Castelar [pp. 334-335]

334-CASTELA]?. []VLutcH 8,
lous jacket of gold and blue, worn with one
sleeve on and the other off. How it came to
be worn thus was in this way: The regiment
was surprised while it was at stables. Each
man had only just time to jump into his saddle and get the first sleeve of his jacket on
before the enemy was down in full force.
The regiment fought that day in a slingjacket! The Royal Marines carry no distinctions on their colors and ornaments, save
"Gibraltar," and the motto, "Per mare, per
terram." It was thought to be sufficient to
place upon record the capture of a fortress,
the name of which no other regiment in the
English service could place upon its colors.
~:\s for the other general engagements in
which the army of Great Britain had been
engaged, from Walcheren and Bergen - op -
Zoom downward, the Marines had been in
them all. What cared they, then? There
was no room for all, so they stuck "Gibraltar" on their regimental armorial bearings,
and march at reviews triumphant.
Now we are going to relate a story the
truth of which we can vouch for: During the
Peninsular War, an Enzlish regiment put to
flight a French regiment, w nich regiment, in
the "Save himself who can," dropped its
eagle. On went the victorious Britishers;
but one of the regiments (British) in reserve,
following, picked up the eagle. There was a
great quarrel as to whom this trophy rightly
belonged; the dispute was settled by the war
office at home, according to red-tape rules, and
very unfairly. The two regiments hated each
other from that time. Forty-eight years after
the event we have recorded happened, both met
in garrison together. The commanding officer was warned by the inhabitants that the
junior regiment was preparing to attack the
other. The beauty of the joke was, a mistake had been made by the junior regiment
in the matter. It had mistaken its foe. But
when, as actually afterward happened, the
real aggressor in the eagle affair came into
garrison, there was a fearful disturbance between the two, which was only quelled by the
firmness and good sense of the general. Here,
then, is an illustration of the grand old feeling of espritde corps. As the Pall-Mall Gazette
observed very recently: "If a soldier is worth
his salt he will have a deep-seated and immutable conviction that there is no single direction in which his regiment, or that particular section of it to which he belongs, is not
altogether and incomparably superior to every
other regiment, or any other section of a regiment, in his country's service; that there is
no contest of strength or skill, from fighting
down to skittles, at which it could not certainly establish its superior proficiency; that
its officers are finer fellows than those of any
other regiment; that, in fact, this particular
regiment, subdivide it as you will, is par excellence the regiment of the service." That certainly is the spirit which should reign among
soldiers. There was a great squabble, the
other day, in England, as to which should
claim the position on the extreme right of the
line at reviews, the Household Cavalry or the
Royal Horse Artillery. The latter won, and
there was great rejoicing because hard-workers had won the day against drones. This
article is necessarily fragmentary, for, if the
writer were to mention but one-half what he
knows about esprit de corps in the English army,
he could fill a book; but he cannot close this
article without mentioning the great respect
invariably paid to regimental distinctions in
England. He stood behind Earl Russell at a
review once, and he noticed that the old
statesman, each time the colors of a regiment
passed by, removed his hat and held it in his
hand until the color-guard had passed by,
though in the midst of a drenching rain.
And he has constantly seen civilians in garrison-towns stand in the streets and touch
their caps when a regiment was marching by
with its colors unfolded.
CEHARLES E. PAscoE.
CASTELAR.
HE career of the eloquent and enthusias tic young Spaniard who, in the new
republican cabinet, has received the portfolio
of Foreign Affairs, has been as brief as brilliant. Nine years ago the name of Castelar
was unknown-at least, unknown beyond the
Pyrenees; to-day no Spanish name is more
familiar to the world. It is, indeed, related
of him that, at sixteen, he addressed the insurrectionary multitudes at Madrid with wonderful inspiration and power; and the Spanish
republicans are fond of dilating on the fact
that from his earliest youth to the present he
has been an ardent democrat. But the transPyrenean nations first heard of him when, in
1866, he appeared as a prominent figure in
the abortive attempt at revolution in that
year.
Castelar has always been what he himself
does not disdain to call "a conspirator."
From earliest active life he has plotted and
sought to accomplish the perpetual abolition
of kingcraft from Spain. He has consorted
with would-be insurgents, has formed one of
secret conclaves which have met on dark
nights in obscure by-ways of the capital, has
drawn up insurrectionary programmes and
revolutionary proclamations, has contemplated with feverish eagerness the beginning of a
civil war which should forever rid Iberia of
the Bourbon incubus. The contrast between
his character of conspirator and his equallypronounced character of scholar, orator, and
profound political thinker, would be strange
in any other than a Spaniard, and an incongruity in any country but Spain. But Spanish
scholars and philosophers are accustomed to
conspiracy. The greatest Spaniards have
nearly always been conspirators. It would
be difficult to name a recent exception to the
rule. Espartero, Narvaez, O'Donnell, Prim,
Serrano, conspired in opposition, while they
crushed conspiracy in power. A Spanish politician is nourished, brought developed,
by conspiracy; it is as natural for him, and
as moral, as it is to aspire to the honors of
the state. Europe and America would be astounded, were it aL.ounced, some morning,
that the Professor of Ethics at Oxford, or the
Professor of Languages at Cambridge, had,
been thrown into the Tower of London for
plotting to put the queen and the Prince of
Wales there. But when Castelar, Professor
of History and Philosonhy in the University
of Madrid, was thrown into a dungeon for
leading a Madrid mob against the palace, the
affair slid into speedy oblivion as a matter of
course.
The events of Castelar's life, as far as
known, have been few, though most of them
have been dramatic. He was born in 1832,
and takes his place in the republican ministry
at the age of forty. Of his early years there
is little public record. He came of a good
though not eminent family, and was educated
at Madrid University, where he must have
attained distinguished scholastic rank; for
not long after his graduation he became one
of its instructors, and in a few years assumed
a professor's chair. The regime of Queen
Isabella II. was a singular combination of
mysterious toleration with despotic and capricious severity. When Castelar became Professor of History, his republican opinions must
have been well known; for they had been
loudly announced in the Madrid streets when
he was a beardless youth, and were uttered
with perfect frankness and with courageous
plainness throughout his career. At the very
time of his assumption of the chair of History
he was well known to be in league with Figueras and the other republican chiefs. Yet
it does not appear that the government hinted
an objection; and a determined foe to the
existing dynasty was permitted to teach the
budding youth of Spain, without a murmur.
Castelar was poor, as he is still; and he varied his task as university lecturer by contributing brilliantly-rebellious articles to the liberal journals. This pecuniary resource he continued to employ up to the very period of the
new republic; and, on the day when he entered
the Foreign Office, hundreds, perhaps thousands, were reading the glowing panegyric on
his colleague Figueras in the Fortnightly Review,
which he had just disposed of for a certain
number of guineas sterling. Like the French
republican statesman, Gambetta, whom he in
so many respects resembles, Castelar lives,
constrained by restricted means, in modest
lodgings and a retired quarter, proud to have
remained in incorruptible poverty, amid
temptations far from slight. He might have
bartered his genius for riches at any moment,
since Amadeus ascended the Spanish throne.
In the university Castelar soon gathered about
him a group of zealous young republicans,
and infected his pupils with his own warm
spirit and glowing ardor. Impulsive, generous, brilliant, eloquent, with an attractive
person and a charming manner, it is no wonder that he won the devoted affection of his
students. Before the uprising of 1866, it
would almost have created a revolution in
the classic shades of the university, had Castelar been deprived of his professorship.
His preeminent ability in his official work
confirmed the bond of sympathy between
professor and pupils. A memory which might
have made Macaulay jealous, a capacity of
application which Skr William Hamilton
would recognize as genius, and a keen taste
for historic annals which would put most
Anglo-Saxon statesmen to the blush, enabled
him to convert his mind into a rich storehouse of the knowledge which he daily served
up to the classes of history. Probably no
living Spaniard is so complete a master of
CASTELAR.
33~
[MARCH 8,