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CONVERSATIONS WITH A SPANISH LIBERAL. No. III. 



BON CARLOS AND HIS DECEASED CONSORT, MARIA FRANCISCA DON 

 MIGUEL Louis PHILIPPE DONA MARIA DA GLORIA, QUEEN 

 OP PORTUGAL ARGUELLES FLORES D'ESTRADA, &c. 



I HAD for several days missed my Spanish friend in his usual 

 haunts, and was almost induced to suppose that he had taken flight 

 for Spain without even the ceremony of P. d. s.,* when to my infinite 

 satisfaction I met him taking a solitary stroll in the deserted regions 

 of St. James's-street. " So then/' said I, shaking him heartily by 

 the hand, " you are still here. I began to imagine that the de- 

 mon of ennui, which at this season of the year holds his court in 

 our English metropolis, had driven you to Madrid, where at the 

 present moment war, politics, finance in fact, quicquid agunt 

 homines, votum, timor, ira aut voluptas/ has so wide a field for 

 their operation." 



" My occupation of late," said the Spaniard mournfully, " has 

 been of a sadder nature. Liberal as I am, that feeling of loyalty to 

 the royal family, still so strong in the breast of every true Spaniard, 

 led me to Gosport to pay the last tribute of respect to the remains of 

 the unfortunate Maria Francisca, who has died among strangers in a 

 foreign land, the victim of circumstances over which she at least had 

 no control." 



" Her fate," I replied, " has been a melancholy one. I was myself 

 at the Rio in 1816, when her sister and herself, in the noon tide of 

 youth arid loveliness, embarked for Spain ; the tears of the court and of 

 the whole capital of Brazil flowed^fast as the ship, with the two beauti- 

 ful infantas on board, was swept by a fair wind past the lofty Pao 

 d'Assucar, which marks the entrance of that magnificent harbour. 

 How truly have the melancholy forebodings, which oppressed the 

 mind of John the Sixth on parting with his children, been verified ! 

 One soon fell a victim to the brutality of her royal consort, Ferdi- 

 nand ;f the other, estranged from her own family by the political dis- 

 sensions that have so long distracted the Iberian peninsula, has just 

 died, a broken hearted exile, neglected and unnoticed in the very 

 dominions of her father's oldest ally." 



" Her untimely fate," said the Spaniard, " as you well observe, is 

 indeed worthy of the deepest commiseration, for her husband, almost 

 malgre lui, had been dragged upon the theatre of events. It was not 

 till after the restoration, in 1814, that this prince attracted public 

 attention. His principles with regard to the monarchy, church, and 

 inquisition his hatred of the freemasons and liberals, and his notions 



* Para despedirse, &c. equivalent to the P.P.S. used by us. 



t On the arrival of the two Portuguese infantas in Spain, Ferdinand conceived 

 a violent passion for the princess Maria Francisca, who had been already mar- 

 ried by proxy to his brother. 



