This order was proclaimed on the 4th of March, 1766, and police were posted in the principal places with shears to curtail cloaks and lop hat-brims. It happened that a man pursued by alguaciles for wearing the forbidden garments took refuge in the precincts of the church of the Trinity, where he was followed by the officers and beaten, in defiance of sanctuary. An infuriated crowd collected and overpowered the authorities, who were dismayed at the feeling evinced, and withdrew their men. For the next few days men all over Madrid ostentatiously flaunted their cloaks and broad-brims before the barracks and police posts, and there is no doubt that the feeling was taken advantage by politicians for their own ends to goad the people to fury against the Italian ministers. Matters came to a head on the 23rd of March, when a soldier attempted to seize a man with his face covered. A crowd, ready for mischief, collected immediately, and the authorities were overpowered. The mob swept up the Calle de Leon across the Calle de Alcalá to Squillaci's house (the famous "house with the seven chimneys") which they wrecked, although the minister had fled. With broad-brimmed hats on the top of poles they scoured the streets, making all men they met uncock their hats. Overpowering all resistance, they assembled { 259} before the palace. The guards used force in vain, and that night the capital was in the hands of the mob. The gaols were opened, houses wrecked, foreigners assailed and killed, the King's Walloon Guard especially being singled out for vengeance. Squillaci and Grimaldi had fled, and the Spanish ministers, either out of timidity or sympathy, practically sided with the rioters. The rising spread rapidly to the provinces, old grievances were raked up again, and a dangerous revolution was in progress, when the King surrendered unconditionally. People were to wear what they pleased, food and oil were to be reduced in price, and the Italian ministers were smuggled away, never to return.
That practically ended the fight for sumptuary control. Finery was triumphant in the long struggle, and the strong arm of authority was obliged to confess itself powerless to dictate on the question of personal adornment. Half-hearted attempts were made after this to interfere in sumptuary matters by Spanish sovereigns, but the effects of their decrees were hardly felt outside their own households. In 1780, for instance, a pragmatic as severe in form as ever was issued, minutely regulating the wearing of mourning and prohibiting mourning coaches, but little notice was taken of it after the first few weeks; and later still a curious mild little decree was issued by Charles IV. limiting the number of dishes which, according to custom, many officials were entitled to receive daily from the royal kitchens. It is a long drop from Alfonso the Wise to the silly dodderer who handed over his kingdom to Napoleon because his son had offended him; but the same feeling, almost the { 260} same phraseology, pervades the first pragmatic we have quoted and the last. Both deplore the lavishness and luxury of the people, and exhort them to correct the excess and superfluity which characterises their tables; and in both of them the King promises that he himself will rigidly conform to his own decree and reform the extravagance of his private repasts.