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Updated: June 19, 2025
Everything was finished at the right time, and Don Juan's reception brilliantly carried out with great pomp and dignity, through the whole programme of a Te Deum and three services, processions, bull-fights, a grand 'Auto-da-fe', and a tournament. After this festival, the king again resigned the riding-school to the artists, who instantly set to work.
Even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. For the life Ariadne and I were leading, we had to have a great deal of money.
Familiarity with such sights must have hardened the heart and rendered the mind insensible to refined pleasures. What theatres are to the French, what bull-fights are to the Spaniards, what horse-races are to the English, these gladiatorial shows were to the ancient Romans. The ruins of hundreds of amphitheatres attest the universality of the custom, not in Rome alone, but in the provinces.
The 427 bull-fights which took place in Spain during the year 1864 caused the death of 2989 of these fine animals, and about 7473 horses, something more than half the number of the cavalry of Spain.
And to offset his passionate gloom there are his visions of a golden Spain no longer in existence; happy, gorgeous of costume, the Spain of sudden coquetries, of fans, masques, bull-fights, and fandangos, of a people dancing on the rim of a fire-filled mountain, pious, capricious, child-like, romantic, and patriotic the Spain of the eighteenth century.
If people laughed at her, she laughed with them. "Do the men wear clothes like that every day, in the street?" She caught Emil by his sleeve and turned him about. "Oh, I wish I lived where people wore things like that! Are the buttons real silver? Put on the hat, please. What a heavy thing! How do you ever wear it? Why don't you tell us about the bull-fights?"
Other entertainments, of a prouder frame, exact an admission fee, but I am not sure that these are better than some of the hat-shows, as they are called. The tale of our summer amusements would be sadly incomplete without some record of the bull-fights given by the Spanish prisoners of war on the neighboring island, where they were confined the year of the war.
The valley itself, with the ridges that encircled it, was not unlike one of the great Spanish amphitheatres, where bull-fights are carried on; while the smooth, level surface of the meadow represented the arena. The combatants, however, were engaged in no mock encounter to gratify the curiosity of an idle crowd; nor did they apprehend that there were spectators present.
Besides the spiritual despotism which the clergy of Spain exercised over a deluded people, but a people naturally of fine elements of character, the sudden increase of gold and silver led to luxury, idleness, and degeneracy. Money being abundant, in consequence of the gold and silver mines of America, the people neglected the cultivation of those things which money could procure. Then followed a great rise in the prices of all kinds of provision and clothing. Houses, lands, and manufactures also soon rose in value. Hence money was delusive, since, with ten times the increase of specie, there was a corresponding decrease in those necessaries of life which gold and silver would purchase. Silver and gold are only the medium of trade, not the basis of wealth. The real prosperity of a country depends upon the amount of productive industry. If diamonds were as numerous as crystals, they would be worth no more than crystals. The sudden influx of the precious metals into Spain doubtless gave a temporary wealth to the kingdom; but when habits of industry were lost, and the culture of the soil was neglected, the gold and silver of the Spaniards were exchanged for the productive industry of other nations. The Dutch and the English, whose manufactures and commerce were in a healthy state, became enriched at their expense. With the loss of substantial wealth, that is, industry and economy, the Spaniards lost elevation of sentiment, became cold and proud, followed frivolous pleasures and amusements, and acquired habits which were ruinous. Plays, pantomimes, and bull-fights now amused the lazy and pleasure-seeking nation, while the profligacy of the court had no parallel in Europe, with the exception of that of France. The country became exhausted by war. The finances were deranged, and province after province rebelled. Every where were military reverses, and a decrease of population. Taxes, in the mean while, increased, and a burdened people lamented in vain their misfortune and decline. The reign of Philip
It is a well known fact that in bull-fights, after mortal injuries of the abdomen and bowels, horses are seen to struggle on almost until the sport is finished. Fontaine reports a case of a Welsh quarryman who was run over by a heavy four-horse vehicle. The stump of a glass bottle was crushed into the intestinal cavity, and the bowels protruded and were bruised by the wheels of the wagon.
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