La Isabelina

A seasoned diplomat finds himself in bustling Bordeaux in 1845, drawn into a midnight conversation with Father Venancio Chamizo, an ex‑cloistered priest who now teaches Latin and rhetoric to the children of Spanish and French legitimists. Over wine and coffee, the two men trade barbs and anecdotes, hinting at a network of loyalties that bind them to the controversial figure Aviraneta. Their dialogue, steeped in political satire and personal rivalry, offers a glimpse of the precarious balance between liberal ideals and the shadowy machinations of the era.

Chamizo, a stout, bald man with a reputation for both scholarship and stubbornness, begins to recount his own tumultuous past—an upbringing in a poor Palencian family, forced entry into a convent, and a sudden conscription by Empecinado’s insurgent column. He promises to reveal the tangled threads that linked his life to the chaotic battles of 1833‑34, setting the stage for an intimate portrait of faith, ambition, and the relentless churn of Spanish‑French politics.