File:Little King Alfonso XIII.jpg

Identifier: withinroyalpalac00font (find matches)
Title: Within royal palaces : a brilliant and charmingly written inner view of emperors, kings, queens, princes and princesses ...
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Fontenoy, marquise de, pseud
Subjects: Courts and courtiers
Publisher: Philadelphia, Hubbard Pub. Co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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the most amusing instance of this kind took placein the grand old Church of the Attocha at Madrid, at a timewhen a solemn mass was being celebrated in honor of theRoyal Childs birthday. Everybody of course was in fulluniform, a circumstance which gave intense satisfaction to thehttle King, who boy-like delights in everything pertaining tomilitary pomp. THE ROYAL FAMILY OF SPAIN. 471 Just at the most impressive moment—namely the elevationof the host by the Cardinal Patriarch of the Indies, who wasacting as celebrant—young Alfonso spied out his friendGeneral Cor-dova down inthe nave ofthe Church,and unhesitat-ingly proceed-ed to hail himfrom the RoyalGallery i n aloud and shrilltone of voicewith thewords: Juan-ito ! Oh, Juan-ito ! What areyou doingthere ? Comeup here to me,I want you atonce. It was onlywith the great-e s t difficultythat the Queenwas able tosilence the child by telling him that it was wrong for anybody to speakaloud in Church. He evidently, however, took the lesson
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LITTLE KING ALFONSO XIII. 472 WITHIN ROYAL PALACES. to heart, for two weeks later he suddenly called out to abishop who was preaching- grandiloquently from the pulpit,to hold his tongue and be quiet, seeing that it was wrongto make so much noise in Church ! Nothing is more curious at the Royal Palace at Madridthan the extraordinary and almost paradoxical mixture of astringency of court etiquette dating back to the days ofEmperor Charles V. on one hand, and on the other a leavenof democracy which would not even be tolerated at the WhiteHouse in Washington. The gates and doors of the Palaceare open to everybody during the daytime, and with thesolitary exception of Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria,there is not a sovereign so easy of access even to the hum-blest of her subjects as the Queen Regent of Spain, Nowhere, nevertheless, have the old formalities and cere-monies of the Middle Ages been more completely retainedand maintained than at the Madilene Court, where the utmostgravity and

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