Above: "Barcelona Mounted Police: Horseback Section Officers patrolling" (detail). It was only in 1957 that the Guàrdia Urbana began to use automobiles to patrol the streets of Barcelona and the force still uses horses for that purpose.
Above: Rachel with the Citroën automobile that was provided for her use while in Barcelona. The inscription reads: "Va au Bout mi mejor Caballo y el Citroën mi coche meferido. Rachel Dorange, le 1.10.29" ("Va au Bout my best horse and the Citroën my favorite car. Rachel Dorange, October 1, 1929.")
Above: Same photo (detail).
Above: "View of Sagrada Familia from Placa de Gaudi. The cranes have been digitally removed." Begun in 1882, Gaudi's cathedral was still under construction 144 years later with construction cranes still working on it. It is scheduled for completion in 2026.
Source: Photo by Toniher, March 20, 2007, in "Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona" (Wikipedia).
Source: "La Señorita Rachel Dorange con sus dos favoritos ("Señorita Rachel Dorange with her two favorites"), El Dia Grafico, October 8, 1929, p. 15 (via Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica.
Source: (Wikipedia). Picture credit: C messier (own work).
10. Barcelona, 1929 (continued)
If we take the extant newspaper coverage at face value, Rachel saw only one sight during her stay in Barcelona, and that was the stables belonging to the Guàrdia Urbana, the Barcelona municipal police:
"Mademoiselle Raquel D'Orange, accompanied by Mr. Enrique Sostres, visited the stables of the Guàrdia Urbana today, admiring the Spanish thoroughbreds that were shown to her in the riding arena. Mademoiselle D'Orange was received by the Chief of the Corps, Mr. Ribé< by the sectionΓÇÖs senior officer, Mr. Torrubia; and by the personnel on duty. Upon her departure, she was presented with a bouquet of flowers from the mounted section of the Guàrdia Urbana." (El Dia Grafico)
Even stranger was the way she was presented to Spanish newspaper readers:
"IΓÇÖm a bit of an oddball. I donΓÇÖt like modern customs; I detest dancing, social etiquette, the gramophone, and the 'radio.' I love reading, and music is one of my weaknesses." (Heraldo de Castellon)
"She stated that she does not like dancing and that, in general, she disdains modern customs. She is fond of reading and music; she practices and proclaims her Catholic ideals with great fervor, to the point that on her long horseback journeys she plans her stops so that she can always attend Mass on holidays. And, as a true lover of music, she detests the phonograph and couldnΓÇÖt care less about the radio." (La Voz de Cantabria)
Could this reclusive introvert, this fervently religious technophobe, be the same party girl who stayed up until 4 a.m. in Biarritz, or the social butterfly who reveled in the banquets and invitations that she was accorded on all her journeys, or the "accomplished dancer" who visited that dance pavilion in Bucharest (page 24)?
A question arises: did the heavily censored Spanish press invent a Rachel that was acceptable to Primo de Revera's ultra-conservative backers? Or did Rachel reinvent herself for the Spanish press, trimming her sails according to what she perceived as the direction of the wind? For despite its relative economic prosperity and its hosting of the 1929 World's Fair, Barcelona was a major source of worry to Primo de Rivera's regime.
Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain that is home to a population distinctly different from the rest of the country, with its own culture, history and language (Catalan). In fact, Catalonia resembles the many other cohesive ethnic enclaves scattered throughout Europe, all of them ancient. They are the hard nuggets of nationalism that survive within wider political boundaries that get redefined every time there's a war.
Up until 1925, and after 1975, Madrid's way of dealing with Catalonia was to allow the region a good deal of autonomy. In between those years Primo de Revera's strategy, and that of Francisco Franco after him, was repression. This included banning the use of the Catalan language and the Catalan flag and closing Catalan cultural organizations.
Was Rachel seen as a potential trigger for political unrest, and did her guided tours of Barcelona therefore take place out of sight of journalists? Or are the newspapers that covered her travels simply not reproduced in digital newspaper archives?
Whatever the case, surviving reports show Rachel giving interviews and attending official functions.
She talked about her horses:
"Le Huppe... is seventeen years old, but he is by no means old. Especially since he underwent a 'neurotomy' operation. He became so strong, agile, and playful that two or three days before setting out on the trip to Barcelona, he threw his rider from the saddle."
Neurotomy is a temporary treatment for pain (especially joint pain) that uses the heat from radio waves to shut off the ability of specific nerves to send pain signals. Applying this treatment to Le Huppé is an indication that the lameness he suffered at Cloyes-sur-la-Loire two days after he left Paris did not just happen in the moment, but was the symptom of a chronic condition.
"Va-au-Bout... is nine years old. He is docile and very resilient, so much so that he allowed her to finish the journey eight days earlier than her mistress had planned....
"She says that the greatest difficulty these horseback rides present lies in the exquisite care that must be given to the horse, scrupulously attending to its feeding and lodging and, in short, keeping a close eye on it at all times.
"A committee composed of representatives from the Polo Club, the Barcelona Tours Company, and a few others has offered to assist her during her stay in Barcelona." In other news, Rachel was "showered with honors by the capitalΓÇÖs sporting circles" (Las Provincias). The mayor of Barcelona let Rachel ride his favourite horse, and at a farewell reception she was presented with gold medal (Le Messin).
Rachel had told reporters that she intended to spend ten to fifteen days in Barcelona, and she returned to Paris by train on October 4 after ten days. She had specifically wanted to visit the World's Fair, but if she managed to get there we have no reports.
Did she write letters home with her impressions of Barcelona?
Barcelona is home to ten architectural gems (seven of them world heritage sites) by Antoni Gaudi, who died accidentally in 1926. Rachel could not help but see at least one of them. What did she think of it?
As with so much of Rachel's life, we simply don't know.