Word: xiii
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Hendaye Statement. Within 24 hours of his departure, correspondents learned that though Alfonso XIII might no longer be King of Spain, he was still the country's shrewdest politician. The train bearing the Queen and Royal children from Madrid stopped at Hendaye, on the French border, where French officials were waiting to give the Queen the same official greeting she had always had on her innumerable trips over the same line. Queen Victoria Eugenie appeared briefly at a window and made an announcement which historians last week were already calling the Hendaye Statement...
...that Madrid thought Alfonso was signing his abdication, the round Plaza del Oriente in front of the Royal Palace in Madrid was kept clear by police and mounted Civil Guards. Inside, pale, sober Alfonso XIII scratched busily at his manifesto with a gold pen. With a scrawl of his signature he rose, handed the paper to Count de Romanones, "richest man in Spain," until that morning Royalist Minister of State. Said Alfonso to the Count...
...same day Alfonso XIII landed from his cruiser at Marseilles, took the train to rejoin his family. Reporters hopped aboard at every stop but were firmly excluded from the Royal compartment. In the diner one newshawk peeped into the Royal casserole, reported that Alfonso was lunching off a truffled pigeon...
...candidates failed to carry even the constituency in which his palace stood, lost the Capital as a whole, lost Seville, Barcelona, Cordova, lost all the provincial capitals except three, lost what was supposed to be the invincible Catholic stronghold of the Crown, Toledo. "I feel," said deeply religious Alfonso XIII, "as though I had gone to visit a friend and, in reaching his house, learned that he was dead...
Just as the last King of Siam lay dying his only child was born. Had the babe been a boy and born a few hours later it would have been "born a king" like Spain's Alfonso XIII. Had the dying monarch been polygamous he might have had a son long before...