The Royal Gardens of La Granja 
the purest and most tranquil joys of his 
whole life. It marks some fine strain in his 
character that, brought up as he had been 
among influences which promised to develop 
only his lower qualities, he should still be able 
to love deeply and permanently the quiet and 
restful intercourse with Nature which he 
found here. 
His work at La Gran]a completed, he 
seemed to find the intrigues of the court and 
the cares which must beset the wearer of a 
crown growingly distasteful. He longed to 
lay down the government of his restless and 
turbulent dominion, and to pass his remain¬ 
ing days, not in monastic retreat as his more 
serious predecessor, Charles V., had done 
more than a century and a half before; hut, in 
the quiet of this mountain fastness to escape 
from the unceasing battle with the forces 
which were arrayed around his ambitious, 
unscrupulous 
and intriguing 
queen. 
He yielded 
to this wish for 
peace in 1724, 
surrendered the 
throne to his 
son, Louis I. of 
Spain, and re¬ 
tired to San 
11 d e f o n s o to 
live a life of 
peculiar sim¬ 
plicity. But 
his freedom 
was destined to 
be of short du¬ 
ration. Louis 
died after a 
reign of eight 
months, and 
the father was 
forced to re¬ 
sume the bur¬ 
den of royalty 
from which he 
had so recently 
freed himself. 
In his after life, 
which was ex¬ 
tended for more 
than twenty 
years, he passed all his summers in the 
enjoyment of the peace of La Granja; and 
he and his queen lie buried together there. 
Our concern here is not with the questions 
of Philip’s worth as a man, or his success as 
a ruler. Doubtless the union of the crowns of 
France and Spain under the rule of the Bour¬ 
bons, with which the welfare of Europe 
seemed for half a century so bound up, 
turned out to be a matter of no great moment, 
and not worth the intrigue and the treachery 
which brought it about. We are only inter¬ 
ested in the skill with which he and his ad¬ 
visers conceived, and the success with which 
they carried out this bit of landscape garden¬ 
ing, and the architecture of this royal summer 
retreat, which, slight as they must have 
seemed at the time of their creation, have 
long outlived the political schemes which 
wasted for twelve years the blood and treas¬ 
ure of Europe. 
Philip’s suc¬ 
cessors found 
La Granja 
to their lik¬ 
ing. His son, 
Charles III., 
amused him¬ 
self by putting 
the finishing 
touches on his 
father’s work, 
and during his 
reign the sum¬ 
mer always 
found the court 
there. 
He conferred 
a benefit on the 
village of San 
Ildefonso by 
favoring the 
establish ment 
there of the 
manufacture of 
glass and of 
mirrors. 7 hese 
factories, once 
very celebra¬ 
ted, have left 
little to testify 
to their great¬ 
ness, though 
H 
ONE OF THE LARGER VASES IN THE GARDEN 
