Read Online A Barcelona Heiress by Sergio Vila-Sanjuán - Free Book Online
Authors: Sergio Vila-Sanjuán
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case,” which was destined to be a landmark event of the era, though those of us who were involved in the trial were not fully aware of its significance at the time.
At age fifteen, Joaquín “El Chimo” Caballé had descended as far as one could into the dregs of a large city like Barcelona without selling his own body. But he enjoyed telling stories in which he portrayed himself as the king of the world. In reality he was damaged goods; a case of flotsam jettisoned by society, a cheat, a puppet, and a child. His case, widely covered by the press at the time, was one of the most prominent my practice saw during those years. It was also one of the saddest.
I’ll summarize the story the newspapers dubbed “The Las Cortes Street Bomb.” Said explosive went off in August 1919 in front of the palace of the Marquess of Marianao on Las Cortes Street, today’s Gran Vía, on the corner of Paseo de Gracia. This palace, built in the style they called
neogriego
, or Neo-grec—a sort of neoclassical style inspired by German Romanticism—was the most luxurious in Barcelona’s center and one of the most distinguished structures in the Ensanche district, with its magnificent marble staircase and lavish decorations,produced by the preeminent upholsterers, cabinetmakers, and wood-carvers of the day. Its owner, the marquess Don Salvador Samá, a Spanish grandee, was a major landowner who had served as the mayor of Barcelona for a few years. An equestrian enthusiast, the marquess enjoyed taking rides in his open, horse-driven carriage. Upon reaching their destination, a footman accompanying him would open the door, and the aristocrat would solemnly descend as his coachman raised his whip to salute him. At a time when automobiles had started, little by little, to take over the city’s downtown streets, the marquess’s rides did not go unnoticed.
The bomb to which I refer, however, had nothing to do with the marquess as a figure, but rather with his home’s status as a city landmark. The explosive went off a few yards from one of its walls, causing serious injuries to two men walking by, less serious ones to another three, and minor damage to the building.
As cited by the public prosecutor, the police investigation yielded provisional conclusions which established that a forty-four-year-old woman by the name of Rosa Mestres who had criminal records for robbery, the production of counterfeit bills, and petty theft, and who was the owner of a flophouse that was under police surveillance because a number of suspicious characters were lodgers there, had summoned El Chimo, to whom she regularly gave odd jobs, to her home, asking him to go and rent a cart. In that cart “someone” placed what is known as a timed bomb, a device made up of pieces of cast iron and packing high-power explosives. El Chimo supposedly pulled the cart, covered with a burlap sack, from Basea Street, where Rosa Mestres resided, to the point on Las Cortes Street in front of the marquess’s palace where every day at one o’clock a group of construction foremen would gather to do their hiring, and left it there. It exploded a few minutes later “with the numerous constituent fragments being converted into projectiles,” which struck Antonio Sanz Salas, Miguel de Miguel Fuertes, José MartorellGironés, José Cabredo Sáenz de Villeda, and Bernardo Bel Boet, inflicting the aforementioned wounds. It was a miracle that it exploded at a time when there were few people on the sidewalk. If it had happened just a few minutes before, right in the middle of the foremen’s gathering, the device could have caused a large-scale slaughter.
In his statement the public prosecutor, Don Crisanto Posadas, asserted that, in exchange for his services, Joaquín Caballé, El Chimo, had received from Rosa Mestres fifty pesetas in five-peseta coins—three of which turned out to be counterfeit. El Chimo and Mestres were the two parties indicted in an attack endangering both human
At age fifteen, Joaquín “El Chimo” Caballé had descended as far as one could into the dregs of a large city like Barcelona without selling his own body. But he enjoyed telling stories in which he portrayed himself as the king of the world. In reality he was damaged goods; a case of flotsam jettisoned by society, a cheat, a puppet, and a child. His case, widely covered by the press at the time, was one of the most prominent my practice saw during those years. It was also one of the saddest.
I’ll summarize the story the newspapers dubbed “The Las Cortes Street Bomb.” Said explosive went off in August 1919 in front of the palace of the Marquess of Marianao on Las Cortes Street, today’s Gran Vía, on the corner of Paseo de Gracia. This palace, built in the style they called
neogriego
, or Neo-grec—a sort of neoclassical style inspired by German Romanticism—was the most luxurious in Barcelona’s center and one of the most distinguished structures in the Ensanche district, with its magnificent marble staircase and lavish decorations,produced by the preeminent upholsterers, cabinetmakers, and wood-carvers of the day. Its owner, the marquess Don Salvador Samá, a Spanish grandee, was a major landowner who had served as the mayor of Barcelona for a few years. An equestrian enthusiast, the marquess enjoyed taking rides in his open, horse-driven carriage. Upon reaching their destination, a footman accompanying him would open the door, and the aristocrat would solemnly descend as his coachman raised his whip to salute him. At a time when automobiles had started, little by little, to take over the city’s downtown streets, the marquess’s rides did not go unnoticed.
The bomb to which I refer, however, had nothing to do with the marquess as a figure, but rather with his home’s status as a city landmark. The explosive went off a few yards from one of its walls, causing serious injuries to two men walking by, less serious ones to another three, and minor damage to the building.
As cited by the public prosecutor, the police investigation yielded provisional conclusions which established that a forty-four-year-old woman by the name of Rosa Mestres who had criminal records for robbery, the production of counterfeit bills, and petty theft, and who was the owner of a flophouse that was under police surveillance because a number of suspicious characters were lodgers there, had summoned El Chimo, to whom she regularly gave odd jobs, to her home, asking him to go and rent a cart. In that cart “someone” placed what is known as a timed bomb, a device made up of pieces of cast iron and packing high-power explosives. El Chimo supposedly pulled the cart, covered with a burlap sack, from Basea Street, where Rosa Mestres resided, to the point on Las Cortes Street in front of the marquess’s palace where every day at one o’clock a group of construction foremen would gather to do their hiring, and left it there. It exploded a few minutes later “with the numerous constituent fragments being converted into projectiles,” which struck Antonio Sanz Salas, Miguel de Miguel Fuertes, José MartorellGironés, José Cabredo Sáenz de Villeda, and Bernardo Bel Boet, inflicting the aforementioned wounds. It was a miracle that it exploded at a time when there were few people on the sidewalk. If it had happened just a few minutes before, right in the middle of the foremen’s gathering, the device could have caused a large-scale slaughter.
In his statement the public prosecutor, Don Crisanto Posadas, asserted that, in exchange for his services, Joaquín Caballé, El Chimo, had received from Rosa Mestres fifty pesetas in five-peseta coins—three of which turned out to be counterfeit. El Chimo and Mestres were the two parties indicted in an attack endangering both human
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