Francis of Assisi, the king considered effeminate and impotent who married because he had to

Paquito arrived in Paris on March 16 , where he received a visit from his nephew Valcarlos, who was going to ask him for Isabel Girgenti's hand in marriage. He dismissed him very curtly, telling him that the matter was the exclusive responsibility of his daughter and no one else. This nonsense did not prosper, but it did not succeed in silencing the rumors of certain equally unsuccessful negotiations to marry the Infanta to one of the Archdukes of Tuscany ( Luis Salvador or Juan Salvador ), nephews of María Cristina. Not a day went by without news of a different kind, and the next step was the reappearance of Pepita, who now asked for the king and queen's help in reconciling with Güell, who had great influence in the palace of Castile. Paquito, who knew that she had had a child with one of her lovers, shut the door on her, but not Isabel, whom her mother called to order, reproaching her for not being the most suitable person to help hide scandals of that nature.

Such behavior made it easier for the Riánsares, who logically supported the queen, to show great respect for the king, in whom they perceived greater coherence and greater common sense, as can be clearly seen in their correspondence of those months. Unlike Isabel, Paquito led a sober and simple life . The Palace of Castilla had become one of the centers of worldly Parisian social life: Güell, Ignacy Gurowski, several Bourbons of the Two Sicilies, the Princess-Duchess of Bauffremont-Courtenay (daughter of Luisita Sessa ), many great names of the French nobility (such as the Duke and Duchess of la Rochefoucauld), and even a certain Count of Blanc, who claimed to be the grandson of Ferdinand VII and his first wife, Maria Antonia of Naples, frequented it.

Since the King's chance encounter with the Montpensiers , the Duke showed a marked interest in seeing him and speaking with him, something to which the latter agreed as long as no discussion of politics or the family merger was made: "I do not wish to be tied or remain tied to Montpensier, because of my 'explicit' approval of what he does and what is at stake today, because I do not want to close the door to new combinations that might be beneficial to us." Furthermore, his aversion to Isabel remained such that he refused to join her plan to go together to Vienna to visit Alfonso . An obstinate attitude that complicated things, given that a reconciliation of the marriage was the essential condition required by Montpensier and that hindered any possible agreement. Nevertheless, the Duke went to Vienna to visit Alfonso, who by then had fallen in love with Elena Sanz , who had come to the city in the Italian opera company of the diva Adelina Patti and the tenor Ernesto Nicolini.

On April 21, the Carlists rose up in Spain against Amadeo and the government , and the Third Carlist War began. The uprising mobilized certain members of the family, such as Francisco de Paula , the second son of the late Enrique, who announced his departure for Spain to serve in the regular army, joining his cousins ​​Fernando and Augusto Gurowski.

On April 21, the Carlists rose up in Spain against Amadeo and the Government and the Third Carlist War began.

The situation was very worrying, and in Paris, Isabel was forced to make some savings amidst the requests for monetary help that came in from all directions. She had to reduce Pepita's pension from 2,000 francs to only , because she and Paquito had to assume the obligation to come to the aid of Isabel Gurowska and also Luisa Sessa, whose finances were already greatly diminished since she had assumed the administration of the assets of the Altamira house. In addition, Pepita had decided to write to the Prefect of the Paris Police to denounce Güell , claiming that, when he occasionally passed by her house on the Boulevard de Malesherbes, he subjected her to mistreatment. Even the Duke of Seville appeared at the house of his uncle the king to ask for money, who ordered Meneses not to receive him, to which he defiantly retorted: "Tell my uncle that, since he will not receive me, he should understand that I am like my father, that I write like my father, and that, if I write, I have many things to tell." As a form of blackmail, he threatened to open a tavern in the Faubourg Saint Honoré or on the Avenue du Roi de Rome, on the door of which he would inscribe "in letters like a hat" that the innkeeper was the king's nephew and cousin to the queen.

Endless family problems arose when it was announced that Francisco and Alberto de Borbón y Castellví, sons of Infante Enrique, had decided to join the Carlist pretender. Bad business, now that the family seemed to have reached firm agreements with Montpensier. The latter was planning to return to Vienna to visit Alfonso, who was kept away from trouble and scandal under the protection of Archduke Rainier and his wife, who wielded great influence at the imperial court. "I follow you," his father told him, "in all your steps with the greatest interest and I accompany you willingly so that dangers flee from your side and enemies do not approach you." But the troubles did not end, because now the Parisian banker Dreyffus , from whom Isabella had asked for a few million to buy the Basilewski Palace, claimed to have in his possession a document signed by her in which she promised to give him six million francs on the day Alfonso became King of Spain. Times had changed, the French Empire no longer existed, and the banker demanded prompt payment from the queen under threat of taking her to court, which he did, resulting in her being ordered to pay him one million francs.

With the arrival of summer, Paquito, burdened by his financial problems, preferred to leave Paris in search of a cooler climate and went with Ricardito and the Duke and Duchess of Baños to the Villa Carolina, in the Bois de Colombes : a house located at 37 Rue des Aubépines, in a quiet, residential area, which was said to have been built by a seamstress of Empress Eugénie. They arrived there on July 7 to settle there for a few months, taking with them only a cook and a valet de chambre . "I have had the pleasure," he wrote proudly to his mother-in-law, "of seeing Alfonso back from Germany , and the great satisfaction of receiving from his hands the brilliant Certificate that he obtained from his teachers after passing his exams. I have found him to be in very good health and advanced in every respect. It is known that he has a real desire to learn and to become a useful man; and he will certainly become one if, aloof and estranged from everything that is foreign to studies, and all intrigue, he continues to apply himself to the progress he has begun."

Isabel, meanwhile, was struggling to raise the two million reales she was supposed to give to Montpensier, having just given 6,000 francs to Esteban Collantes to finance the newspaper Eco del Comercio. Despite her limited funds, however, she planned to spend the summer with her daughters in Houlgate, from where she would travel to Mondésir, where Alfonso was spending a few days' vacation with his grandmother. Both were worried about the state of affairs in Spain: according to Salamanca, even Sagasta , the leader of the Progressives, tired of so much revolution, secretly supported the Restoration.

According to Salamanca, even Sagasta, leader of the progressives and tired of so much revolution, secretly supported the restoration

However, despite Maria Cristina's agreements with Montpensier, Isabella always acted on her own and before leaving for the coast she decided to appoint Raimundo Güell, the Marquis of Valcarlos , as Alfonso's assistant during his stays in France during his holidays. A step behind his brother-in-law's back that did not make things easier, while Paquito, worried about the delay in the payment of his pension, addressed his sister Isabelita: "The way things are going, I presume that I will have to go to court to achieve this and take steps that repugn me." On August 3, the queen returned to Le Havre to collect the prince and inform her mother that she was willing to give Alcañices the two million for Montpensier: according to her, she had informed her husband, although this was not true because he was against spending on vain political conspiracies. And now it was Alcañices who was threatening to resign his position as Alfonso's chief steward if he didn't retract his appointment of Valcarlos. This became public, and the quarrelsome Raimundo sent his godparents to challenge him to a duel, which never took place. The Güells, father and son, now wielded great authority in the Castilian palace; therefore, José made a quick trip to London to meet with the banker Pedro José de Zulueta y Madariaga , from whom he requested a loan of one million francs in the name of the queen and left him certain jewels as collateral. These maneuvers only muddied the waters and led Montpensier to insist on removing Marfori from Isabella's circle and removing the prince from there, entrusting him to the good guidance of Pepe Alcañices, who was also better at managing the accounts.

The queen and the princesses returned from Houlgate on August 11, and three days later, Montpensier went to Maria Cristina's house with her son Ferdinand, who had returned from his school in Mataró. He spent two days there and made his conditions clear: he would direct the political cause, intervene in the appointments of Alfonso's members of the household (he wanted to get rid of Raymond), take charge of the prince's education, the queen would abstain completely from participating in political, civil, or military affairs, and the two queens would not discuss such matters with anyone. With this in mind, he left for Houlgate on the 17th to meet with Isabel in the absence of Paquito, who threatened to take her to court if she gave more money to the cause and did not respect the award and the pensions for him and his children. His animosity toward her could not be greater, especially now, and, as he felt it, he confessed it to Cristina:

The indignation caused in me by the latest news I've heard about Houlgate and the falsehoods they dare to put in my mouth have driven me mad, and without the prudence and respect I profess for you, they are already enough to restrain me [...]. My words, my protests, my declarations have been of no use, and are of no use, as I see it, but the insistence with which they shamelessly presume my desire for interviews, meetings, or whatever else. Convinced that anything I add will be useless work, I have resolved, should the rash case of seeking me arise, to give action what words have been unable to achieve [...]. If the Queen dares to stand face to face with me to speak to me, after spitting in her face, I will cross it with the whip that I have always carried with me for that purpose from now on. We shall see if in this way she will once again be convinced of my feelings for her, and how deluded she will be if she believes the contrary.