by Grant Allen
Thirst after knowledge characterizes all classes of the community. A workman’s literary club, or Athenæum, founded a few years back, is now a flourishing institution, aided by municipal funds. No kind of recreation is allowed within its walls. Night-schools opened here are attended by several hundred scholars. Barcelona also boasts of an Academy of Belles Lettres, the first founded in Spain; schools of natural science, chemistry, agriculture, of medicine and surgery, of jurisprudence, an academy devoted to the culture of the Catalonian language, and containing library and museum. This society has greatly contributed to the protection of ancient buildings throughout the province, besides amassing valuable treasure, legend, botanical and geological specimens and antiquities. The Archæological Society of Barcelona has also effected good work: to its initiative the city is mainly indebted for the charming little collection of antiquities known as the “Museo Provincial,” before alluded to.
In places of public entertainment Barcelona is unusually rich. Its Opera House, holding four thousand spectators, equals in spaciousness the celebrated house of Moscow. The unpretentious exterior gives no idea of the splendor within. A dozen theaters may be counted besides. Bull-fights, alas! still disgrace the most advanced city of the Peninsula. The bull-ring was founded in 1834, and the brutal spectacle still attracts enormous crowds, chiefly consisting of natives. The bull-fight is almost unanimously repudiated by foreign residents of all ranks.
A few words must now be said about the history of this ancient place. The city founded here by Hamilcar Barco, father of the great Hannibal, is supposed to stand on the site of one more ancient still, existing long before the foundation of Rome. The Carthaginian city in 206 B. C. became a Roman colonia, under the title of “Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barzino,” which was eclipsed in importance, however, by Tarragona, the Roman capital. In 409 A. D. it was taken by the Goths, and under their domination increased in size and influence, coining its own money stamped with the legend “Barcinona.” On the destruction of Tarragona by the Moors Barcelona capitulated, was treated with clemency, and again became a metropolis. After many vicissitudes it was ruled in the ninth century by a Christian chief of its own, whose descendants till the twelfth governed it under the title of Counts of Barcelona, later assuming that of Kings of Aragon, to which kingdom the province was annexed. During the Middle Ages Barcelona played a foremost part in the history of commerce. In the words of Ford, “Like Carthage of old, it was the lord and terror of the Mediterranean. It divided with Italy the enriching commerce of the East. It was then a city of commerce, conquest, and courtiers, of taste, learning, and luxury — the Athens of the troubadour.”
Its celebrated commercial code, framed in the thirteenth century, obtained acceptance throughout Europe. Here one of the first printing-presses in Spain was set up, and here Columbus was received by Ferdinand and Isabella after his discovery of a new world. A hundred years later a ship was launched from the port, made to move by means of steam. The story of Barcelona is henceforth but a catalogue of tyrannies and treacheries, against which the brave, albeit turbulent, city struggled single-handed. In 1711 it was bombarded and partly ruined by Philip V.; a few years later, after a magnanimous defense, it was stormed by Berwick, on behalf of Louis XIV., and given up to pillage, outrage, fire, and sword. Napoleon’s fraudulent seizure of Barcelona is one of the most shameful pages of his shameful history. The first city — the key of Spain, as he called it — only to be taken in fair war by eighty thousand men, was basely entrapped, and remained in the hands of the French till the Treaty of Paris in 1814. From that time Barcelona has only enjoyed fitful intervals of repose. In 1827 a popular rising took place in favor of Don Carlos. In 1834 Queen Christina was opposed, and in 1840 public opinion declared for Espartero. In 1856 and 1874 insurrections occurred, not without bloodshed.
Barcelona is a great gathering-place of merchants from all parts of Europe. In its handsome hotels is heard a very Babel of tongues. The principal manufactures consist of woolen stuffs — said to be inferior to English in quality — silk, lace, firearms, hats, hardware, pianos; the last, as has been already stated, of excellent quality, and low in price. Porcelain, crystal, furniture, and inlaid work, must be included in this list, also ironwork and stone blocks.
Beautifully situated on the Mediterranean between the mouths of two rivers, — the Llobregat and the Besos — and possessing one of the finest climates in the world, Barcelona is doubtless destined ere long to rival Algiers as a health resort. Three lines of railway now connect it directly with Paris, from which it is separated by twenty-eight hours’ journey. The traveller may leave Barcelona at five o’clock in the morning and reach Lyons at midnight with only a change of carriages on the frontier. The route viâ Bordeaux is equally expeditious; that by way of Clermont-Ferrand less so, but more picturesque. Hotels in the capital of Catalonia leave nothing to desire on the score of management, hygiene, comfort, and prices strictly regulated by tariff. The only drawback to be complained of is the total absence of the feminine element — not a woman to be seen on the premises. Good family hotels, provided with lady clerks and chambermaids, is a decided desideratum. The traveller wishing to attain a knowledge of the Spanish language, and see something of Spanish life and manners, may betake himself to one of the numerous boarding-houses.
Barcelona is very rich in philanthropic and charitable institutions. Foremost of these is its Hospital of Santa Cruz, numbering six hundred beds. It is under the conjoint management of sisters and brothers of charity and lay nurses of both sexes. An asylum for the insane forms part of the building, with annexes for the convalescent. The Hospital del Sagrado Corazon, founded by public subscription in 1870 for surgical cases, also speaks volumes for the munificence of the citizens. The only passport required of the patient is poverty. One interesting feature about this hospital is that the committee of management consists of ladies. The nursing staff is formed of French Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. Besides these must be named the orphanage for upwards of two thousand children of both sexes — Casa de Caridad de la Provincia de Barcelona — asylums for abandoned infants, for the orphaned children of seamen, maternity hospitals, crêches, etc. There is also a school for the blind and deaf mutes, the first of the kind established in Spain. Here the blind of both sexes receive a thorough musical training, and deaf mutes are taught according to the system known as lip-speech. All teaching is gratuitous.
Barcelona possesses thirty-eight churches, without counting the chapels attached to convents, and a vast number of conventual houses. Several evangelical services are held on Sundays both in the city and in the suburb of Barceloneta. The Protestant communities of Spain, England, France, Germany, Sweden, and other countries, have here their representative and organization. Sunday-schools and night-schools for adults are held in connection with these churches. The Protestant body seems active. We find here a branch depôt of the Religious Tract Society; various religious magazines, many of them translations from the English and German, are published. Among these are the “Revista Christiana,” intended for the more thoughtful class of readers; “La Luz,” organ of the Reformed Church of Spain; and several illustrated periodicals for children. Will Protestantism ever take deep root in the home of the Inquisition? Time will show.
That very advanced political opinions should be held here need hardly surprise us. We find the following Democratic clubs in existence: The Historic Republican Club (“Centro Republicano Historico”), the Possibilist Republican Club (“Circulo Republicano Possibilista”), the Democratic Progressist Club, the Federal Republican Club, and many others. When next a great popular movement takes place in Spain — and already the event looms in the distance — without doubt the first impulse will be given at Barcelona.
Electric lighting was early introduced here, a company being founded so long back as 1880, and having branches in the capital, Seville, Valencia, Bilbao, and other towns. The importance of Barcelona as a center of commerce is attested by the extraordinary number of ban
ks. At every turn the stranger comes upon a bank. “Compared to the mighty hives of English industry and skill, here everything is petty,” wrote Ford, fifty years ago. Very different would be his verdict could he revisit the Manchester and Liverpool of Catalonia in our own day.
One curious feature of social life in Spain is the extraordinary number of religious fête days and public holidays. No Bank Holiday Act is needed, as in the neighboring country of France. Here is a list of days during which business is for the most part suspended in this recreation-loving city: Twelfth-cake Day is the great festival of the little ones — carnival is kept up, if with less of former splendor, nevertheless with much spirit; on Ash Wednesday rich and poor betake themselves to the country; Holy Thursday and Good Friday are celebrated with great pomp in the churches; on Easter Eve takes place a procession of shepherds in the park; Easter Monday is a day given up to rural festivity; the 19th of March St. José’s Day — is a universal fête, hardly a family in Spain without a José among its number. The first Sunday in May is a feast of flowers and poetic competitions; the days consecrated to St. Juan and St. Pedro are public holidays, patronized by enormous numbers of country-folks; All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days are given up, as we have seen, to alternate devotion and festivity. On the 20th of December is celebrated the Feast of the Nativity, the fair and the displays of the shops attracting strangers from all parts. But it is especially the days sacred to the Virgin that are celebrated by all classes. Balls, banquets, processions, miracle-plays, illuminations, bull-fights, horse-races, scholastic fêtes, industrial exhibitions, civic ceremonial, besides solemn services, occupy old and young, rich and poor. Feasting is the order of the day, and the confectioners’ windows are wonderful to behold.
Although many local customs are dying out, we may still see some of the curious street sights described by Ford fifty years ago, and the Mariolatry he deplored is still as active as ever. The goodly show of dainties in the shops, however, belie his somewhat acrimonious description of a Spanish reception. “Those who receive,” he wrote, “provide very little refreshment unless they wish to be covered with glory; space, light, and a little bad music, are sufficient to amuse these merry, easily-pleased souls, and satisfy their frugal bodies. To those who, by hospitality and entertainment, can only understand eating and drinking — food for man and beast — such hungry proceedings will be more honored in the breach than in the observance; but these matters depend much on latitude and longitude.” Be this as it may, either the climate of Barcelona has changed, or international communication has revolutionized Spanish digestion. Thirty years ago, when travelling in Spain, it was no unusual sight to see a spare, aristocratic hidalgo enter a restaurant, and, with much form and ceremony, breakfast off a tiny omelette. Nowadays we find plenty of Spanish guests at public ordinaries doing ample justice to a plentiful board. English visitors in a Spanish house will not only get good music, in addition to space and light, but abundant hospitality of material sort.
The Spain of which Ford wrote so humorously, and, it must be admitted, often so maliciously, is undergoing slow, but sure, transformation. Many national characteristics remain — the passion for the brutal bull-fight still disgraces a polished people, the women still spend the greater portion of their lives in church, religious intolerance at the beginning of the twentieth century must be laid to the charge of a slowly progressive nation. On the other hand, and nowhere is the fact more patent than at Barcelona, the great intellectual and social revolution, described by contemporary Spanish novelists, is bringing the peninsula in closer sympathy with her neighbors. Many young Spaniards, for instance, are now educated in England, English is freely spoken at Malaga, and its literature is no longer unknown to Spanish readers. These facts indicate coming change. The exclusiveness which has hitherto barred the progress of this richly-dowed and attractive country is on the wane. Who shall say? We may ere long see dark-eyed students from Barcelona at Girton College, and a Spanish society for the protection of animals prohibiting the torture of bulls and horses for the public pleasure.
Already — all honor to her name — a Spanish woman novelist, the gifted Caballero, has made pathetic appeals to her country-folks for a gentler treatment of animals in general. For the most part, it must be sadly confessed, in vain!
In spite of its foremost position, in intellectual and commercial pre-eminence, Barcelona has produced no famous men. Her noblest monument is raised to an alien; Lopez, a munificent citizen, honored by a statue, was born at Santander. Prim, although a Catalan, did not first see the light in the capital. By some strange concatenation of events, this noble city owes her fame rather to the collective genius and spirit of her children than to any one. A magnanimous stepmother, she has adopted those identified with her splendor to whom she did not herself give birth.
Balzac wittily remarks that the dinner is the barometer of the family purse in Paris. One perceives whether Parisians are flourishing or no by a glance at the daily board. Clothes afford a nice indication of temperature all the world over. We have only to notice what people wear, and we can construct a weather-chart for ourselves. Although the late autumn was, on the whole, favorable, I left fires, furs, and overcoats in Paris. At Lyons, a city afflicted with a climate the proper epithet of which is “muggy,” ladies had not yet discarded their summer clothes, and were only just beginning to refurbish felt hats and fur-lined pelisses.
At Montpellier the weather was April-like — mild, blowy, showery; waterproofs, goloshes, and umbrellas were the order of the day. On reaching Barcelona I found a blazing sun, windows thrown wide open, and everybody wearing the lightest garments. Such facts do duty for a thermometer.
Boasting, as it does of one of the finest climates in the world, natural position of rare beauty, a genial, cosmopolitan, and strikingly handsome population, and lastly, accessibility, Barcelona should undoubtedly be a health resort hardly second to Algiers. Why it is not, I will undertake to explain.
In the first place, there is something that invalids and valetudinarians require more imperatively than a perfect climate. They cannot do without the ministrations of women. To the suffering, the depressed, the nervous, feminine influence is ofttimes of more soothing — nay, healing — power than any medical prescription.
Let none take the flattering unction to their souls — as well look for a woman in a Bashaw’s army, or on a man-of-war, as in the palatial, well-appointed, otherwise irreproachable hotels of Barcelona! They boast of marble floors, baths that would not have dissatisfied a Roman epicure, salons luxurious as those of a West-end club, newspapers in a score of languages, a phalanx of gentlemanly waiters, a varied ordinary, delicious wines, but not a daughter of Eve, old or young, handsome or ugly — if, indeed, there exists an ugly woman in Barcelona — to be caught sight of anywhere! No charming landlady, as in French hotels, taking friendliest interest in her guests, no housemaids, willing and nimble as the Marys and Janes we have left at home, not even a rough, kindly, garrulous charwoman scrubbing the floors. The fashionable hotel here is a vast barrack conducted on strictly impersonal principles. Visitors obtain their money’s worth, and pay their bills. There the transaction between innkeeper and traveller ends.
Good family hotels or “pensions,” in which invalids would find a home-like element, are sadly needed in this engaging, highly-favored city. The next desideratum is a fast train from Port Bou — the first Spanish town on the frontier. An express on the Spanish line would shorten the journey to Lyons by several hours. New carriages are needed as much as new iron roads. Many an English third-class is cleaner and more comfortable than the so-called “first” here. It must be added that the officials are all politeness and attention, and that beyond slowness and shabbiness the traveller has nothing to complain of. Exquisite urbanity is still a characteristic of the Barcelonese as it was in the age of Cervantes. One exception will be mentioned farther on.
If there are no women within the hotel walls — except, of course, stray lady tourists — heaven b
e praised, there are enough, and to spare, of most bewitching kind without. Piquancy is, perhaps, the foremost charm of a Spanish beauty, whether a high-born señora in her brougham, or a flower-girl at her stall. One and all seem born to turn the heads of the other sex, after the fashion of Carmen in Merimée’s story. Nor is outward attraction confined to women. The city police, cab-drivers, tramway-conductors, all possess what Schopenhauer calls the best possible letter of introduction, namely, good looks.
The number of the police surprise us. These bustling, brilliant streets, with their cosmopolitan crowds, seem the quietest, most orderly in the world. It seems hard to believe that this tranquillity and contentment should be fallacious — on the surface only. Yet such is the case, as shown by the recent outbreak of rioting and bloodshed.
“I have seen revolution after revolution,” said to me a Spanish gentleman of high position, an hidalgo of the old school; “I expect to see more if my life is sufficiently prolonged. Spain has no government; each in power seeks but self-aggrandizement. Our army is full of Boulangers, each ready to usurp power for his own ends. You suggest a change of dynasty? We could not hope to be thereby the gainers. A Republic, say you? That also has proved a failure with us. Ah, you English are happy; you do not need to change abruptly the existing order of things, you effect revolutions more calmly.”
I observed that perhaps national character and temperament had something to do with the matter. He replied very sadly, “You are right; we Southerners are more impetuous, of fiercer temper. Whichever way I look, I see no hope for unhappy Spain.”
Such somber reflections are difficult to realize by the passing traveller. Yet, when we consider the tremendous force of such a city as Barcelona, its progressive tendencies, its spirit of scientific inquiry, we can but admit that an Ultramontane regency and reactionary government must be out of harmony with the tendencies of modern Spain.
