"The route from Burgos to Madrid presents few objects of interest."

He therefore gives us some idea of what it's like staying at a Spanish inn - in this case a rather unusual, rather modern one, which seems to have been built purely for the benefit of Diligence travellers.

"The Diligence halts for the night at the Venta de Juanilla, a solitary edifice situated at the foot of the last or highest etage of the Somo Sierra, in order to leave the principal ascent for the cool of early dawn.  The building is seen from a considerable distance, and looks large; but is found, on nearer approach, to be a straggling edifice of one story only."

(He's wrong about it being a 'modern' inn. As far as I can make out the Venta de Juanilla - which is still around, still trading - has been there since the 10th century. But it's had quite an upgrade for the 21st century - as indeed it must have had for the 19th, if Nathaniel thinks it's 'modern'.)

"It is a modern inn, and differs in some essential points from the ancient Spanish posada, - perfect specimens of which are met with at Briviesca and Burgos.  In these the vestibule is at the same time a cow-shed, sheepfold, stable, pigsty, - in fact, a spacious Noah's Ark, in which are found specimens of all living animals, that is, of all sizes, down to the most minute; but for the purification of which it would be requisite that the entire flood should pass within, instead of on its outside."

Hang on there.  Is he saying the traditional, typical Spanish posada of his day has its ground floor entirely devoted to stabling farm animals? Presumably the much-valued property of droving/farming hotel guests, and placed there for greater overnight security?

Immediately the problems associated with this arrangement become clear. But he spells them out for us anyway.

"The original ark moreover, possessed the advantage of windows, the absence of which causes no small embarrassment to those who have to thread so promiscuous a congregation, in order to reach the staircase; once at the summit of which, it must be allowed, one meets with cleanliness, and a certain degree of comfort."

By Wouwerman, a Dutch painting, not Spanish; gives the idea, though.

So, when entering the typical posada you're coming in from brilliant sunlight into what is effectively an unlit pigpen, maybe with a few sheep or goats wandering about in a state of uncertain temper.  You pick your way half-blind across this farmyard floor - lord knows what you did with your skirts if you were a lady - until you make it, hopefully without skidding in any doo-doo - to the staircase.  At the top of which would be your accommodation.  Nathaniel's Spain is not designed for tourists.

Nearly Done With Burgos, On To Madrid!

Well, Burgos has all been a bit tomb-laden for me and so I gratefully hail Nathaniel's imminent return to the diligence and the open road.  He's headed for Madrid, which has an unrivalled collection of paintings...but not much else, he claims.  Before we reach it though the diligence, the road, the inns on the road and our fellow-passengers are all going to get a welcome mention.

But first, I thought my faithful reader might like a graphic depicting the route so far.  Here it is.

Literally no expense has been incurred in providing this.

From Burgos Nathaniel will travel due south to the capital, Madrid, and then take in Toledo before making a rapid three-day excursion up to Valladolid and back (route shown below).  This all represents quite an adventurous journey.  Travel was not just tiring but potentially dangerous, because apart from bad roads and rickety coaches, there were bandits.  He had no bottled water, no air-conditioning, he couldn't phone ahead to confirm anything, he was sketching as he went, and must have been making notes continually before composing his lengthy letters to Mrs C-----r.  Whatever else we can accuse him of - a tendency to mansplain, a weakness for tombs - idle he is certainly not. 

The completion of the above route will bring us to the middle of the book, and also to the end of the fourteen letters he wrote exclusively to his unidentified lady friend. It will not bring us to the end of his travels though, because he actually made an earlier trip to Spain in which he sailed along its Mediterranean coast to Cadiz, and then explored the southern interior.  Why he chose to write up his two journeys in reverse order, I'm not sure.  Perhaps it allowed him to describe Spain diagonally from north to south, as a future tourist might choose to explore it. 

We Can See What He Couldn't

His next port of call is only a short walk away, and it's the Convent of Las Huelgas - once a very upper-crust nunnery indeed.  You had to be a princess to get in, practically.  'Huelga' in modern Spanish means a strike, but not in Nathaniel's day, when it meant something more like 'rest'. Consequently he believes 'Las Huelgas' means something like '(place of) rest', because it was to this convent that not merely unmarried royals, but even widowed ones, eventually retired. (But Wikipedia says it means 'fallow lands'. Bit prosaic.)

Either way the place is absolutely stacked solid with royal tombs, and Nathaniel knows this, but he can't see most of them...because the nuns are still there, and the main part of the church is partitioned for their private use.

"The convent is said to contain handsome cloisters, courts, chapter-hall, and other state apartments,...The whole is surrounded by a complete circle of houses, occupied by its various dependants and pensioners. These are enclosed from without by a lofty wall...their appearance is that of a small town, surrounding a cathedral and palace."

So here is a selection of the sights our boy missed, (all courtesy of Wikimedia Commons):

The cloister and gardens...[Author: Rafaelji]

Medieval textiles and tomb of Lady Blanche [Author: Lancastermerrin88]

Another cloister.  (I could retire here.  I really could.) Author: Jesusccastillo

Yes But It's Still A Tomb

We're still indoors, in that shadowy vaulted room, enthusing over the tomb of King Juan II of Castile and his wife.

"It is impossible to conceive a work more elaborate than the details of the costumes of the King and Queen. The imitation of lace and embroidery, the exquisite delicacy of the hands and features, the infinitely minute carving of the pillows,"

"the architectural railing by which the two statues are separated, the groups of sporting lions and dogs placed against the foot-boards, and the statues of the four Evangelists, seated at the four points of the star which face the cardinal points of the compass,—all these attract first the attention as they occupy the surface; but they are nothing to the profusion of ornament lavished on the sides. The chisel of the artist has followed each retreating and advancing angle of the star, filling the innermost recesses with life and movement. It would be endless to enter into a detailed enumeration of all this. It is composed of lions and lionesses, panthers, dogs,—crouching, lying, sitting, rampant, and standing; of saints, male and female, and personifications of the cardinal virtues... Were there no other object of interest at Burgos, this tomb would well repay the traveller for a halt of a few days, and a country walk."

Yes, well I'm trying to like it. But it’s still a tomb. Here is a photo held by Cornell University Library, which was taken about twenty years after Nathaniel's visit.

Wonderful workmanship I grant you, but still - it's a fancy box for two dead bodies.

The close-up image above, by the way, is by Ecelan and is taken, with permission, from Wikimedia.

This Would Be Good For Hallowe'en!

We're still in the Cartuja near Burgos, eagerly waiting to admire its greatest treasure - the sole reason it has been allowed to continue in existence as a Carthusian monastery - its splendid royal tomb. Actually it's a double tomb, containing the remains both of King Juan II and his queen, Isabella. And as royal tombs - even Spanish royal tombs - go, it's pretty weird-looking. Nathaniel's attempt to capture on paper its strange form, its intricate surface of carved alabaster, all lying beneath that great vaulted roof receding into the darkness...well, it could be a set from a Hammer Horror. If Dracula rose from this tomb we wouldn't be surprised. It's one of the creepiest illustrations in the book.

I think for me the effect is made worse by the vaulted roof, which reminds me very unpleasantly of a whale's skeleton. As seen from inside.

We Meet A Monk We Do Like

We're still in Burgos, we've done the Cathedral and the tomb of El Cid, we're moving swiftly on to Letter VI, yet more tombs, and especially

The Chartreuse of Miraflores. 

Chartreuse to me means green cocktails: but a bit of rootling around on the net and I learn Chartreuse is called Chartreuse because it was originally a drink made by Carthusian monks - Chartreuse being French for 'Carthusian' -  and the Carthusians are a 'contemplative order'.  This means that they...contemplate. So, to all intents and purposes they stay in their monastery and pray.  They don't go out into the world helping the poor, tending the sick, converting the heathen and generally doing good, and so to a certain mindset - mainly Protestant - they and their ilk are rather a waste of space.  They give the whole idea of being a monk a bad name.

Happier days: Zurbaran's painting of St Bruno in the cartuja

It interests me that there is no trace of this attitude in Nathaniel, despite his having a conventional British upbringing and at least one brother who was an Anglican vicar. Nor is it that he is pro-religious.  On the contrary, I get the feeling he is probably pretty much agnostic. He is certainly oddly calm when reflecting that Christianity is a creed whose time has passed.

All the same, the specifically Catholic aspects of Spanish religion - the processions, the emotion, the incense, celibacy, statues of the Virgin, candles and all, which occasionally had Victorian Brits rolling their eyes to heaven or snorting in outright contempt - don't faze him in the slightest. He takes them as they come.  No doubt had he found the Carthusian monks reeling round the cloisters drunk while pawing the local girls he would have passed a dry comment or two.  But he doesn't find that.  He finds instead a sadly dwindled place. The once-great Chartreuse of Miraflores is now home to only four monks and a single elderly Prior, the head of his order, who in former days presided over the great monastery at Xeres (Jerez). But there has been a revolution in Spain, and those in charge of it have found, like Henry VIII before them, that monasteries yield rich pickings.  Only two or three of these cartujas have been spared, and purely because the monarchy has been spared. Basically, if a monastery contains royal tombs, it survives. 

"The great Chartreuse of Xeres contained probably no such palladium, for it was among the first of the condemned: its lands and buildings were confiscated; and its treasures of art, and all portable riches, dispersed, as likewise its inhabitants, in the direction of all the winds."

What Nathaniel calls 'Xeres de la Frontera' modern Spaniards call Jerez, and its name has entered English via its most famous product, a fortified wine which was even more indispensable to Victorian dining tables than it is to ours - Sherry. Naturally he has to glance at this:

"In England the name of Xeres is only generally known in connection with one of the principal objects of necessity, which furnish the table of the gastronome; but in Andalucia the name of Xeres de la Frontera calls up ideas of a different sort.  It is dear to the wanderer in Spain, whose recollections love to repose on its picturesque position, its sunny skies, its delicious fruits, its amiable and lively population, and lastly on its magnificent monastery, and the treasures of art it contained.  The Prior of that monastery has been removed to the Cartuja of Burgos, where he presides over a community, reduced to four monks, who subsist almost entirely on charity.  This amiable and gentleman-like individual, in whom the monk has in no degree injured the man of the world, - although a large estate, abandoned for the cloister, proved sufficiently the sincerity of his religious professions, - had well deserved a better fate than to be torn in his old age from his warm Andalucian retreat, and transplanted to the rudest spot in the whole Peninsula, placed at an elevation of more than four thousand feet above the level of the Atlantic, and visited up to the middle of June by snow storms."

This likeable old guy, "this innocent victim of reform", is ill. He has only just recovered from one serious attack, and now he is bedridden again.

Reform, we feel, is not a word that carries pleasant associations for Nathaniel. 

Haverty, Viardot and rivals in print

I am slowly coming round to the view that our boy may have been a bit full of himself. I do not think Nathaniel suffered from lack of self-belief.  Do these sound like the words of a man diffident about offering his own opinions?

"I had read of Toledo being in possession of the finest church in Spain,—and that in the book of a tourist, whose visit to this town follows immediately that to Seville. Begging pardon of the clever and entertaining writer to whom I allude, the Cathedral of Toledo strikes me as far from being the finest in Spain; nor would it be the finest in France, nor in England, nor in other countries that might be enumerated, could it be transported to either."

So take that, Martin Haverty, you, you - tourist!  Because it was Martin Haverty, an Irish journalist, who Nathaniel here claims had recklessly and foolishly preferred the Cathedral of Toledo to that of Seville: and what's more he compounded the offence by saying so in print in a book about his travels in Spain - a year or two earlier.

Thus annoyingly pipping our boy at the post, travel-writing-about-Spain-wise.

All of which makes me wonder, was Nathaniel consulting Haverty's book as he went on his own tour? Or did he read it afterwards, snorting contemptuously at its opinions? Possibly ripping out pages, screwing them into balls and slam-dunking them into a wastepaper basket?

Or did Haverty's book in fact give him the bright idea of turning his letters to Mrs C-----r and his assorted Spanish sketches into solid cash?

Sadly I don't know.  All I know is, he had clearly read the "clever and entertaining" Haverty's book, otherwise he wouldn't have patronised its judgment quite so...so..patronising-gittishly.

(You can read about Haverty here, and his book Wanderings in Spain is available free as an e-text in Google books.)

Indeed, so eager is Nathaniel here to show his opinion on cathedrals is better than anyone else's in the world  that he actually misrepresents what the harmless Haverty wrote. In fact it was:

"I shall proceed at once to enumerate the principal curiosities of Seville, and begin with the Cathedral, one of the finest in the world, and unrivalled by any one in Spain, except by that of Toledo."

See, Nathaniel?  See what he's saying there?  Haverty is extolling the cathedral of Seville.. Seville is the one he considers - as you yourself do - to be among the finest in the world: and not Toledo, which he merely thinks is the only other one in Spain that is even close.

Calm down, dear.

As for Viardot and his input in Nathaniel's work, I shall save it for another post.

What does a gentleman care for money?

I had thought this book was a complete original: a one-off, knocked out in a burst of enthusiasm by a gentleman-amateur who loved his subject so much he was willing to venture into print. I thought he had no grander aim than to amuse himself and a lady friend,  please his own vanity, perhaps impress a cultured friend or two.  But now, I think the whole project was really about making money.

Why?

Because this notice appeared in a supplement to The Times of March 11, 1844:

He has got married.
Abroad. 

And his bride's father is somebody who later describes himself grandly in a census return as a 'landed proprietor', and who no doubt was, but - there is land, and there is land.  From what I can see I doubt Benjamin Price Esq. of Westbury in the county of Bucks is in anything like the same league, acreage-wise, as Nathaniel Wells Esq. of Piercefield in the county of Monmouth.

(Also, whatever happened to the charming Mrs C......r that Nathaniel sent all his Spanish letters to? She of the elegant balls, silky pet dogs and rented chateaux?  She is nowhere mentioned, unless she was on the wedding guest list at the Embassy.)

No.  Somehow I feel the eldest son of a very wealthy man should be marrying in his local parish church, or perhaps his bride's...but not in Paris.  What I suspect is that Nathaniel has married in a hurry and, crucially, may have married beneath him.  He has married 'to disoblige his family', in Austen's phrase.  So presumably there has been an almighty row, his father is reluctant to increase the usual funds and suddenly, turning all those letters from Spain and those sprightly amateur pictures into something you can actually get money from, is quite an urgent matter. 

Furthermore I think I know why he married when he did.  Very shortly after the marriage it seems (from later census returns)  the new Mrs Wells was blessed with a son.  And I can't quite say how soon after, for the baby boy was apparently born in Caen, and yet strangely the Anglican church there has no record of his baptism.  And in later life, he seems uncertain quite how old he is.

And also, when Nathaniel suddenly dies while his son (Nathaniel Armstrong Wells II) is a mere infant - what happens?  Is Baby swept into the bosom of his wealthy grandfather and carried off to Piercefield, there to receive the upbringing suited to the heir of many acres? No.  The first census return after his father's death finds little toddler Nathaniel living with his widowed mother, who is teaching in a school.

Teaching. In. A. School.

That's right - Georgiana Lucy, widow of Nathaniel Armstrong Wells Esq, the daughter of the 'landed proprietor' Benjamin Price of Westbury - is earning her own crust like any other poor widow.  At least she isn't taking in washing.

So now I think I can guess why Nathaniel took his manuscript to the printers.

Now and Then

Then: what Nathaniel saw

Now: it has changed a bit, I agree.

The discrepancy between these two images is not due to Nathaniel's bad drawing skills: the fountain apparently did look different back then.  It had clearly been in the wars, in every sense. According to Nathaniel, when he saw it you couldn't even tell what those four fragmented, beaten-up Cupids were meant to be riding on.

Looking at the modern photo we can see the basin and central column rising from it aren't much altered, but the Cupids and their dolphins(?) have been heavily restored, and there has clearly been a significant rebuild at the top.  Even in Nathaniel's day, when the little statue surmounting the fountain was so damaged the Christ child had vanished altogether, there was  a visible difference in colour between the lower part of the fountain and the upper: so it seems the lower part is much older. The original design is perhaps impossible to guess.  Would an earlier age have chosen to place the vaguely erotic symbols of Cupids and Melusines beneath a statue of the Virgin?   I can't say.  Anyway, as Nathaniel described it:

"This little antique monument charms, by the quaint symmetry of its design and proportions, and perhaps even by the terribly mutilated state of the four fragments of Cupids, which, riding on the necks of the same number of animals so maltreated as to render impossible the discovery of their race, form projecting angles, and support the basin on their shoulders. Four mermaids, holding up their tails, so as not to interfere with the operations of the Cupids, ornament the sides of the basin, which are provided with small apertures for the escape of the water; the top being covered by a flat circular stone, carved around its edge. This stone,—a small, elegantly shaped pedestal, which surmounts it,—and the other portions already described, are nearly black, probably from antiquity; but on the pedestal stands a little marble virgin, as white as snow. This antique figure harmonises by its mutilation with the rest, although injured in a smaller degree; and at the same time adds to the charm of the whole, by the contrast of its dazzling whiteness with the dark mass on which it is supported. The whole is balanced on the capital of a pillar, of a most original form, which appears immediately above the surface of a sheet of water enclosed in a large octagonal basin."

"Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant shit to me"

Heroes! We all have them. Personal and national heroes, men who mirror to us the qualities we most envy, the ones we fervently wish we had ourselves.  But heroism is like taffeta, it is not the same in all lights. A man devoutly admired by one group can be an object of passionate scorn, or even downright hate, to another.  Through Nathaniel's eyes we are about to meet the greatest hero of Christian Spain - El Cid.

"The hero is represented in the most extraordinary of attitudes: the head is thrown back, and the face turned towards one side; the legs in a sort of studied posture; a drawn sword is in the right hand, the point somewhat raised. The general expression is that of a comic actor attempting an attitude of mock-heroic impertinence; and is probably the result of an unattained object in the mind of the artist, of producing that of fearless independence."

This is Nathaniel's damning verdict on an oil painting of El Cid that once hung in the Ayuntamiento - not a very good one it seems.  It was presumably put there by those who genuinely wished to honour the great man whose bones rested amongst them.   But Nathaniel has no time for this picture.  To him it's an artistic failure, rubbish.

Only, is it just the picture he has no time for?  Really he is not just dissing whatever poor provincial artist attempted the likeness of Spain's great preserver: inevitably, by association, he is ridiculing the hero himself. 

El Cid statue in the centre of modern Burgos

This is an unpopular viewpoint, at least in the west.  The statue above was put up only sixty years ago, a mere six years before Hollywood canonised El Cid in the person of Charlton Heston. Like the film, it aims to show El Cid as the magnificent champion of Christian Spain against the Moors, and that is still very much how he is seen by many in Spain today.  But we soon learn that, for Nathaniel, El Cid's hero status is overblown, ambiguous,  untrustworthy - undeserved.

"For those who are satisfied with the orthodox histories of the monks, he is without defects—a simple unsophisticated demi-god. But there have been Mahometan historians of Spain. These are universally acknowledged to have treated of all that concerned themselves with complete accuracy and impartiality; and, when this happens, it should seem to be the best criterion, in the absence of other proof, of their faithful delineation of others' portraits."

The icon of one group will often be the hate figure of another.  I am sensing something significant about Nathaniel, which is that he loves Spain so much not for its triumphant Christian past, but for its lost Moorish civilization. His derogatory attitude to El Cid is the litmus test which proves something profound about him.

Deep, deep  down,  Nathaniel Armstrong Wells Esq. of Piercefield, Monmouthshire, wishes the Africans had won.

"She's the best of her kind, but her kind is not the best."

We are on our way out of the cathedral at Burgos, pausing at the door for a final, lingering, critical glance:

... "not forgetting to enjoy, as we leave the church, a long gaze at its elegant and symmetrical proportions. It may be called an unique model of beauty of its particular sort, especially when contemplated without being drawn into comparison with other edifices of a different class. Catalani is said, on hearing Sontag's performance, to have remarked that she was "la première de son genre, mais que son genre n'était pas le premier." Could the cathedral of Seville see that of Burgos, it would probably pronounce a similar judgment on its smaller rival."

Angelica Catalani, singer: (1780-1849)

Come again, Nathaniel - Catalani? Sontag?

Okay, Wikipedia tells me who Catalani was, the famous Italian soprano on the left. "Sontag" presumably is Henriette Sontag, a rival songstress Catalani damned with faint praise: her remark translates something like "she's the best of her kind, but her kind is not the best."

He's recalling the judgment of a famous but faded soprano who was already in her sixties as he journeys confidently through Spain, pronouncing so robustly on its architectural charms.  (We know, he doesn't, that the old lady singer he quotes will still outlive him by three years.)

So: the Cathedral of Burgos is very lovely, and if he hadn't already seen the one at Seville Nathaniel would have have been utterly bowled over by it.  As it is, yes, perfectly charming, but - he has seen better.

So we turn our backs on the Cathedral of Burgos and head across the hot stones of the square towards the Ayuntamiento.  This is the Town Hall, and in itself not interesting enough to detain jaded aesthetes like us:

 "The building, like other town-halls, possesses an airy staircase, a large public room, and a few other apartments, used for the various details of administration; but nothing remarkable until you arrive at a handsomely ornamented saloon, furnished with a canopied seat fronting a row of arm-chairs. This is the room in which the municipal body hold their juntas."

We are heading there because surprisingly, the Town Hall of Burgos is where we shall find the remains of Spain's greatest hero - a man whose fame reached even 20th century Hollywood.

We are going to pay our respects at the grave of El Cid.

We don't like the clergy much, unless they're made of stone

He is rambling round this dark and probably echoing interior.  Vaulted stone is overhead. To describe what he sees he is using precise terminology, not all of which is penetrable, e.g. "The transept has no lateral naves."

This conveys nothing to me, and there is much more like it, so my eye quickly skims down to his next illustration.

Now, this I like.  This says gloom, and grandeur, and gothic. The pygmy human figures give scale to its magnificence while the strong Spanish sunlight plummets into the space beyond like a waterfall into a subterranean cavern.  Young ladies at home in Victorian parlours could sigh over this and wistfully imagine themselves as nuns, gliding about in a holy way with sexily downcast eyes.

Nathaniel would probably have taken a second look at a nun, but in general seems to find the clergy unimpressive, because here he drops in one of his little asides about a couple of quarrelling bishops:

"Don Pedro Fernandez de Frias, Cardinal of Spain... was, it is affirmed, of low parentage, of base and licentious habits of life, and of a covetous and niggardly disposition. These defects, however, by no means diminished the high favour he enjoyed at the successive courts of Henry the Third and Juan the Second. The Bishop of Segovia, Don Juan de Tordesillas, happened by an unlucky coincidence to visit Burgos during his residence there. The characters of the two prelates were not of a nature to harmonise in the smallest degree, and, being thrown necessarily much in each other's way, they gave loose occasionally to expressions more than bordering on the irreverent. It was on one of these occasions, that, the eloquence of the Cardinal Bishop here interred being at default, a lacquey of his followers came to his assistance, and being provided with a palo, or staff, inflicted on the rival dignitary certain arguments ad humeros—in fact, gave the Bishop of Segovia a severe drubbing. The Cardinal was on this occasion compelled to retire to Italy."

So much for undignified dignitaries.  But soon he comes across a clergyman he really does like - a carving decorating an arch.  It is a cowled head, perhaps meant to represent St. Francis :

"The attention is instantly rivetted by this head: it is not merely a masterpiece of execution. Added to the exquisite beauty and delicate moulding of the upper part of the face, the artist has succeeded in giving to the mouth an almost superhuman expression. This feature, in spite of a profusion of hair which almost covers it, lives and speaks. A smile, in which a barely perceptible but irresistible and, as it were, innate bitterness of satire and disdain modifies a wish of benevolence, unites with the piercing expression of the eyes in lighting up the stone with a degree of intellect which I had thought beyond the reach of sculpture until I saw this head. Tradition asserts it to be a portrait of Saint Francis, who was at Burgos at the period of the completion of the cathedral; and who, being in the habit of examining the progress of the works, afforded unconsciously a study to the sculptor."

He draws it, as you see: but by the time the head has passed through his hands and those of the artist who transferred his work into etchings, I can't see what's so great about it. Nor can I find the original in google images. Has it gone?

"Grace, symmetry, grandeur and lightness"

LETTER IV.

ARRIVAL AT BURGOS. CATHEDRAL.

" Nothing can exceed the beauty of this front taken as a whole."

We are finally at Burgos, admiring its cathedral.  Well no, more than that: we're examining it with the judicious and discerning eye of a man of taste.

For comparison, I include here a link to tripadvisor's site on the same historic edifice.  On the day I visited it a tourist had left the comment "Interesting.  As cathedrals go, this is a nice example..."

Yes, well, that's about what my own response would be, but Nathaniel does it all in a bit more depth.  He analyses the cathedral's layout, sketches its history and speaks with knowledgeable enthusiasm of it - or of parts of it, anyway.  Something a bit tragic apparently happened to the centre tower, which fell down and was completed by several architects in a later style.  The style is not exactly bad, but it is different: "Taken by itself, the tower is, both externally and internally, admirable, from the elegance of its form, and the richness of its details; but it jars with the rest of the building."

Dammit. Only six out of ten for you, Centre Tower! About the West Front (above) though he has no reservations whatever:

"Here nothing is required to be added, or taken away, to afford the eye a feast as perfect as grace, symmetry, grandeur, and lightness, all combined, are capable of producing. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this front taken as a whole."

"Grace, symmetry, grandeur and lightness".  It seems these are the qualities that combine to make an outstanding piece of Gothic architecture.  And apparently it's so satisfying because it starts off very solid and simple, only becoming ornamental at the first story; is then even more richly adorned at the third level; and from there the two beautiful towers rise...

"connected by a screen, which masks the roof, raising the apparent body of the façade an additional story. This screen is very beautiful, being composed of two ogival windows in the richest style, with eight statues occupying the intervals of their lower mullions. A fourth story, equally rich, terminates the towers, on the summits of which are placed the two spires. These are all that can be wished for the completion of such a whole. "

Looking at the picture above...yes, I can sort of see what he means.


"They are, I imagine, not only unmatched, but unapproached by any others, in symmetry, lightness, and beauty of design. The spire of Strasburg is the only one I am acquainted with that may be allowed to enter into the comparison...."

But he quickly adds that even the spire at Strasbourg doesn't quite equal Burgos anyway. Granted it's twice as big, and yet still possesses an airy lightness, but "the symmetry of its outline is defective, being uneven, and producing the effect of steps. And then it is alone, and the absence of a companion gives the façade an unfinished appearance. For these reasons I prefer the spires of Burgos."

(You can compare them by going to this site dedicated to the Cathedral of Strasbourg. And to be honest, I think he's right.)

And we have learned a new word: "ogival", meaning ...pointy-arched.

In my end is my beginning.

So, starting from the end.  This is a copy of Nathaniel's burial record, taken from the net.  And there's something mightily depressing about seeing it in black and white.  Obviously, since he was born in 1806, I was never going to contact him on facebook, but... this is sad.  And why is this much-travelled man being buried in Edgbaston of all places?  And why do they appear to have his age wrong in the burial record - oh but that's minor, clerical errors happen all the time. But why in Edgbaston?

A mystery put aside for another day.  Let's go back gratefully to Nathaniel still alive and receiving impressions and transferring them onto paper, for long-term storage and the ultimate pleasure of people not alive when he was breathing that Pyrenean air.

He's travelling through Basque country to Burgos, ancient capital of Castile. And it's quite...small.

"The extent of Burgos bears a very inadequate proportion to the idea formed of it by strangers, derived from its former importance and renown. It is composed of five or six narrow streets, winding round the back of an irregularly shaped colonnaded plaza. The whole occupies a narrow space, comprised between the river Arlançon, and the almost circular hill of scarcely a mile in circumference, (on which stands the citadel) and covers altogether about double the extent of Windsor Castle."

 He adds that the medieval town has "received a sort of modern facing, consisting of a row of regularly built white houses, which turn their backs to the Plaza, and front the river"

Perhaps those "regularly built" modern houses of his are now bijou holiday lets, renting on the strength of their cute antiquity?  Maybe they've vanished under concrete.  A quick visit via the net to modern Burgos (...aaargh my god it's huge!! No, no it's not: but bigger, yes, obviously bigger.  Has an airport and everything.  Still looks a great place for a tourist though, and still possesses all those creamy white historic buildings and some narrow medievally streets.)

He gets a little prickly about the small size of his Burgos.  We must not patronise it, we Brits, despite its surprising, ah, compactness to our Victorian eyes, which are more used to the great suburban sprawl of London or Brum, or Edgbaston.  But you couldn't build cities as neatly as this in Britain though because of all the rain...:

"The dimensions of this, and many other Spanish towns, must not be adopted as a base for estimating their amount of population. Irun, at the frontier of France, stands on a little hill, the surface of which would scarcely suffice for a country-house, with its surrounding offices and gardens: it contains, nevertheless, four or five thousand inhabitants, and comprises a good-sized market-place and handsome town-hall, besides several streets. Nor does this close packing render the Spanish towns less healthy than our straggling cities, planned with a view to circulation and purity of atmosphere...The humidity of the atmosphere in England would be the principal obstacle to cleanliness and salubrity, had the towns a more compact mode of construction; whilst in Spain, on the contrary, this system is advantageous as a protection against the excessive power of the summer sun, which would render our wide streets—bordered by houses too low to afford complete shade—not only almost impassable, but uninhabitable."


Okay.  Small is not only beautiful in Spain, but also populous, dry, well-planned, hygienic and shady.  Because it's Spain, and we love Spain.

Which brings us to Nathaniel's first attempt to render a picturesque antiquity visually, the Arco de Santa Maria.  What do you think of him as an artist?

Hernani and the Basques

Hernani, about 60 years after Nathaniel saw it

"It is composed of one street, of the exact required width for the passage of an ordinary vehicle. This street is a perfect specimen of picturesque originality. The old façades are mostly emblazoned with the bearings of their ancient proprietors, sculptured in high relief. On entering the place, the effect is that of a deep twilight after the broad blaze of the sunny mountains. This is caused by the almost flat roofs, which advance considerably beyond the fronts of the houses, and nearly meet in the centre of the street: the roof of each house is either higher or lower, or more or less projecting, than its neighbour; and all are supported by carved woodwork, black from age. The street terminates on the brow of a hill, and widens at the end, so as to form a small square, one retreating side of which is occupied by the front of a church covered with old sculpture; and the diligence, preceded by its long team of tinkling mules, disappears through the arched gateway of a Gothic castle."

This photo was evidently taken from that arched gateway, looking back down the slope which the Diligence had ascended, drawn by its team of 'tinkling mules'. The Basque people interested Nathaniel: they seemed so different, in looks as well as language.  Well...the women interested him, at any rate:

"The women are decidedly handsome, although they also are anything but Spanish-looking; and their beauty is often enhanced by an erect and dignified air, not usually belonging to peasants, (for I am only speaking of the lower orders,) and attributable principally to a very unpeasant-like planting of the head on the neck and shoulders. I saw several village girls whom nothing but their dress would prevent from being mistaken for German or English ladies of rank, being moreover universally blondes."

But his chief concern was another group entirely - his fellow passengers, because as he pointed out, passengers in a Diligence are destined to spend several days in almost intimate proximity and they have the power to make each other's lives a misery.

I think this one would have ruined the journey for me:

"I mounted.. the Diligence... with a good-looking, fair, well-fed native, with a long falling auburn moustache. We commenced by bandying civilities as to which should hold the door while the other ascended. No sooner were we seated than my companion inquired whether I was military; adding, that he was a Carlist captain of cavalry returning from a six months' emigration.

Notwithstanding the complete polish of his manners in addressing me, it was evident he enjoyed an uncommon exuberance of spirits... and I at first concluded he must have taken the earliest opportunity (it being four o'clock in the morning) of renewing his long-interrupted acquaintance with the flask of aguardiente: but that this was not the case was evident afterwards, from the duration of his tremendous happiness. During the first three or four hours, his tongue gave itself not an instant's repose. Every incident was a subject of merriment, and, when tired of talking to me, he would open the front-window and address the mayoral; then roar to the postilion, ten mules ahead; then swear at the zagal running along the road, or toss his cigar-stump at the head of some wayfaring peasant-girl."

How cute. I think I speak for wayfaring peasant-girls everywhere when I express a hope he set himself alight one night while smoking a cigar in bed.

"Sometimes, all his vocabulary being exhausted, he contented himself with a loud laugh, long continued; then he would suddenly fall asleep, and, after bobbing his head for five or six minutes, awake in a convulsion of laughter, as though his dream was too merry for sleep. Whatever he said was invariably preceded by two or three oaths, and terminated in the same manner. The Spanish (perhaps, in this respect, the richest European language) hardly sufficed for his supply. He therefore selected some of the more picturesque specimens for more frequent repetition. These, in default of topics of conversation, sometimes served instead of a fit of laughter or a nap: and once or twice he hastily lowered the window, and gave vent to a string of about twenty oaths at the highest pitch of his lungs; then shut it deliberately, and remained silent for a minute. During dinner he cut a whole cheese into lumps, with which he stuffed an unlucky lap-dog, heedless of the entreaties of two fair fellow-travellers, proprietors of the condemned quadruped."

Yes, sharing a coach for several days with a swearing, dog-abusing, ginger drunkard suffering from ADHD would pretty much spoil a trip for me. But Nathaniel was clearly made of sterner stuff and took it in his stride. 

He winds up Letter III by gratefully recalling his conversations with the two pretty owners of the lap-dog, "the daughters of a Grandee of the first class, Count de P. These youthful señoritas had taken the opportunity, rendered particularly well-timed by the revolutions and disorders of their country, of passing three years in Paris, which they employed in completing their education, and seeing the wonders of that town, soi-disant the most civilized in the world; which probably it would have been, had the old régime not been overthrown. They were now returning to Madrid, furnished with all the new ideas, and the various useful and useless accomplishments they had acquired."

He found the girls' anecdotes of Parisian life and the world of French theatre particularly charming, all the more for being delivered in their delightful Spanish accent.  Sadly for him, during the actual journey the young ladies had a central carriage to themselves, so he could only chat to them when the coach had to climb a steep ascent and the passengers got out and walked.

Interesting too that despite having lived there he seems rather dismissive about Paris itself, evidently regretting he had not known it before the Revolution, when it might have been truly elegant.  Not a man of revolutionary sympathies perhaps.

Interesting too that he speaks French enough like a Frenchman to be charmed by hearing the language spoken with a Spanish accent.


 
______________

Series of portraits of modern Basques on YouTube
Carlists: supporters of Don Carlos, a brother of the late King, who disputed the Succession: several wars followed his challenge for the throne.  These devastated the Basque region and atrocities occurred on both sides.

Spain, thank god, Spain!

Letter III

For me he spoils the mood at the opening of this letter by having an exasperated, unnecessary - and to be honest, quite snotty - crack at the British consul in Bayonne.  Apparently to get into Spain required a visa. (Who knew? It's the 1840s. I didn't know they'd invented visas. But the earliest example of the word in the Oxford English Dictionary is only 1831.)

Anyway, to cross the border required a visa from the consul - and it wasn't free. After a few heavily ironic remarks about the  self-importance of the entire consular class ("I have heard one, certainly far from being high on the list of these functionaries, termed...the 'Premier Consul') Nathaniel icily points out these jacks-in-office are still grubbing after your money. Well, probably not much money goes with consulling, he sniffs, .- though even if the income is limited "one is usually in a cheap place" (i.e., not Paris, not London, not anywhere a man of taste would wish to live.  No, consuls dwell in shitholes.)  Still, he reflects, it must be demeaning for such an august official to be under the obligation of "holding out his hand for his fee".  Fortunately Her Majesty's  consul in Bayonne has developed his own method of hitting on you.  He starts by elaborately regretting the necessity for such a stupid piece of paperwork - totally pointless, he'd memoed the Foreign Office about it himself - but quite indispensable, my dear sir, absolutely vital - could be turned back at the border without this! - and (significant look) to think it costs three francs, too! 

Three francs lighter and still resentful, Nathaniel is ready for Spain.  And suddenly, suddenly his mood is changing.  Everything is about to change.

"From the first view of Spanish ground, the monotony of the landscape ceases, and gives place to picturesque scenery.  This effect is as sudden as if produced by the whistle of a scene-shifter. From the brow of a hill the valley of the Bidassoa opens on the view, the bay on the right, two or three towns in the centre, and beyond them, stretching to the left, the chain of the Pyrenees.  This opening scene is very satisfactory to the newly arrived traveller, whose expectations have been rising towards fever-heat as he gradually neared the object of his dreams - the "renowned romantic land"..."

1823 view of the Valley of the Bidassoa

Fever-heat? The object of his dreams?  The renowned romantic land?  This doesn't sound like an objective trip to check medieval architecture. This is true love.

Vignette: Hot Chocolate at 3 a.m.

And now comes one of the little jewels of his book, brief and almost throwaway details about how he's travelling.  He's going by the public Diligence - from pictures, apparently a sort of long-bodied coach divided into small compartments, drawn by four horses - though the horses have been swapped for ten mules now they're in Spain. The daily schedule seems bizarre at first.  They start at 3 a.m., stop in the early afternoon, unwind for a couple of hours then eat a 'Homerically plentiful' supper, and then, maybe at only seven in the evening

"...all gradually retire to their sleeping apartments, where they are undisturbed until two o'clock in the morning.

At this hour each passenger is furnished with a candle, and requested to get up; and at a quarter to three the muchacha (chambermaid) reappears, bearing in her hand a plate, on which, after rubbing his eyes, the traveller may discover...an imperceptible cup, a xicara, - since having the thing, they have a name for it, which is of course untranslateable, - of excellent chocolate, an azucarillo (almost transparent sugar prepared for instantaneous melting), a glass of water, and a piece of bread.  After partaking of this agreeable refreshment, you have just time left to pay your bill, fold up your passport, which during the night has remained in the hands of the police, and to take your seat in the Diligence."

Right. I get the unusual hours, because we're in Spain and those mules can't travel in the torrid heat of the day.  The Diligence has to start early and journey through the cool hours before and after dawn. But I just love the glimpse of him woken at two, the meagre glow of a candle to dress by; then the knock on the door from the muchacha bearing his little mug of hot chocolate, the transparent azucarillo (I have a mental image of a sugar lump like an uncut diamond), the glass of cool water, the bread.  That bread must have been baked fresh close nearby.  It has not been transported in a refrigerated truck from somewhere in Belgium or France, it is local in a way bread may never be again. This Spain is gone, so far gone into the past: only through Nathaniel can you find your way there again. And look at the Spanish words creeping in, too, like magical incantations: muchacha, azucarillo, xicara.

It is because of this passage I now have a moderate hot chocolate habit, having researched how the Spanish make this drink, i.e. thick, dark and gloopy. 

Bored by France, heading for Spain

The type of stagecoach he travelled in (though this is twenty years later).

He's heading for the city of Burgos via the Basque country, but first he has to cross part of France.  He shrugs. "It is one of the least interesting of French routes." Plus there is also the hazard of Chatellerault, a town where the people are under the illusion they produce good cutlery, and insist on travellers buying some.  It's a common tourist problem, even today.

"At Chatellerault...the inn-door is besieged by women offering knives for sale.  It is everywhere known that cutlery is not one of the departments of French manufactures which have attained the greatest degree of superiority.  A glance at the specimens offered for our choice while changing horses at Chatellerault, showed them to be bad, even for France.

This did not, however, prevent a multitude of travellers from purchasing each his knife, nor one of them from laying in a plentiful stock, stating that he destined a knife for each member of his family - evidently one of the most numerous in France.  I inquired of a native the explanation of this scene, and whether these knives were considered superior to those met with in other towns.  "Oh no," was the reply; "but it is usual to buy knives here." I ventured to say I thought them very bad.  "That is of no consequence; because, whenever you have passed through Chatellerault, every one asks you for a knife made on the spot."

These victims of custom had paid enormous prices for their purchases."

Yes.  This is how it is when you are a tourist.

Regency Nathaniel v. Victorian Nathaniel

He has one further comment about Chatellerault, or rather the forest which the coach passed through on leaving the town.  He wants us to know it was the scene of a notorious incident during the Napoleonic era, in which a Polish regiment disgraced itself by first inviting the townsfolk to a picnic, then when they accepted, staging a sort of re-enactment of the Rape of the Sabine Women...Not that Nathaniel quite says that.  He is Regency enough to want to include this anecdote, and Victorian enough to wish to do so opaquely:

"It is related that Polish gallantry overstepped etiquette to such a degree...as to urge these cavaliers, by force of bayonet, and sentries, to separate all the husbands, and other male relatives, from the fairer portion of the guests. The consequences of such a termination of the festivities may easily be imagined...The inhabitants of Chatellerault are said to take great offence on being asked their age, suspecting the inquirer of a malicious calculation."

He goes on to say that Bonaparte, ("a rigid judge with regard to all divorces but his own"), was so angry he posted the regiment to the Peninsula, deliberately sending it into the scenes of greatest danger so that scarcely a man survived. 

Well: Victoria had only been on the throne for four or five years. Another decade or so and he would have struck that whole passage out, I think.  And he certainly wouldn't have included this observation about the public baths in Bordeaux.  These had separate entrances, for Ladies and for Men, and as you entered the Men's entrance you saw a large sign in stark black letters on the white wall:   

"It consists of the following single and rather singular statute: "Il est expressement défendu aux garçons de permettre à deux hommes de se servir de la même baignoire."(*It is expressly forbidden for attendants to allow two men to share a bathroom.)

And he adds innocently

After some reflection I concluded it to be a measure of precaution with regard to cleanliness..."

No you didn't, Nathaniel.  You knew damn well why two men weren't allowed to share a bathroom. And this is not the kind of side-eye we expect to get from a Victorian gent.

Time to look at a modern map and see where on earth we're up to.  He's gone Paris - Chatellerault: then on to Bordeaux: now from Bordeaux he's heading down to Bayonne, very near the Spanish border.



Today the roads linking those places today take you conveniently almost in a straight line, and according to interactive maps, from Bordeaux you will be in Bayonne in under two hours. Unless you want to take the old road, which nearly doubles the mileage.. I feel sure it's this one his diligence took. He travelled "forty leagues" through an area called the Landes, and the Landes apparently is the dreariest stretch of landscape on the planet:

"One sighs for the Steppes of Russia...unvarying gloom of the pine and cork forests...dreary and bare...presenting to the wearied eye a wide interminable waste, replete with melancholy and desolation."

Making an unconvincing stab at fairness, he adds this depressing effect may have been due to the unceasing rain...yes, yes. (Memo to self: never holiday in the Landes.)

The Landes: okay, but not for 40 leagues. In pouring rain.

End of Letter II