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Prologue: A Royal Command
I talk to monuments.
Most people, if they notice them at all, take them as mute sentinels to a forgotten, now irrelevant event or person, standing forlorn on some courthouse square in a village or town too busy to care. Business people and nannies pushing baby carriages walk right by, never pausing, never noticing, never acknowledging their implacable presence. If someone does pause, it may be to leave some “Kilroy was here” graffiti, which if anything gets more attention than the monument itself.
A handful of monuments, of course, do get attention. Families travel halfway across the country to see them, mostly to Washington, D.C. or some other national capital, sometimes to a mountain far away.
Most are ignored.
To those willing to take the time to listen, to sit cross-legged on the ground or planted on a park bench in order to gaze quietly, almost trance-like, monuments often talk back. Yes, they do. After all, that’s why they are there: to speak to future generations.
I know. You see, I talk a lot with King Carlos IV of Spain.
He and I got to know each other in a most unlikely place. In Manila, in far away Philippines. Carlos IV touched the Philippines indelibly two hundred years ago; I myself got there as a permanent resident in 1986. Today he stands majestically in front of the Manila Cathedral in the old Spanish quarter of Intramuros. I go to visit with him frequently.
I met him in my quest to get to know my new home-country better. At the time, the Philippines was looking forward to its centennial celebration of Independence from Spain in 1898. Wanting to make some personal contribution to the celebration, I had devised a project to document all the commemorative monuments and sculpture all over the country. It was a motivating device to get me out of the house and around the countryside. I was not surprised to discover that these monuments had never been systematically documented before.
Twice a month over several years, I climbed into my four-wheel drive car, along with an intimate crew of local friends and helpers, and off we went in our rambling search. The Centennial Year came and went in 1998. I was nowhere near done with my documentation: to the amazement of myself and particularly my Filipino friends with historical and artistic interests, I was uncovering a huge, rich and diverse range of monuments.
I met King Carlos early on. I was intrigued. Why was he there in the first place? And why was he still there almost 200 years later, especially following the Filipino uprising of 1898 which toppled Spain, along with some monuments to Spanish heroes.
Filipino history books and journals offer little detail beyond what is on the carved plaque on the King’s monument, commemorating the King’s decision to send the newly discovered smallpox vaccine – la vacuna – to the Philippines:
EN GRATITUD
AL DON BENEFICO
DE LA VACUNA
LOS HABITANTES
DE FILIPINAS
I return to the little park in front of the Manila Cathedral with regularity. Carlos is a new acquaintance; I want to get to know him better. There are no convenient benches to make my visits more comfortable. There is not even grass on the side of the monument facing Carlos. But fortunately there are big shade trees to break the intense heat and glare of the tropical sun. I sit cross-legged on the bare earth and gaze, myself in a trance.
Meanwhile, shirtless, sweat-glazed preteen boys always romp on the grassy plots behind the monument, intent on soccer. Vendors hawk the wide array of Manila newspapers and religious trinkets. The quintessentially Filipino jeepneys ply the route on the opposite side of the square. Older Filipinos lounge on the park benches out on the perimeter of the little park. Various sculpted saints in their Cathedral niches maintain their steady survey of the park. And I sit quietly, focused on the King.
Carlos IV, in his slightly bigger-than-life-size bronze form, stands atop a simple pedestal encircled by a non-working fountain. He’s wearing the cape and medals of royalty. His wig is curled around at the bottom in its typical 18th century fashion. His left hand rests on his hip, the protruding elbow spreading the cape dramatically. His right foot is planted slightly forward, and his right arm reaches straight out, clutching a rolled parchment. His face is turned slightly to the left, and his eyes gaze down directly at me.
As I look up at him, I wonder: Does his face betray his anxiety about the world that was dramatically changing around him? Do his eyes reveal his uncertainty about the intentions of neighboring France, which had recently executed its King and Queen, his cousin King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and was now falling under the sway of the brash Napoleon? Does his brow wrinkle in consternation at the long-running wars with England and the recent defeat of the combined Spanish-French fleet off the coast of Saint Vincent by the British navy? Does he blush at the rumors about the infidelities of his wife, Queen Maria Luisa, and her successful campaign to place her 24-year-old paramour, Manuel Godoy of the Royal Guard, as First Minister of Spain?
I see none of these concerns in his placid face. Instead, I see a King asking for recognition of an extraordinary accomplishment long ignored.
“Look,” he tells me. “This scroll in my hand is the proclamation of 1803 that saved more people than were killed in all of the Napoleonic wars. We reached into a shrinking Treasury and funded a fully staffed medical expedition, which was headed by my own personal doctor, Francisco Balmis, and which carried the newly discovered smallpox vaccine around the world. Troops of young heroic boys braved the rigors of travel across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and into the backlands of our colonies, carrying live vaccine in their own arms. Looking after these boys was the first international nurse in history. And all of this came about from the generosity of the Crown: we asked for nothing in return.”
Then he fixes his gaze intently on me. “Go,” he says, issuing his royal command: “Tell my story.”