e popular party: she resisted all
salutary reform, would not restore the Constitution of 1812 until
compelled to by a popular uprising, and disgraced herself by a
scandalous connection with one Munos, one of the royal body guards. She
enriched this favorite and amassed a vast fortune for herself, which she
sent out of the country. In 1839, when Don Carlos was driven out of the
country by the patriot soldier Espartero, she endeavored to gain him
over to her side, but failed. Espartero became Regent, and Maria
Christina repaired to Paris, where she was received with great
distinction by Louis Philippe, and Paris became the focus of all sorts
of machinations against the constitutional government of Spain, and of
plots for its overthrow. One of these had just been defeated at the time
of Irving's arrival. It was a desperate attempt of a band of soldiers of
the rebel army to carry off the little Queen and her sister, which was
frustrated only by the gallant resistance of the halberdiers in the
palace. The little princesses had scarcely recovered from the horror of
this night attack when our minister presented his credentials to the
Queen through the Regent, thus breaking a diplomatic dead-lock, in which
he was followed by all the other embassies except the French. I take
some passages from the author's description of his first audience at the
royal palace:--

"We passed through the spacious court, up the noble staircase, and
through the long suites of apartments of this splendid edifice,
most of them silent and vacant, the casements closed to keep out
the heat, so that a twilight reigned throughout the mighty pile,
not a little emblematical of the dubious fortunes of its inmates.
It seemed more like traversing a convent than a palace. I ought to
have mentioned that in ascending the grand staircase we found the
portal at the head of it, opening into the royal suite of
apartments, still bearing the marks of the midnight attack upon the
palace in October last, when an attempt was made to get possession
of the persons of the little Queen and her sister, to carry them
off.... The marble casements of the doors had been shattered in
several places, and the double doors themselves pierced all over
with bullet holes, from the musketry that played upon them from the
staircase during that eventful night. What must have been the
feelings of those poor childr