s, was the temple of their
order, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul; adjoining it a Jesuit school
was erected, which has been incorporated in the government colleges.

_Alcala de Henares_

About twenty miles to the east of Madrid lies the one-time glorious
university city of Alcala, famous above all things for having been the
cradle of Cervantes, and the hearth, if not the home, of Cardinal
Cisneros.

Its history and its decadence are of the saddest; the latter serves in
many respects as an adequate symbol of Spain's own tremendous downfall.

[Illustration: SAN ISIDRO, MADRID]

The Romans founded Alcala; it was their Complutum, of which some few
remains have been discovered in the vicinity of the modern city. Yet,
notwithstanding this lack of substantial evidence, the inhabitants of
the region still proudly call themselves Complutenses.

When the West Goths were rulers of the peninsula, the Roman monuments
must have been completely destroyed, for all traces of the strategic
stronghold were effaced from the map of Spain. The invading Arabs,
possessing to a certain degree both Roman military instinct and
foresight, built a fortress on the spot where the State Archives
Building stands to-day. This castle was used by them as one of Toledo's
northern defences against the warlike Christian kings.

In the twelfth century the fortress fell into the hands of the
Christians; in the succeeding centuries it was strongly rebuilt by the
cardinal-archbishops of Toledo, who used it both as their palace and as
their stronghold.

Outside the bastioned and turreted walls of the castle, the new-born
city grew up under its protecting shadows. Known by the Arabic name of
its fortress (Al-Kala), it was successively baptized Alcala de San
Justo, Alcala de Fenares, and since the sixteenth century, Alcala de
Henares (_heno_, old Spanish _feno_, meaning hay). Protected by such
powerful arms as those of the princes of the Church, it grew up to be a
second Toledo, a city of church spires and convent walls, but of which
only a reduced number stand to-day to point back to the religious
fervour of the middle ages.

The world-spread fame acquired by Alcala in the fifteenth century was
due to the patronage of Cardinal Cisneros, who built the university, at
one time one of the most celebrated in Europe, and to-day a mere
skeleton of architectural beauty.

The same prelate raised San Justo to a suffragan church; its chapter was
composed o