Mr. Strobel to Mr. Bayard.
Madrid, November 28, 1885. (Received December 14.)
Sir: Soon after the return of the King from La Granga (San Ildefonso) on the morning following the riot and attack on the German legation of the 4th of September last, rumors began to circulate in regard to the dangerous state of his health. Intermittent attacks of fever, inability to retain food, and dysentery were said to be the symptoms, but it was the general impression that his lungs were seriously affected.
The course of his disease must have been hastened by the nervous excitement resulting from the complications with Germany. The prospect of a foreign war or an insurrection at home, which at one time seemed to be the alternative, and the days of suspense, even after the prospect of a settlement of the question, were sufficient to affect injuriously a much more robust constitution. Since his arrival in Madrid [Page 763] I saw the King but twice, once on the 11th of September, when I was presented to him at the palace reception in honor of the fifth birthday of the Princess of Asturias, where his face wore a certain dejected look, but there was nothing in his appearance to show that he was in a critical condition. The other and last time was on the afternoon of the 17th of October, on his return from the races which he had attended by the advice of his ministers, who feared that his absence might produce apprehension and excitement among the people. I was then deeply impressed by the change wrought by the intervening space of less than four weeks. Instead of being calculated to allay fears, his haggard and pale face in that scene of gayety rather played the part of the skeleton at the feasts of the Egyptians—a reminder of the uncertainty of power and the shortness of life.
On the 1st of November the King left Madrid for the Pardo, a country seat about 8 miles from the city. One of humbler station might have obtained a new lease of life in the gentler climate of the south, but political considerations kept him exposed to these cutting winds and this changing temperature. The same policy of repression and concealment in regard to the state of his health was kept by the Government to the very end. To the day of his death, the official Gacetareported every morning with unscrupulous monotony—
His Majesty, whom God guard, continues in the royal seat of the Pardo without change in his important health.
If a newspaper dared to allude too openly to the rumors of his feeble condition, it was denounced; if a correspondent of a foreign journal telegraphed a reference to those rumors, the telegram was suppressed. Not more than ten days ago it was reported that he would have the customary reception and dinner on to-day, the 28th, his birthday. Then his doctors thought that this might be too exciting, but he had accepted an invitation from the Duke de Montpensier to spend a month at Sanlucar, in Andalusia; he would leave about December 1, and would take part in a review before his departure. These statements, while they did not deceive many who believed that the King’s life was but a question of a winter, did to a certain extent lull any anxiety as to an immediate disaster.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, the 25th, it was whispered in Madrid that the King was dead. The royal family, with all the evidences of distress and excitement, had gone to the Pardo. Around the presidency and the other Government buildings was an increased number of civil guards, and the troops were ordered to their barracks. What produced conviction, however, that the King, if not dead, was in all probability dying, was the entire reversal of the policy of concealment. While no definite information could be gained from official sources, newspapers, Conservative, Liberal, and Republican, undenounced and untrammeled, proclaimed that he had been seized with a relapse, that his condition was dangerous, even desperate.
The Gaceta of Wednesday morning, for the first time, deviated into admitting that he was ill, and published the telegrams sent on the night before to Señor Canovas by the physician at the Pardo, describing his condition in explicit and despairing terms.
It appears that on his return from a walk on Monday afternoon he was seized with an attack of dyspnea, or inability to breathe. This was repeated with increased violence at about 11 that night. During the following day, Tuesday, the 24th, there was dysentery, attended with considerable loss of blood. At about 4 o’clock on the morning of the 25th [Page 764] he had another attack of dyspnea, which left him much enfeebled. His respiration then became gentler, but was still very painful. At half-past 8 he addressed a few words to the Queen, who had been continually by his side since her arrival, and then fell asleep. After a short interval his breathing stopped. The Queen leaned over and placed her hand upon his forehead. He had died without a struggle.
In the palace, but not in the room, at the time of his death were his mother, ex-Queen Isabella, the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier, and his sisters, the infantas Isabel and Eulalia. Early in the morning, when evidently convinced that the end was near, he had requested that his children, the Princess of Asturias and the Princess Maria Theresa, might be brought to him; they were sent for, but arrived too late.
The King’s death was not officially announced until late in the afternoon by an extra edition of the Gaceta, but it was generally known before that time. On yesterday the body was brought to Madrid with the customary pomp, and has to-day been lying in state in the palace and exposed to the public gaze. This morning it will be conveyed to the Escurial and placed in the Pantheon, the last resting place of the royalty of Spain. The funeral ceremonies in Madrid will not be held before December 10.
Although it was dated the 25th, I did not receive until last night the official announcement of the event from the minister of state. Your telegram of condolence arrived about the same time. It was well known that a new ministry had been formed, but the diplomatic representatives had as yet received no official notification of that fact, and since the announcement of the King’s death was signed by Señor Elduayen, I thought it better to embody your telegram in a note to him, a copy of which is inclosed, than to wait for the official information of the entrance of the new ministry upon their duties. This course, as I have learned, was also followed by other legations.
Had Alfonso XII lived until to-day he would have just completed his twenty-eighth year, and it is a somewhat strange commentary that those who expected to meet him at the birthday reception given to foreign representatives, on this day saw him amid the hushed whispers of a motley assemblage, and surrounded by the impressive but ghastly paraphernalia of deceased royalty.
I have, &c.,