he nerves of civilisation were at a
great tension at this time. Sedan was past. Paris was already besieged.
All the French-speaking people thought that the end of the world must
needs be at hand. The Pope had been deprived of his temporal power. The
great foundations of the world seemed to tremble beneath the onward tread
of inexorable history.

In Spain itself, no man knew what might happen next. There seemed no
depth to which the land of ancient glory might not be doomed to descend.
Cuba was in wild revolt. Thousands of lives had been uselessly thrown
away. Already the pride of the proudest nation since Rome, had been
humbled by the just interference of the United States. A kingdom without
a king, Spain had hawked her crown round Europe. For a throne, as for
humbler posts, it is easy enough to find second-rate men who have no
special groove, nor any capacity to delve one, but the first-rate men
are, one discovers, nearly always occupied elsewhere. They are never
waiting for something to turn up.

Spain, with her three crowns in her hand, had called at every Court in
Europe. She had thrown two nations into the greatest war of civilised
ages. She was still looking for a king, still calling hopelessly to the
second-rate royalties. Leopold of Hohenzollern would have accepted had
not France arisen to object, only to receive a sound thrashing for her
pains. Thus, for the second time in the world's history, Spain was the
means of bringing a French empire to the dust.

Ferdinand of Portugal, a cousin to the Queen of England, himself a
Coburg, finally declined the honour. And Spain could not wait. There was
a certain picturesqueness in Prim, the usual ornamental General through
whose hands Spain has passed and repassed during the last century. He was
a hard man, and the men of Spain, unlike the French, understand a
martinet. But Spain could not wait. She must have a king; for the regency
was wearisome. It was weary of itself, like an old man ready to die.
There was no money in the public coffers. The Cortes was a house of
words. Here eloquence reigned supreme; and eloquence never yet made an
empire.

Half a dozen different parties made speeches at each other, but Spain,
owing to a blessed immunity from the cheap newspaper, was spared these
speeches. She was told that Castelar was the eloquent orator of the age.

She looked at Castelar, who was a fat little man with a big moustache and
a small forehead, and she said: "Let