King Alfonso XII was a man of a flat and carefree character, kind in his treatment of the people, who received him with the same enthusiasm with which he had sent his mother into exile. On a political level, his reign brought peace and stability to the country, but not overnight. The Monarch lost the company of women, officials and ordinary people, so it was not difficult to find him, like his grandfather Fernando VII, in taverns and grocery stores throwing laughter and some slapping his compadres.
Surrounded by a flying group of friends, Alfonso did not miss the theater, the opera, hunting days, billiards, games of night cards and any entertainment that the bad life of Madrid offered him. His Madrid literally did not sleep: the theaters scheduled their last shows at one in the morning, most of the cafes were open twenty-four hours and gatherings were held at dawn, while the dances, be they mazurkas, the polka, “which came from Poland by railway”, the pasodobles, the habaneras or the waltzes would go on until the sun came up or the dancers retired to their reserved rooms.
The King liked to throw himself into that darkness, muffled up to the eyes in a wide cape, to discover the most popular charms. Not once or twice did Alfonso XII arrive at the Royal Palace when dawn was breaking, and not always with the reflections in his place. According to the journalist Pedro de RepideOn one occasion he asked a kind passerby or night watchman for help, this was not clear in this anecdote, so that he could indicate the direction of his palace. In front of the Arch of the Armory, the King turned to his savior and thanked her for his service:
–Alfonso XII, you have me here in the palace.
To which the man replied, emphasizing the jotas when he wanted to indicate the S’s, sarcastically:
– Pius IX, in the Vatican, at your disposal.
One of the King’s tutors had already warned that, from a very young age, the heir showed “an excess of imagination in a certain field”, while another of those in charge of his education spoke of “the vehemence he has for the pleasures that he liked ». And his mother must have sensed something about these impulses when she advised him: “My son, don’t do crazy things. […] and do not give pleasure to those who do not want your house, to break your neck».
For Alfonso’s fortuneAs strict as the leading men of the nation were when examining the private life of Elizabeth II, they were lenient with that of her son, who did not back down in sexual scandals, but at least strove to separate sex from life. politics as much as possible. That the Monarch did not take his ministers or assistants to the bedroom lowered the temperature of the Court a few degrees.
a new place
It is told for the amusement of those who imagine Antonio Cánovas as a kind of old and venerable grump who, every time they were dispatched, the man from Malaga would lecture the king and ask him to stop frequenting the pine forests of Chamartín in bad company Alfonso, always a scoundrel, promised to contain himself: “Don’t worry, Don Antonio, it won’t happen again.”
«In that ballroom it seemed that the madmen from all the mental hospitals in the world met. An infernal noise of loud conversations, of thunderous screams, of wild howls»
In any case, the premature death of the Monarch at the age of 27 left not only his second wife a widow, but also the Madrid nightlife. His only son, Alfonso XIII, offered to take his place when he grew up. With Alfonso’s hormones boiling, a new type of place appeared in Madrid, a mixture of coffee and tavern, which added more diamonds to the traditional night. Enrique Chicote, author of ‘When Fernando VII spent paletó’describes these cafés cantantes as follows:
«In that ballroom it seemed that the madmen from all the mental hospitals in the world met. A hellish noise of loud conversations, of loud screams, of wild howls. A cloud of tobacco smoke of the worst kind, which suffocated and blackened the lungs; a perfume that was not precisely oriental, since it was produced by people gorged on alcohol and cheap essences; a lot of human flesh that was pushed, stepped on, jumped, ran; everything except dancing, epileptic, obscene movements dominated, the effect of undisguised drunkenness».
Popular banquet offered to the Catalan volunteers from the war in Africa in the Central Fronton on November 6, 1905.
In the most tumultuous part of these places sin was done with great publicity, while in the basements it was done covertly and, perhaps for this reason, in a more primitive way. To listen to the rumors in the cellars of one of these taverns, that of the Gabrieles, not only low-class people descended, but also journalists, artists, aristocrats and Alfonso XIII himself to participate in nights that lasted several moons and where promiscuity reigned. It is even said that erotic parodies were made fighting naked women.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was built in Carmen square the Grand Kursaal, which was a pediment by day and a Parisian-style music hall by night. The most bohemian residents of Madrid celebrated the leap in quality of bad life with a room that attracted international artists and brought together the most daring shows, including the cuplé, a style classified as pornographic. The King and the nobility were seen with these ambivalent and unusual women such as La Chelito, Raquel Meller or Consuelo Vello, La Fornarina.
But perhaps the most romantic love story was the one starring Anita Delgado, a couplet dancer who married a maharajah from India thanks, they say, to the heavenly tricks of Pío Baroja and Valle-Inclán. The Maharani (“great queen”) de Kapurthala rubbed shoulders with writers, with aristocrats of those who sleep in silk frock coats and with great painters of the time such as Julio Romero de Torres or Sorolla, who portrayed her spellbound by oriental fragrances.
Through the Great Kursaal crossed the eccentric Mata Hari, a dancer of erotic dances, with deserved fame, as a femme fatale, and a veil of mystery with which she covered herself to act as a spy during the First World War. Of course, most of the King’s nocturnal ladies entered and left the royal bedroom with the same alacrity. Gerard Noelthe British biographer of queen victoria eugenie, she remembered that Alfonso made love «just like he devoured a snack: without taste or grace, fatally like a lout. No sensible woman would repeat the experience, although all liked to try it once.