The King of Calabria

On the 4th of August, 1578, one hundred thousand Moors and thirty thousand Portuguese cut each other's throats on the plains of Alcázar-Quivir. It was not for one of those grave interests that affect the honor or the existence of nations; nor was it for one of those infamous motives which, like England's war against China, have stained the annals of the world in so many epochs. The cause of that carnage was a martial fever, the smoke of an extinguished volcano, the remnant of that ferocious instinct which had characterized peoples during the centuries that followed the fall of the Roman Empire (1).

As always, the combat then was fearful, horrible. Hand-to-hand struggles followed the attacks by masses. Each combatant braved danger, gave or received death without remorse or fear. In that age of ferocious valor, force was right, prejudice was law; social virtues counted for nothing, military virtues for everything. Man's normal state was war, combat a festival. A bloody energy which, moreover, did not fail to be of profit to birds of prey. Vultures fed on human flesh. What happy times for those aerial thieves!

On the day following that battle, they had an abundant meal on the plain of Alcázar-Quivir. Fifty thousand Moors and twenty thousand Portuguese remained on the field. Muley-abd-el-Malek commanded the one side, Don Sebastián and Muley Mahomet the other. The three kings lost their lives; the first in his tent, the second on the battlefield, and the third in a swamp. Philip II, King of Spain, who two hundred leagues away awaited the outcome of the struggle in order to despoil the vanquished, took advantage of the occasion. He ransomed the corpse of Don Sebastián for one hundred thousand escudos, held magnificent obsequies for him, and, in settlement of accounts, annexed to the crown of Spain the kingdom of Portugal, which regained its independence in 1540 [sic], when the House of Braganza ascended the throne.

The widow of Don Sebastián, the beautiful and unfortunate princess María of Portugal, was forced to flee Lisbon and take refuge in Venice. Poor, a fugitive amid that Venice so brilliant then, so adorned upon those waters where all the pleasures banished from the rest of the world seemed to have taken refuge, the princess María went about bearing her piercing grief. How great is the distance from the throne to exile! On one side, vows, blessings, homages; on the other, a sterile pity, a cold flattery, and hope — that barrier which God has placed in the heart of man between misfortune and despair; a vein of pure gold cast into a world of granite.

It was not, however, the loss of a crown that most afflicted the princess María.

In her sublime resignation, she would say: "God gave it to me, God has taken it from me." But resignation is not always sufficient to console one for the loss of affections. Wounds of the heart bleed longer than others; their traces are erased with greater difficulty, and Princess María could not forget, even after his death, that Don Sebastián whom she had loved so much in life.

Misfortune seldom overwhelms us by halves. Like a lightning bolt, it threatens man, passes without touching him, or it kills him. Princess María experienced this. To the loss of her crown, to that of her husband, was added the loss of her mother, a loving and steadfast soul who in her misfortunes had been for her what a good mother always is — an angel of patience and tenderness in human form, a ray of divine love beneath an earthly mantle.

This death shattered the last bond that tied Princess María to the earth, for in her mother she had also lost a friend; a friend! that divine manna of which heaven shows itself so miserly, and which gives us two hearts with which to enjoy happiness and endure adversity.

On the banks of the Brenta, the princess dwelt in a modest palace with a few servants, faithful chosen souls whom the aspect of misfortune had not frightened away; she was young, and pleasures did not enter her dwelling; she was beautiful, and no homage of love had been able to cross the threshold of her palace.

Her life was a [...]