Poverty to Power

CARDINAL OF SPAIN -- Simon Harcourt-Smith-- Knopf ($3.50).

In the spring of 1718 Britain's dis affected Catholic clergy gazed out to sea ready to burst into a loud Te Deum.

Cause: the second Spanish Armada, which was carrying 5,000 Spanish troops to lead a west-of-England rising against Protestant George I. The fleet had been sent by Spain's wily Premier, Cardinal Alberoni.

But, like the first Spanish Armada, the second was scattered by a storm. "Human schemes, unaided by Providence, are of little or no use," reflected the Cardinal.

"Of the plans I devised . . . God had contraried all of them; there is nothing to be done but to adore His judgments. . . ." Cardinal of Spain is the first full-length study in English of the brilliant, plebeian, little-known prelate who "changed the whole history of the Mediterranean" and made one of Europe's most sensational poverty-to-power careers. "Had Alberoni been given two worlds like ours to destroy," grumbled Frederick the Great, an authori ty, "he would have asked for a third." Giulio Alberoni was born (1664) in the Grand Duchy of Parma -- until then, chiefly famed as the home of Parmesan cheese.

His father was a gardener, his mother a seamstress. Friendly priests taught him Latin and philosophy. Later he was ordained a priest.

Angelic Bottom. When the War of the Spanish Succession (England, Austria, Holland and Prussia v. France and Spain) broke out, Parma's Duke sided with the French. Abbe Alberoni, 33, was among those sent to pay little Parma's respects to French Marshal Vendome. The haughty Marshal received the Parmesan statesmen by rising from his privy seat and turning his bare butt to them. Cried Abbe Alberoni: "Checulo d'angelo!" ("What an angelic bottom!") Marshal Vendome was enchanted, soon signed Alberoni on as his private secretary. The shrewd secretary bought Vendome's vain generals new wigs, found art ists to paint their portraits, cooked them delicious Parmesan dishes. At the end of the eleven-year-long war, Abbe Alberoni was "the virtual quartermaster of the French army." In 1713 the Duke of Parma made him his agent in Madrid, an unofficial name for troublemaker.

Soon Alberoni was thick as thieves with Spain's uxorious Bourbon King Philip V, "who could not do without a woman in his bed, but who would allow into it no woman that was not his wife." This royal singularity Alberoni met with prelatical resourcefulness by promoting the charms of Princess Elisabeth Farnese of Parma as "a good Lombard girl . . . stuffed with butter and Parmesan cheese." Philip mar ried her.

Boiled Chicken Politics. The King could be controlled through his passion for boiled chicken; Alberoni sent him one every day. The Queen was both gluttonous and fussy. For her Alberoni imported Italian cheese, wine, ravioli, truffles and gooseberries (he insisted to the Duke of Parma that they were vital to the security of Italy). No matter how busy he might be with domestic and foreign affairs, the culinary Cardinal never failed to dash to the royal palace at mealtimes to cook the Queen her favorite dishes. If she did not see eye to eye with him on policy, Alberoni would refuse to cook for her. "If he wanted her to force some proposal of his upon her [husband], she would . . . set in motion the complicated system of springs thai sent her bed shooting away from Philip's."

Like other dictators, Alberoni confessed to three plausibly well-intentioned ambitions : 1) to put Spain back on its imperial feet; 2) to free his native Italy from Austria; 3) to restore peace to Europe. He reorganized Spain's industry, revitalized its civil service--the equivalent of Mussolini's making the railroads run on time.

By 1717 Alberoni had built the biggest Spanish fleet since the Armada. "It is my aim," he wrote, "that the King should remain at peace with everyone, in order that one day he may be in a position to make war on those who may not wish to be his friends." Meanwhile Alberoni shipped a Spanish army against Austrian-held Sardinia and Sicily.

England, worried about the threat of Spanish sea power, swooped down one summer morning and destroyed half the Spanish fleet. To his consternation, Alberoni found himself faced by half the armies of Europe. "When shall I be able to get out of this maze?" he cried.

Royal Jaywalkers. He hoped to make a quick war, followed by a lasting peace. But overnight, fat King Philip V discovered that he liked playing soldiers even better than playing husband, insisted on leading the Spanish armies into battle. From Paris, Queen Elisabeth ordered a snappy military suit of blue and silver (fighting was suspended while the new costume was passed through the hostile lines to her under a flag of truce), charged at the head of the troops with her quixotic husband. Patrols--under strict orders to avoid "all unnecessary embarrassments"--had a hard time to keep from capturing the royal pair. Alberoni had an equally hard time running the battles and cooking the Queen's meals. "This sort of existence can't go on!" he groaned. When the Quadruple Alliance demanded that Alberoni be ousted as one peace condition, Philip and Elisabeth, bored with war, threw their faithful servant out of Spain.

The Allies put a price on his head, charged him with "not having said Mass for six years, of blaspheming, of not wearing long robes ... of fornication with his mustachioed old housekeeper." He disappeared for a year, reappeared briefly in Rome on a prancing white stallion to cast his vote in the election of Pope Innocent XIII. By then he was almost forgotten by the warring powers. At the age of 88, Alberoni died, leaving behind him a seminary for the education of indigent student priests, a plan for the federation of Europe.

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