Word: alfonso
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...some day he will tire of me," she had said). Near her sat the two of his four sons whom hemophilia had not killed: tall, goodlooking Don Juan (for whom he had renounced his claim to the throne) and deaf Don Jaime. Wild-eyed Infanta Beatriz was there, and Alfonso may have remembered that she had driven the car in which Son Gonzalo was riding the night a slight accident made him bleed to death (the King had paced his room that night, sobbing like a child). His plump, favorite daughter, Infanta Maria Christina, had not yet arrived from Turin...
...women began to sniffle. Alfonso opened his eyes. "Am I so bad? Then call the priest...
...only find it difficult to breathe," Alfonso said through the pain...
...unsentimental Austrian friend once said of Alfonso: "When the door of this room opens behind me, I need not turn round to see whether it is the King. I know it instantly by the sudden, strange feeling of his strong and very royal personality." Alfonso XIII had been born a king, six months after the death of his father in 1885. When he took over power from a regency on his 16th birthday he had already learned how to feel and behave as a king. He never felt or behaved any other...
...aristocratic atavist, Alfonso never questioned his right to be a king, never ducked his regal responsibilities as he saw them. He had courage. In Paris once, when a bomb meant for him killed two of his carriage horses, he remarked that bombings were "only the risks of a king's business." In small things, too, he followed the aristocratic pattern, was a gourmet, a dandy, a lady-killer, with a pretty taste in motor cars-all with impeccable taste...