Chapter I: Decadence and Extinction (3)

The Inquisition recognized and felt acutely its altered position. In a report to the king on the subject of _visitos de navios_, made by the Suprema, in 1819, there are repeated confessions of powerlessness; the times are so unfortunate that its regulations fail to effect their object.[958] The same consciousness of weakness is manifest in the conduct of the occasional competencias which still occurred. In such of these as I have had an opportunity of examining there are a studied courtesy and evident desire to avoid giving offence, without wholly abandoning the claims of the Holy Office.

[Sidenote: _MISGOVERNMENT_]

To the same cause we may, at least partially, ascribe the marked tendency to mitigation of punishment--except in the case of political offenders--and to avoid all unnecessary hardship and humiliation of culprits. When, in March, 1819, the Madrid tribunal pronounced a severe sentence on Teodoro Bachiller, for propositions, the Suprema moderated it greatly in every way, in order, it said, to make him understand its benignity in taking care of his honor and of the comfort of his family. In January, 1817, Lorenzo Ayllon was tried in Seville for abusing a priest while celebrating mass and endeavoring to snatch away the host--offences for which, of old, he could scarce have escaped the stake, but now he had only absolution _ad cautelam_, a reprimand, two years of presidio followed by six years of exile, and the Suprema relieved him of the vergüenza which had been included. Even more marked was the case of Diego Blásquez, postmaster of Villanueba de la Serena, who with some others committed the sacrilege of burying a dog with funeral rites. The Llerena tribunal commenced a prosecution and sent the sumaria to the Suprema, which contented itself with ordering a courteous note to be addressed to the secular and ecclesiastical judges, expressing a hope that they would not permit a repetition of such scandals.[959] It would be easy to multiply similar instances, but these will suffice to show how completely, in dealing with offences against the faith, the spirit of the Inquisition had been tamed, and how factitious was the claim that its existence was essential for the preservation of religion, when there were over half a hundred episcopal tribunals perfectly competent to try such offences and perfectly ready to treat them with greater severity.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Fernando's reign had continued as it commenced. Under the influence of a camarilla of low-caste and ignoble favorites, who pandered to his vices and enriched themselves by trafficking in offices and in contracts and in justice, his government was a compound of brutality and imbecility, and the affairs of the nation fell into complete disorder. All the abuses that had flourished under Godoy were intensified and coupled with persistent cruel persecution of those designated as Liberals, who filled the gaols through constantly recurring lists of proscriptions. De Martignac, who, as royal commissioner, accompanied the Duke of Angoulême in the invasion of 1823, was a thoroughly well-informed and unprejudiced observer, who after a vigorous description of the misgovernment of Fernando sums up by saying "We can conceive the influence of such a régime on the prosperity of the land, and yet it is difficult to realize the extent of disorder, wretchedness and weakness to which it fell. It was necessary to resort to arbitrary taxes, to exorbitant duties which destroyed commerce, to loans raised without credit. It was impossible to provide for the most pressing necessities of the State; everything was neglected or abandoned; the army was unpaid; the navy, destroyed at Trafalgar, remained in ruins; the administration, destitute of all means of action, did nothing and could do nothing to improve conditions, or even to preserve what there was. From this arose the discontent of the people."[960] It can scarce excite surprise that the crazy enthusiasm of Fernando's welcome in 1814 had evaporated.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1820.

During this disastrous period, every year saw an attempt at revolution. In 1814 it was tried at Pampeluna by General Mina, who escaped; in 1815 in Galicia by Porlier, who was executed; in 1816 in Madrid by Richard, who shared the same fate; in 1817 in Catalonia by Lacy, who was shot; in 1818 in Valencia by Vidal, who was put to death. Again in Valencia a plot was formed to break out January 1, 1819, but it was betrayed and thirteen of the conspirators were hanged. O'Donnell, Count of la Bisbal, an able soldier and unscrupulous intriguer, was privy to this, but averted suspicion and was appointed to command an expeditionary force collecting at Cádiz for Buenos Ayres, against the revolted colony. With customary negligence, transports were not provided; the troops lay idle for months, discontent spread and a formidable conspiracy was organized, which counted on la Bisbal's support; he concluded that loyalty was safest and seized the leading plotters, for which he was rewarded with the grand cross of Carlos III., but suspicion arose; he was removed and replaced by the incapable Count of Calderon.

The situation, however, was growing impossible, and revolution was in the air. A portion of the troops were cantoned at las Cabezas de San Juan, a town not far from Cádiz. There, on January 1, 1820, Rafael de Riego, commander of the battalion of Asturias, assembled his men, made an inflammatory harangue, and they all declared for the Constitution. He made a dash for Arcos, where he captured Calderon and three of his generals, effected a junction with the battalions España and Corona, under Colonel Antonio Quiroga, and failed in an attack on Cádiz. Delay and irresolution followed, until January 27th, when Riego, at the head of fifteen hundred men, marched to Algeciras, where he remained until February 7th. Defeated in an attempt on Málaga, he reached Córdova on March 7th, with some five hundred despairing followers. No effort was made to capture them; the garrison and citizens looked on placidly, while Riego refreshed his men and headed for the Sierra Morena; they dropped off during the march and he was left with fifty followers; so far as he was concerned, the movement was a failure.

[Sidenote: _REVOLUTION ACCOMPLISHED_]

Still, its preliminary success had aroused the slumbering elements of discontent. On February 21st revolution broke out at Coruña and spread to Ferrol and Vigo, when the Count of San Roman abandoned Galicia without a struggle. Saragossa followed on March 2d, the captain-general and garrison joining the magistrates and people. When the news reached Barcelona, on March 10th the people rose and sacked the Inquisition, but did no injury to the officials.[961] Within a few days Tarragona, Gerona and Mataró followed the example, the garrisons participating in the movement. In Navarre, Mina's account of the rising shows that there was prearrangement, and that the municipal authorities and military officials were fully in accord. When he reached Pampeluna with a large force, gathered on his way from the border, he found that the revolution had already been peacefully accomplished on March 11th. Meanwhile la Bisbal, seeing that the movement promised success, spared no promises to obtain command of the forces concentrating in la Mancha to put down Riego's rising. He received the appointment and, on reaching Ocaña, he induced the regiment Alejandro to cry "Viva la Constitucion." The revolution was accomplished and was bloodless, save a hideous massacre at Cádiz of the unarmed multitude, perpetrated in cold blood by Don Manuel Freyre.[962]

During the two months of this desultory movement, which prompt action could so readily have suppressed, the court was nerveless and incapable. When the news came of the rising in Galicia, Fernando issued, February 28th, a plaintive appeal, promising amendment. His terror increased as evil tidings came pouring in, and on March 3d he published a decree bewailing the state of the kingdom, and announcing that he had ordered the Council of State to prepare a comprehensive scheme of reform. This was followed, March 6th, by another calling an immediate convocation of Córtes. It was too late; he found himself abandoned by all, even by his Royal Guard, which General Ballesteros reported was planning to retire to Buen Retiro and send a deputation asking him to swear to the Constitution. This was decisive and, on the night of the 7th, he issued another decree announcing his intention to do so. This was received, on the 8th, with popular rejoicings, but, as no further action was taken, an impatient mob, on the 9th, surrounded the palace with seditious cries and threats. The guard was impassive; Fernando was deserted and was absolutely alone when the crowd began to mount the stairs to demand that he should swear to the Constitution, but they were restrained on learning that he had ordered the reassembling of the Ayuntamiento of Madrid as it had existed under the Constitution. Its members were got together and proceeded immediately to the palace, where Fernando received them with warm expressions of affection; he took the required oath of his own free will, and ordered Ballesteros to make the army do the same. A general illumination and bell-ringing for three nights were ordered, and the people dispersed, not, however, without first visiting the Inquisition, releasing the prisoners and scattering the archives. Only two or three prisoners were found and these were political. Rodrigo tells us that the mob wanted them to pose as victims of persecution, but they prudently refused, and a neighboring cobbler was persuaded to exhibit himself as the presiding figure of the celebration.[963]

[Sidenote: _INQUISITION SUPPRESSED_]

On the same day, March 9th, Fernando issued a decree abolishing the Inquisition. This bore that, as its existence was incompatible with the Constitution of 1812, for which reason it had, after mature deliberation, been suppressed by the Córtes, and in conformity with the opinion of the Junta this day established, he ordered that, from this day, the Suprema and the Inquisition be suppressed throughout the monarchy, setting at liberty all prisoners confined for political or religious opinions, and transferring, to the bishops in their respective dioceses, their cases to be determined in accordance with the decree of the Córtes.[964] This was followed, March 20th, by a royal order providing for inventories of all property pertaining to the Inquisition, and reviving the decree of February 22, 1813; the Bureau of Public Credit was to take possession of and administer the property, until its destination should be determined by the Córtes shortly to be assembled, while the salaries of officials were to be continued. When the Córtes met, a decree of August 9th included this with other escheated property, to be sold at auction by the Junta nacional de Crédito.[965]

During the slow progress of the Revolution, the Inquisition seems to have been watching events with full consciousness of the fate in store for it if the movement should prove successful. A letter of January 19th, from the Seville tribunal to the Suprema, states that it had delayed the arrests of the Trinitarian, Fray Juan Montes, and of Don Tomás Díaz in consequence, at first of the epidemic, and then of the insurrection, to which the Suprema replied, January 24th, that it left future action to the prudence of the tribunal.[966] Considering how feeble at the time was the demonstration of Riego, this shows that its ultimate consequences were fully apprehended. Still the Inquisition continued at work, but the last case acted upon by the Suprema was its confirmation, February 10th, of a sentence rendered January 28th, by the Toledo tribunal, on Manuel de la Peña Palacios, priest of Ontoba. As the last act of the dreaded Holy Office, after a career of three centuries and a half, it has an interest beyond its inherent trivial character, and it will be found in the Appendix.

At least one liberated prisoner gave expression to his delight at his release. Don Antonio Bernabeu, a priest, had been a member of the Córtes of Cádiz and had been arrested with the others in May, 1814, but seems to have been released in about six months. He was a Jansenist of an extreme type and, in 1813, had printed a pamphlet to prove that the State could seize all ecclesiastical property and reduce the overgrown numbers of the clergy, putting those who were left on moderate salaries. The tract was a terrible indictment of the Church for its greed of accumulation, its neglect of duty and its departure from the old standards in concentrating all power in the pope, which he attributed to the Isidorian Decretals. On his release from prison, December 14, 1814, he hastened to denounce himself for this to the Inquisition and was placed in reclusion. In 1816 he denounced himself a second time for matters at first omitted. The fiscal presented the accusation, April 20, 1817, rather cleverly drawn, for it demanded precise definition of his opinions on the wide range of subjects, in which he charged the Church with deviation from primitive times, and specific proofs of his somewhat vague declamation as to abuses. To satisfy this would require the resources of a large library and years of research, while Bernabeu was confined in a convent and was denied even a copy of his offending pamphlet, besides being exposed to all manner of persecutions by his fellow inmates. His trial was still pending when the decree of March 9th liberated him; he was promptly returned as a deputy to the Córtes of 1820, and he celebrated his release by reprinting his pamphlet, with an account of his sufferings and his answers to the charges of the fiscal.[967]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _SUICIDE OF LIBERALISM_]

It would carry us too far from our subject to recount in detail the extravagancies and follies with which the triumphant Liberals invited the cruel reaction that awaited them. Moderation, perhaps, was scarce to be expected of men, smarting under the persecution of the last six years, and suddenly brought from fortresses and presidios, or from exile, to take charge of the Government, and to frame laws for the nation. That they should in turn persecute their persecutors was natural but impolitic; mutual hatreds were inflamed, and the land was divided into factions between which harmony and forbearance became impossible. The long centuries of despotism and the repression of independent thought and action had rendered the people incapable of the large measure of self-government provided by the Constitution. So-called patriotic societies were rapidly formed--de Lorencini, de San Fernando, la Fontana de Oro, la Cruz de Malta, la Landaburana and others--which in reality were Jacobinical clubs, where the most radical measures were advocated, and the most violent means of effecting them were urged. An unbridled press was busy in adding fuel to the flames and in stimulating the ardor which sought to realize anarchical dreams. Masonry had been busy in preparing the revolution, and with its success Masonry became the avenue to power and place; its lodges multiplied and were rapidly filled. Then, with the progress of advanced ideas, Masonry became too conservative for the _exaltados_, who left it and established the Comuneros, whose statutes formed a state of revolutionary character within the State. They rivalled the Masons in numbers and influence, and the virulent struggle for supremacy between the two bodies at times paralyzed the Government and neutralized the forces of order. The disorderly element existing in all communities was utilized whenever there was an object to be gained, and mob rule became of frequent occurrence, not only in Madrid but in nearly all the cities. The orders of the Government were obeyed or disregarded as suited the temper of the populace or of its instigators. Officials commissioned as captains-general or governors or magistrates were admitted or rejected; orderly administration was becoming impossible, and everywhere turbulence reigned supreme. Liberalism was committing suicide.

Yet Liberalism had need of its undivided strength to maintain itself against the opposing forces. Fernando, while playing the part of a constitutional king, was constantly plotting to throw off the yoke, and was entertaining secret relations with those who were striving to overthrow the Government. Successive Córtes seemed to take pleasure in exacerbating the hostility of the clergy, whose influence over the mass of the people was unbounded. Much of this legislation was no doubt salutary in itself but, at the moment, it was dangerous, and the blows succeeded each other so rapidly that the sufferers might well regard it as systematic persecution. August 31, 1820, a law organizing the national army exempted from service only such clerics as were actually in holy Orders. One of September 26th subjected all clerics, secular and regular, to secular jurisdiction for offences incurring corporal punishment. Within a week, another decree suppressed a large portion of the monastic Orders, and the Mendicants who were left were subjected to the bishops and consolidated into houses of not less than twelve inmates, and this was followed by other special decrees of suppression. The property of the suppressed houses was applied to the _Crédito público_ and, when Fernando refused his signature, a popular tumult was organized which frightened him into acquiescence. October 26th it was ordered that dispensations for marriage within prohibited degrees should be issued without charge to those applying _in forma pauperis_, thus cutting off a large source of income. When bands of insurgent royalists began to make their appearance, and were joined or led by priests, the bishops were ordered, April 20, 1821, to report what steps they had taken to punish them and, within eight days, to issue edicts requiring their flocks to obey the law. Then, on June 29th, without papal authority, a contribution of thirty million reales was levied on the clergy and, on the same day, the tithes were reduced one-half, while allowing some compensation in the removal of certain imposts. The clergy, not unnaturally, promoted disaffection, and to check this, decrees of November 1, 1822, authorized the Government, at discretion, to transfer from one place to another all parish priests and ecclesiastics, the cost of maintenance of those thus deported being thrown upon the bishops.[968]

[Sidenote: _QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH_]

In fact, the irreconcileable claims of State and Church rendered hostility inevitable. It was impossible for the latter to understand that, when it entered politics and became a political factor, it had to be treated like other political bodies. The theocracy of the middle ages had so long enjoyed power without responsibility that its immunity became part of Latin doctrine. Elsewhere the impracticability of this had been demonstrated, but in Spain the Church has never ceased to struggle for the maintenance of medievalism, or has understood that sedition in the pulpit should not be treated differently from sedition in the tribune. It refused to recognize that self-preservation is the first law of governments as of individuals, and that they cannot allow artificial privileges to work their destruction. The theory of the Liberals was that external ecclesiastical discipline was subject to the civil authority, while internal discipline was reserved to the Church. The Church asserted that in all things it ruled itself, and that any secular interference was a laying of profane hands on the Ark. The gage of battle was virtually thrown by Veremundo Arías, Archbishop of Valencia, who, on October 20, 1820, addressed to the Córtes a long manifesto, upholding all the extreme claims of the Church, and denying the distinction between external and internal discipline. On November 10th he was arrested and, on the 24th, was put on board ship and sent to France. This was the commencement of a persecution in which many bishops suffered. Alvárez de Palma of Granada was set aside and replaced by the liberal Archpriest Vinegas. Uriz y Lafaga of Pampeluna was summoned to Madrid but, on the road, was rescued by royalists and conveyed to France. Blas Beltran of Coria was banished. The Bishop-elect of Santa Marta (Colombia) received his sentence of exile on his death-bed in Plasencia. Cienfuegos of Cádiz had to fly to save his life. Pablo de Sichar of Barcelona fled and remained absent until 1823. Rentería y Reyes of Lérida was carried under guard to Barcelona, narrowly escaped execution, and was detained in Málaga until 1823. Ramon Strauch y Vidal of Vich was imprisoned in Barcelona, then sent to Tarragona and on the road, under a pretext, was made to descend and was shot with his attendant. Others who were exiled were Jaime Creus of Tarragona, Ceruelo de la Fuente of Oviedo, Rafael de Velez of Ceuta and Castillon y Salas of Tarazona.[969] It is true that the worst of these acts were committed by mobs or irresponsible parties in the growing disorders of the times, but they remained unrebuked and unpunished.

A government which thus treated its clergy was not likely to maintain friendly relations with the Holy See. One of the earliest measures of the new government was an act of August 17, 1820, suppressing the Jesuits.[970] Pius VII met this with a letter of September 16th to Fernando, deploring the perils that threatened religion and the Church and reciting the obnoxious measures taken, for which he had ordered his nuncio to make reclamation, but without effect.[971] Relations were not improved when, April 21, 1821, a decree suppressed all payments, whether in money or other equivalent, for papal bulls for archbishops, bishops, matrimonial dispensations and other rescripts, in lieu of which the paltry annual sum of 9000 silver dollars was offered.[972] This was unwise but still more so was the sending to Rome as ambassador of Joaquin Lorenzo Villanueva, towards the close of 1822, when the intervention of the Holy Alliance was impending. At Turin he was met by a papal order forbidding him to come further and asking the ministry to appoint some one else. Evaristo San Miguel, the Secretary of State, insisted; the papal foreign secretary replied that the opinions expressed by Villanueva in the "Cartas de Don Roque Leal" and in the Córtes were such that the Holy See could never receive him. To this the answer was to send to the nuncio his passports with orders to leave Spain. The rupture with Rome was complete and, in the eyes of pious Spaniards, the government had justified the clerical definition of the Constitution as heresy.[973]

The clerical temper thus stimulated is fairly exhibited in a little pamphlet by Padre Miguel Canto, parish priest of Callosa de Segura, celebrating the downfall of Constitutionalism. He is fairly drunk with joy and consigns the Liberals to the bottomless pit for eternity with vigorous delight. That the civil power should dare to assume any control over the externals of the Church fills him with astonishment and rage, all the greater in view of the suffering which it inflicted, especially on the regulars. Canto tells us that the fabric of his church had enjoyed a revenue of four thousand pesos, and that it was reduced to such poverty that he had not wherewith to provide wafers and wine for the sacrament, or oil for the lamps.[974] Yet the resources of the Spanish Church were such that it still had ample funds for political uses. When, in October, 1823, after his release by the French, Fernando travelled from Cádiz to Madrid, he received in voluntary offerings from the chapters of Toledo, Seville, Granada, Jaen and Cuenca, 11,970,000 reales in silver, although the land was in a condition of complete exhaustion.[975]

[Sidenote: _DEVELOPMENT OF REVOLT_]

It is not difficult to believe that the pulpit and the confessional were energetically used to inflame and organize the disaffection that rapidly succeeded to the enthusiasm for the Constitution. The new administration was no more efficient than the old. Ministries, hampered with the underhand intrigues of the king, perpetually guarding against eager rivals, and speedily engrossed with suppressing the armed resistance springing up on every hand, had little opportunity of rectifying the abuses which had made Fernando unpopular. To the people at large the only visible result of the revolution was that the Liberals in turn were persecuting the Serviles. The nobles, moreover were alienated by the suppression of _Mayorazgos_ and _Vinculaciones_, or entails and perpetual charges on lands, a reform which had long been urged by statesmen such as Jovellanos.[976] Willing and receptive listeners to clerical invective were abundant, and movements to overthrow the Government speedily began taking shape. Before the year 1820 was out, in Galicia there was organized a Junta Apostólica and in Burgos there was a crazy conspiracy of some frailes and a general.[977] Soon wandering bands of insurgents sprang up, among whom members of the clergy were conspicuous, as though it was a holy war. Suppressed in one place, they appeared in another, waging a guerrilla warfare like that against Napoleon. The land was torn with faction, and Liberals and Royalists seemed to emulate each other in contributing to its ruin. Early in July, 1822, the royal guards, with the secret connivance of the king, endeavored to gain possession of Madrid; after a sanguinary conflict in the streets they were defeated, when Fernando, from a balcony of his palace, stimulated the nationals in pursuit of the flying wretches. Civil broils are apt to be pitiless, but in Spain they assumed a ferocity not often witnessed elsewhere. If the Royalists in Catalonia massacred in cold blood the garrison of the Seo de Urgel, a Liberal noyade in Coruña despatched fifty-one political prisoners, many of them ecclesiastics and persons of distinction.[978]

The revolt was constantly assuming proportions more alarming, especially in Catalonia, where it had the almost unanimous support of the peasantry. The insurrectionary bands coalesced into a force of five thousand men styling itself the Army of the Faith which, on June 21, 1822, captured the Seo de Urgel and made it their stronghold. There, on August 15th, was organized a royalist Regency, composed of Creus, the exiled Archbishop of Tarragona, the Baron of Eroles, a soldier of some reputation, and the Marquis of Mataflorida. The Counter-revolution thus adopted a public and official character; the Regency assumed to speak for the king, held in durance by the Jacobins--in fact, as early as June 1st he had authorized Mataflorida to organize it, and was in constant communication with it, through one of the officials of the court. It obtained quasi-recognition abroad; it negotiated a loan of 8,000,000 with the Parisian capitalist Ouvrard and, with the support of Pius VII, it opened negotiations with Austria and Russia, offering surrenders of territory in exchange for aid.[979]

Spain was rapidly drifting into anarchy. The Government was too weak to suppress disorder, whether committed by friends or foes. Compromise between the factions was not to be hoped for, and even patriots could see that the only path to order lay through intervention from abroad. That this was impending became more and more evident. The example of Spain had been followed by Naples and Portugal, and then by Piedmont, in forcing on their sovereigns constitutions like that of 1812; the Holy Alliance took the alarm; the Congresses of Troppau in 1820 and of Laybach in 1821 ordered armed intervention, and the new institutions of Naples and Piedmont were readily overthrown. In May, 1821, communications from Russia to Spain, and a Russian circular to the courts of Europe, openly expressed dissatisfaction at the success of armed rebellion, with scarcely veiled threats of action in case the Córtes should prove disobedient to the monarch; and the conflict with the royal guard, in July 1822, gave the foreign ministers in Madrid a pretext for warnings which were diplomatically veiled threats of intervention.[980] Preparations for it were already on foot in France. An epidemic of yellow fever in Barcelona served as an excuse for establishing a _cordon sanitaire_ on the border, gradually strengthened until it became an army of observation and in reality a support for the Catalan insurgents, as Mina found when he conducted a successful campaign which in the beginning of 1823 forced the Regency to take refuge in France.[981]

[Sidenote: _INTERVENTION OF THE HOLY ALLIANCE_]

The Congress of Verona met in the autumn of 1822. The Urgel Regency sent there the Count de España as its representative to urge that Spain should be restored to the condition prior to March 9, 1820; the Government sent no envoy, relying on the friendly aid of England, represented by the Duke of Wellington. Without his knowledge the Allied Powers signed, on November 22d, a secret treaty, in which they declared against the sovereignty of the people, representative government and the freedom of the press, and in favor of the clergy as an instrument for enforcing the passive obedience of the subject; and each signatory pledged itself to a subsidy of twenty millions of francs annually to France, to which was assigned the duty of suppressing these destructive principles in Spain and Portugal, and of restoring the Peninsula to the conditions prior to 1820.[982] Even yet intervention was not certain, for France was not eager for the task, and there were some negotiations looking to modifications of the Constitution, but the Liberals would not listen to such suggestions. Châteaubriand, however, that curious compound of idealism, bombast and vanity, who, as French foreign minister and representative at Verona, takes to himself all the credit for the enterprise, is especially careful to point out that its real object was the restoration of France to the hegemony of the Continent, after the abasement of the Restoration by foreign bayonets--an object which he assumes was fully accomplished.[983]

Early in January, 1823, four notes from the Allies were presented collectively, offering, in more or less offensive fashion, the alternative of a return to absolutism or invasion.[984] These portentous communications were received with the utmost nonchalance. On the night of their reception, Secretary of State San Miguel carried them to the Grand Orient and drew up his replies, in which Fernando is said to have cunningly stimulated defiance to banded Europe. Whatever might be the decision of France, San Miguel said, Spain would tranquilly follow the path of duty and justice; its rule of conduct would be firm adhesion to the Constitution of 1812 and refusal to recognize the right of intervention on any side.[985]

These would be dignified and resolute words in a united nation facing a coalition but, under the circumstances, they were mere idle vaporing. The Government, in fact, was barely able to make head against the insurrection, save in Catalonia. Navarre, Biscay and Aragon were in open civil war, with forces equally balanced. In Murcia, the famous robber Jaime Alfonso was posing as the defender of the faith; in Castile, the Cura Merino and el Rojo de Valderas were levying war; in Andalusia, Zaldivar held his own in spite of repeated defeats; in Toledo and Cuenca, Joaquincillo and the Cura Atanasio were maintaining the rebellion; in Sigüenza the insurrection of Cuesta was organizing and was soon to break out. In short, the whole of Spain was in convulsion.[986]

The only explanation of the attitude of the Liberals is that they were living in a fool's paradise, and seem to have welcomed intervention in the belief that it would kindle national feeling and restore national unity. Hallucination was carried to the point that they anticipated a popular rising like that of 1808, that the forty thousand insurgents in arms would turn against the invader, even that the French troops would abandon their standards for those of Spain, and that England, which had calmly seen the Constitution overthrown in 1814, would provoke a war with all Europe in its defence. They closed their eyes to the fact that, in 1808, the clergy aroused the masses against the French and were now their warmest allies, eager to revenge systematic persecution; that the throne was secretly undermining them, and that they were without resources, for the treasury was exhausted, the army scarce existed save on paper, the magazines were empty, and the party in power was rent into bitterly opposing factions. A kind of delirium seized the deputies when San Miguel on January 9th laid the correspondence before the Córtes, and his replies were clamorously approved without distinction of party.[987]

[Sidenote: _THE FRENCH INVASION_]

Yet this effervescence soon subsided. A decisive victory gained by the insurgents at Brihuega, not far from Madrid, on January 24th, threw the capital into a tremor and, on February 16th, the Córtes adopted a decree looking to the transfer of the Government in case of necessity.[988] New Córtes opened their sessions March 1st and their first thought was to place themselves in safety, carrying with them Fernando, both as a hostage and as necessary to the assumption that the government of Spain travelled with them. Resistance on his part postponed the move until March 20th, when the exodus to Seville took place. There they remained until June, when the approach of the French necessitated a further flight and, on the 9th, Cádiz was selected as the place of refuge. This time Fernando resolutely refused to fly from his liberators and, as coercion of the monarch was incompatible with the theory that he was still governing, it was assumed that he was incapacitated by reason of a temporary delirium; he was deposed and a Regency was appointed which ordered the transfer to Cádiz; on the 12th the king and royal family left Seville; the Córtes adjourned to meet in Cádiz June 18th; in four days Fernando was declared to be again in his right mind and the Regency resigned. The spectacle of a flying Government dragging with it a captive king, whom it recognized as still actively reigning, was worse than ludicrous; it gave to Fernando a claim on the sympathy which he had forfeited, and served as an incentive and an excuse for cruel reprisals.[989]

Meanwhile the army of invasion had been gathering on the border under the Duke of Angoulême, nephew of Louis XIV. From Bayonne, on April 2d, he issued a manifesto to the effect that he did not come to make war but to liberate a captive king, to restore the Altar and the Throne, to release the priesthood from exile, and the whole people from a domination that was preparing the destruction of Spain. On April 7th the army crossed the Bidassoa, consisting of 91,000 men, of whom 35,000 were Spanish royalists. Its discipline was perfect and its conduct admirable. Everywhere it was received as a liberator, with cries of "Viva el Rey absoluto, Viva la Religion y la Inquisicion." Resistance was impossible and, although five armies had been organized, none worthy of mention was attempted, except in Catalonia, where the indomitable Mina prolonged the useless struggle until November, and at Cádiz, where the so-called Government was battling for existence. Siege was laid there on June 23d, and was prolonged until October 1st, when Fernando was ceremoniously conveyed to the camp of his French deliverers. Yet, if rhetoric could have repelled the invaders, they would have been glad to escape from the eloquence which accompanied a solemn declaration of war on April 29th, when Flórez Calderon boasted that the breasts of the deputies would make an impenetrable rampart around the constitutional King and his family.[990]

If the French came as pacifiers, they made a mistake in bringing with them a Junta Provisional of four rabid royalists, formally installed at Ozarzun, April 9th. It assumed to be the Government and issued a manifesto rescinding all the acts of the Revolution and restoring the conditions prior to March 7, 1820.[991] It used its authority in such unsparing proscriptions that even the royalists became alarmed and appealed to de Martignac, the royal commissioner accompanying Angoulême, pointing out the evils to be apprehended from such ferocity. Quarrels within the Junta afforded an excuse for superseding it, and Angoulême, on reaching Madrid, empowered the Councils of Castile and Indias to nominate a Regency, at the head of which was the Duke del Infantado. This body, on June 4th, published a manifesto promising to use its power to prevent persecutions and excesses, to maintain internal peace, execute the laws and make the royal power respected.[992]

These were fair words, belied by acts. The whole arrangement had been dictated by secret instructions from Fernando, and proscription and persecution continued as active as ever. The Regency confirmed a measure of the Junta organizing bodies of so-called Royalist Volunteers, whose duties consisted in arresting and imprisoning all whom greed or malevolence might designate as objects of suspicion, in which work they were aided by the mob, always ready for violence and rapine. In Saragossa fifteen hundred persons were dragged to prison by the populace led by priests and frailes. In Navarre, the guerrilla chief known as el Trapense committed revolting excesses. In Madrid and Córdova the gaols were crowded with prisoners. This work went on in most of the towns, as the national forces retreated, the victims being mostly citizens of wealth and position, while the pulpits resounded with exhortations to persecution and extermination and the French troops, in so far as they could, restrained the outrages.[993]

[Sidenote: _RELEASE OF FERNANDO_]

Despite his reluctance to interfere, Angoulême felt called upon to put an end to the cruelty and impolicy of these persecutions and, on his way to Cádiz, he issued from Andujar, August 8th, a decree forbidding arrests by the Spanish authorities without authorization from the commandants of the troops of the districts, who were instructed to liberate all political prisoners, and to arrest those who contravened these orders, while all periodicals were subjected to the inspection of the commandants. The foreign ministers, however, protested against this as an invasion of Spanish independence, which emboldened the Regency to remonstrate in a haughty and insolent manner. The Royalist Volunteers of Navarre, in a manifesto of August 20th, were prodigal of insults and menaces to the duke; a memorial addressed to him, August 23d, signed by Eguia and a large number of military chiefs and priests, stigmatized his effort at pacification as an attempt to perpetuate an impious faction, and demanded the restoration of the Inquisition. Wherever there were no French troops the decree was ignored and finally Angoulême, whether instructed by his court or afraid openly to oppose the Regency, issued an explanatory order, which virtually annulled the decree. Evidently there was to be no peace for the distracted land.[994] Even the Regency felt it necessary to disclaim responsibility for the horrors enacting on every hand. August 10th, it ordered the prosecution of the rioters who, at Alcalá, Guadalajara and Torrejon had committed terrible excesses under pretext of avenging the transfer of the king to Cádiz and, on August 13th, it commanded the people to restrain their zeal in making arrests but, while it was powerful to excite passion it was powerless to enforce order.[995]

When, in view of the hopelessness of further resistance at Cádiz, Fernando was informed, September 28th, that he was at liberty to seek the French camp, a tumult arose and a demand for guarantees. He summoned the ministers, telling them that he desired to give assurances and ordering José María Calatrava to draw up a decree declaring of his own free will and, on the faith of his royal word, that he would adopt a form of government assuring the happiness of the nation, the personal security, the property and the civil liberty of Spaniards, with complete oblivion of the past. The amnesty was rendered complete with elaborate details and, when it was presented to him for signature on the 30th, he said that, to remove all doubts, he would make some changes with his own hand, which he accordingly did, rendering some of the clauses clearer and more emphatic.[996] When, on the next day, he was received by Angoulême, he shut himself up with the Duke del Infantado and Victor Damien Saez, his former confessor, whom he appointed universal minister and, before the colloquy was over, there was drawn up and signed a decree of two articles; the first declared null and void all acts since March 7, 1820; the second confirmed the proscriptions of the Junta of Ozarzun and the Regency. Printed copies of this, together with that of the day before, were circulated to the no small perplexity of all concerned. Then General Bourmont, the French commander, learned that Ferdinand had passed secret sentence of death on some prominent liberals there present, whereupon they were conveyed on naval vessels to Gibraltar and saved from his sanguinary vengeance. This was but a foretaste of the wrath to come.[997] Prescriptive and oppressive measures followed each other and the persecution inaugurated by the Regency was sharpened and systematized.

TEN YEARS OF REACTION.

The French had already discovered that they had raised a demon whom they could not exorcise. They had restored unconditionally to absolute power a prince who was utterly faithless, whom no promises could bind, who cared only for the gratification of his passions, and who was surrounded by vindictive counsellors, eager for the blood and spoils of their countrymen. The prisons were crowded to repletion and the untamed ferocity of the multitude, stimulated by the pulpit, was let loose upon defenceless victims. It was a scandal in the face of all Europe and was felt acutely. Effort was made to repair the mischief, but with scant success. Fernando, on leaving Cádiz, had written to Louis XVIII, expressing his gratitude, and Louis seized the opportunity, in his reply, to impress on him his own example and that of their ancestor Henry IV, as the only means of bringing peace to a distracted land, warning him that a blind despotism weakened instead of strengthening royal power. Angoulême had manifested his disapprobation of the decree of October 1st, and a coolness arose between him and Fernando, which went on increasing. They parted, October 11th, Angoulême refusing all honors on his homeward journey, and leaving Bourmont in command. The French army was gradually reduced, but the last detachments did not leave Spain until November, 1827.

[Sidenote: _CHÂTEAUBRIAND'S FAILURE_]

Secure in this protection, Fernando was deaf to remonstrances. It is true that, when the ambassadors of the powers met him in Seville, under their pressure, he issued a decree, October 22d, holding out expectations of what he would do on reaching Madrid, but promises cost him nothing and these were as futile as those of September 30th. To emphasize the necessity of conciliation, the French cabinet prevailed upon the Russian ambassador, Pozzo di Borgo, to visit Madrid, in the name of the Holy Alliance. He arrived there October 28th and held long conferences with Fernando and Victor Saez, urging clemency and a general amnesty, but he met, in reply, with nothing but vague generalizations.[998]

If the welfare of a nation had not been at stake, the reflections of Châteaubriand on the success of his enterprise, and his correspondence with Talaru, the French ambassador, might well raise a smile. He was disgusted, he said, with having to do with a monarch who would burn his kingdom in a cigar, and he declared that the sovereigns of today seem specially created to destroy a society ready to perish. In Spain, the political sore is the king and it is almost impossible to apply a remedy. At first he assumed that he could dictate a policy, and asserted that he would not tolerate the follies of the king nor allow France to appear as an accomplice in stupidity and fanaticism. Talaru was to speak as a master; if the ministry was not to his mind, he was to have it changed, the threatened withdrawal of the troops being what would force Fernando to listen to reason. He soon found, however, that behind the ministry was the camarilla--the real power that could not be dislodged--and that the clergy was also a body to be reckoned with. Châteaubriand's effervescence wore itself out against the impenetrability to reason and argument of Fernando and his advisers, and his demands shrank to asking for a decree of amnesty--it would be badly framed, he knew, but at least it would have the appearance of doing something. After months of urgency, at last Fernando agreed to it. A fairly liberal scheme was drawn up but, after it had been submitted to the revision of the friends of Don Carlos, of the bishops, of the secret Junta de Estado and of the Council of Castile, its framers could scarce recognize it. While it offered pardon to all participants in the disturbances since 1820 in support of the Constitution, there were fifteen excepted classes, some of them vague and comprehensive. It ordered the discharge of all prisoners not comprised within the exceptions, but this was not obeyed. It ordered the bishops to contribute to bring about union, but few of them did so. It was dated May 1, 1824, but was not published until the 20th, and the interval was employed all over Spain in gathering evidence to bring individuals under the excepted classes, so that they could be arrested simultaneously with the publication of the decree; the prisons were filled with new victims, and the courts were overwhelmed with prosecutions. The courts, moreover, were supplemented with military commissions, whose procedure was informal and summary. The _Gaceta de Madrid_, between August 24th and October 12, 1824, chronicled 112 executions by shooting or hanging. Whatever scanty favor was shown to Liberals in the decree was more than counterbalanced by another of July 1st, granting pardon for all assaults and injuries committed on them or their property except when murder had resulted.[999] The Royalist Volunteers thus had full licence, and the Liberals were virtually outlawed.

[Sidenote: _DEMANDS FOR THE INQUISITION_]

Proscription and persecution were systematized in a manner without precedent, by the compilation of lists of all suspects. During the constitutional period, Fernando had kept a Libro Verde, noting down the names of all who displeased him, thus marking them for future vengeance. On his restoration to power, a secret Junta de Estado, consisting chiefly of ecclesiastics, was formed, whose business it was to gather information against all who were opposed to absolutism. Denunciations were invited from priests and frailes, from enemies and from the lowest class of informers, to whom inviolable secrecy was promised, and all the scandal and false evidence thus accumulated was recorded opposite the name of the party, for use as occasion might require. The list was divided into districts, and copies were sent to the respective intendants of police, who contributed such further names and charges as they could gather from all sources however vile. Thus every man's liberty and property were at the mercy of secret and irresponsible informers. It was a Libro Verde on a scale which the Inquisition itself had never imagined, and the system was more thorough and more dangerous to the innocent than that of the Inquisition.[1000] Such was the condition of Spain during the terrible ten years, from 1823 to 1833, known as the _Epocha de Chaperon_--Chaperon being the president of the military commission of Madrid and notorious for his cruelty.

One result of this is well set forth in a singularly outspoken representation addressed by Javier de Burgos to Fernando, January 24, 1826. He had been sent to Paris to negotiate a loan, and he ascribes his failure, not so much to the poverty of the land, as to the absence of peace essential to prosperity, and this arose from the successive proscriptions which had desolated Spain. Now, he says, simple police orders deprive of common rights whole classes, and subject them to penalties which in well-ordered countries can be inflicted only by tribunals. Much is said of the league of European bankers against Spanish credit, but this has only been made invincible by the efforts of the six or eight thousand proscribed exiles in England, France and Belgium. A few days ago the journal which represents commerce and industry said "As for Spain, it continues to fall rapidly into barbarism. It is a second Turkey, only more miserable and worse governed." Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile obtain loans, even though their independence is not recognized, but Spain cannot get a maravedí.[1001] It is creditable to Fernando that he took this plain-speaking good-naturedly and subsequently gave the writer the cross of Carlos III, but he was impervious to the good advice.

* * * * *

The decrees of the Regency and of Fernando, restoring the conditions prior to March 7, 1820, and invalidating all subsequent acts, seemed necessarily to revive the Inquisition. Its officials, however, hesitated to resume their functions without positive orders, and it was known that the French were opposed to its restoration. Numerous petitions for it were made to Angoulême, but he evaded categorical replies, saying that he would procure the liberation of the king and leave him to determine what would best promote the happiness of the nation.[1002] After Fernando's release, felicitations came pouring in, warmly thanking him for his proscriptive measures and among these were many urging that the Inquisition should be set to work. If, at the moment, he desired to meet these wishes, he was restrained by the earnest opposition of the Allies, who especially shrank from the responsibility of resuscitating an institution so universally abhorred. As Châteaubriand wrote to Talaru, December 1st, "We will not permit our victories to be dishonored by proscriptions or that the fires of the Inquisition be raised as altars to our triumphs" and, on December 11th, he declared it to be necessary that the royal confessor should not be an inquisitor.[1003]

Fernando, however, seems already to have questioned whether the Inquisition would really be of service to him politically and, as religion with him was merely a matter of policy, he preferred to let the question slumber, without committing himself. It is related that once, when a bishop of extreme views was urging upon him the utility which the Inquisition had always been to the crown, he walked across the room to a balcony and, looking up at the serene sky, exclaimed "What a cloud! a great storm is coming."[1004] His intentions, however, were indirectly manifested, by a decree of January 1, 1824, which withdrew from the _Crédito público_ the administration of the property of the Inquisition and placed it with the _Colector-general de Espolios_, who was charged to pay the salaries of all the officials of the tribunals.[1005] This indicated that there was no intention to restore the institution to activity, and to this Fernando adhered, notwithstanding the urgency which continued.

[Sidenote: _THE INQUISITION DORMANT_]

In fact, as the reaction established itself, Fernando could not but recognize that he had nothing to gain from the Inquisition and might risk something. His one object was unlimited absolutism. Circumstances had enabled him to attain this to a degree which none of his predecessors had enjoyed. The defeat of the Liberals was so complete, and the servility of the Royalists so great, that he could disregard whatever remnants of the old Spanish institutions had still placed some restraints on the crown. There was no secret made of this. A royal order of October 17, 1824, destroyed at a blow all the municipal self-government of Spain; the _Ayuntamientos_ of the towns were no longer to be elective; those in office were to choose their successors in thirds at a time, and the appointees were subjected to revision by the royal Audiencias while, in the preamble, the object of this was openly stated to be that there should disappear for ever from Spanish soil the most remote idea that sovereignty resided elsewhere than in the royal person, and the people should know that not the slightest alteration would ever be made in the fundamental laws of the monarchy.[1006]

The only claim of the Inquisition to efficiency, greater than that of the police and royal tribunals, was in its delegated faculties from the pope and, to a monarch thus resolved to concentrate in his own hands all power, it was naturally distasteful to employ for political ends foreign authority which, nominally at least, was not under his own control. This objection he might have disregarded, if he had reason to expect from the Inquisition any special service, but such there was not. While there still was law in Spain the Inquisition might be useful as being above the law, but now that law was merely the sic volo, sic jubeo, the Inquisition was superfluous, while its secret procedure was more tardy and cumbrous--perhaps even less certain--than that of the military commissions; and the system described above of lists of suspects with evidence gathered from every source by thousands of informers was far more comprehensive in plan and in detail than anything that the inquisitorial organization had ever attempted.

The Inquisition thus had nothing to offer and, careless as was Fernando of the public opinion of Europe, even he could recognize the wisdom of avoiding the odium of re-establishing an institution so generally condemned. To the victims it made little difference whether their judges were called military commissioners or inquisitors; their offences were justiciable by either, for the pulpits resounded with the doctrine that all Constitutionalists and Liberals were Jansenists and heretics--a doctrine justified by a royal order of May 2, 1824, to the bishops, requiring them to celebrate, in their dioceses, Missions calling the Liberals to repentance.[1007]