The sceptical foreigner will probably be more interested by the statues above the oratorios or royal tribunes surrounding the altar. We see Charles V. with his wife, daughters and sisters, Philip II. with all his wives, except Mary Tudor, and his son, the miserable Infante Carlos. It was not altogether a happy idea to represent a Christian prince attended at the _same time_ by his three wives. All these statues are faithful portraits. The oratorio on the Epistle side adjoins the bare, narrow chamber in which the devout king breathed his last, quitting without regret a world with which he had no sympathy and in which he moved as a melancholy exile.
The church contains forty-eight side chapels and altars, adorned by the paintings of Coello, Navarrete, and others of less note. The best pictures are to be seen in the Sacristia. Here there are several works of Titian, Tintoretto, El Greco, Zurbaran, and Ribera. The most interesting canvas is the “Santa Forma” by Claudio Coello. The heads are portraits of Charles II. and his ministers. The incident depicted is the ceremony of the Veneration of the Sacred Wafer, which being trodden upon and defiled by Protestants at Gorinchem in Holland, is said to have exuded blood. It is preserved behind the picture and exhibited twice a year.
Immediately under the high altar is the Pantheon, the last resting-place of the kings and queens of Spain. It is an octagonal chamber, lined with precious marbles, which also in the dreadfully sensible presence of death, seem to be decaying. No such rich chamber was desired by Philip. It dates from 1554.
Twenty-six marble urns placed in niches round the chamber contain all that was mortal of the monarchs of Spain and their consorts from Charles V. to Alfonso XII., Philip V. and Ferdinand VI. excepted. There are tombs, too, awaiting the living. Ascending the steps we pass the sealed door of the Pudridero, where the bodies are kept five years before being placed in the Pantheon, and may visit the burial chambers reserved to the Infantes and Infantas. Several of the vaults are still empty. They are in purer, colder style than the heavier Pantheon of the kings. As one ascends to the living world from these awful chambers, the question suggests itself, what is the object of it all? The Pyramids of Nile ought to have convinced man once for all of the hopelessness of any effort to preserve his body unprofaned and solemnly housed through all the years. No matter how great the dynasty, how strong the tomb, the day must come when the jealously and reverently guarded ashes will form the prey of some ghoulish invader. With Rameses exposed to the gaze of wondering Cockneys, with Alexander’s tomb an object of curiosity to tourists in the museum at Stamboul, with the tombs of the kings of Judah explored on allfours by Cook’s trippers, how can one hope for an eternal immunity from profanation for the Invalides, for Westminster, for the Escorial? Kings ought to have learnt the lesson that in the pages of history alone can they look for an earthly immortality.