A Barcelona Heiress Read Online Free PDF

crosshairs of the police and business organizations for championing the causes of broad spectrums of the organized and militant workers movement. After a very brief lull in the violence during the final months of the World War, the triumph of the Russian Revolution had sounded warning bells around the world, announcing that overturning the system was, at last, possible. That signal had been received in Barcelona, where a devastating general strike in the winter of 1919, triggered by a drop in salaries and firings as a result of the end of the war, had paralyzed half the city, forcing the army to take to the streets to re-establish some semblance of order. The situation had become so serious in recent times that, of the four government branches in Barcelona—the City Hall, the
Mancomunidad
(comprised of the governments of the four Catalonian provinces), the Civil Government (which controlled the police), and the Captaincy General, which held authority over the Spanish army in Catalonia—these last two entities had come to the fore, enjoying ever-increasing levels of autonomy.
    Following the strike, violence on the streets flared up and gunmen had begun to oil their Star revolvers once again. The failed attempt on Lacalle’s life in my presence at La Puñalada,whoever was behind it, attested to this. I always found it surprising how often assassins missed their targets, even when able to get very close to them. Perhaps in this case they would have been better off using knives.
    The period I now describe began at the end of the First World War and ended with a change of regime, though the key and decisive events for me would occur within a matter of months.
    * * *
    Perhaps it can be said that in my city, despite its population of over half a million, among just a few people, on certain levels, “everyone knew each other.” What I mean to say is that, despite the aforementioned figure, Barcelona was also a city with a small number—thirty? forty? fifty?—of elite and intricately intertwined families who stood as the arbiters of society, set the tone for its elegant diversions, and whose whispers swayed the decisions of the politicians and military leaders in power. The lineage of several of these families stemmed nearly all the way back to the era of the
Marca Hispánica
, when powerful dukes and counts governed the borderlands between the Franks and the Moors, and to the Crown of Aragon. Some owed their nobility to the Habsburgs, and had resisted the temptation to relocate to Madrid, home to the Court and real power and influence. A good number boasted Bourbon titles, while others had been made nobles by Alfonso XIII himself, who had not hesitated to so distinguish those Catalonian patricians who had created great companies or patently demonstrated their loyalty to the monarchy.
    Along with these nobles, among them landed gentry and the owners of large pieces of property in Barcelona itself, were financial magnates and leading captains of industry, inaddition to business leaders in textiles, electricity, transport, and the press. In short, they constituted a kind of club with indeterminate boundaries in which, after a time, it was easy for one to tell, from the accent—a sibilant Castillian, or a neutral and melodic Catalan—or the manner of dress, or the location and size of one’s houses, or the education one’s children received, who belonged and who did not.
    * * *
    I was headed for an engagement with just this enclave a few weeks after my first meeting with María Nilo and Ángel Lacalle, both of whom I had been thinking about ever since. The singer was a singular and somewhat slippery character, while the activist had a decidedly powerful personality. I could not help but wonder about the nature of the relationship between them, and how I had suddenly become entangled in their disparate but apparently convergent paths.
    An early evening breeze accompanied me as I walked down Cortes Street dressed in my tailcoat.