Grandfather Lived in the Middle Ages

I

A LITTLE handful of sketches from my grandfather’s life ought properly, I suppose, to begin with an explanatory introduction. This paper, then, is purely biographical.

I never saw my grandfather. He died when I was a tiny child. All I know of him is from my father, who was incomparably the greatest storyteller I ever knew. Unfortunately, none of his stories were written down; and now, forty years after his death, many small details, as well as all the fire and brilliance, are lost. Names of less important places and dates are lacking. Dates did not interest him; I never knew him to give one. Some few have been supplied from history where possible; the rest are beyond recall. Like all really great storytellers, I fancy, he was temperamental in his telling. When he had finished a story, he usually retired into himself out of reach, and for no coaxing would come out to answer questions. Still, even as they stand, the tales seem worth the keeping, because of the picture they give of a life exotic equally in place and time.

About the last of the seventeen hundreds, there sailed from Cádiz for the New World one Faustino de Mier, with his wife, Teresa Benites de Mier, and their four-year-old son Joaquin, my grandfather. Don Faustino was going out to take over the Province of Magdalena, of which he had just been appointed Governor under the King of Spain. A dour, harsh man he was, and his people did not love him. In the great house he built in Santa Marta, where his descendants still live, his portrait shows a face like a thundercloud, a red coat gleaming with orders, and a gold-headed cane. That is all anyone remembers of him now, though he ruled there for eleven years.

The end came in 1810 — the end of all that era. Revolution swept through Spanish South America like a tidal wave, and bad governors and good, the unpopular and the popular alike, were sucked down in the whirlpool. Don Faustino was one of the first to go. His death left the Royalist cause in Santa Marta without a leader; and, since that must not be, his fifteen-year-old son Joaquin, my grandfather, came forward, raised a regiment, and marched it to Barranquilla to join the Viceroy, Don Juan Sámano, just arriving from Spain. He fought as a colonel under Sámano, through the campaign which ended in the crushing defeat of the Royalist army at La Cienega.

Every foot of that region was familiar ground to Don Joaquin, who had ridden and hunted over it from childhood, for it was only eighteen miles from Santa Marta. The knowledge was very useful to him now, when, at the close of that disastrous day, the order was given to scatter, and shift everyone for himself. Riding in the dark, by short cuts and hunters’ trails, he reached home about midnight, to waken his mother with his news. That capable lady at once took charge. Daylight found Don Joaquin on a ship sailing out of the harbor for Europe, his luggage in order, his pockets well supplied with money, letters of credit and introduction and all necessary papers, and all arrangements made for an absence of years. He was to make the Grand Tour, after the manner of his time, and to see the world. I think he enjoyed those years.

Meanwhile, in Santa Marta, through all the troubled times following the fall of the government, his indomitable mother held the estate together, — house, plantations, and business,—and did it so efficiently that when she called him home, after nine years, she handed the property over to him much increased under her care. She had selected him a wife too, and in nothing was her excellent sense better shown than in that selection.

Isabel de Rovira, eldest daughter of Don Pasqual de Rovira, Marques of Mansanares, last Spanish Governor of the Province of Chocó, was considered a great match for him, for the name De Rovira (it is extinct now) stood higher than De Mier. For herself, ‘Her price was above rubies. . . . She did him good, and not evil, all the days of her life.’ She gave him five sons, of whom my father was the third.

It was a busy if a patriarchal life they lived in the great house, built — with walls three feet thick for safety against earthquakes — around a square-tiled and fountained patio, in the centre of which towers far above the house the tamarind my grandfather planted the day his oldest son was born. The three large plantations (unbelievably estimated at about four hundred square miles apiece) and the more than a thousand slaves who worked them demanded all of an owner’s time. His wife was a whole welfare association in herself, turned to for counsel and very practical help by everyone, white or black, for miles around. For her good deeds she was loved and revered as a saint: the people called her Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. (The name Isabel is the Spanish for Elizabeth.)

Santa Marta, situated at the mouth of the large river Magdalena, was a sort of gateway to the country, where all travelers must stop and make arrangements for their further journey. And, since there were no inn accommodations for any but the merest peasants, it was a matter of course of that simpler life that strangers of the better sort should be taken in by the leading resident, as welcome guests. So it came about that many diplomatic and scientific passersby spread the praises of Don Joaquin’s gracious hospitality over Europe and America.

In a delightful old portrait of my grandmother that hangs in my room, she is shown sitting by her writing desk, with an opened letter in her hand. Family tradition has it that the letter is from Humboldt, who stayed with them some weeks on his Andean journey, and, finding his hostess much interested in nature studies, kept up a correspondence with her on those subjects as long as they lived.

This was the pattern of their everyday lives. As for the happenings: Don Joaquin’s treaty with the Indians of Mamatoca that was so faithfully kept; Doña Isabel’s lovely device for her daily welfare work, and the painting of that same portrait; the boys’ hunting trips, and the failure of their one attempt at exploration — all these and many more are like the wonderful things seen at the bottom of rippling water, which the hand can never find and bring up. Only an occasional bit reaches the surface large enough or whole enough to bear telling.

II

Whenever people speak of ‘our grandfathers’ times,’ I always feel so out of it all! For their grandfathers were everyday Americans, of not too distant date, and different only in details from their grandsons to-day. Mine lived in the Middle Ages.

A Spaniard, born in Cadiz in seventeen-ninety-something, and taken to South America when his father was sent out as governor of a province, he fought on the Royalist side in the revolution there, and never renounced his Spanish citizenship. Nonetheless he lived and died the leading resident, and, indeed, almost ruler of Santa Marta, Colombia. This is the story of how he was an Italian.

Some are born Italians; some become Italians by naturalization; and some — but that is the story.

To Don Joaquin de Mier, my grandfather, at his house in Santa Marta, word was brought from the manager of his plantation of Paparis that an Italian vessel had gone ashore and broken up somewhere along the plantation’s twentymile coast line. Nineteen of her crew had got to shore alive, badly battered, and with nothing but the rags they wore. ‘And now,’ went on the message, ‘they are all coming down with the fever and will die like flies. What shall I do about it?’

My grandfather sent back word that every care be taken of them, assigning to nurse them two or three slaves who were good with the sick and who of course were immune, and directed that they be brought to him at Santa Marta as soon as they were well enough.

Some three weeks later, accordingly, he returned from his morning ride to find seventeen gaunt and listless scarecrows grouped about his office door, waiting. It was plain at a glance that they were all Italians; and, because in his youth he had spent some time in Italy, he liked Italians. He spoke to the nearest man in their language, and all the dull eyes brightened at the sound of their own tongue. Asking one what part of Italy he came from, he changed into the dialect of that province.

For each of the poor fellows he had a joke or some special word of his home town, until all the haggard faces took on new hope and cheerfulness. Then, calling the major-domo, — himself an Italian, — my grandfather put them in his charge, with orders to feed them well and bring them back in three days.

It was a wonderfully improved lot of men who appeared at the time set. My grandfather, still joking, got on his horse, rode with them to the store, and had each one fitted out with new clothes; then led the transformed group to the pier where lay one of his vessels ready to sail for Europe. To the captain of that ship (all his captains were Italians) he turned them over, directing that they be fattened up and not required to work, that they be taken each to the port of call nearest his home, and there given money for the rest of the way and a little in pocket beside. So Don Joaquin shook hands with them all, rode home, and forgot the incident.

It was more than a year afterward that an official-looking document arrived in his mail, bearing the royal seal of Italy. In some curiosity as to what the Italian Government could possibly have to say to him, he opened it. A letter, signed by the King’s secretary, announced that His Majesty, having been much pleased and touched by the kindness shown to his humble subjects in their distress, was sending a portrait of himself as a token of his gratitude, and with it the citizenship of Italy.

Don Joaquin wondered what sort of portrait it would be, whether a medal, a miniature, or what. When it came at last, it proved to be a marble bust, larger than life and very handsome, which still stands in the dining hall of his Santa Marta house — the house now owned by his great-granddaughter, my cousin once removed, Elena de Mier.

As for the citizenship, he got himself an Italian flag, and ran it up thereafter on the King’s birthday.

III

After a while it occurred to my grandfather that that citizenship might as well be made useful. There was no Italian consul in Santa Marta. Any ship sailing from that port for Italy had to send her papers to Barranquilla — a two days’ journey in those times — to receive the official signatures. The German who acted as consul for Italy there was, besides, a rather undependable person, often absent, and not always in condition for business.

All that delay and inconvenience could be avoided if Don Joaquin, an Italian citizen in good standing, should be appointed a consul — of course without salary. Since the only ships sailing from there to Italy were his, there were even no fees to be considered: the arrangement concerned no one but the Italian Government and himself. As was to be expected, his application received a prompt and gracious answer. A room on the ground floor of his town house was fitted up as a consular office; a sign over its door read ‘Italian Consulate,’ and the flag flew regularly.

Until a few decades ago Colombia elected its presidents for two-year terms; and as every election resulted in a revolution the country was kept in a constant state of fighting. Those things, of course, are expensive, so the custom was to finance each by demanding, from everyone supposed to have any, money for the support of a cause to which, usually, he was wholly opposed. Often the revolutionists had tentatively approached my grandfather; but always, so far, he had bluffed and joked his way out. Each time, however, they were harder to repulse, and he knew that some other defense must soon be found. Now, when they came to him with the usual demand, he need only point to his sign and flag, and remind them that no consul can possibly take any part in the politics of the country to which he is accredited. Set forth with Don Joaquin’s best diplomatic skill, that answer served well in two or three small outbreaks; but, since everything wears out in time, it was inevitable that it should be challenged some day. A larger and more dangerous revolution came next, and the head of the committee boasted that they would get a contribution — and a large one — from Don Joaquin by no matter what means.

So, when they appeared before him one morning demanding fifteen thousand dollars, Don Joaquin knew that it was deadly serious now. The familiar story of the consulship of a foreign power they brushed contemptuously aside.

‘That,’ said the spokesman, ‘is all talk — disparati—nonsense. We know that you are not an Italian, but a Spaniard, and that neither Spain nor Italy will do anything for you. You cannot talk it off this time. We shall be sorry to harm a man so respected, but we need the money. It is true, no doubt, that you have no such sum in the house, so we will give you a week to provide it. A week from this morning we will return for it, and we will tolerate no evasion or delay.’ The committee bowed themselves out.

A week! But it had not needed a minute to take in the major facts of a very black situation. No help from Europe was possible: they had purposely made the time too short. Neither Spain nor Italy had any colony within reach; and on the one or two powers who had he had no claim. With the governor of the nearest one he was on the pleasantest of friendly terms. Because of that friendship the governor might perhaps be willing to write a note of protest, however futile; more than that he would have neither right nor power to do. And that was nothing!

The sum demanded, though large, was not more than my grandfather could get together in the stipulated time: again they had seen to that. But to do so would scarcely have postponed the end. The committee would be back immediately for more — and again and again, until they had drained him dry; and then they would assuredly kill him, leaving his family penniless. While if he refused . . . He had not needed the scarcely veiled threat, in the committeeman’s speech. His father, the last Spanish Governor, had been seized in much the same way by the rebels in that greater revolution which had freed Colombia from Spain, and had died in their hands. How or how soon, no one ever knew: he was never heard of again.

Escape was out of the question. He would be watched every minute, and at the least move towards flight he would be seized and the black curtain would descend at once between him and his family.

I think he never wavered a minute in his decision. After writing an urgent appeal to the friendly governor, which he sent off by a messenger with orders to make the utmost possible speed, he devoted himself to devising every safeguard that the time permitted for the future of his wife and children.

The messenger made even better time than had been expected. Told, when he reached the governor’s residence, that His Excellency was at dinner, he insisted so strongly on seeing him at once and delivering the letter into his own hands that he was allowed in to do so.

It was a state dinner, for the guest of honor was an Italian nobleman high in the government, who had been touring the New World for some months and was now about to return. The governor, apologizing, read the letter hastily through, frowning and muttering as he read, then turned again to his duties as host.

‘Not bad news, I hope?’ The guest took up the conversation.

‘Bad for someone certainly,’ the governor answered. ‘And there is nothing whatever I can do’ — and he gave an outline of the letter.

‘Bad enough, indeed,’ said the visitor good-naturedly. ‘And who is the poor fellow?’

‘Joaquin de Mier of Santa Marta.’

‘What! Oh, that must not be allowed! Why, I stayed with him when I was in Santa Marta a few months ago, and he entertained me like a prince!’

‘I am as sorry as anyone,’ groaned the governor, ‘but what can I do? I have no warship in my pocket!’

‘But I have!’ The visitor was thoroughly roused now, and was already writing on a leaf from his notebook. ‘You have an orderly here?’

‘Certainly, Excellency.’ The man was at his elbow before the note was finished.

‘Take this, with your utmost speed, to the warship that is waiting for me at

—. Give it yourself into the captain’s

own hand, and tell him that I repeat to hurry, hurry!’

Meanwhile, in Santa Marta, Don Joaquin went to and fro about his grim preparations, wearing his best face of unconcern, while the week sped past without a sign. He knew, of course, — he saw it daily, — that a man in trouble has no friends; still his eyes would turn towards the harbor, from which any help must come. And so it was that, early on the appointed morning, he saw the dark nose of a great ship slide past the promontory and enter the bay. A handsome warship she was, coming swiftly and breaking out the Italian colors as she came. The little fort at the entrance fired its regulation salute to the flag, but there was no answer.

Even before the anchor was down, a boat was overside, and her crew dropping into their places.

At this point my grandfather was interrupted by the voice of the committee’s spokesman; ‘Don Joaquin! Don Joaquin!’

He turned. ‘You are early, gentlemen.’

The committee seemed breathless with haste. ‘Don Joaquin, what can we do? There seems to have been some misunderstanding. That ship did not answer our salute, and — as we came in just now she was running out her guns! She cannot — it is not possible that she can be meaning to shell the town! They cannot have misunderstood anything we said in our little argument a week ago to mean any disrespect for Italy — or her representative! How could they? A half-joking speech in the heat of argument!’

‘Gentlemen,’ my grandfather said, ‘you know, of course, that an affront to the representative of a power is considered to be against the power he represents; and the European powers have a poor sense of humor.’

‘ But you will explain to them, will you not? Just a word or two more than was meant — in the heat of argument! You must have known that we meant no discourtesy to a man we all respect so much! You will make it clear to them, will you not? And quickly — ‘

‘I am not in haste,’ said my grandfather. ‘Let us first understand this clearly. You wish to say that the whole interview of a week ago was a mistake and a misunderstanding, and you meant none of it — is that so?’

‘Yes! Yes! Anything you say! Only make haste — They are nearly here! We will apologize, or do anything you say.’

‘Then,’ said my grandfather, smiling, ‘we will consider the episode closed — if you will follow my advice. It is that you go home now and make a great dinner to-night in honor of the visiting warship, inviting all her officers, I will see to it that the invitation is accepted.’

No one ever again tried to get a contribution to revolutionary funds from Joaquin de Mier of Santa Marta.

IV

This is the story of that one incident of my grandfather’s life because of which his name has been honored for more than a hundred years.

There is one of the sights of Santa Marta which no visitor is allowed to miss. If he stays over only a day, still he must drive the few miles up the first slope of the mountain that backs the town, to see the simple plantation house — surrounded by beautiful gardens now — where General Simón Bolívar, the Liberator, the Washington of South America, died.

He was only forty-seven, but years of war and of government-building had weakened his frail constitution; tuberculosis had fastened upon him, and now the end was near. His great wish was to be allowed to die in peace; but, alas, he was still Dictator of Colombia, and peace was not for him. The country seethed with rebellion. To many of the younger hotheads among that people so recently released from tyranny, government — any government — seemed intolerable; and the simplest way to freedom, to do away with the Dictator.

Their last attempt had so nearly succeeded that the dying man had been hurried from his bed to be hidden in a shadowy street corner, while a devoted group of friends and servants were killed holding back the assassins. The experience undoubtedly shortened his life, and he was never after wholly free from delirium. Brokenhearted from the death of his best friends, he was constantly haunted by the spectre of assassination. He knew he had only a few weeks to live, but he bitterly resented being hustled out by murderers. And he distrusted everyone.

In this sad state he sent for my grandfather, imploring to be taken home with him to die.

My grandfather’s face was very grave. ‘Ah, General,’ he said, ‘do not ask me that. You know that I am a Royalist. The people would not let me live a minute when you died. They would say that I had killed you.’

But Bolivar was too sick to listen to reason. ‘There is no one else I can trust,’ he said. ‘And you cannot refuse a dying man.’

‘So be it,’ said my grandfather at last, ‘ but let it be to my plantation house of San Pedro Alejandrino, not to the town house. It is quieter there, and the air is better.’

‘Wherever you wish, Don Joaquin, so long as it is with you, in your care.’

Don Joaquin went home in a very gloomy mood, for the prospect was dark indeed. Here, however, the excellent sense of his wife, Doña Isabel, saved the situation. It was she who suggested that a proclamation be issued announcing that the Dictator was going to the house of his friend, Joaquin de Mier, to die, and calling upon everyone along the way to make his journey quiet and easy.

The Government insisted upon sending along two companies of troops as escort; but my grandfather managed to keep them out of Bolívar’s sight, quartering them in a far corner of the plantation. Nevertheless, on Bolívar’s first morning at San Pedro, he heard the reveille, and swore despairingly. War, he said, had followed him all his life, and he could not even die in peace from the sounds of it. It was not for long, however, for in six weeks he died. They placed him in my grandfather’s family tomb in the Cathedral at Santa Marta, and there he lay twelve years.

Out of respect for Bolívar’s memory, Don Joaquin and his descendants have kept the house at San Pedro Alejandrino unchanged through all these years, with only the addition of a bronze tablet on the wall of the room where he died, and the golden laurel wreath that was hung above it with a great national ceremony of dedication on the centenary of his death, a few years ago.

That house is, to all the republics of Spanish South America, what Mount Vernon is to us.

V

Bolívar was born in Caracas, Venezuela; and once or twice in his stormy life he had been Dictator of his own country. Each time, however, Venezuela tired of him, and drove him into exile. She had given little thought to him when he lay dying, or for more than a decade after; but at length it dawned upon her that her chief glory was lying neglected in another country. The idea, once started, was received with enthusiasm. The Venezuelans would bring him home as Napoleon was brought home from St. Helena. An ornate and splendid tomb they built in the Cathedral at Caracas. A warship was fitted up as a funeral ship; deputations were appointed to go in her, and to receive him on her return. There would be speeches, ceremonies, and representatives from other nations.

My father was four years old when Bolívar died. At twelve he was sent to college in Spain, and at sixteen he sailed on one of his father’s vessels for Santa Marta and home, his education finished. Wild with delight at the prospect of seeing his mother again, he wearied the captain, all through the passage, with his urging for more sail, more speed. But as they approached the port they were increasingly aware of a constant reverberating thunder, too regular and too long-continued for either earthquake or volcano.

The captain, to eager questioning, only shook his head. ‘Guns,’ he said, and refused to enter the port that night, for they must be bombarding the town.

Morning brought the sound clearer still; and very cautiously the vessel poked her nose beyond the point of the promontory, to see such a sight as none of them had ever dreamed of.

The great harbor, one of the finest on this hemisphere, was full of warships flying the flags of all nations. Not a country that had a navy but was represented; and from every one thundered the salute.

Hurriedly the little vessel slipped in and landed her company, just in time to see the ceremonies in honor of Bolívar.

There were speeches of welcome to the Venezuelan deputation, and answers of grateful appreciation of the twelve years’ hospitality to the man whom they united in honoring. There was the highest of High Masses in the Cathedral. But all of this my father missed. He had arrived in time, but no ceremony in the world could keep him a moment longer from his mother: they spent that morning very happily together.

But again and again he has told me of the great procession from the Cathedral to the funeral ship; of the marching troops, both Colombian and Venezuelan; of the catafalque with the pall-covered coffin; of the General’s sword carried on a cushion, and on another cushion the many orders he had received; of the big gray war horse of the dead General, which for all those years had been tended and cared for, but never ridden, in my grandfather’s stables, and now marched, proud and handsome still, after the catafalque, with the General’s boots in the stirrups at each side of the saddle.

Then came the carriages with the bishops and the dignitaries — my grandfather, of course, riding with them as host. And after them came the whole population of Santa Marta, on foot: not one who could walk was lacking in that last courtesy to their great dead guest.

In Latin countries, custom requires that everyone who attends a funeral shall wear black — a cruel rule within a dozen degrees of the equator. Down the dazzling white sand of the road to the little quay, a mile and a half long, wound the slow black company. And still, through the thunder of the guns that told of immortal glory, fainter and ever fainter came the far-off tolling of the Cathedral bells, telling of death.

It should be added that the Government of Venezuela, casting about for a suitable acknowledgment of my grandfather’s hospitality to their hero, presented him with a marble bust of Bolívar, which still stands in the dining hall of his house in Santa Marta. They also gave him the decoration of the Order of the Liberator — though that was a somewhat inappropriate gift to a man who had fought as a Royalist all through the war!