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CHAPTER IX
EXCURSION TO TOLEDO

Illescas – The Puerta del Sol – Toledo – The Alcazar – The Cathedral – The Gregorian and Mozarabic Ritual – Our Lady of Toledo – San Juan de los Reyes – The Synagogue – Galiana, Karl, and Bradamant – The Bath of Florinda – The Grotto of Hercules – The Cardinal's Hospital – Toledo Blades.

We had exhausted the curiosities of Madrid; we had seen the Palace, the Armeria, and the Buen Retiro, the Museum and the Academy of Painting, the Teatro del Principe, and the Plaza de Toros; we had promenaded on the Prado from the fountain of Cybele to the fountain of Neptune, and we began to find the time hang somewhat heavily on our hands. Consequently, in spite of a heat of thirty degrees,⁸ and all sorts of stories, sufficient to make our hair stand on end, about the insurgents and the rateros, we set out bravely for Toledo, the city of beautiful swords and romantic poniards.

Toledo is one of the most ancient cities not merely in Spain, but in the whole world, if the chroniclers are to be believed. The most moderate of them fix the period of its foundation prior to the Deluge; why not in the time of the Pre-Adamite kings, a few years before the creation of the world? Some attribute the honour of laying the first stone to Tubal; some to the Greeks; some, again, to the Roman consuls Telmon and Brutus; while others, supporting their opinion on the etymology of the word Toledo, which is derived from Toledoth, meaning, in Hebrew, generations, assert that the Jews who came to Spain with Nebuchadnezzar, were the original founders, because the twelve tribes all helped to build and people it. However this may be, Toledo is certainly a fine old city, situated some dozen leagues from Madrid, – Spanish leagues, by the way, which are longer than a feuilleton of a dozen columns, or a day without money – the longest things I know. You can go there either in a calessin or a small diligence which leaves twice a week. The latter conveyance is preferred as being the safer of the two; for on the other side of the Pyrenees, as was formerly the case in France, a person makes his will before undertaking the shortest journey. The terrible reports about brigands must, however, be exaggerated; for, in the course of a very long pilgrimage through those provinces which are considered the most dangerous, we never saw anything which could justify this universal panic. Nevertheless, the continual state of dread adds a great deal to the pleasure of the traveller, for it keeps you continually on the alert, and hinders the time from hanging heavily on your hands; you do some heroic actions, you display a superhuman amount of valour, and the troubled and scared looks of those who are spared raises you in your own estimation. A journey in the diligence, which we are accustomed to look on as the most ordinary thing in the world, becomes an adventure, an expedition; you set out, it is true, but it is not so certain that you will reach your destination, or return from whence you started. After all, this is something, in such an advanced state of civilization as that of modern times, in the prosaic and common-place year, 1840.

You leave Madrid by the gate and bridge of Toledo, which, is adorned with pots, volutes, statues, and pot-grenados of a very ordinary description, but which yet produce rather a majestic effect. You leave on your right the village of Caramanchel, whither Ruy Blas went to procure, for Marie de Neubourg, la petite fleur bleue d'Allemagne (Ruy Blas, now-a-days, would not find the smallest Vergissmeinnicht in this hamlet built of cork on a basement of pumice-stone), and then enter, by a most detestable road, an interminable plain of dust, covered with crops of wheat and rye, whose pale yellow tints increase still more the monotony of the landscape. The only objects which serve to relieve it, in the least, are a few crosses, of evil augury, here and there stretching their skinny arms to the sky, the ends of a few spires in the distance marking the sites of small villages concealed from view, and the dried-up bed of some ravine traversed by a stone arch. From time to time you meet a peasant on his mule, with his carbine slung at his side; a muchacho driving before him two or three asses loaded with jars or chopped straw, secured by small cords, or else some poor tawny, sunburnt woman, dragging along a fierce-looking child, and that is all.

The further we advanced, the more arid and deserted did the country become; and it was not without a secret feeling of satisfaction that we perceived, on a bridge of uncemented stones, the five green dragoons who were to escort us; for it is necessary to have an escort from Madrid to Toledo. Would not a person be almost inclined to believe that he was in the very heart of Algeria, and that Madrid was surrounded by a Mitidja peopled by Bedouins?

We stopped to breakfast at Illescas, a city, or village, I am not certain which, where there are still some remains of the ancient Moorish buildings, and where the windows of the houses are protected by intricate specimens of iron-work and surmounted by a cross.

Our breakfast consisted of soup composed of garlic and eggs, of the inevitable tomata tortilla, and of roasted almonds and oranges, washed down with Val-de-Peñas, which was tolerably good, although thick enough to be cut with a knife, smelling horribly of pitch, and of the colour of mulberry syrup. Spain is certainly not peculiarly brilliant in its cookery, and the hostelries have not been sensibly ameliorated since the time of Don Quixote; the pictures of omelettes full of feathers, of tough cakes, rancid oil, and hard peas that might serve as bullets, are still strictly true, but, on the other hand, I should be rather puzzled to say where you would find, now-a-days, the splendid hens and monstrous geese that graced the marriage-feast of Gamacho.

Beyond Illescas the ground becomes more broken, and the consequence is that the road becomes more abominable, being a mere succession of pits and bogs. This does not prevent you, however, from going along at a furious rate; for Spanish postilions are like Morlachian coachmen, they care very little for what takes place behind them, and provided that they reach their destination, if it is only with the pole and the forewheels, they are satisfied. We arrived, however, without any accident, in the midst of a cloud of dust, raised by our mules and the horses of the dragoons, and made our entry into Toledo, panting with curiosity and thirst, through a most magnificent Arabian gateway, with its elegantly sweeping arch, and granite pillars surmounted by balls, and covered with verses from the Koran. It is called the Puerta del Sol, and is of a rich reddish colour, like a Portugal orange, while the outline stands out admirably from the limpid and azure sky behind. In our foggy climate we can really and truly form no conception of this violence of colour and this sharpness of outline; any paintings that may ever be brought back will always be looked on as exaggerated.

After passing the Puerta del Sol, we found ourselves on a kind of terrace, whence we enjoyed a very extensive view. We saw the Vega, streaked and dappled with trees and crops, which owe their verdure to the system of irrigation introduced by the Moors. The Tagus, which is crossed by the bridge of San Martin and that of Alcantara, rolls its yellowish waters rapidly along, and almost surrounds the town in one of its windings. At the foot of the terrace, the brown, glittering housetops sparkle in the sun, as do also the spires of the convents and churches, with their squares of green and white porcelain arranged like those on a chessboard; beyond these, rise the red hills and bare precipices which form the horizon around Toledo. The great peculiarity of this view is the entire absence of atmosphere and that species of hazy fog which, in our climate, always envelop the prospect; the transparency of the air is such that the lines of the various objects retain all their sharpness, and the slightest detail can be discerned at a very considerable distance.

As soon as our luggage had been examined, our first care was to find some fonda or parador, for it was a long time since we had eaten our eggs at Illescas. We were conducted, through a number of streets so narrow that two loaded asses could not pass abreast, to the fonda del Caballero, one of the most comfortable establishments in the town. Calling to our aid the little Spanish we knew, and indulging in the most pathetic kind of pantomime, we succeeded in explaining to our hostess, who was a most gentle and charming woman, of a highly interesting and lady-like appearance, that we were dying of hunger, a fact which always seems greatly to astonish the natives of the country, who live upon sunshine and air, after the very economical fashion of the chameleon.

The whole tribe of cooks and scullions were immediately in a state of commotion. The innumerable little saucepans in which the highly-spiced ragouts of the Spanish kitchen are distilled and concocted were placed on the fire, and we were promised dinner in an hour's time. We took advantage of this hour to examine the fonda more minutely.

It was a fine building, which had, no doubt, formerly been the residence of some nobleman. The inner courtyard was paved with coloured marble mosaic, and ornamented with wells of white marble and large troughs lined with porcelain for washing the glasses and crockery. This courtyard is called the patio, and is generally surrounded by columns and galleries, with a fountain in the middle. A cloth tendido, which is rolled up in the evening in order to leave a free passage for the cool night-air, serves as a ceiling to this kind of drawing-room. On the first story, all around, there runs an elegantly-worked iron balcony, on which the windows and doors of the apartments open, which apartments you only enter when you wish to dress, dine, or take your siesta. The rest of the time you sit in the courtyard-drawing-room aforesaid, in which the pictures, chairs, sofas, and piano are placed, and which is decked out with flower-pots and boxes containing orange-trees.

We had hardly finished our inspection when Celestina (a fantastic and strange-looking servant-girl) came to inform us, humming a tune all the while, that dinner was ready. It was very respectable, consisting of cutlets, eggs with tomatoes, fowls fried in oil, and trout from the Tagus, to which was added a bottle of Peralta, a warm, liqueur-like wine, with a certain slight perfume of muscat, not at all disagreeable.

When we had finished our repast we strolled through the city, preceded by a guide, who was a barber by profession, but exercised his talents in showing about tourists during his leisure moments.

The streets of Toledo are exceedingly narrow; a person leaning out of a window on one side may shake hands with a person leaning out of a window on the other; and nothing would be more easy than to get over the balconies, if propriety was not preserved and aerial familiarities prevented by very handsome rails and charming iron bars, worked with that artistic richness of which they are so prodigal on the other side of the Pyrenees. This want of breadth would cause all the partisans of civilization among us to cry out in a frightful manner. These good people dream of nothing but immense places, vast squares, inordinately broad streets, and other embellishments more or less progressive. Nothing, however, can be more sensible than narrow streets in a very hot climate; and the architects who are making such large gaps in the buildings at Algiers will find this out very shortly. At the bottom of these narrow divisions so appropriately made between the blocks and masses of houses, you enjoy the most delicious shade and coolness: you walk about, completely protected, in the human polypier called a city; the spoonfuls of molten lead that Phœbus pours down from the sky at the hour of noon never fall upon you; the projecting roofs serve all the purposes of parasols.

If, for your misfortune, you are obliged to traverse any plazuela or calle ancha, exposed to the canicular sunbeams, you will soon appreciate the wisdom of people of former days, who were not accustomed to sacrifice everything to a notion of stupid regularity; the flagstones are as hot as the iron plates by means of which mountebanks make geese and turkeys dance the Cracovienne; the wretched dogs, who possess neither shoes nor alpagartas, gallop over these stones howling most piteously. If you raise the knocker of a door, it burns your fingers; you feel your brains boiling inside your skull like a saucepan full of water on the fire; your nose becomes the colour of a cardinal's hat; your hands are so sunburnt that you seem to have a pair of gloves on; and you evaporate in perspiration. Such is the advantage to be obtained by having spacious squares and broad streets. Every one who has walked along the Calle d'Alcala at Madrid, between twelve and two o'clock in the day, will be of my opinion. Besides, in order to have broad streets, you are obliged to reduce the size of the houses, and the opposite process strikes me as being the more sensible one of the two. Of course, these observations only apply to warm countries, where it never rains, where mud is a chimera, and where carriages are extremely uncommon. Narrow streets in our showery climate would be nothing more or less than so many abominable sewers. In Spain, the women go out on foot in black satin shoes; and, shod in this manner, walk considerable distances; I admire them for this, especially at Toledo, where the pavement is formed of small polished stones, shining and pointed, and which seem to have been carefully placed with the sharpest end upwards; but the women's little arched and nervous feet are as hard as a gazelle's hoof, and they skip along in the most good-humoured manner imaginable, over this pavement resembling the edge of a diamond, which causes the traveller, who is accustomed to the soft luxury of the Asphalte Seyssel, and the elasticity of the Bitume Polonceau, to cry out with pain.

The appearance of the houses of Toledo is imposing and severe; they have very few windows looking out upon the street, and those they do have are generally secured by iron bars. The doors, ornamented by pillars of bluish granite, and surmounted by balls, a kind of decoration which is very common, have an air of solidity and thickness which is increased still more by constellations of enormous nails. They seem to partake, at the same time, of the nature of convents, prisons, and fortresses, and also somewhat of harems, for the Moors used once to be there. Some of these houses, by a strange contradiction, are painted and decorated on the outside, either in fresco or water-colours, with false bas-reliefs, cameos, flowers, rockwork, and garlands, with incense-urns, medallions, Cupids, and all the mythological rubbish of the last century. The Trumeau and Pompadour style of these houses produces the strangest and most comical effect in the midst of their scowling sisters of feudal or Moorish origin.

We were conducted through an inextricable labyrinth of small lanes, in which my companion and myself marched in Indian file, like the geese in the fable, because there was not sufficient room for us to walk arm-in-arm, until we reached the Alcazar, which is situated like an Acropolis on the most elevated piece of ground in the city. We succeeded in entering after some slight discussion; for the first impulse of people of whom you ask anything is to refuse, whatever your request may be. "Come again this evening, or to-morrow – the keeper is taking his siesta – the keys are lost – you must have a pass from the governor." Such are the answers you obtain at first: but, by exhibiting the all-powerful tiny piece of silver, or, in extreme cases, the glittering duro, you always end by effecting an entrance.

The Alcazar, which was built upon the ruins of the old Moorish palace, is now a perfect ruin itself. It might be mistaken for one of those marvellous architectural dreams which Piranese used to embody in his magnificent etchings; it is the work of Covarubias, an artist little known, but far superior to the heavy, dull Herrera, who enjoys a far higher reputation than he deserves.

The façade, which is ornamented with florid arabesques in the purest style of the Renaissance, is a masterpiece of elegance and nobleness. The burning sun of Spain, which reddens the marble and dyes the stone with a tint of saffron, has clothed it in a robe of rich, strong colour, very different from the black leprosy with which past centuries have encrusted our old edifices. According to the expression of a great poet; Time, who is so intelligent, has passed his thumb over the angles of the marble and its too rigid outlines, and given the finishing touch, the last degree of polish, to this sculpture, already so soft and so supple. I particularly remember a staircase of the most fairy-like elegance, with marble columns, balustrades and steps, already half-crumbled away, conducting to a door which looks out upon an abyss, for this portion of the edifice has fallen down. This admirable staircase on which a king might be content to live, and which leads to nothing, possesses a certain indefinite air of singularity and grandeur.

The Alcazar is erected upon an esplanade, surrounded by battlements in the Moorish style, from which you enjoy an immense view, a truly magical panorama. Here the cathedral pierces the sky with its extraordinarily lofty spire; further on, in the sunshine, sparkles the church of San Juan de los Reyes; the bridge of Alcantara, with its tower-like gateway, throws its bold arches across the Tagus; the Artificio de Juanello obstructs the stream with its arcades of red brick, which might be taken for the ruins of some Roman edifice, while the massive towers of the Castillo of Cervantes (a Cervantes who has nothing in common with the author of Don Quixote) perched upon the rugged, misshapen rocks that run along the sides of the river, add one denticulation more to the horizon already so profusely indented by the vertebrated mountain-crests.

An admirable sunset completed the picture: the sky, by the most imperceptible gradations, passed from the brightest red to an orange colour, and then to a pale lemon tint in order to become of a strange blue, like a greenish turquoise, which last tint subsided in the west into the lilac-colour of night, whose shadow already cast a coolness over the place where I stood.

As I leant over one of the embrasures, taking a bird's-eye view of this town where I knew no one and where my own name was completely unknown, I had fallen into a deep train of thought. In the presence of all these forms and all these objects that I beheld at that moment, and which, in all probability, I was destined never to behold again, I began to entertain doubts of my own identity; I felt so absent, as it were, from myself, transported so far from my own sphere, that everything appeared an hallucination of my mind, a strange dream, from which I should be suddenly awakened by the sharp squeaking music of some vaudeville, as I was looking out of a box at the theatre. By one of those leaps which our imagination often takes when we are buried in reverie, I tried to picture to myself what my friends might be doing at that moment; I asked myself whether they noticed my absence, and whether at the time I was leaning over the battlements of the Alcazar of Toledo, my name was hovering on the lips of some well-loved and faithful friend at Paris. Apparently the answer that my thoughts gave me was not an affirmative one, for in spite of the scene I felt an indescribable feeling of sadness come over me, though the dream of my whole life was being accomplished; I knew that one of my fondest ideas was being fulfilled; in my youthful, happy years of romanticism, I had spoken enough of my good Toledo blade to feel some curiosity to see the place where these same blades were manufactured.

Nothing, however, could rouse me from my philosophical meditations, until my companion came and proposed that we should bathe in the Tagus. Bathing is rather a rare peculiarity in a country where, during the summer, the natives water the beds of the rivers with water from the wells. Trusting to the assurances of the guide that the Tagus was a real river, possessing a sufficient amount of humidity to answer our purpose, we descended as quickly as we could from the Alcazar, in order to profit by what little daylight still remained, and directed our steps towards the stream. After crossing the Plaza de la Constitucion, which is surrounded by houses whose windows, furnished with large spartum blinds rolled up, or half raised by the projecting balconies, have a sort of Venetian mediæval look that is highly picturesque, we passed under a handsome Arabic gateway with its semicircular brick arch, and following a very steep and abrupt zigzag path, winding along the rocks and walls which serve Toledo as a girdle, we reached the bridge of Alcantara, near which we found a place suited for bathing.

During our walk, night, which succeeds the day so rapidly in southern climates, had set in completely; but this did not hinder us from wading blindfold into this estimable stream, rendered famous by the languishing ballad of Queen Hortense, and by the golden sands which are contained in its crystal waves, according to the poets, the guides, and the travellers' handbooks.

When we had taken our bath, we hurried back in order to get into the town before the gates were shut. We enjoyed a glass of Orchata de Chufas and iced milk, the flavour and perfume of which were delicious, and then ordered our guide to take us to our fonda.

The walls of our room, like those of all the rooms in Spain, were rough-cast, and covered with those stupid yellow pictures, those mysterious daubs, like alehouse signs, which you so frequently meet in the Peninsula, a country that contains more bad pictures than any other in the world: this observation, of course, does not detract from the merit of the good ones.

We hastened to sleep as much and as quickly as possible, in order to be up early the next morning and visit the Cathedral before the service began.

The Cathedral of Toledo is considered, and justly so, as one of the finest and richest in Spain. Its origin is lost in the night of time, but, if the native authors are to be believed, it is to be traced back to the apostle Santiago, first archbishop of Toledo, who, according to them, pointed out its site to his disciple and successor, Elpidius, who was a hermit on Mount Carmel. Elpidius erected, on the spot pointed out, a church, which he dedicated to the Virgin during the time she was still living at Jerusalem. "What a notable piece of happiness! what an illustrious honour for the Toledans! It is the most excellent trophy of their glory!" exclaims, in a moment of lyrical inspiration, the author from whom we have taken these details.

The Holy Virgin was not ungrateful, and, according to the same legend, descended in person to visit the church of Toledo, bringing with her own hands, to the blessed San Ildefonso, a beautiful chasuble formed of heavenly cloth. "See how this Queen pays what she owes!" exclaims our author again. The chasuble still exists, and, let into the wall, is seen the stone on which the Virgin placed the sole of her celestial foot, the mark of which remains. The miracle is attested by the following inscription: —

 
QUANDO LA REINA DEL CIELO
PUSÓ LOS PIES EN EL SUELO
EN ESTA PIEDRA LOS PUSÓ.
 

In addition to this, the legend informs us that the Holy Virgin was so well pleased with her statue, and thought it so well executed, so well proportioned and so like, that she kissed it, thus bestowing on it the power of working miracles. If the Queen of Heaven were to descend into our churches now-a-days, I do not think that she would be tempted to embrace the statues of herself that she might see there.

More than two hundred of the gravest and most honourable authors relate this story, which they consider, at the very least, quite as well authenticated as the death of Henry IV.; as for myself I find no difficulty in believing the miracle, and I am perfectly willing to admit it into the number of established facts. The church remained in its original state until San Eugene, sixth bishop of Toledo, enlarged and embellished it as far as his means would allow, under the title of the Church of our Lady of the Assumption, which it has preserved up to the present day; but in the year 302, which was the period when the emperors Diocletian and Maximinus persecuted the Christians so cruelly, the prefect Dacien ordered the temple to be pulled down and razed to the ground, so that the faithful knew no longer where to seek the consolations of religion. Three years subsequently, when Constans, father of the great Constantine, had mounted the throne, the persecution ceased, the prelates returned to their see, and Archbishop Melancius commenced rebuilding the church, always on the same spot. A short time afterwards, somewhere about the year 312, the emperor Constantine having been converted to the true faith, ordered, among other heroic things to which he was impelled by his Christian zeal, that the basilical church of Our Lady of the Assumption of Toledo, which had been destroyed by Dacien's orders, should be rebuilt and decorated in the most sumptuous manner possible at his expense.

At this period, Marinus, a learned and deeply read man, was archbishop of Toledo. He enjoyed the privilege of being on intimate terms of friendship with the emperor, a circumstance which enabled him to carry out all his plans; consequently he spared no expense to build a splendid edifice in the most sumptuous and grandest style. It was this edifice which lasted all the time of the Goths, which was visited by the Virgin, which was a mosque during the conquest of Spain, which again became a church when Toledo was conquered back by the king Don Alonzo VI., and the plan of which was taken to Oviedo by order of the king Don Alonzo the Chaste, in order that the church of San Salvador in that city might be built after the same model, in the year 803. "Those who have any wish to know what was the form, the grandeur, and the majesty of the cathedral of Toledo at the time the Queen of Heaven visited it, have only to go to Oviedo, and they will be satisfied," adds our author. For our own part, we regret that we could not afford ourselves this gratification.

At length, under the happy reign of Saint Ferdinand, Don Rodrigo being archbishop of Toledo, the church assumed that admirable and magnificent form which it has at the present day, and which, it is said, is that of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. O simple chronicler! allow me to doubt this! The Temple of Ephesus was never equal to the Cathedral of Toledo! The archbishop Rodrigo, in presence of the king and all the court, having first said a pontifical mass, laid the first stone, one Saturday in the year 1227; the works were then carried on with great activity until the building was completed, and carried to the highest pinnacle of perfection which human art can attain.

We hope the reader will excuse this slight historical digression, for it is a thing we do not often indulge in, and we will quickly resume our humble mission of descriptive tourist and literary daguerreotype.

The exterior of the Cathedral of Toledo is far less rich than that of the Cathedral of Burgos; there is no florid profusion of ornaments, no arabesques, no rows of statues running round the portals, but simply solid buttresses, sharp bold angles, a thick facing of large stones, and a sturdy-looking spire that displays none of the delicate decorations of Gothic art, every portion of the whole building being covered with a reddish tint like a piece of toast, a kind of sunburnt skin like that of a pilgrim from the Holy Land; but to make up for this simplicity on the outside, the interior is sculptured and carved like a stalactite cavern.

The door by which we entered is formed of bronze, and bears the following inscription: Antonio Zurreno del arte de Oro y Plata, faciebat esta media puerta. The impression produced upon the mind of the visitor is one of the most vivid and grandest description. The church is divided into five naves; the middle one being of the most unusual height, while the others beside it seem to bow their heads and kneel down to denote their respect and adoration. Eighty-eight pillars, each as large as a tower, and composed of sixteen spindle-shaped columns bound together, sustain the weight of this enormous edifice; a transept intersects the grand nave between the choir and the high altar, and forms the arms of the cross. The style of the entire building is most homogeneous and perfect, a kind of merit possessed by but few Gothic cathedrals, which have generally been erected piecemeal. The original plan has been strictly carried out from beginning to end, with the exception of a few arrangements in the chapels, which, however, do not in any way mar the harmony of the whole. Painted windows, glittering with the splendour of emeralds, sapphires, and rubies, and contained in stone nervures worked like so much silversmith's work, let in a mild and mysterious light which inspires you with deep religious feelings; when the sun is too fierce, spartum blinds let down over the windows diffuse throughout the building that cool half-state of obscurity which renders Spanish churches so favourable for meditation and prayer.

The high altar or retablo alone might be mistaken for a church. It is an enormous collection of small columns, niches, statues, foliage, and arabesques, of which the most minute description would convey but a very faint idea. All this mass of carving and ornaments, which extends completely up to the roof, is painted and gilt in the richest imaginable manner. The tawny, warm tones of the old gilding, cause the thin streaks and patches of light, which are caught in their passage by the nervures and projections of the ornaments, to stand out with splendid brightness, producing the most admirable, picturesque, and rich effect. The paintings, with their backgrounds of gold, which adorn the panels of the altar, equal in richness of colouring the most brilliant specimens of the Venetian school. This union of colour, with the severe and almost hieratic forms of mediæval art, is met with very rarely; some of these paintings might be taken for pictures in Giorgione's best style.