On the 7th of March, 1814, Ferdinand VII definitely received his passports from the French. Master of himself once more, he began to think of means of returning to the capital and recovering his former power. But, at the same time, he resolved to avoid doing anything that would seem to sanction modifications accomplished by the cortes, regarding such as an attack on his sovereign power. To enter Spain without making any promise at all was the essential point. The king’s counsellors proposed he should send a king’s messenger to Madrid bearing a letter carefully flattering the hopes of the Liberal party without undertaking to fulfil the slightest engagement with regard to it. Ferdinand acted on this advice, and charged General Zayas to bear to Madrid the news of his immediate return, and to give the regency a letter wherein were these ambiguous words:

The general set out for Madrid with this letter and hastened to arrive thither, where his coming produced the liveliest enthusiasm. The cortes affected to see in the message a pledge for the political future of their sovereign, and abstained thenceforth from those energetic measures alone able to save them. While they thus lulled themselves in fancied security, Ferdinand had hastened to gain the Spanish frontier by Toulouse and Perpignan. On the 24th of March he crossed the Fluvia, limit chosen by Marshal Suchet as the theatre which was to see the solemn restoration of the royal captive to the Spanish troops. The ceremony was carried out amid general enthusiasm, and all the people eagerly ran to assist at such a novel spectacle.

From this moment, Ferdinand, reinstated in his kingly prerogatives, found himself under a double influence, one drawing him to the representative system, the other towards that absolute monarchy which best suited his desires and tastes. In all the towns he went through, and particularly in Gerona where he had stayed some days, a people mad with joy, drunk with enthusiasm, had cast themselves at his feet, had dragged his carriage, and given most striking testimony of obedience and submission.[124]

Sure now of the destiny awaiting him, he decided to abandon the route fixed by the decree of the 2nd of February.

During this triumphal journey (24th of March to the 6th of April), the gravest events had taken place in France, and one may conceive that Ferdinand, before attempting his coup d’état, did not want to get too far away from the frontier, at any rate while the issues were doubtful. Certain events were very favourable: the entry of the allies into Paris; the creation of a provisionary government; Napoleon’s abdication, and departure for Elba; and lastly the proclamation of Louis XVIII, which should lead to the suppression of hostilities and the end of the war.

The Aragonese were just as unbridled as the Catalans in expressing monarchial fanaticism. So while the authorities remained faithful to the regency, the people showed such enthusiasm for the king that he could no longer doubt for an instant that he could now venture all. Old courtiers, interested in seeing the ancient court restored, constantly urged him to retake absolute authority.

Yet, while the storm was slowly gathering that would sweep them away, the cortes, always dominated by a perfectly unjustified feeling of confidence, never ceased publishing decrees which served to feed the general enthusiasm in the king’s favour. The weak royalist minority which still existed in their midst had ceased to make common cause with them. Its leader, Mozo de Rosales, had gone to Valencia carrying a representation in which the events of the past six years were considered as a passing saturnalia, similar to those which the Persians used to celebrate during an interregnum, and which put forth that order would only reign in Spain from that day when kingly authority should be reinstated in its integrity. Whilst the cortes waited with lively impatience to know their fate, they celebrated the fête of the 2nd of May with great pomp; ascribed several civic rewards to soldiers who had bravely fought in the war of Independence; transferred the seat of their meetings from the theatre of Los Canos del Peral to the convent of Doña Maria of Aragon; and decreed a death sentence against anyone demanding constitutional reform before eight years. Such were the acts of the cortes. The cardinal De Bourbon, president of the regency council, accompanied by the minister of state, Don José Luyando, was to present himself before the monarch, and a commission, presided over by the Bishop of Urgel, was to go on in front of him as far as La Mancha plains.

Ferdinand arrived the 16th of April on the borders of Turia. There he found everything had been prepared by the care of his uncle Don Antonio, De Macanaz, and Escoiquiz, to whom were united Villamil and Lardizabal, whose reverses at Cadiz had filled them with bitterness and spite against the representative system. The highest aristocrats came to Ferdinand offering him riches enough to enable him to act without the concourse of the cortes. General Elio, betraying his first duty and oblivious of obedience owing to the regency, promised the strongest assistance from all his army corps. A special paper, entitled Lucindo, boldly advocated a return to the old régime. The time had come to act in a decisive manner. Ferdinand applied himself to the work. In receiving the cardinal De Bourbon he affected to give him his hand to make him kiss it in sign of homage, as if to show that the regency was nothing but an emanation from his own authority. In the same fashion he received the commander’s bâton which the latter presented before the troops, as if by this to teach the soldiers that obedience was due to himself alone. He received representatives from the Persians with cordiality.[125] He made a cavalry corps precede him commanded by Don Santiago Wittingham, to Madrid, and then received a solemn oath from all the officers to “support him in all his rights.”

Such symptoms were decisive, and, once made public, he had only to exercise the direct absolute authority which he had just seized. This is exactly what happened. The king signed on the 4th of May at Valencia the famous manifesto now so mournfully celebrated. In this he stated that not only did he refuse to swear to the constitution or to recognise any decree extraordinary or ordinary, but he declared that constitution annulled, of no value either to-day or forever, as its acts had never been nor could be effaced by time. Then, without making known his absolutist programme, he marched straight on Madrid with General Elio, having given orders to the cardinal De Bourbon and Luyando to retire, the one on Toledo, the other on Cartagena.

It seemed impossible that the arrival of General Wittingham almost under the walls of Madrid should not open the deputies’ eyes as to Ferdinand’s intentions; nevertheless, they took no measures for their personal security. The execution of the Valencia decree had been confided to General Eguia, nominated captain in general of New Castile, and known under the name of Coletilla because of his attachment to old costumes and his habit of wearing his hair in a plait at the back of his head as in Charles III’s time. Eguia, who was commander-in-chief of Elio’s first division of troops, and who only preceded the king by some days, was supported by Wittingham’s cavalry and the underhand movements of the count of Montijo, who had raised the slums of Madrid against those favourable to the representative system. Under these circumstances he had not any difficulty in executing the coup d’état with which he had been intrusted. Thus, while Ferdinand pursued his triumphal march from Valencia to Madrid in the midst of a joy and enthusiasm officially worked up, midst subversive cries around him for the suppression of the constitution and re-establishment of absolutism, while he refused to see the cortes’ deputation who came before him at La Mancha, all vestiges of the preceding system were being carefully destroyed in the city. A terrible persecution fell on all the men who had helped in establishing the constitutional system.

In the one night of the 10th of May, 1814,—a day so celebrated in the annals of the Spanish liberals,—Eguia took from their houses and imprisoned all regency members, all state councillors, all deputies who were known as partisans to the constitution whether in the actual cortes or the preceding one. Of this number were the two regents Don Pedro Agar and Don Gabriel Ciscar, the ministers Don Juan Alvarez Guerra and Don Manuel Garcia Herreros, the constituents Muñoz Torrero, Arguelles, Oliveros, Villanueva, the deputies Martínez de la Rosa, Canga-Arguelles, and Cepero. Some had the good luck to escape, among these Toreño and Isturiz. As to the others, they were surprised in their homes. So unexpected was such a ruse in the then circumstances of the country, that no one had dreamed of taking the slightest precautions. The day after their arrestation they were constantly exposed to the insults of the multitude who reproduced in Spain all the excesses of that blind reaction in the south of France. The Madrid populace, after having torn away the corner-stone of the constitution, went in tumultuous procession to the quiet street where the prisoners were shut up, and there shouting “Death to the liberals!” they begged with frightful cries permission to drag the corpses in the mud as they had dragged the stone of the constitution.

This tumult was the work of the count of Montijo and several monks who, seeing the star of their ascendency reappear in the horizon—an ascendency lost for six years—had, at the same time as the Valencia decree was proclaimed in all the squares, circulated a scandalous leaflet having for the object an organised proscription and the raising of the masses against all partisans of the liberal system. Thus the 13th of May, 1814, saw Ferdinand’s triumphal entry into his capital. He had already given his reign the distinctive character that marks it out in history: an obstinate return to old ideas; a cruel proscription against all the men devoted to culture and intelligence and gifted with liberal aspiration; a stirring up of the masses by a recrudescence of religious fanaticism; an exaltation of monarchical principle pushed as far as absolutism, and a near re-establishing of the Inquisition, convents, favouritism, and all their fatal consequences.b

The great mass of the people, who were not enlightened enough to feel the want, or appreciate the blessings, of political liberty, had not sufficient experience of the benefits which the new institutions were calculated to confer to have conceived any value for them; and the troops, who, from their intercourse with the English army, might have learned some respect for liberty and equal laws, were hostile to the cortes on account of the neglect and injustice with which they had frequently been treated.

Ferdinand proceeded to acts for which no palliation can be found, namely, inflicting punishments upon those who had defended his cause when he himself had abandoned it, but had, in his opinion, forfeited all claim to his gratitude, by seeking to limit the power they preserved for him. Fortunately, however, Sir Henry Wellesley extorted from the king a solemn promise that no blood should be shed for political opinions. No lives therefore were taken. But the cardinal De Bourbon was banished to Rome. The only symptom of gratitude shown by Ferdinand to those who had so zealously served him, was his confirming to Lord Wellington the honours and rewards conferred upon him by the cortes.

In America the long-pending dispute with the United States respecting the boundaries of Louisiana and West Florida was finally settled by the sale of both the Floridas to that power. The war with the colonies continued, but altered in character. Ferdinand there took part with the cortes he had condemned, pertinaciously refused to acknowledge the equality, the sort of federal connection with the mother-country that the colonies claimed, and wasted the resources of Spain by sending his best troops across the Atlantic to assert the old Spanish monopoly. The colonies, exasperated by this return for their loyalty, now disowned the authority of Ferdinand, and proclaimed their entire and absolute independence. Ferdinand resisted these pretensions yet more vehemently than the former, but it was evident from the beginning that Spain had finally lost her transatlantic empire. Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines were her only remaining colonies.

As the short convulsion, which followed Napoleon’s return from Elba in the following spring and was terminated by the dreadful and glorious battle of Waterloo as finally sealing Bonaparte’s fall, produced no other effect in the peninsula than an order to arm, a detail of these affairs would be out of place here.q

THE REIGN OF TERROR

A famous society, that of the Exterminating Angel, had extended its roots over the whole country under the direction of a former regent, the bishop of Osma, and was moving all the apostolics of the peninsula as by a single mind. It had relations with the principal bishops to whom several owed their offices; its ramifications crept into all the monasteries, and much more violent than its French chapter it preached the extermination of all the liberals.

The military commissions set to work with a new activity aided by a mass of regulations whose laconism and hypocrisy were only equalled by their vigour and violence. They had the power of condemning to death all who were guilty of lèse-majesté, that is to say all who declared themselves opposed to the rights of the king or in favour of the constitution. With the help of this ambiguous phrase, any writer who put into print any words in which the rights of Ferdinand were doubted, anyone who in any manner whatever had co-operated in the revolution of 1820-1823; anyone who kept in his house a copy of the constitution, a portrait of Riego, any souvenir whatsoever of the illustrious exiles living in a foreign country, anyone who by a shout or word, spoken even in drunkenness, showed hatred of tyranny—any of these could be found guilty of lèse-majesté. A decree bearing the date of October 9th, 1824, which through some expiring sentiment of modesty was not inserted in the official gazette, but nevertheless was applied with care, suppressed all of the laws and delivered the lives of all citizens over to these tribunals. A premium was put upon information and a secret police penetrated into every household in order to divine the secret of consciences and to purge Spain of all the liberal element. Not age, sex, virtue, or poverty were protection against these terrible commissions; wealth alone sometimes saved from death. He who had some fortune bought his life with the greatest part of his property.

The commission of Madrid, presided over by a fierce brute named Chaperon, who acquired the melancholy honour of giving his name to the whole epoch, surpassed all its rivals in the number of condemnations and severity of sentences. It sent to the scaffold all those in whose homes portraits of Riego were discovered, and to the galleys the women and children who committed the crime of not denouncing their husbands or fathers. More than one well-born woman thrown into infamous prisons with the most odious criminals died of despair in the midst of the unjust abjection to which she saw herself reduced. Chaperon, like all the judges who consented to make themselves the devoted instruments of social hatred, rejoiced in the midst of the terror which his name inspired, and under the general torpor that it created. He assisted at executions in full uniform; they were fête days for him, and on one occasion, anxious to hasten the execution of one of his condemned (it was a national militiaman who had taken part in the defence of Madrid, the 7th of July, against the revolted guards), he pulled, himself, the legs of the poor victim already hanging from the fatal gibbet, and this exploit finished, retired, proud to have exercised the functions of executioner and judge.b

THE TYRANNIES OF FERDINAND “THE DESIRED”

The places left in the power of the French were evacuated one by one, and finally, on the 20th of July, Spain gave its assent to the treaty of peace and friendship which the allies had concluded with France on the 30th of the preceding May. In the beginning of May the king had found a ministry which he modified before the end of the month, but at the head of it each time he placed the duke of San Carlos. The system of persecution continued and everything which seemed to favour innovations was vigorously opposed. Ferdinand regained his power, the cortes had disappeared, the constitution of Cadiz existed only in people’s memories. The Spain of 1814 became again the Spain of 1807; as before, she was subject to the joint domination of prince and clergy. The legislative bodies which constituted the government and the chief judicial magistracy of 1808 were abolished in 1814.

Among the reforms introduced by Joseph’s government and by that of the cortes after him, there were some which were unjust, extortionate, contrary to the re-established order; but there were others which should have been retained or modified with reservations. The king had no thought of making a choice. He considered, not the nature of the acts, but their origin; the good and the bad, salutary reform and disastrous measure, all were included in a general proscription. The state, impoverished by a long war, had at hand timely assistance in the estates of the religious communities, without being obliged to impose heavy burdens on the people; never had there been such a favourable opportunity for limiting and regulating these exaggerated possessions which had fallen into mortmain. A measure calling for investigation and reform which had been authorised by a papal bull under Charles IV might now have been carried into effect. But no attention was paid to anything of the kind. All their goods of which the cortes had disposed were returned to the convents, and at the same time a royal order re-established the holy office of the Inquisition on the ground that the government of usurpation and the pretended cortes had regarded the suppression of this tribunal as a very efficacious method of furthering their perverse schemes. The Jesuits were recalled, receiving again the goods which had belonged to them in the preceding century.

The administration of the realm was with great pains thrown again into the secular confusion out of which so many ministers had laboured to disentangle it. Instead of the happy division of territory decreed by the cortes, there reappeared the spectacle of provinces governed by captains-general, who added to their plenitude of military and administrative authority certain judicial attributes. Lastly the councils of Castile, of the Indies, of the orders, of finance, marine and war, authorities independent of the ministry, whose traditions made them hostile to any reform undertaken in the interests of the reigning power or of the people, began again to operate.

Around Ferdinand was formed that too famous camarilla[126] controlled by the Russian minister, which, wholly lacking in a broad outlook, seemed to have no object but destruction and vengeance. At the same time that it overturned all which the revolution had done for the unity of Spain, it struck at all those men who had incurred its hatred. Ten thousand Spaniards had had the misfortune to attach themselves to the French cause; they were banished and their goods confiscated. The members of the regency, those of the cortes, all the ministers, all the individuals who had taken part in framing the constitution or had been zealous partisans of it, were brought before commissioners to be tried with no legal formality. The number of the condemned was considerable: presides, imprisonment in the citadels, exile—such were the penalties inflicted; the king made no use of his right of pardon and these acts continued with cold perseverance. Two years after the king had regained his full power, the prisons were still full, and long proscription lists still appeared at intervals.

Such a government could not fail to have a dire influence on the interior prosperity of the country; but it is difficult to imagine the extent of the disorder into which everything had been thrown. It was necessary to resort to arbitrary taxes which caused discontent without affording much relief to the treasury and to exorbitant custom duties which completed the destruction of commerce by breaking off all relations with foreign countries. The old régime, to remain in possession of Spain, would have needed the treasures of the New World to hold the country in subjection, and to defray the expenses of an administration useless at its best. But then it would have had to get the better of the insurrections already victorious or soon to be so in Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Buenos Ayres, and Mexico, and to combat all the points of that immense continent at once. In order to quell their revolution, which was termed a revolt, an army needed first to be procured. To embark this army a fleet was necessary for the equipment of which both time and means were lacking; the government was reduced to bargaining for ships with Russia. In order to obtain immediate assistance it had to resort to a system of credit and give some assurance of a good administration together with securities for the public debt. This necessity was so pressing that in the ministerial council Don Martin Garay, surnamed the Necker of Spain, and several others of the same school were placed at the side of men like Eguia and Lozano de Torres, those defenders of ancient customs.

Garay had to promise services for which he had no resources and at the same time establish credit for an enormous public debt, the securities for which had just been taken away. Garay had counted on resources which were daily becoming more illusory through the complete cessation of commerce and the disastrous state of agriculture. Events in America demanded an expenditure of forces which Spain could not have mustered even in her palmiest days. When Garay wished to resort to more radical measures, he was sent into exile. Nothing seemed able to uplift the credit of the industrial situation of Spain, blockaded from Cadiz to Corunna by the corsairs of the insurgent colonies, compromised with the United States for Florida, and obliged to purchase the seeming neutrality of England in the struggle with the colonies.

A SERIAL REVOLUTION (1814-1822 A.D.)

By reason of so much capricious violence the upper classes had become discontented and the people indifferent, the government was reduced to relying on armed force. But the army itself, ill equipped and ill paid, was become a hotbed of insurrection. Secret societies were organised everywhere and complaints led to plots. The well-known guerilla Mina responded by an armed revolt to a refusal to give him the title of captain-general in Navarre, but he was abandoned by his companions and escaped death only by flight to France in 1814. In 1815, General Diaz Porlier incited the garrisons of Corunna and Ferrol to revolt for a brief space, and proclaimed the constitution of Cadiz. He was also abandoned and ended his life on the gallows. Even in Madrid a conspiracy was formed headed by War Commissioner Richard, who perished on the scaffold in 1816. The next year General Lacy undertook in Catalonia what Porlier had attempted in Galicia. The plot was discovered and Lacy shot. In Valencia in 1818 also revolts took place; the captain-general Elio[127] seized the insurgent chief Vidal, who was immediately hung with twelve of his accomplices.

So many unsuccessful attempts served only to irritate the malcontents who still hoped to find better support among their companions at arms. Such was the disposition of a number of officers at Cadiz, where an army was slowly and with difficulty being got together for a definitive expedition against the rebellious colonies, upon which all the hopes of the Spanish government were concentrated. The soldiers were frightened by tales of old mutilated warriors who had returned from Colombia. They were made to see the possibility of escaping the misfortune which awaited them without being exposed to the reproach or suspicion of a lack of courage. They were told stories of the last war, of the liberty conquered and then lost, of honour compromised.

The conspirators had more hope of success because they had the chief of the expedition himself, O’Donnell, the count of Abisbal, on their side; but this general turned traitor, denounced the conspirators, and even arrested some of them. But he too was later suspected, and was recalled with all the signs of disgrace. Persecutions recommenced. Everything pointed to a redoubling of rigour which in turn produced a redoubling of irritation and also of hope. The conspirators again took up their plans which had been interrupted for an instant, but this time they did not look to generals for help. A less distinguished leader gave the impulse to revolt in one of the cantonments.

The 1st of January, 1820, Rafael del Riego assembled a battalion encamped in a village, presented it with the constitution of 1812 as the law of the country, to which he made it swear allegiance, marched upon Arcos, surprised and captured O’Donnell’s successor Calderon with his staff, and continued his march upon San Fernando where he was joined by Colonel Quiroga. But the gates of Cadiz remained closed to them, the garrison and the fleet took on a hostile attitude toward the rebels. At the same time an army of thirteen thousand men under General Freire arrived with forced marches to quell the insurrection. Thereupon Riego advanced towards the centre of Andalusia preaching insurrection and proclaiming the constitution of Cadiz. But the general indifference of the country was enough to thwart the enterprise of the insurgents. There was discouragement in the camp at the isle of Leon and, the governmental forces accumulating in Andalusia, it seemed that the rebellion was about to expire.

But the emissaries charged with arousing the provinces worked without relaxation. The 21st of February they succeeded in proclaiming the constitution in the capital of Galicia. Ferrol followed this example the 23rd. The same thing took place at Vigo. The government tried to compromise with the revolution and offered to assemble the cortes, but no confidence was placed in these promises because it was remembered that the decree of May 4th, 1814, by which the constitution was abolished, had promised to convoke the cortes but had not been carried into effect. The revolutionaries of the capital incited by the feebleness of the government worked openly towards their object. General Ballesteros, who came to Madrid to declare to the monarch that he must accept the constitution, was hailed as a deliverer by the king; the 9th of March Ferdinand took the oath for this act which he detested, at the moment when Riego’s column, reduced to a few men, was forced to disband, and the garrison at Cadiz was energetically opposing the insurrection.

When the king had sworn to observe the constitution of 1812, the people and the troops which still remained faithful gave up without resistance. Everyone had been affected by the disastrous effects of the régime to which the country had been subjected for several years and all were glad to be freed from it without a civil war. The prisons were opened. The reins of government were in the hands of ministers whose ideas were wholly popular. Several provinces were governed by juntas, one was established even in the capital, which was known as the provisional junta. The government consulted it on all important matters. The country awaited with impatience the arrival of the deputies who were to give it a better order of things than that from which it had just been delivered, instead of giving thought to the necessary improvements. Thoughtful minds perceived that it was necessary substantially to modify the civil legislation; to render remunerative large masses of untaxed property; to negotiate with Rome a reform which would alter the position of the clergy; to re-establish the financial situation; to place the provinces under a common law, combining extensive local liberty with unity of administration; above all not to imitate the preceding government in its deeds of violence.

The first acts of the cortes showed that it understood its task. An important law concerning entailed estates was passed in a spirit of wisdom; they were placed in the category of free property and their owners could dispose of them with certain reservations and just conditions. But the assembly was largely composed of members of the special cortes of Cadiz who considered the work of the constitution perfect and would suffer no change in it. Thus, before proceeding to anything else, it was necessary to deal with those who had opposed their constitution in 1814—the sixty-nine deputies known as the Persians, who had presented the king at Valencia with an address in favour of absolute power. On the other hand the enthusiasts wanted to advance much more quickly in the path of improvement. There soon came to be a distinction between the liberals of 1812 and those of 1820. The radical party soon kept no bounds; its papers, its clubs attacked the ministers, the cortes, the king. It was supported by the army of the isle of Leon, and the government wished to disperse the bodies composing the latter among the different garrisons. The men of the isle of Leon thereupon took occasion to send to Madrid Riego, who was commander-in-chief during the absence of Quiroga, deputy to the cortes. Here applause and ovations were lavished upon the leader of the men of 1820, who, carried away by popular favour, braved the cortes and the ministers. But the garrison and the national militia decided for the established order. Riego was exiled to Oviedo, the army of the isle was disbanded.

Nevertheless the presence of Riego at Madrid gave an impulse to the radicals which remained after his departure. Fresh conspiracies were brought to light against the new régime. The discussion of the law regarding religious orders was affected by their attitude of mind. They tried to accomplish at once, what should have been the work of years. In immediately suppressing the greater part of the religious congregations and putting their goods up for sale, difficulties of more than one kind were created. In Catalonia and Valencia troops had to guard the gates of the monasteries day and night to prevent pillage and massacre. The king had hesitated to sanction the decree, and, after the session closed on the 9th of November, he made an unsuccessful trial of absolute power by nominating General Carvajal captain-general of New Castile, without the signature of the minister of war. The fermentation then became terrible and the minister augmented it in order to frighten the king. The latter threatened and insulted on all sides was forced to return to Madrid from his retreat in the Escorial. When one day his bodyguard was moved to pity by the dangers he ran, their quarter was besieged and the corps disorganised. The ayuntamiento of Madrid imposed their measure on the government.

After having swallowed so many affronts Ferdinand wished to make an attempt to shake off the yoke. He hoped with his new resolution to impose on his adversaries, who were troubled by the attitude of the great European powers, since England alone had frankly recognised the constitutional government. Russia had not concealed her displeasure at the triumph of the insurrection. Prussia and Austria held themselves in a reserve which boded no good, and France had tried to bring about a change in the position of the king of Spain. Ferdinand chose the opening of the second session of the cortes, on March 1st, 1821, to deliver his attack. After finishing the customary address prepared by his ministers he read a supplement added by himself complaining of the ministers who had permitted his person to be subjected to such outrages. The next day he dismissed them and chose a new cabinet from the moderate party of the chamber. Events in Piedmont and Naples gave cause for conflicting sentiments. Attempts of the absolutists gave rise to disturbances in Valencia, Corunna, Seville, and Barcelona. The king in order to ward off the anger of the demagogues sent a message to the cortes expressing his grief over events in Italy and his sympathy with the Italian patriots. The ministry, also desiring to forestall public defiance, on April 17th proposed two laws, one of which pronounced a sentence of death on all who should try to overturn the religion of the constitution, and a decree of banishment against any person who used any expression tending to such an overthrow. The second law provided that those accused of conspiracy and arrested by armed force, whatever their social position, be placed before a military tribunal chosen from the corps which had made the arrest. Judgment was to be pronounced within six days, and executed within forty-eight hours after being confirmed by the chief military authority. There was to be no appeal or exercise of pardon by the king. The populace would have liked to apply this law to all political offenders.

Confusion increased from day to day. Republican uprisals took place in Malaga and Barcelona. In the environs of Manresa were armed bands in the name of “the faith.” There was conspiracy at Murcia and absolutist agitation at Malaga. Bands were arming themselves on the frontier of France, and no one knew where to turn for money to organise the sadly needed troops. The cortes was moreover beginning to give way before the weight of events which attacked it on all sides. The question of the independence of America terrified it, and it did not care to renounce the pretensions of despotic Spain over men who had made use of the right of insurrection. But negotiations proved useless. Out of so many vast possessions Spain retained only a few fortified places occupied by the remnants of its armies.

Riots became more and more frequent at Madrid, but they were put down by the courage and sangfroid of Morillo. The cortes separated February 22nd, 1822, at a moment when Seville and Valencia were given up to rebellion, the Basque provinces and Navarre were infested with bands armed in the name of the altar and of the throne, others in Aragon, Alcañiz, Calatayud, Alagon, and Caspe proclaimed the authority of the Virgin and of religion.

The new cortes opened the 1st of March, 1822, with Riego as president, who very soon fell into discord with the new ministry presided over by Martínez de la Rosa. The quarrels between the branches of power incited absolutist riots and revolutionary insurrection throughout the country. The cortes finally decided to send a message to the king informing him of the necessity of putting a stop to the critical situation of the realm. After stating its complaints it demanded more resolute men at the head of affairs, and also the expulsion of prelates and priests who preached fanaticism and rebellion. The king relying on popular manifestation in his favour did not reply to the deputation. In Catalonia was a considerable body called Army of the Faith under the command of Miralles, Romagosa, and Marañon, called the Trappist, who succeeded in capturing Urgel by assault.d

CHÂTEAUBRIAND’S ACCOUNT OF THE CHAOS

The eminent writer Châteaubriand, who was a representative of France at the Congress of Verona, and who was one of the principal advocates of the French invasion of Spain, has brilliantly pictured the chaos of affairs, in 1822, which led him to think French intervention necessary. We may quote briefly his description:

The press, secret societies, clubs, had disorganised everything. Barcelona, Valencia, Pamplona had risen. One side cried “Vive Dieu!” the other “Vive Riego!” Killing was carried on in the name of Him who murders not and of him who murders. At Madrid, regiments fought against the royal grenadiers; young men walked about the streets crying for absolute monarchy. God and the king! It was all one in Spain; las ambas magestades. In the very house of cortes, deputies were saying that a refusal to listen to the popular complaint authorised dagger justice. Riego, the president, was powerless. He was always ready to sing the Trágala.[128] A couplet of it might at any moment mean a crown; but, if it was not good, the crown would vanish, and one would remain on the highway with the throne changed into a mere stage.

The serviles, who paraded their name as proudly as though it were a royal designation, profited by one hour’s respite and reaction against secret societies to re-seize power. Royalist risings replaced revolutionary insurrections. The Descamisados, matadors in servile pay, were beaten in their turn. They revived the human sacrifices of their Carthaginian ancestors. Monarchical sections appeared under the old guise. Govostidi, Misas, Merino, fabulous heroes of the presbytery, rose in Biscay, Catalonia, and Castile. Insurrection spread. Quesada, Juanito, Santo-Ladron, Truxillo, Schafaudino, and Hierro were all alive with it. Finally Baron Eroles showed himself in Catalonia. Near him was Antonio Marañon. Antonio, called the Trappist, was first a soldier, then fled into cloistered life under the influence of passion. He carried cross and sword with equal enthusiasm. His military dress was a Franciscan gown, on which hung a crucifix. At his waist hung a sword, pistols, and a rosary. He used to gallop along carrying a whip. Peace and war, religion and license, life and death, were united in one man, who alternately blessed and exterminated. Crusades and civil massacres, psalms and war hymns, Stabat Mater and Trágala, genuflection and jota Aragonese, triumphs as martyr or soldier, souls mounting heavenwards to strains of the Veni Creator, rebels shot to military music—such was existence in this corner of the world.

Ferdinand, on the banks of the Tagar, rio qui cria oro e piedras preciosas, had sworn to the constitution only to betray it. Sincere friends invited him to modify instructions, working with the cortes. Shortsighted friends urged him to overthrow them; royalist successes secretly flattered the king; the hope of an uncontrolled sovereignty gratified him. Want of power to wield power made him love it the more.

The king’s birthday fell on the 30th of May. It was celebrated by the peasants of La Mancha, reunited at Aranjuez. In vain the soldiers repeated the patriotic cry of the peasants, even as the bodyguard at Versailles sang “O Richard! O mon Roi!” If France had not soon interfered, Ferdinand would have followed where Richard led Louis XVI. The militia marched on the people, and a townsman lifted his sword against Don Carlos—that last of the kings and one who waited so heavy a crown. At Valencia, a detachment of artillery wanted to deliver General Elio, shut up in the citadel. The Catalonian insurgents, now organised, had taken the name of the Army of the Faith.f

CIVIL WAR

On the 21st of June, 1822, the Army of the Faith learned the isolated condition of the feeble garrison in Seo de Urgel. Romanillo, Romagosa, and Miralles, with the Trappist, arranged to meet under its walls. Helped by the citizens, they immediately surrounded the citadel. An assault was decided on, and the Trappist, setting an example to the soldiers, was the first to scale the tower, a crucifix in one hand, in the other a long whip, emblem of power. He braved the balls directed against him, and the soldiers, persuaded of his invulnerability, followed after. The tower was taken, the other forts were surrendered, and next day the citadel, with sixty artillery pieces and sixteen hundred guns, was in the hands of the apostolics. This first success was most important, for the French aides had, in promising help, made a formal condition that the Army of the Faith should possess at least one stronghold.

In proportion to the consternation excited among the leaders by the taking of Seo de Urgel, so was Ferdinand strongly roused and the courage of those about him stirred. It was now a question with them all of quickly striking a decisive blow. The instrument for this was soon found in the royal guard, wherein most lively discontent reigned because the cortes had shown intention of reorganising it, and who, seeing themselves in danger of losing all their privileges, had decided to fight against the national militia, whose principles were particularly odious to them.

This guard at Madrid alone numbered six entire battalions; that is, a more considerable force than the rest of the garrison, and there was, moreover, a brigade of carbineers, then in garrison at Castro del Rio, near Cordova. A young officer, already celebrated at Cadiz for his royalist devotion, Don Luis Fernandez of Cordova, received from the king or had a self-imposed mission to concentrate all this military force and lead it against the established system. The projected reforms of the cortes made this easy, and, on the 25th of June, the carbineers of Castro del Rio raised the standard of revolt in Andalusia. At Aranjuez and Madrid the royal guards began a series of struggles with the people and the militia—struggles which every day became more animated. On the 27th the court returned from Aranjuez to the capital, and this was the signal for fresh outbreaks. The royal ceremony of closing the first session of the cortes took place on the 30th. This important act was carefully observed, because Ferdinand did not think himself really in a position to act until he had freed himself from these importunate adversaries. But on returning from the ceremony, when the king had just regained his palace, a lively quarrel burst out. Some shouted “Long live our absolute king!” and some “Long live the constitution!” The guards were simply furious. Stationed at the Plaza de Oriente, they suddenly returned to the crowd, drove them back, and chased away some national militia picketed on the square. Then they organised themselves in military style as though in an enemy’s city. Some among their officers belonged to the cortes, one of them, Mamerto Landáburu, wanted to recall his men to discipline. They insulted him, whereupon he drew his sword to punish the offenders himself, but, far from being listened to, he became their first victim. Three grenadiers struck him behind and he fell bathed in his own blood at the very gates of the palace.

The Madrid populace had for two years been too accustomed to scenes of tumult, to rise at the news of an isolated act. But the national militia took arms incontinently, and seized two plazas.

It was a critical moment for Ferdinand. Supported by a military force which would only take orders from himself, he could find a serious concourse in the ministry against all his enemies, if he only consented to the drawing up of a charter and granting the representative institutions for which he had shown so much anxiety before M. de Villèle. But the king thought himself now in a position to acquire absolute power. He knew that a regiment of militia had joined with the carbineers at Castro del Rio; and he had seen insurgent troops of Andalusia coming to help his guards at the very doors of his palace. However, he had to reckon with the militia and the garrison of Madrid, and these two elements were preparing to fight with a calmness and courage that argued success. These formed under the name of the Holy Battalion, and under Don Evaristo San Miguel there was a special corps composed of ardent patriots. The most distinguished generals, Ballesteros, Alava, and Palarea, showed inclination to make the laws respected. For several days the two parties remained face to face. The two battalions stationed at the palace were vilely seduced by the king and his courtiers. Money was freely scattered among the guards, and they were excited to fight by promises of all kinds.

By the 6th the necessity of taking a definite step was felt. But favourable news arriving of the insurrection of Castro del Rio, the aspect of affairs suddenly changed. Orders were given that neither the ministers, the state councillors, nor the political leader were to leave the palace, as grave events might happen during the night.

And just so it happened. The four Pardo battalions marched on the capital in the hope of surprising it and disarming the national militia. Arrived at one of the chief gates, they divided into three columns, one making for the artillery park, a second to the Puerta del Sol, and a third to the Constitution square. As fate so willed, the first column met a patrol of the Holy Battalion, and this circumstance decided the issue of the struggle. A few stray shots awoke the people. In an instant every patriot was afoot; each ran to his post, and the guards were driven from the artillery park and the Plaza Mayor. They retired in sufficiently good order on the Puerta del Sol column, which had tried to take the Casa de Correos, but had been stopped by means of a strong barricade put up behind the door. A governmental committee exacted that the four rebellious battalions should lay down their arms, and allowed the other two to go out armed to settle in the villages of Vicalvaro and Leganes, with the one condition that they should give up the murderers of Landáburu.

This capitulation ought to have ended the struggle, but did nothing of the sort. The four battalions to be disarmed refused obedience, going out of the palace by a gate which led to the Campo del Moro and fleeing in the direction of Alcorcon, after discharging their arms at the militia. After this, no conciliatory efforts were made. Three columns, commanded by Ballesteros, Copons, and Palarea pursued and smote them hip and thigh, killing a great number and taking many prisoners. If some stories can be believed, Ferdinand crowned his infamy in these memorable days by personally urging on the conquerors. “After them! After them!” cried he to Morillo from his balcony, so ordering the extermination of those who had given themselves to his cause.b