Read Online Bolivar: American Liberator by Marie Arana - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marie Arana
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come to the king’s palace as a royal bodyguard, and, before long, his virile good looks had caught the eye of the queen. For all her plainness of face and ruined complexion, Queen María Luisa had a formidable appetite for good-looking young men. Godoy soon became her lover. The queen rewarded his sexual favors with greater titles and responsibilities, marrying him off to disguise their entanglement, persuading her dull husband to appoint him head of state in 1792. That same year, the queen gave birth to her fourteenth child, who, it was rumored throughout Europe, looked shockingly like the new prime minister.As the king whiled away the hours in his palace workshop, fiddling with furniture and polishing swords, Godoy commandeered the throne. It was Godoy who disastrously declared war on England, initiating Spain’s precipitous financial decline; and it was Godoy against whom the population of Spain had turned in an avenging fury. It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that the French king and queen had been marched to the guillotine just a few years earlier. Trying to regain approval, Queen María Luisa appointed a new prime minister, the physically frail Francisco Saavedra, who had been in the New World and had helped the Americans defeat the English at the Battle of Yorktown; and, ever flighty where sex was concerned, she set her sights on another man.
The new object of her concupiscence was Manuel Mallo, a strapping young bodyguard from Caracas and, as it happened, a friend and confidant of Esteban Palacios, the uncle Simón had come to see. The fifteen-year-old boy could hardly know it, but the madre patria was a hotbed of decadence—not the inviolable power it pretended to be. Politically, economically, morally, Spain was suffering the consequences of its own ruinous management. The upper classes could feel it in their pockets; the rabble, in their bellies. It is hardly surprising thata rich young aristocrat from the Indies was welcomed with open arms.
Simón arrived in Madrid “quite handsome,” as his uncle Esteban reported.“He has absolutely no education, but he has the will and intelligence to acquire one, and, even though he spent quite a bit of money in transit, he landed here a complete mess. I’ve had to re-outfit him totally. I am very fond of him and, although he takes a great deal of looking after, I attend to his needs with pleasure.”
Esteban had been in Madrid for more than six years, trying to confirm the title of marquis for Simón’s older brother, Juan Vicente. In the process, he had expended a considerable amount of Bolívar funds and achieved very little. However charming and handsome—however engaged in swank musical circles—Esteban was inexpert at politics, unable to win the sort of influence it took to rid a family tree of its pesky defects. He had been about to abandon his efforts and return to Caracas empty-handed, when three eventualities changed his mind: he was mademinister of the auditing tribunal, a distinguished if modestly paid position; he knew Saavedra, who had just been appointed prime minister; and, last, his housemate, the irresistible Manuel Mallo, had become the favorite of the queen. All Spain had heard about María Luisa’s latest inamorato, and all Caracas was abuzz with rumor. Though Mallo had actually been born in New Granada, he had grown up in Caracas and was a fixture in Mantuano society. Sure that his fortunes would rise alongside his friend’s, Esteban had decided to stay. He had urged his brothers in Caracas to send Juan Vicente and Simón, so that they, too, might take advantage of this new American moment. When Juan Vicente demurred and Don Carlos Palacios proposed to send Simón alone, Esteban had agreed. When the Palacios’ younger brother Pedro wrote that he also wanted to come bask in Mallo’s successes, Esteban had agreed to that as well.
Simón arrived in Madrid eleven days after the San Ildefonso had docked in Santoña; he had little
The new object of her concupiscence was Manuel Mallo, a strapping young bodyguard from Caracas and, as it happened, a friend and confidant of Esteban Palacios, the uncle Simón had come to see. The fifteen-year-old boy could hardly know it, but the madre patria was a hotbed of decadence—not the inviolable power it pretended to be. Politically, economically, morally, Spain was suffering the consequences of its own ruinous management. The upper classes could feel it in their pockets; the rabble, in their bellies. It is hardly surprising thata rich young aristocrat from the Indies was welcomed with open arms.
Simón arrived in Madrid “quite handsome,” as his uncle Esteban reported.“He has absolutely no education, but he has the will and intelligence to acquire one, and, even though he spent quite a bit of money in transit, he landed here a complete mess. I’ve had to re-outfit him totally. I am very fond of him and, although he takes a great deal of looking after, I attend to his needs with pleasure.”
Esteban had been in Madrid for more than six years, trying to confirm the title of marquis for Simón’s older brother, Juan Vicente. In the process, he had expended a considerable amount of Bolívar funds and achieved very little. However charming and handsome—however engaged in swank musical circles—Esteban was inexpert at politics, unable to win the sort of influence it took to rid a family tree of its pesky defects. He had been about to abandon his efforts and return to Caracas empty-handed, when three eventualities changed his mind: he was mademinister of the auditing tribunal, a distinguished if modestly paid position; he knew Saavedra, who had just been appointed prime minister; and, last, his housemate, the irresistible Manuel Mallo, had become the favorite of the queen. All Spain had heard about María Luisa’s latest inamorato, and all Caracas was abuzz with rumor. Though Mallo had actually been born in New Granada, he had grown up in Caracas and was a fixture in Mantuano society. Sure that his fortunes would rise alongside his friend’s, Esteban had decided to stay. He had urged his brothers in Caracas to send Juan Vicente and Simón, so that they, too, might take advantage of this new American moment. When Juan Vicente demurred and Don Carlos Palacios proposed to send Simón alone, Esteban had agreed. When the Palacios’ younger brother Pedro wrote that he also wanted to come bask in Mallo’s successes, Esteban had agreed to that as well.
Simón arrived in Madrid eleven days after the San Ildefonso had docked in Santoña; he had little
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