. For clerical support of Carlism, cf. William J. Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society in Spain, 1750-1874, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984, pp. 149-150.

8. Richard Herr, An Historical Essay on Modern Spain, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974, p. 85.

9. Obras, II, BAE, 128, p. 195.

10. Estudio preliminar. Obras, I, p. LXIII.

11. Ibid., p. LXV.

12. Ernest Herman Hespelt, Artículos de costumbres y de crítica de Mariano José de Larra, New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1941, p. XXII.