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1. 1. Getting Started: Compiling, Running, and Debugging
1. 1.0. Introduction
2. 1.1. Compiling and Running Java: JDK
3. 1.2. Compiling, Running, and Testing with an IDE
4. 1.3. Running Java with JShell
5. 1.4. Using CLASSPATH Effectively
6. 1.5. Downloading and Using the Code Examples
7. 1.6. Automating Dependencies, Compilation, Testing,
and Deployment with Apache Maven
8. 1.7. Automating Dependencies, Compilation, Testing,
and Deployment with Gradle
9. 1.8. Dealing with Deprecation Warnings
10. 1.9. Maintaining Program Correctness with
Assertions
11. 1.10. Avoiding the Need for Debuggers with Unit
Testing
12. 1.11. Maintaining Your Code with Continuous
Integration
13. 1.12. Getting Readable Tracebacks
14. 1.13. Finding More Java Source Code: Programs,
Frameworks, Libraries
2. 2. Interacting with the Environment
1. 2.0. Introduction
2. 2.1. Getting Environment Variables
 3. 2.2. Getting Information from System Properties
4. 2.3. Dealing with Java Version and Operating
System–Dependent Variations
5. 2.4. Using Extensions or Other Packaged APIs
6. 2.5. Using the Java Modules System.
3. 3. Strings and Things
1. 3.0. Introduction
2. 3.1. Taking Strings Apart with Substrings or
Tokenizing
3. 3.2. Putting Strings Together with StringBuilder
4. 3.3. Processing a String One Character at a Time
5. 3.4. Aligning Strings
6. 3.5. Converting Between Unicode Characters and
Strings
7. 3.6. Reversing a String by Word or by Character
8. 3.7. Expanding and Compressing Tabs
9. 3.8. Controlling Case
10. 3.9. Indenting Text Documents
11. 3.10. Entering Nonprintable Characters
12. 3.11. Trimming Blanks from the End of a String
13. 3.12. Program: A Simple Text Formatter
14. 3.13. Program: Soundex Name Comparisons
4. 4. Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions
1. 4.0. Introduction
2. 4.1. Regular Expression Syntax
 3. 4.2. Using regexes in Java: Test for a Pattern
4. 4.3. Finding the Matching Text
5. 4.4. Replacing the Matched Text
6. 4.5. Printing All Occurrences of a Pattern
7. 4.6. Printing Lines Containing a Pattern
8. 4.7. Controlling Case in Regular Expressions
9. 4.8. Matching “Accented” or Composite Characters
10. 4.9. Matching Newlines in Text
11. 4.10. Program: Apache Logfile Parsing
12. 4.11. Program: Full Grep
 Java Cookbook
FOURTH EDITION

Problems and Solutions for Java Developers

Ian F. Darwin
Java Cookbook

by Ian F. Darwin

Copyright © 2019 O’Reilly Media. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway

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 April 2020: Fourth Edition

Revision History for the Fourth Edition

2019-10-15: First Early Release

See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781492072584
for release details.

The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media,

Inc. Java Cookbook, the cover image, and related trade dress
are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.

The views expressed in this work are those of the author(s),

and do not represent the publisher’s views. While the publisher
and the author(s) have used good faith efforts to ensure that
the information and instructions contained in this work are
accurate, the publisher and the author(s) disclaim all
responsibility for errors or omissions, including without
limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of
or reliance on this work. Use of the information and
instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any
code samples or other technology this work contains or
describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual
property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that
your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.

978-1-492-07258-4

[FILL IN]
Chapter 1. Getting Started:
Compiling, Running, and
Debugging

1.0 Introduction
This chapter covers some entry-level tasks that you need to
know how to do before you can go on—it is said you must
crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can ride a
bicycle. Before you can try out anything in this book, you need
to be able to compile and run your Java code, so I start there,
showing several ways: the JDK way, the Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) way, and the build tools (Ant,
Maven, etc.) way. Another issue people run into is setting
CLASSPATH correctly, so that’s dealt with next. Deprecation
warnings follow after that, because you’re likely to encounter
them in maintaining “old” Java code. The chapter ends with
some general information about conditional compilation, unit
testing, assertions, and debugging.

If you don’t already have Java installed, you’ll need to

download it. Be aware that there are several different
downloads. The JRE (Java Runtime Environment) is a smaller
download for end users. The JDK or Java SDK download is the
full development environment, which you’ll want if you’re going
to be developing Java software.

Standard downloads for the current release of Java are

available at Oracle’s website.

You can sometimes find prerelease builds of the next major

Java version on http://java.net. The entire (almost) JDK is
maintained as an open source project, and the OpenJDK
source tree is used (with changes and additions) to build the
commercial and supported Oracle JDKs.

If you’re already happy with your IDE, you may wish to skip
some or all of this material. It’s here to ensure that everybody
can compile and debug their programs before we move on.

1.1 Compiling and Running Java: JDK

Problem
You need to compile and run your Java program.

Solution
This is one of the few areas where your computer’s operating
system impinges on Java’s portability, so let’s get it out of the
way first.
JDK

Using the command-line Java Development Kit (JDK) may be

the best way to keep up with the very latest improvements in
Java. Assuming you have the standard JDK installed in the
standard location and/or have set its location in your PATH,
you should be able to run the command-line JDK tools. Use the
commands javac to compile and java to run your program
(and, on Windows only, javaw to run a program without a
console window). For example:

C:\javasrc>javac HelloWorld.java

C:\javasrc>java HelloWorld
Hello, World

C:\javasrc>

If the program refers to other classes for which source is

available (in the same directory) and a compiled .class file is
not, javac will automatically compile it for you. Effective with
Java 11, for simple programs that don’t need any such co-
compilation, you can combine the two operations, simply
passing the Java source file to the java command:

java HelloWorld.java
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As you can see from the compiler’s (lack of) output, this
compiler works on the Unix “no news is good news”
philosophy: if a program was able to do what you asked it to, it
shouldn’t bother nattering at you to say that it did so. Many
people use this compiler or one of its clones.

There is an optional setting called CLASSPATH, discussed in

Recipe 1.4, that controls where Java looks for classes.
CLASSPATH, if set, is used by both javac and java. In older
versions of Java, you had to set your CLASSPATH to include “.”,
even to run a simple program from the current directory; this is
no longer true on current Java implementations.

Sun/Oracle’s javac compiler is the official reference

implementation. There were several alternative open source
command-line compilers, including Jikes and Kaffe but they
are, for the most part, no longer actively maintained.

There have also been some Java runtime clones, including

Apache Harmony, Japhar, the IBM Jikes Runtime (from the
same site as Jikes), and even JNODE, a complete, standalone
operating system written in Java, but since the Sun/Oracle JVM
has been open-sourced (GPL), most of these projects have
become unmaintained. Harmony was retired by Apache in
November 2011.

MAC OS X

The JDK is pure command line. At the other end of the

spectrum in terms of keyboard-versus-visual, we have the
Apple Macintosh. Books have been written about how great the
Mac user interface is, and I won’t step into that debate. Mac
OS X (Release 10.x of Mac OS) is built upon a BSD Unix (and
“Mach”) base. As such, it has a regular command line (the
Terminal application, hidden away under
/Applications/Utilities), as well as both the traditional Unix
command-line tools and the graphical Mac tools. Mac OS X
users can use the command-line JDK tools as above or any of
the modern build tools. Compiled classes can be packaged into
“clickable applications” using the Jar Packager discussed in
[Link to Come]. Mac fans can use one of the many full IDE
tools discussed in Recipe 1.2. Apple provides XCode as their
IDE, but out of the box it isn’t very Java-friendly.

GRAALVM

A new VM implementation called GraalVM has just entered

public release. Graal promises to offer better performance, the
ability to mix-and-match programming languages, and the
ability to pre-compile your Java code into executable form for a
given platform. See The Graal VM web site for more
information on GraalVM.
1.2 Compiling, Running, and Testing with
an IDE

Problem
It is cumbersome to use several tools for the various
development tasks.

Solution
Use an integrated development environment (IDE), which
combines editing, testing, compiling, running, debugging, and
package management.

Discussion
Many programmers find that using a handful of separate tools
—a text editor, a compiler, and a runner program, not to
mention a debugger—is too many. An IDE integrates all of
these into a single toolset with a graphical user interface. Many
IDEs are available, ranging all the way up to fully integrated
tools with their own compilers and virtual machines. Class
browsers and other features of IDEs round out the ease-of-use
feature sets of these tools. It has been argued many times
whether an IDE really makes you more productive or if you
just have more fun doing the same thing. However, today most
developers use an IDE because of the productivity gains.
Although I started as a command-line junkie, I do find that the
following IDE benefits make me more productive:
Code completion

Ian’s Rule here is that I never type more than three

characters of any name that is known to the IDE; let the
computer do the typing!

“Incremental compiling” features

Note and report compilation errors as you type, instead of

waiting until you are finished typing.

Refactoring

The ability to make far-reaching yet behavior-preserving

changes to a code base without having to manually edit
dozens of individual files.

Beyond that, I don’t plan to debate the IDE versus the

command-line process; I use both modes at different times
and on different projects. I’m just going to show a few
examples of using a couple of the Java-based IDEs.

The three most popular Java IDEs, which run on all

mainstream computing platforms and quite a few niche ones,
are Eclipse, NetBeans, and IntelliJ IDEA. Eclipse is the most
widely used, but the others each have a special place in the
hearts and minds of some developers. If you develop for
Android, the ADT has traditionally been developed for Eclipse,
but it has now transitioned IntelliJ as the basis for “Android
Studio,” which is the standard IDE for Android, and for Google’s
other mobile platform, Flutter. All three are plug-in based and
offer a wide selection of optional and third-party plugins to
enhance the IDE, such as supporting other programming
languages, frameworks, file types, and so on. While the
following shows creating and running a program with Eclipse,
the IntelliJ IDea and Netbeans IDEs all offer similar
capabilities.

Perhaps the most popular cross-platform, open source IDE for

Java is Eclipse, originally from IBM and now shepherded by the
Eclipse Foundation, the home of many software projects
including Jakarta, the follow-on to the Java Enterprise Edition.
Eclipse is also used as the basis of other tools such as
SpringSource Tool Suite (STS) and IBM’s Rational Application
Developer (RAD). All IDEs do basically the same thing for you
when getting started; see, for example, the Eclipse New Java
Class Wizard shown in Figure 1-1. Eclipse also features a
number of refactoring capabilities, shown in Figure 1-2.
Figure 1-1. Eclipse: New Java Class Wizard
Figure 1-2. Eclipse: Refactoring
Mac OS X includes Apple’s Developer Tools. The main IDE is
Xcode. Unfortunately, current versions of Xcode do not really
support Java development, so there is little to recommend it
for our purposes; it is primarily for those building non-portable
(iOS-only or OS X–only) applications in the Swiift or Objective-
C programming languages. So even if you are on OS X, to do
Java development you should use one of the three Java IDEs.

How do you choose an IDE? Given that all three major IDEs
(Eclipse, NetBeans, IntelliJ) can be downloaded free, why not
try them all and see which one best fits the kind of
development you do? Regardless of what platform you use to
develop Java, if you have a Java runtime, you should have
plenty of IDEs from which to choose.
Figure 1-3. IntelliJ program output
See Also
Each IDE’s web site maintains an up-to-date list of resources,
including books. See Table 1-1 for the website for each.

T
a
b
l
e
1
-
1
.
T
h
e
B
i
g
3
J
a
v
a
I
D
E
s

Product name Project URL Note

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 Eclipse https://eclipse.org/ Basis of STS, RAD

IntelliJ Idea https://jetbrains.com/idea/ Basis of Android Studio

Netbeans https://netbeans.apache.org Run anywhere JavaSE does

These major IDEs are extensible; see their documentation for

a list of the many, many plug-ins available. Most of them allow
you to find and install plug-ins from within the IDE. For Eclipse,
use the Eclipse Marketplace, near the bottom of the Help
menu. As a last resort, if you need/want to write a plug-in that
extends the functionality of your IDE, you can do that too, and
in Java.

For Eclipse, I have some useful information at

https://darwinsys.com/java including a list of shortcuts to aid
developer productivity.

1.3 Running Java with JShell

Problem
You want to try out Java expressions and APIs quickly, without
having to create a file with public class X { public
static void main(String[] args) { … } every time.
Solution
Use JShell, Java’s new REPL (read-evaluate-print-loop)
interpreter.

Discussion
Starting with Java 11, jshell is included as a standard part of
Java. Jshell allows you to enter Java statements and have
them evaluated without the bother of creating a class and a
main program. You can use it for quick calculations, or to try
out an API to see how it works, or almost any purpose; if you
find an expression you like, you can copy it into a regular Java
class and make it permanent. JShell can also be used as a
scripting language over Java, but the overhead of starting the
JVM means that it won’t be as fast as awk, Perl or Python for
quick scripting.

REPL programs are very convenient, and hardly a new idea

(LISP languages from the 1950’s included them). You can think
of command line interpreters (CLIs) such as the Bash or Ksh
shells on UNIX/Linux, or Command.com on Microsoft Windows,
as REPLs for the system as a whole. Many interpreted
languages like Ruby and Python can also be used as REPLs.
Java finally has its own REPL, JShell. Here’s an example of
using it:

$ jshell
| Welcome to JShell -- Version 11.0.2
| For an introduction type: /help intro

jshell> "Hello"
$1 ==> "Hello"

jshell> System.out.println("Hello");
Hello

jshell> System.out.println("Hello")
Hello

jshell> "Hello" + sqrt(57)

| Error:
| cannot find symbol
| symbol: method sqrt(int)
| "Hello" + sqrt(57)
| ^--^

jshell> "Hello" + Math.sqrt(57)

$2 ==> "Hello7.54983443527075"

jshell> String.format("Hello %6.3f",

Math.sqrt(57)
...> )
$3 ==> "Hello 7.550"

jshell> String x = Math.sqrt(22/7) + " " +

Math.PI +
...> " and the end."
x ==> "1.7320508075688772 3.141592653589793 and
the end."

jshell>
You can see some obvious simplifications here, and one that’s
not obvious from the above:

The value of an expression is printed, without needing to

call System.out.println every time, but you can call it if you
like;

The semicolon at the end of a statment is optional (unless

you type more than one statement on a line);

If you make a mistake, you get a helpful message

immediately;

If you do make a mistake, you can use “shell history” (i.e.

up-arrow) to recall the statment so you can repair it;

If you omit a close quote, parenthesis or other punctuation,

JShell will just wait for you, giving a continuation prompt ….

So go ahead and experiment with JShell. Read the built-in

introductory tutorial for more details. When you get something
you like, copy and paste it into a Java program and save it.

1.4 Using CLASSPATH Effectively

Problem
You need to keep your class files in a common directory, or
you’re wrestling with CLASSPATH.
Solution
Set CLASSPATH to the list of directories and/or JAR files that
contain the classes you want.

Discussion
CLASSPATH is one of the more “interesting” aspects of using
Java. You can store your class files in any of a number of
directories, JAR files, or ZIP files. Just like the PATH your
system uses for finding programs, the CLASSPATH is used by
the Java runtime to find classes. Even when you type
something as simple as java HelloWorld, the Java interpreter
looks in each of the places named in your CLASSPATH until it
finds a match. Let’s work through an example.

The CLASSPATH can be set as an environment variable on

systems that support this (Microsoft Windows and Unix,
including Mac OS X). You set it the same way you set other
environment variables, such as your PATH environment
variable.

Alternatively, you can specify the CLASSPATH for a given

command on the command line:

C:\> java -classpath c:\ian\classes MyProg

Suppose your CLASSPATH were set to C:\classes;. on Windows

or ~/classes:. on Unix (on the Mac, you can set the
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the dying nun, saying that he desired no more health or life than
was meet for God’s service, and was ready to go when he was
called. The call came in September 1665. His chronic malady had
been aggravated to such an extent by anxiety and worry, that by the
middle of the month his physicians confessed themselves powerless.
Then was enacted one of those ghastly farces common at the time
in Spain. It was whispered in the palace that the King was
bewitched, and the Inquisitor-General called a conference of
ecclesiastics to consider the means for exorcising the evil spirits that
held the sovereign in bondage. Philip himself gave permission for the
Inquisitor to act as might be judged best; and one day the royal
confessor, Friar Martinez, accompanied by the Inquisitor-General,
approached the sickbed and demanded of the King a certain little
wallet of relics and charms which he always wore suspended upon
his breast. After examining these carefully the wallet was returned to
the King, and from some clue therein contained, search elsewhere
led to the discovery of an ancient black-letter book of magic, and
certain prints of the King’s portrait transfixed by pins. All these
things were solemnly burnt after a service of exorcism by the
Inquisitor-General at the chapel of Atocha; and then, to assist the
cure, the group of churchmen administered to the King, who was
suffering from several mortal diseases, of which gall-stones caused
the immediate danger, an elaborate confection of pounded mallow-
leaves with drugs and sugar.
This treatment aggravated the ill, and in two or three days the
King appeared to be in articulo mortis, after what was described as a
fit of apoplexy. The whole Court fell into momentary confusion, and
the death-chamber was already deserted when the King revived and
altered several of his testamentary dispositions, one clause of which
now appointed Mariana regent during the minority of her son. The
will, by Philip’s orders, was then locked into a leather purse with
other important state papers, and the key, by the dying man’s
orders, was delivered to his wife. That afternoon, after taking the
sacrament, Philip bade a tearful farewell to Mariana, and blessed his
two children. He then took an affectionate leave of the Duke of
Medina de las Torres and other nobles, beseeching them with
irrepressible tears to work harmoniously together, and help the
widow and the poor child to whom his heavy heritage was passing.
Philip struggled through the night in agony, and the next day the
image of the Virgin of Atocha was carried past the windows of the
palace to be deposited in the royal Convent of Barefoots hard by,
whilst the dead bodies of St. Diego and St. Isidro were brought to
the royal chapel for veneration;[268] and every church and convent in
Madrid resounded with rogations and processions for the health of
the King. Around the bed of the dying monarch evil passions already
raged; for the Court was divided thus early into two factions, one in
favour of Mariana and the other looking to Don Juan. The Duke of
Medina de las Torres, the principal minister, retired from the palace
as soon as he had taken leave; and an unseemly wrangle, almost a
fight, took place over the deathbed between rival friars, as to
whether the viaticum might be administered or not, until they had to
be bundled out of the room by the Marquis of Aytona.
No sooner was this scene over than Count Castrillo entered the
chamber and announced that Don Juan had come and was waiting
to see his father. Philip knew, and bitter the knowledge was, that his
wife and son would be in open strife from the day the breath left his
body; but that Don Juan should return from exile unbidden, and
dared to disobey his King, whilst yet he lived, aroused one more
spark of sovereign indignation in the moribund man. ‘Tell him,’ he
said, ‘to return whence he came until he be bidden. I will see him
not; for this is no time for me to do other than to die.’ At early dawn
on Friday, 17th September, poor Philip the Great breathed his last.
‘And curious it is,’ said a contemporary courtier, ‘that in the chamber
of his Majesty when he died, there was no one but the Marquis of
Aytona and two servants to weep for the death of their King and
master. In all the rest of the court not one soul shed a tear for him.
A terrible lesson is this for all humankind; that a monarch who had
granted such great favours and raised so many to honour, had no
sigh breathed for him when he died.’[269]
 The same night the dead body of the King was dressed in a
handsome suit of brown velvet, embroidered and trimmed with
silver, with the great red sword-cross of Santiago worked upon the
breast, preparatory to the pompous lying-in-state in the same gilded
hall of the old palace at Madrid, where the comedies the King had
loved were so often played before him. At the same time in an
adjoining room the Councils of Castile and State gathered to hear
the will read by the secretary, Blasco de Loyola, which made Mariana
Queen-Regent of Spain, with the assistance of a special council of
regency, consisting of the great dignitaries of the State, failing two
of whom the Queen might appoint two substitutes, an eventuality
which partially occurred within a few hours of Philip’s death by the
decease of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Moscoso. Don Juan,
who was commended to the widow in the will, waited to hear no
more than the elevation of Mariana to the regency, and then took
horse with all speed and hurried back to the safe seclusion of his fief
of Ocaña. A few days afterwards, the sumptuous lying-in-state being
concluded, the body of ‘Philip the Great’ was carried in a vast
procession to the Escorial, to rest for ever in the jasper niche before
which he had so often prayed and wept.[270]
Mariana, at the age of thirty-one, was now ruler of Spain for her
son Charles II., aged four, and she lost no time in showing her
tendencies when left to herself. The root of most of the calamities
that affected Spain were the traditions that bound it to the imperial
house. All that the country needed, even now, was rest, peace and
freedom from foreign complications in which Spaniards had no real
concern. But Mariana was Austrian to her finger tips; and ever since
Philip’s health began to fail she had been working for the
predominance of her kindred and weakening the bonds of friendship
with France, knit by the marriage of Maria Theresa with Louis XIV.
There was already a large party of nobles who, seeing the national
need for peace, looked with distrust upon a policy which would still
waste Spanish resources in fighting the battles of the empire in mid-
Europe: and when to the vacancy in the Council of Regency and the
Inquisitor-Generalship, caused by the death of Cardinal Moscoso a
few hours after the King, Mariana appointed her Austrian confessor,
Father Nithard, Spanish pride flared out and protest became general.
Nithard was doubtless a worthy priest, though of no great ability, but
if he had been a genius the same detestation of him would have
prevailed, for he was a foreigner, and it was guessed at once that
between him and the Austrian Queen Spain would be sacrificed as it
had been in the past to objects that were not primarily Spanish.
Observers abroad saw it too, and although the French envoy who
went to condole with Mariana on Philip’s death assured her of the
desire of Louis to be friendly with her, the first acts of her regency
gave to the French King a pretext for asserting his wife’s right to the
inheritance of Flanders, as her dowry had not been paid, and her
renunciation was asserted to be invalid.
In May 1667 Louis invaded Flanders with 50,000 men, faced only
by a small disaffected and unpaid force under the Spanish viceroy,
the result being that the French overran the country and captured
many principal cities. Don Juan was summoned in a hurry from his
exile to the Council of State in Madrid, and he and his sworn enemy
Mariana divided between them the sympathies of the capital and the
country. Pasquins and satires passed from hand to hand on the Liars’
Parade and in the Calle Mayor, mostly attacking Nithard and the
Queen, who were blamed for the war; and the relations between
Don Juan and Mariana grew more strained every day.
It was also evident now that Spain was powerless to coerce
Portugal any longer, and in February the humiliating treaty was
signed—mainly by the influence of Fanshawe[271] and Sandwich—in
February 1668, recognising the independence of the sister Iberian
nation. Louis XIV. carried on his attacks in Flanders with vigour, and
rejected all overtures of peace except on terms which aroused
Spaniards to indignation. The Spanish Franche Comté was occupied
by the French in February 1668; and then, but only by a supreme
effort, a fresh army of nine thousand men was collected in Spain to
defend her territories. The Austrian friendship was of little use to
Spain, as usual, and Castile had once more to fight her own battle.
In these circumstances of national peril the influence of Mariana and
Nithard on the Council of Regency procured an order for Don Juan to
take command of the army and lead it to Flanders against the
French, and with an ill grace the royal bastard left Madrid on Palm
Sunday, 1668, for his rendezvous at Corunna, where the treasure
ships from Cadiz and his troops were to join him. Don Juan saw in
this move an intention of getting him away from the centre of
government, and the impression was strengthened by the almost
simultaneous exile or arrest, on various trivial pretexts, of some of
those who were known to sympathise with him, one of whom,
Malladas, was strangled in prison by Mariana’s orders.
All through the spring Don Juan lagged at Corunna, excusing
himself from embarking on various grounds, ill-health being the
principal; until, at length, thanks to the intervention of England and
Holland, Louis was brought to sign terms of peace with Spain at Aix
la Chapelle, in May 1668, that left him in possession of the Flemish
territories he had conquered. But still Mariana and Nithard were
determined that Don Juan should go and take possession of his
government in Flanders, and sent him a peremptory order to
embark. This he refused to do, and a decree of the Queen in August
directed him to retire to Consuegra, and not approach within sixty
miles of Madrid. He had many friends and adherents, especially in
Aragon, and his discontent extended to them. Those in Madrid
began to clamour that Mariana and Nithard were keeping the little
King in the background away from his people, and alienating those
who might serve the monarchy best.
Charles II. was now aged seven, and so degenerate and weak a
child was he, that he had been up to this period, and continued for
some years afterwards, entirely in the hands of women, and treated
as an infant in arms. He was dwarfish and puny, with one leg shorter
than the other, his gait during the whole of his life being uncertain
and staggering. His face was of extraordinary length and ghastly
white, the lower jaw being so prodigiously underhung that it was
impossible for him to bite or masticate food, or to speak distinctly.
His hair was lank and yellow, and his eyes a vague watery blue. This
poor creature with his mother at his side, in obedience to the
clamour of Don Juan’s friends, was first brought out in public for his
subjects to see at a series of visits to the convents and churches of
Madrid in the summer of 1668.[272] Just as the King and Mariana
were about to start from the palace at Madrid on one of these
excursions, in October 1668, an officer came in great agitation to the
door of the Queen’s apartment and prayed for audience. He was told
that the coach awaited their Majesties, and the Queen could not see
him then, but would receive him when she returned. He begged in
the meanwhile to be allowed to stay in a place of safety in the
palace. This request made his visit seem important enough for
Mariana to be informed of it: and she ordered him to be introduced
at once. When he entered he threw himself upon his knees and
besought that he might speak with her alone; and for a half hour he
was closeted with the Queen.
The story he had to tell was of a widespread conspiracy of Don
Juan and his friends against the Regency, and without delay the net
was cast that swept into prison one of Don Juan’s principal agents in
Madrid, Patiño, and all his household. In a day or two a force of
soldiers was despatched to Consuegra to arrest Don Juan himself,
but found the bird flown. Behind him he had left a document
addressed to the Queen, violently denouncing Nithard as a tyrant
and a murderer, whilst protesting his own loyalty to his father’s son.
Madrid began again to murmur at the persecution of a Spanish
prince in Spain by a foreign Jesuit, and though a brisk interchange of
manifestoes and recriminatory pamphlets was carried on, the great
mass of the people were unquestionably on the side of Don Juan
against the German Queen and her Jesuit favourite.
The Prince fled to Barcelona, where Nithard was especially hated
and the Madrid government always unpopular, and there nobles and
people received Don Juan with enthusiasm. Messages of support
came to him from all parts of Spain, and French money and
sympathy powerfully aided his propaganda, so that by the end of the
year 1668 affairs looked dangerous for Mariana and her confessor.
The Queen and her Camarilla took fright and tried conciliation, but
Don Juan knew that he had the whip hand, and in a letter written in
November to Mariana peremptorily demanded the dismissal of
Nithard within fifteen days. Mariana’s friends on the Council of
Regency voted for the impeachment of Don Juan for high treason;
and for a time vigorous measures against him were like to be taken.
But the Council of Castile, the supreme judicial authority, through its
most influential member, warned the Queen that in a controversy
between the King’s brother and a foreign Jesuit Spaniards must
necessarily be on the side of the former, and the Queen must be
cautious or she would alienate the country from her. Mariana
thereupon wrote softly to Don Juan inviting him to approach Madrid
that a conference of conciliation might be held. But the prince would
not trust Nithard, who, he said, had planned his murder, and he
declined to risk coming to the capital except in his own time and
way.
Early in February 1669, Don Juan, with a fine bodyguard of two
hundred horse, rode out of Barcelona, and through Catalonia and
Aragon towards Madrid. Mariana had sent strict orders throughout
the country that no honours were to be paid to him, but his journey
in spite of her was a triumphal progress, and as he entered
Saragossa in state the whole populace received him with shouts of:
‘Long live Don Juan of Austria, and Death to the Jesuit Nithard.’ A
regiment of infantry was added by Aragon to the Prince’s force, and
on the 24th February Mariana and her friend in the palace of Madrid
were horrified to learn that Don Juan was at the gates of the capital
with an armed body stronger than any at their prompt disposal.
Whilst they made such hasty preparations as they could to resist, all
Madrid was in open jubilation at the approach of their favourite
prince. Don Juan’s force grew from hour to hour, and with it grew his
haughtiness towards the ruling authority. Mariana, in alarm, tried
every means. The Nuncio endeavoured to soften Don Juan’s heart;
the higher nobles in the Queen’s household wrote to him
deprecating violence; and, finally, the Queen herself wrote a letter of
kindly welcome. But to all blandishments Don Juan stood firm:
Father Nithard must go for good, and at once; whilst the Council of
Castile also demanded the Jesuit’s expulsion.
 On the morning of 25th February, whilst Mariana was still in bed,
the courtyards of the palace filled with gentlemen and officials in
groups, who openly declared for Don Juan and the expulsion of
Nithard. The Dukes of Infantado and Pastrana sought an interview
with the Queen, for the purpose of informing her of the general
resolution, but were refused admittance into her bedchamber. They
then charged her secretary, Loyola, to inform her, that unless she
instantly signed a decree expelling Nithard they themselves would
take measures against him, as Madrid was in a turmoil and order
imperilled. Mariana with tears of rage swore that she would not be
coerced; and Nithard himself refused to stir. A hasty meeting of the
Council of Regency assembled in the forenoon, which Nithard
abstained from attending only upon the entreaty of the Nuncio,
where a decree of expulsion was drafted in the mildest form
possible, and laid before the Queen for signature as soon as she had
dined.
Mariana was at the end of her tether. The Court, the populace,
and the soldiery were all against her favourite, and she was forced
to sign the decree. But, though she did it, she never forgave Don
Juan for the humiliation, and thenceforward it was war to the knife
between them. Cardinal Nithard, with rich grants and gifts from the
Queen, was with difficulty saved from the cursing multitude that
surrounded his coach as he slunk out of the capital; and Don Juan,
triumphant, begged for permission to come and salute the Queen in
thanks for his expulsion. This, haughty Mariana coldly refused to
allow, and Don Juan retorted by demanding a thorough reform in
the administration of the government, a re-adjustment of taxation
and many other innovations which he alleged that Nithard alone had
prevented. The Spanish nobles, however, were no lovers of reform,
and Don Juan’s drastic demands were regarded askance by many. A
long acrimonious correspondence was carried on by the Queen at
Madrid and Don Juan at Guadalajara, in the course of which some
financial amendments were promised by the former: but in the
meantime Mariana’s friends were raising an armed force as a
bodyguard for her and her son, which afterwards became famous as
the Chambergo regiment, because the uniform was copied from
those worn by the troops of Marshal Schomberg. The formation of
this standing force was bitterly resented by the citizens of Madrid,
and aroused new sympathy for Don Juan. At length a semi-
reconciliation was effected by the appointment of Don Juan as
Viceroy of Aragon in June 1669; and for several years thereafter the
Prince was piling up funds from his rich offices to strike a more
effectual blow when the time should come.
The extreme debility of the boy King, who in 1670 was thought to
be moribund, was already dividing the courtiers, and indeed all
Spain and Europe, into two camps. If Charles II. died without issue,
as seemed probable, his elder sister Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XIV.,
would be his natural successor, but for the act of renunciation signed
at the time of her marriage; an act which from the first the French
had minimised and disputed, and Philip himself had characterised as
an ‘old wife’s tale.’ It was evident that Louis XIV., daily growing in
power and ambition, had no intention of allowing the renunciation to
stand in the way of his wife’s claims if her brother died childless; and
all of Mariana’s enemies in Spain, and they were many, were ready
to stand by the claims of the elder Infanta Maria Teresa, daughter of
the beloved Isabel of Bourbon, if the succession fell into dispute.
On the other hand, Mariana, naturally championed the cause of
her own daughter, the Infanta Margaret, married to the Emperor
Leopold, and upheld the validity of Maria Theresa’s formal
renunciation of the succession on her marriage. The Austrian
connection had brought nothing but trouble to Spain, and the
brilliant progress of France, even though it was to the detriment of
their country, had gained many Spanish admirers of the modern
spirit that pervaded the methods of Louis XIV. Mariana, therefore, to
most Spaniards, represented, with her pronounced Austrian
leanings, an attempt to tie the country to the bad old times, as well
as to pass over the legitimate rights of the elder Infanta for the
benefit of her own less popular daughter the Empress Margaret.
The Queen-Mother, well aware of the strong party against her, and
that her prime enemy, Don Juan, was only awaiting his time to strike
at her, employed all the resources she could scrape together in
providing for her own defence against her domestic opponents,
leaving the frontier fortresses divested of troops and means for
repelling attack from France; whilst, on the other hand, she
provoked Louis by sending a Spanish contingent to co-operate with
the Emperor’s troops in aiding the Dutch in their war with France;
and, later, in 1673, she formed a regular alliance with the Emperor
and Holland against Louis XIV. Nothing could have been more
imprudent than this in the circumstances, for Spain was in a worse
condition of exhaustion than ever, and the hope of beating France by
force had long ago proved fallacious. The ancient appanage of
Burgundy, the Franche Comté, promptly passed for ever from the
dominion of Spain to that of France; and whilst the fighting in
Flanders and the Catalan frontier was progressing in 1674, a new
trouble assailed Mariana’s government. The island of Sicily revolted,
and invited the French to assume the sovereignty, an invitation that
was promptly accepted. Thirty-seven years before, when he was a
mere stripling, Don Juan had recovered Naples for Spain in similar
circumstances; and Mariana, almost in despair, could only beseech
her enemy to leave his government at Saragossa, and take
command of the Spanish-Dutch forces to attack the French in Sicily.
But Don Juan, knowing her desire to get him out of the way, was
determined not to allow himself to be sent far from the centre of
affairs, and refused to accept the position.
His reasons were well founded, for events were passing in
Mariana’s palace that rendered her more unpopular than ever; and,
by the will of Philip IV., her regency would come to an end when her
son attained his fifteenth year late in the next year 1675. It had
been hoped that with the banishment of Nithard and the absence
from the capital of Don Juan, the factions that divided the Court
would have held their peace during the few years the regency
lasted; and possibly this would have been the case if the Queen had
been prudent. Her unwise favour to Nithard had already made her
extremely unpopular, for foreign Queens in Spain were always
suspect; but she had learned nothing from her favourite’s
ignominious expulsion; and soon a confidant, less worthy far than
Nithard, had completely captured the good graces of the Queen.
This was a young gentleman of no fortune named Fernando de
Valenzuela. He was one of those facile, plausible, Andaluces, a
native of Ronda, who had figured so brilliantly in the Court of Philip
IV. and Mariana, where the accomplishment of deftly turning
amorous verse, improvising a dramatic interlude, or contriving a
stinging epigram, opened a way to fortune. He had been a member
of the household of the Duke of Infantado, and upon the death of
the latter, had attached himself to Father Nithard, who needed the
aid of such men.
Valenzuela was not only keen and clever, but extremely
handsome, in the black-eyed Moorish style of beauty, for which the
people of Ronda are famous, and he soon managed to gain the full
confidence of both Nithard and the Queen, whom he served as a go-
between and messenger, a function which he continued after the
Jesuit had been expelled. He had married the Queen’s favourite half-
German maid, and had been appointed a royal equerry; both of
which circumstances gave a pretext for his continual presence in the
palace; and at the time of the agitation against Nithard, and
afterwards, he had been extremely useful in conveying to the Queen
all the comments that could be picked up by sharp ears in the Calle
Mayor and Liars’ Parade (the peristyle of the Church of St. Philip). It
was noticed that those who spoke incautiously of the Queen in
public were promptly denounced and brought to trouble, and the
gossips soon pitched upon Valenzuela as the spy, calling him in
consequence by the nickname, by which he was generally known, of
the ‘fairy of the palace.’ The man was bold, ambitious, and
unscrupulous, and soon more than occupied the place left vacant by
Nithard.
Jealous nobles and courtiers looked with indignation at the rapid
rise of a mere provincial adventurer to the highest places in the
State. Not only was a marquisate and high commands and offices
conferred upon him, but at a time when Spain was in the midst of a
great international war that ended in the remodelling of the map of
Europe at her expense, this favourite, without special aptitude or
experience, was appointed by Mariana her universal minister for all
affairs; and Valenzuela was the most powerful man in Spain. He
manfully did his best though unsuccessfully, for he was cordially
detested, to win popularity in an impossible position, by multiplying
in Madrid the feasts and diversions its inhabitants loved, by writing
comedies himself, full of wit and malice, for gratis representation in
the theatres, by re-building public edifices, and generally beautifying
the capital. He was surrounded, moreover, by a great crowd of
parasites, mostly nobodies, like himself, who sang his praises for the
plunder he could pour upon them.
But his rise was too rapid, and his origin too obscure to be easily
forgiven, and a perfect deluge of satires, verses, pamphlets and
flying sheets, full of gross libels upon him and the Queen, came from
the secret presses and circulated throughout Spain. The general
opinion was that he was the Queen’s lover as well as her minister;
but Madrid was always a hotbed of scandal, and, although this may
well have been true, it must be regarded as non-proven. As a
specimen of the view taken of the connection by contemporaries the
following description of a broad-sheet, found one morning posted on
the walls of the palace, may be given. A portrait of the Queen is
represented with her hand pointing to her heart, with the printed
legend, ‘This is given;’ whilst Valenzuela is portrayed standing close
by her side, pointing to the insignias and emblems of his many high
offices, and saying, ‘These are sold.’ The favourite himself seems to
have been anxious to strengthen the rumour that assigned to him
the amorous affection of the widowed Queen, for at two of the Court
festivals, of which he promoted many, he bore as his devices, ‘I
alone have licence,’ and ‘To me alone is it allowed.’[273]
The unrestrained favour extended by the Queen to such an
upstart as this gave hosts of new adherents to Don Juan; and such
of them as had access to the young King, now rapidly approaching
his legal majority, took care to paint the wretched condition of the
country in the blackest colours, and to ascribe the trouble to the
Queen’s bad minister. The boy, though nearly fifteen, was still a
child; backward and, at best, almost an idiot. He could hardly read
or write, for the weakness of his wits and the degeneracy of his
physique had caused his education to be entirely neglected, and he
was, even in his mature age, grossly ignorant of the simplest facts.
But, like his father, he was gentle, kind and good-hearted, and his
compassion was easily aroused by the sad stories told him of the
sufferings of his people, especially when they came from the lips of
his father confessor, Montenegro, and his trusted tutor Ramos del
Manzano.
They, and the great nobles who prompted them, understood that
the moment had come for action when, in the late autumn of 1675,
Mariana and Valenzuela ordered Don Juan to sail in Ruyter’s fleet to
Sicily and eject the French; and what to them was just as important,
leave them with no rivals near them when the King came of age.
Charles was persuaded by his confessor, and without the knowledge
of his mother, to sign a letter recalling his half-brother to Madrid;
and with this in his hand Don Juan could refuse, as he did, to sail for
Sicily. On the morning of 6th November 1675, the day that Charles
reached his fifteenth year and the regency ended, Madrid was astir
early to see the shows that were to celebrate the new reign, though
the country, in its utter exhaustion and misery, was in no spirit to
rejoice now.
To the surprise of most was seen a royal travelling carriage rapidly
approach the Buen Retiro palace, and the escort that surrounded it
proclaimed that the occupant of the coach was no other than Don
Juan. All was prepared for the coup d’etat. The prince hurried,
unknown to Mariana, to the young King’s apartment, and kneeling,
kissed the boy’s hand; whilst a decree, already drafted, was
presented to the King, appointing his half-brother the universal
minister of the crown. Mariana had passed the night at the palace a
mile away, but the coming of her enemy to the Buen Retiro had
been announced to her before he alighted. Without losing a moment
she flew to the Retiro and reached her son’s room just as the decree
that would have ruined her was about to be signed. She was an
imperious woman, and had been Queen-Regent of Spain for over ten
years: her control of her feeble son had been supreme whilst she
was with him, and her angry orders that the room should be cleared
might not be gainsaid. Left alone with her son, she led him to a
private room and, with tears and indignant reproaches, reduced the
poor lad to a condition of abject submission to her will.
The president of the Council of Castile had already told her, that
as Don Juan had come by the King’s warrant, the same authority
alone could send him back, and Charles was induced to sign a
decree commanding the prince to return forthwith to his government
in Aragon and remain there till further orders. Now was the time
when boldness on the part of Don Juan would have won the day; for
the nobles, court and people, were mostly on his side against
Valenzuela and the Queen, whose means did not allow them to bribe
everybody. But Don Juan was as vain and empty as he was
ambitious and failed to rise to the occasion. The sacrosanct
character of the King of Castile, moreover, was still a strong
tradition, and Don Juan, who knew his fellow-countrymen well,
dared not aim at ruling instead of the King, but through the King. So
that night Don Juan and his supporters met in conclave, and weakly
decided to obey the King’s new command without protest, instead of
making another attempt to override Mariana’s influence upon her
son; and the prince returned to Aragon overwhelmed with confusion
and disappointment.[274]
The triumph of Mariana was complete, and she took no pains to
conceal her joy when she attended that night in state the theatre of
the Buen Retiro, in celebration of the King’s coming of age. In a few
days all those who had had a hand in the futile conspiracy were on
their way to exile; and, to keep up appearances, Valenzuela himself
was given the rich post of Admiral of the Andalucian coast, with
another rich marquisate, as an excuse for his absence from the
capital during the first few weeks of the King’s majority. He was soon
back again, collecting new honours from the feeble King at the
instance of Mariana, and to the indignation of the other nobles. The
great post of Master of the Horse, usually held by one of the first
magnates of Spain, was given to Valenzuela; and when the jealous
grandees remonstrated he was made a grandee of Spain of the first
class to match his new dignity. All this, and the fact that Don Juan
had been deprived of his viceroyalty, though banished from Court,
may testify to Mariana’s determination and boldness, but says little
for her prudence; for all Spain, high and low, was against her, and
Valenzuela was a weak reed to depend upon in the face of so
powerful an opposition.
In the meanwhile the conspiracy against Mariana grew in strength.
Don Juan amongst his faithful Aragonese could plot with impunity,
whilst the nobles in Madrid were working incessantly to the same
ends, namely, the banishment of Mariana and the impeachment and
punishment of Valenzuela. In February 1676 all the principal
grandees signed a mutual pledge to stand together until these
objects were attained; and as, in virtue of their position, they had
unrestrained access to the King, who was now nominally his own
master, the result of their efforts was soon seen.
The object lesson to which they could point was a very plain one.
Spanish troops were still pouring out their blood upon the
battlefields of Europe without benefit to Spain: the distress in the
capital itself was appalling; even the King’s household sometimes
being without food, or means of obtaining it. On every side ruin had
overwhelmed the people. Industry had been crushed by taxation,
whole districts were depopulated and derelict, and neither life nor
property was safe from the bandits who defied the law in town and
country.[275] Spain had almost, though not quite, reached its nadir of
decadence: and, though the distress was really the result of long-
standing causes described in the earlier pages of this book, the boy
monarch was made to believe that it all arose from the mis-
government of his mother and Valenzuela; and that Don Juan could
remedy all the ills and make Spain strong and happy again.
The noble conspirators took care, this time, to neglect no
precautions that might ensure success, and obtained (27th
December 1676) from the King an order to which Mariana was
obliged to consent, for Don Juan to return to Madrid; whilst on
various pretexts they kept the Queen as much as possible from
influencing her son. Valenzuela was, of course, informed of what
was going on, and, recognising that the coalition was strong enough
to crush him, had suddenly fled into hiding a few days previously.
The night of the 14th January 1677, after the King had retired to his
bedchamber in the palace of Madrid, and Mariana doubtless thought
that all was safe until the next morning, Charles, accompanied by a
single gentleman-in-waiting, escaped by arrangement with the
conspirators, down backstairs and through servants doorways, from
the old palace to the Buen Retiro, where the nobles and courtiers
were assembled. Long before dawn a decree reached Mariana in her
bedroom in the palace, ordering her not to leave her apartments
without the written permission of the King. Her rage and indignation
knew no bounds, and for the rest of the night letters alternately
denouncing the undutifulness, and appealing to the affection of her
son, showered thick and fast from the Queen in the old Alcazar to
the sixteen year old boy with the long white face, who was trying to
play the King in the pleasance of the Buen Retiro. None of her letters
softened him, if ever they reached him, which is doubtful, and all the
next day the antechambers at the Retiro were crowded with
courtiers, applauding the King’s stroke of State, whilst in the Alcazar
on the cliff the Queen-Mother found herself neglected by flatterers, a
prisoner in the palace where she had reigned so long.
The next day news came that Don Juan, with a great armed
escort and household, had arrived at Hita, thirty-five miles from the
capital; and there the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo and a crowd of
grandees met him with a message from the King, asking him to
dismiss his armed men and come to Court for the purpose of taking
the direction of affairs. But Don Juan had his conditions to make
first, and he refused to enter the capital until Mariana had left it,
Valenzuela made a prisoner, and the hated Chambergo regiment
disbanded. He had his way in all things, and the same night, with
rage in her heart, Mariana rode out of the capital for her banishment
at Toledo; the Chambergos were hurried away for shipment to Sicily;
and then came the question where was Valenzuela. Reluctantly, and
bit by bit, it was drawn from the King that he himself had contrived
the flight of his mother’s favourite, and knew where he was hidden
amongst the friars of the palace-monastery of the Escorial.
From his windows overlooking the bleak Sierra of Guadarrama the
fugitive favourite gazed in the gathering dusk of the 17th January
1677 in fancied security; when, to his dismay, a large body of cavalry
trotted into the courtyard and dominated the palace. Amongst them
the alarmed Valenzuela descried his enemy the Duke of Medina
Sidonia, and a group of other grandees. Flying for refuge within the
consecrated precincts, he besought the prior to save him; and when
the doors of the monastery had been closed the prior greeted the
troops and nobles in the courtyard and demanded their pleasure.
‘We want nothing,’ they replied, ‘but that you will deliver to us the
traitor Valenzuela.’ ‘Have you an order from his Majesty?’ asked the
prior. ‘Only a verbal one,’ replied Don Antonio de Toledo, son of the
Duke of Alba, who took the lead. ‘In that case,’ replied the monk,
supported by a murmur of approval from his brethren behind, ‘we
will not surrender him, except to main force; for we shelter him by
written warrant of the King.’ Threats and insults failed to move the
monks, and an attempt at arrangement was at last made by means
of an interview in the church between Valenzuela himself and the
Duke of Medina Sidonia and Toledo. Owing mainly to the violence of
the latter the interview had no result; and, as the prior saw that the
soldiery were preparing to force the sanctuary, Valenzuela was
hidden in a secret room contrived for such eventualities where he
might defy discovery. The enraged nobles and soldiery, balked of
their prey, ransacked the enormous place, room by room, for three
days, overturning altars, insulting and violating the privacy of the
monks, and committing sacrilege undreamt of in Spain for centuries,
for which they were smartly punished afterwards by the
ecclesiastical authority.[276]
At length, on the night of 21st January, Valenzuela took fright at
some voices near, and foolishly let himself down by his twisted
sheets from the window of his safe retreat; and, though one sentry
let him go, and the monks made desperate attempts to keep him
hidden, he was captured on the 22nd January and carried with every
circumstance of ignominy to close confinement in Don Juan’s fortress
of Consuegra; then after terrible sufferings and stripped of all his
honours and possessions, he was imprisoned in Manila, and
afterwards taken to Mexico to die; whilst his unfortunate wife,
treated with atrocious brutality by Toledo, was reduced to beg from
door to door for charity, until her troubles drove her mad.[277] No
sooner was Valenzuela safe behind the bars at Consuegra than Don
Juan of Austria entered Madrid in state on the 23rd January,
acclaimed by the populace as the saviour of Spain, and welcomed by
the King as the heaven-sent minister who was to make his reign
brilliant and successful. Don Juan’s vengeance knew no limit, as his
soul knew no generosity. Whatever may have been Mariana’s faults
as a Queen of Spain, or her errors as a diplomatist, the ignominy to
which she was now subjected by order of her son, at the instance of
Don Juan, shows the lack of generosity of the latter and the
miserable weakness of the former. Mariana’s turn was to come again
by and bye, but with her banishment to Toledo her life as ruling
Queen of Spain came to an end. She lived nearly twenty years
afterwards, but her vicissitudes during that time may be told more
fittingly in connection with the lives of her two successors, the wives
of her afflicted son.
 BOOK V
I
MARIE LOUISE OF ORLEANS

With Mariana, closely watched in her convent at Toledo, and all

her friends exiled from Court, Don Juan of Austria reigned supreme.
For years he had been clamouring for reform, and holding up as a
terrible example of the results of mis-government the utter
prostration that had seized upon the nation. This was his chance,
and he missed it; for he, whom a whole people had acclaimed as the
strong man that was to redeem Spain from the sins and errors of the
past, proved in power to be a jealous vindictive trifler, incapable of
great ideas or statesmanlike action. Every supporter of the Queen-
Mother, from the highest to the lowest, was made to feel the
persecution of Don Juan; letters from Toledo were opened, spies
listened at every corner, and violated the sanctity of every home, in
the anxiety of the Prince to discover plots against him. His pride
exceeded all bounds, and most of his time was occupied in intrigues
to secure for himself the treatment due to a royal prince of
legitimate birth.
Whilst Don Juan was engaged in these trifles and equally futile
government measures, such as endeavouring by decree to make the
courtiers dress in the French fashion instead of Spanish, the taxes
were as heavy as before, the prices of food higher than ever, the
administration remained unreformed, and the law was still
contemned: the Spanish troops were being beaten by the French in
Catalonia for lack of support, and King Louis still occupied Sicily. Don
Juan’s own supporters, too, soon got tired of him when they saw
that he was grudging of rewards, even to them; and pasquins and
pamphlets rained against him and in favour of the Queen-Mother.
The latter and the imperial ambassador had, before the coming of
Don Juan, betrothed the King to his niece the Archduchess Marie
Antoinette, aged nine, the daughter of the Emperor; as if the
miserable Charles himself had not been a sufficient warning against
further consanguineous marriages in the house of Austria: but Don
Juan promptly put an end to that arrangement, and proposed to
marry Charles to a little Portuguese Infanta of similar age. Peace
was now an absolute necessity to all Europe. The pourparlers
between the powers at Nimeguen had already lasted two years, and
ended in an arrangement between Holland and France, in which
Spain was left out. Louis could then exact his own terms; and, as
usual, they were crushingly hard on Spain, which lost some of the
richest cities in Flanders and all the Franche Comté (September
1678). But it was peace, and the rejoicing of the overburdened
Spanish people was pathetic to witness.
Charles was seventeen years of age, and already his country was
speculating eagerly upon his marriage; whilst his degeneracy and
weakness aroused hopes and fears of what might happen if he died
without issue. According to the will of Philip IV., the succession fell to
the Empress Margaret, daughter of Mariana; but the French King,
who from the first had made light of his wife’s renunciation of her
Spanish birthright, and Maria Theresa herself, were not inclined to
let her claims go by default. Soon the gossips in Madrid began to
whisper that a French Queen Consort, a descendant of the house
which had given them their beloved Isabel of Bourbon, would suit
Spain best, and Don Juan himself was not unwilling to listen to such
a suggestion; for, in any case, the King must marry, and a French
match would be a blow against Mariana and the Austrian connection.
The Duke of Medina Celi, Don Juan’s principal henchman, slept, as
sumiller de corps, in the King’s room; and it was he who first
broached to Charles the idea of a French wife. He was, the Duke
reminded him, a grown man now, and the Austrian Archduchess of
ten was too young for him. The Princess of Portugal, he said, would
never be consented to by the French, and she was also too youthful:
but there was at St. Cloud the most lovely Princess ever seen, only a
year younger than himself, who was a bride for the greatest king in
the world.[278]
Her name was Marie Louise, and she was the daughter of the
brother of King Louis, the Duke of Orleans, by Henriette of England,
that beautiful daughter of Charles I. who had been so beloved in the
country of her adoption. Maria Theresa took care that miniatures of
her lovely niece should go to the Spanish Court, and when one of
them was brought to the notice of the young King, his adolescent
passion was inflamed at once, and the Marquis de los Balbeses, who
had represented Spain at the conference of Nimeguen, was
instructed by Don Juan to proceed to Paris and ask King Louis for
the hand of his niece.
Marie Louise was a spoilt beauty of the most refined and gayest
court in Europe. She had when a child lost her English mother; but
every body was in love with her, from King Louis downward; and it
had long been understood that she might marry the Dauphin, with
whom she was on the tenderest terms of affection. But the treaties
of Nimeguen had transformed the face of Europe, and Louis had
other views for his son, whilst the need for securing a footing in
Spain during the critical period approaching was evident. So, when
Balbeses came to Paris with unusual state, and Saint Germain and
Saint Cloud were a blaze of magnificence to receive him, the girl’s
heart sank; for with her precocious intelligence she guessed the
meaning of the whispers and curious glances that greeted her every
appearance in the ceremonies in honour of the King of Spain’s
ambassador.
She and the Dauphin were deeply in love with each other, and had
been so since childhood; and it was like a sentence of death for the
beautiful girl with the burnished copper-brown hair and flashing
eyes, to learn that she was to be the bride of the long-faced, pallid
boy, with the monstrous jaw and dull stare, in his gloomy palace far
away from brilliant Versailles, and from her own home at Saint
Cloud. When her father, the Duke of Orleans, and afterwards King
Louis himself, gravely told her the honour that was in store for her,
she implored them in an agony of passionate tears to save her from
such a fate. To her stepmother, Charlotte of Bavaria, to the Queen
Maria Theresa, to the King, she appealed on her knees, again and
again, to let her stay in France, where she was so happy; and not to
send her far away amongst people she did not love. She was told
that her duty was to France; and Colbert, by the order of King Louis,
drew up a serious State paper for the instruction of the frightened
girl in the manner that French interests might be served by her as
Queen of Spain.
The fine pearl necklace, worth a hundred thousand crowns, given
to her by King Louis, the magnificent diamonds brought by the Duke
of Pastrana,[279] as a present to her from her future husband, the
title of Majesty, ostentatiously given to her as soon as preliminaries
were arranged, the fine dresses and jewels, and the new deference
with which she was surrounded, only deepened the girl’s grief. Her
heart grew hard and her spirit reckless when she understood that,
regardless of her own feelings, she was to be a sacrifice: and, as the
pompous ceremony of her marriage by proxy approached, she
became outwardly calm, and more proudly beautiful than ever. On
the 30th August 1679, as the new Queen was led by her father on
one hand and the Dauphin she loved on the other, into the principal
saloon at Fontainebleau for the formal betrothal to the Prince of
Conti, representing the King of Spain, all the Court was enraptured
at her peerless loveliness. Her train, seven yards long, of cloth of
gold, was borne by princesses of the blood; and the magnificence
that the Roi Soleil loved so well found its centre in the jewels that
blazed over the young Princess who was being sacrificed for France.
It would be tedious to recount the splendour of the betrothal, and
marriage the next day, 31st August,[280] but when, after the
ceremony with Conti that made Marie Louise the wife of Charles II.,
she left the chapel in her royal crown, her purple velvet robe lined
with ermine and covered with golden fleurs de lis, and her flashing
gems enveloping her in light, King Louis and his Queen, between
whom she walked in the procession, praised and soothed her as the
most perfect princess and queen in the world. At the State concert
and ball that night, and at the ceremonies of the morrow, Marie
Louise was radiant in her loveliness, and shed no tears, for she was
steeled now to the sacrifice, and determined thenceforward to get as
much sensuous joy out of life as she could, in spite of the fate that
had befallen her.
Whilst this was happening in Fontainebleau, the plot was
thickening in Madrid. The star of Don Juan was visibly on the wane.
The adherents of Mariana grew bolder daily; some of them, like the
Duke of Osuna, dared to come to Court in spite of prohibition; and
Don Juan lived in daily fear that the King would slip through his
hands and join his mother in Toledo. In order to divert him from
visiting Aranjuez, which is within riding distance of Toledo, all sorts
of pretexts were invented, and the surveillance of the old Queen by
Don Juan’s agents became more insulting than ever. Mme. D’Aulnoy
narrates a conversation with Don Juan at the time, which may well
be authentic.[281] ‘She asked him if it was true that the Queen-Mother
had written to the King requesting him to see her, and that he had
refused. The prince admitted that it was, and that this was the sole
reason that had prevented his Majesty from going to Aranjuez, for
fear that she might go there and see him, in spite of the orders
given to her not to leave Toledo. “What, sir,” I cried; “The King
refuses to see his mother!” “Say rather,” he replied, “that reasons of
State prevent monarchs from following their own inclinations when
they clash with the public interest. We have a maxim in the Council
of State always to be guided by the spirit of the great Emperor
Charles V. in all difficult questions.”‘... ‘It was quite evident to me,’
concludes Mme. D’Aulnoy, ‘that Don Juan accommodated the genius
of Charles V. to suit his own.’[282]
Don Juan had grown colder towards the French match as time
went on. He had, indeed, endeavoured more than once to obstruct
or frustrate it by suggesting impossible conditions; but even Charles
II. had plucked up some semblance of manhood with his approaching
marriage to the original of the portrait that had so enraptured him,
and gave his half-brother to understand that he meant to have his
own way, in this and in other things.[283] Don Juan had very soon
understood that the appearance of Marie Louise in Spain, with the
influence of Louis XIV. behind her, would mean his own downfall; and
the arrival of the Marquis of Villars, the French ambassador, with
instructions from his master not to accede to the ambitious claims of
Don Juan to receive the ambassador seated and to give his hand as
a royal prince, led to infinite negotiation. Louis was determined that
the bastard of Philip IV. should not be treated by his ambassador as
royal, unless his own illegitimate offspring enjoyed the same
privilege; and Villars was instructed not to negotiate with Don Juan
at all unless he gave way.[284] Louis also instructed Villars to proceed
to Toledo and salute Mariana; and Don Juan knew that with the
Queen-Mother’s interest, the French interest, and most of Spain
against him, his government was doomed to an early extinction.
The knowledge killed him; and before Marie Louise had reached
the Spanish frontier the news came to her that Don Juan was dead,
17th September. He had suffered for many weeks from double
tertian fevers, and his anxiety had increased the malady. The King,
he knew, was already holding conferences of nobles, plotting to
escape to his mother and decree his half-brother’s dismissal. On all
sides those upon whom he had depended now opposed him, and
some of his old enemies had already claimed the right, in virtue of
their rank and offices, to go and attend the new Queen. In these
circumstances it is not necessary to seek, as many contemporaries
did, to explain his death by accusations against Mariana and her
friends of poisoning him; but there is no denying that his death was
most opportune for them, and was welcome to the whole nation, as
ensuring some degree of harmony under the new regime that was to
commence with the King’s marriage. Don Juan’s dying ears were
dinned by the explosion of fireworks from his own windows, in
celebration of the wedding at Fontainebleau, so little regard was
paid to him; and hardly had the breath left his body when Charles
ran to seek his mother at Toledo, and, with tears and embraces on
both sides, a reconciliation was effected. It had all been the wicked
bastard’s fault, and henceforward all would go well.
 Mariana managed her triumphant return with tact and skill. She
had left the Court after Valenzuela’s fall intensely unpopular; but
much had happened since then. Don Juan had proved a whitened
sepulchre; the detested Austrian match for the King was at an end,
the cordiality shown by Mariana towards the new marriage pleased
the people, and a warm welcome greeted her as she rode in state by
her son’s side in the great swaying coach with the curtains drawn
back,[285] to the palace of the Buen Retiro which was to be her
residence until her own house was prepared.
All the Court was eager to know what part Mariana would in future
take in the government. Would she be, as of yore, the sole dispenser
of bounty and the only fountain of power? Would she avenge herself
upon Don Juan’s friends as he had avenged himself upon hers, or
would she leave the dominating influence to her son’s young wife?
Mariana had learnt wisdom by experience, and walked warily. She
was no lover of the French match; but she knew that open
opposition to it would alienate the King and exasperate the country,
and she smilingly played the part of the fond mother who rejoiced at
her son’s happiness. Everybody, moreover, and especially the King,
was so busy with the marriage that there was neither time nor
inclination for politics; and until the King’s departure to meet his
bride he was closeted every day in loving converse with his mother,
talking only of his coming happiness. Fortunately the treasure-fleet
from America arrived in the nick of time, and, for a wonder, there
was no lack of money, which not only added to the good humour of
the people, but enabled the preparations for the reception of Marie
Louise on the Spanish side to be made upon a scale approaching the
costly pageantry of former times.
The splendid entertainments at Fontainebleau ended at last; and
on the 20th September 1679, the young Queen rode out of the
beautiful park on the first stage of the long voyage to her new
country. She sat silently in the coach with King Louis and his wife,
and the one man upon whom her heart was set, the young Dauphin,
whose eyes were red with tears. At La Chapelle, two leagues from
Fontainebleau, the long cavalcade stopped, for here Marie Louise
was to take an eternal farewell of most of those she loved. As she
stepped from Queen Maria Theresa’s carriage and entered one
belonging to the King that was to bear her to the frontier, every eye
was wet with tears, and the common folk who witnessed the leave-
taking cried aloud with grief. Only Marie Louise, with fixed face and
stony eyes, was mute. But when the last farewell was said, and the
Queen’s carriage with the Dauphin turned to leave, one irrepressible
wail of sorrow was wrung from the heart of the poor girl, as she
sank back fainting upon the cushions of the carriage by her father’s
side.[286]
Through France, by short stages, and followed by a great
household under the Duke of Harcourt and the Maréchale
Clerambant, as mistress of the robes, the young Queen made her
way, splendidly entertained by the cities through which she passed;
for to them the marriage meant peace with Spain, and rich and poor
blessed her for her beauty and her sacrifice. The Marquis of
Balbeses, the Spanish ambassador and his wife, a Colonna, rode in
her train, and at Poictiers the latter brought her the news of Don
Juan’s unregretted death. The Marchioness happened to be wearing
a black silk handkerchief at her neck; and, lightly touching it, and
smiling, she said: ‘This is all the mourning I am going to wear for
him.’[287] Thenceforward to the sad end Marie Louise had to deal with
those who, with smiling face and soft speeches, were secretly bent
upon her ruin; and she, a bright beauty full of strength and the joy
of life, hungry for the love that had been denied her, was no match,
even if she had cared to struggle with them, for the false hearts and
subtle brains that planned the shipwreck of her life.
The household of the new Queen, which had been chosen by Don
Juan before his death, started from the capital towards the frontier
on the 26th September, and already intrigue was rife amongst the
courtiers to gain ascendency over the young consort of the King.
The master of the household, the Marquis of Astorga, was mainly
famous for his gallantry, and had been a firm friend of Don Juan;
whilst the mistress of the robes, the Duchess of Terranova in her
own right, was a stern grand dame of sixty, whose experience, like
that of Astorga, had been principally Italian, and of whom some
whispered that ‘she knew more about carbines and daggers than
about thimbles and needles.’[288] However that may be, she was
imperious and punctilious to the last degree, but kept Marie Louise
in the right way as she understood it; though, as we shall see, the
roughness of her methods disgusted the young Queen and hastened
the inevitable catastrophe.[289] Close upon the heels of the official
household went some of Mariana’s friends, especially the Duke of
Osuna, appointed Grand Equerry, and an Italian priest, who aspired
to the post of Queen’s confessor; and even before she entered Spain
began to whisper to Marie Louise political counsels intended to
betray her.
Once again on the historic banks of the Bidasoa, and on the island
of Pheasants that had seen so many regal meetings, sumptuous
pavilions of silk brocade and tapestry were erected. Marie Louise at
St. Jean de Luz, a few miles away, was sick at heart, in spite of all
the splendour that surrounded her; and she could not suppress her
tears as she stood upon the last foot of French soil she was ever to
touch, ready to enter the gilded barge that was to cross the few feet
of water that separated her from the little gaily decked neutral island
where the Marquis of Astorga was to receive her on bended knee as
his sovereign mistress.
The rule of the formidable old Duchess of Terranova began the
moment Marie Louise stepped into the barge that was to land her on
the Spanish bank. The Queen was dressed in the graceful garb that
prevailed in the Court of Louis XIV. The soft yielding skirts and square
cut bodice with abundance of fine lace at neck and wrists were
coquettishly feminine. The bright brown hair of the bride was curled
and frizzed at the sides and on the brow, in artful little ringlets, and
all this grace and prettiness looked to the Spanish ladies of the old
school indecorous, if not positively indecent. Their vast wide-hooped
farthingales, of heavy brocade, their long flat bodices, their stiff
unbendable sleeves, and in the case of younger ladies, their hair,
lank and uncurled, falling upon their shoulders, except where it was
parted at the side and gathered with a bow of ribbon over one
temple, formed an entire contrast to the French feminine fashions of
the time; and until Marie Louise donned the Spanish garb, and did
her hair in Spanish style, the Duchess of Terranova looked with
grave disapproval at her mistress.
After the whole party had attended the Te Deum at Irun the
journey south began, though not before a desperate fight for
precedence had taken place between the Duke of Osuna and the
Marquis of Astorga, a struggle that was renewed on every
opportunity until the Duke was recalled to the King’s side. Long ere
this the young King’s impatience to meet his bride had over-ridden
all the dictates of etiquette, and he had started on his journey
northward on the 23rd October, before even Marie Louise had
entered Spain. To one of those witty French ladies who, at the time,
wrote such excellent letters, we are indebted for invaluable
information on the events of the next two years, and the letters of
Mme. de Villars, wife of the French ambassador, will furnish us with
many vivid pictures. Writing from Madrid the day before Marie Louise
entered Spain (2nd November 1679) Mme. de Villars says: ‘M. Villars
had started to join the King, who is going in search of the Queen
with such impetuosity that it is impossible to follow him. If she has
not arrived at Burgos when he reaches there, he is determined to
take the Archbishop of Burgos and go as far as Vitoria, or to the
frontier, if needs be, to marry the Princess. He was deaf to all advice
to the contrary, he is so completely transported with love and
impatience. So with these dispositions, no doubt the young Queen
will be happy. The Queen Dowager is very good and very
reasonable, and passionately desires that she (Marie Louise) should
be contented.’[290]
As the royal couple approached each other, almost daily messages
of affection and rich gifts passed between them. First went from
Marie Louise a beautiful French gold watch, with a flame-coloured
ribbon, which she assured the love-lorn Charles had already
encircled her neck. On the 9th November she reached Oñate, where
she passed the night, and sent from there a miniature of herself on
ivory set with diamonds, and with this went a curious letter,[291] now
published for the first time, touching upon a subject which
afterwards became one of the principal sources of Marie Louise’s
troubles in Spain. The letter is in Spanish, and in the Queen’s own
writing, a large, bold hand, full of character. The Queen told
Balbeses in Paris that she had learnt Spanish in order to talk it with
Queen Maria Theresa, but did not speak it much. The present letter
was probably, therefore, drafted or corrected in draft before she
wrote it (perhaps by Mme. de Clarembant, who spoke Spanish), as
there are no serious errors of syntax in it.
‘If I were ruled by the impulses of my heart alone, I should be
sending off couriers to your Majesty every instant. I send to you now
Sergeant Cicinetti, whom I knew at the Court of France, and his
great fidelity also to your Majesty’s service. I pray you receive him
with the same kindness that I send him. My heart, sire, is so
overflowing with gratitude that your Majesty will see it in all the acts
of my life. They wished to make me believe that your Majesty
disapproved of my riding on horseback, but Remille (?), who has just
come from your Majesty, assures me that just the contrary is the
case, especially as for these bad roads horses are the best. As my
greatest anxiety is to please your Majesty, I will do as you wish; for
my whole happiness is that your Majesty should be assured that I
shall only like that which you like. God grant you many years of life,
as I desire and need. Oñate, 9th November.—Your Niece and
Servant,
Marie Louise.’
In fact, the Duchess of Terranova, from the first day, had been
remonstrating with the Queen against her insisting upon riding a
great horse over the wretched rain-soaked tracts that did duty for
roads. Spanish ladies, she was told, travelled in closely-curtained
carriages or litters, or, in case of urgent need, upon led mules, but
never upon horses thus: and Marie Louise, who was a splendid
horsewoman, had excusably defended the custom of the Court in
which she had been reared. This was the first cause of disagreement
between Marie Louise and her mistress of the robes, but others
quickly followed.
 Whilst Charles was impatiently awaiting his bride at Burgos, Marie
Louise travelled slowly with her great train of French and Spanish
courtiers over the miry roads and through the drenching winter of
northern Spain. Already her daily passages of arms with the Duchess
of Terranova had filled her with apprehension and anxiety. M. de
Villars met her at Briviesca, and found her ‘full of inquietude and
mistrust, and perceived that the change of country, and people and
manners, enough to embarrass a more experienced person than
she, and the cabals and intrigues that assailed her on every hand,
had plunged her into a condition of agitation which made her fear
everything without knowing upon whom she could depend.’[292] The
ambassador did his best to tranquillise her. All these people, he said,
were intriguing in their own interests. She need not trouble about
them: only let her love the King and live in harmony with the Queen-
Mother, whom she would find full of affection for her, and all would
be well. It is clear that Don Juan’s faction had not died with him, and
even at this early stage the household, mainly appointed by him,
had done their best to make Marie Louise fear and dread her
mother-in-law.
On the 18th November, the day after her interview with Villars, the
bride arrived at Quintanapalla, within a few miles of Burgos, where
she was to pass the night; the ostensible intention of the Spaniards
being that the marriage should take place at Burgos the next day.
Everything was done to lead the official Frenchmen to believe this;
but Villars and Harcourt were suspicious; and early on the morning
of the 19th, they arrived from Burgos at the miserable poverty-
stricken village where Marie Louise had passed the night. Assembled
there they found members of the King’s household, and taxed the
Duchess of Terranova with the intention of carrying through the
royal marriage there. She replied haughtily that the King had so
commanded, and had given orders that no one was to attend the
wedding, but the few Spanish officers and witnesses strictly
necessary. The two noble Frenchmen indignantly announced their
intention of attending the ceremony, in obedience to the orders of
their own King Louis, whether the Spaniards liked it or not. The