XI. 1821. 26. State of public opinion. CHAP. elections, and the indication they afforded of the state of opinion in the wealthier classes, in whom the suffrage was exclusively vested, the tone of general feeling was very much opposed to this; and the results of the elections tended only to augment the discontent generally felt in the towns, at least in the middle classes of society. These important classes, who alone had emerged unscathed from the storms of the Revolution, were extremely ambitious of enjoying the powers and the freedom of self-government, and felt proportionate jealousy of an administration which was based on aristocratic influences, and closely connected with the ultra party in the Church. It was the latter circumstance which, more than any other, tended to depopularise the Government of the Restoration, and in its ultimate results induced its fall. The reason was, that it ran counter to the strongest passion of the Revolution, and the one which alone had survived in full vigour all its convulsions. That passion was the desire of freedom of thought-the strongest wish of emancipated man-the source of all social improvement, and all advances in science, literature, or art, but the deadly enemy of that despotism of opinion which the Romish Church had so long established, and sought to continue over its votaries. The Royalists committed a capital mistake in allying themselves with this power-the declared and inveterate enemy of all real intelligence, and therefore the object of its unceasing and unmeasured hostility. Those best acquainted with the state of France during the Restoration are unanimous in ascribing to this circumstance the increasing unpopularity of Government during its later years, and its ultimate fall.* Andmarkworthy circumstance!-at the very same time, it * "Religieux par nature, je dis avec douleur, ce qui fit le plus de mal à la Restauration, ce fut précisément cette idée qu'on parvint à inculquer au peuple, que les Bourbons s'identifiaient avec le clergé."-CAFEFIGUE, Histoire de la Restauration, vii. 322. XI. 1821. was in the support of the clergy, and the identity of CHAP. feeling between them and the vast majority of the educated classes of society, that the British government found their firmest bulwark against the efforts of the revolutionists—a clear proof that there is no real antagonism, but, on the contrary, the closest national alliance between the powers of thought and the feelings of devotion, and that it was the ambition and despotism of the Church of Rome that alone set them at variance with each other. The French Revolution, in all its phases, was mainly a reaction against the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; and had Louis XIV. not sent half a million 1 Cap. vii. of innocent Protestants into exile, his descendants would 322, 325. not have been now suppliants in foreign lands.1 restoration authority at While France and England were thus with difficulty 27. struggling with the fresh outbreak of the revolutionary Attempted passions which had resulted from the overthrow of the of the royal government in Spain, the monarch of that country was M Madrid. sinking fast into that state of impotence and degradation Sept. 1821.. which in troublous times is the invariable precursor of final ruin. After the humiliation experienced in the affair of the guards at Madrid, which has been recounted 2 Ante, c. in a former chapter,2 the king perceived that a vigorous vii. § 112. effort had become necessary to vindicate his fallen power, and he resolved to make it in person. He came suddenly, accordingly, into the hall of the Council of State, when its members (a sort of permanent Cortes) were assembled, and in a long and impassioned speech detailed the series of humiliations to which his Liberal Ministry had subjected him. He painted his authority set at nought, his complaints disregarded, his dignity sacrificed. He recounted the long course of suffering which he had undergone, and concluded with declaring that the limits of human endurance had been reached, and that he was resolved to deliver himself from his oppressors. Stupefied XI. 1821. CHAP. at this sudden outbreak, the Council directed the Ministers to be called in, that they might be heard in their defence; but when they arrived, instead of vindicating themselves, they commenced an attack upon the king, recapitulated all his violent and illegal acts, and even accused him of having violated his oath, and conspired to overturn the constitution. Furious at this unexpected resistance to his authority, the king rushed out of the hall, and signed an order for the immediate arrest of his Ministers. But his attendants and family represented to him in such strong colours the extreme peril of such a step, of which no one could foresee the consequences, that the order, before it could be executed, was revoked, and the Ministers remained in power. But as the king's secret intention had now been revealed, the seeds of irreconcilable jealousy had been sown between him and his Ministers; and the executive, torn by intestine divisions, ceased to be any longer the object either of respect i. 268, 270; or apprehension to the ambitious Liberals, who were iv. 438, 439. rapidly drawing to themselves the whole power and consideration in the state.1 1 Martignac, Ann. Hist. 28. The result soon appeared. The session of the Cortes Opening of opened on 1st March 1821, and the king, who had and dismis adopted from his Ministers his opening speech, added sal of the to it several sentences of his own composition. In the the Cortes, Ministers. 1821. first part of it he astonished the Royalists by an unequivocal approbation of the revolutions of Naples and Piedmont, blamed the King of Naples for having gone to the congress of sovereigns at Laybach, and openly condemned the threatened invasion of the Neapolitan States by the Austrian forces. The Liberals were in transports; they could scarcely believe their own ears; the king seemed at last to have identified himself in good earnest with the cause of revolution, and loud applause testified the satisfaction of the majority at the sentiments which had proceeded from the throne. But what was their surprise XI. 1821. when, after this concession to the democracy, the king CHAP. suddenly began on a new key, and, raising his voice as he came to the sentences composed by himself or his secret advisers, recapitulated the repeated attempts made to represent him as insincere in his career as a constitutional sovereign, the insults to which, in his person and his government, he had so often been subjected-" insults," he added, "to which he would not be subjected if the executive power possessed the energy which the constitution demands, and which, if continued, will involve the Spanish nation in unheard-of calamities." The audience were stupefied by these unexpected words; the Ministers felt themselves struck at; they recollected the former scene in the Council of State, and, deeming themselves secure of victory if they held out, in the same evening they, in body, tendered their resignations.1 1 Ann. Hist. iv. 439,440; 321; Martignac, i. a 275, 276. Lac. iii. 320, 29. the Cortes, new Minis With so little foresight or consideration were the king's measures pursued, that though it might have been antici- Conduct of pated that a resignation of Ministers would follow such an and appointoutbreak, no arrangements whatever had been made for ment of a appointing their successors. For several days the country try. remained without a government, during which the capital was in the most violent state of agitation; the clubs resounded with declamations, the journals were in transports of indignation, and the hall of the Cortes was the scene of the most violent debates. They carried, by a large majority, a resolution, that the late ministers had deserved well of the nation, and, in proof of their gratitude, settled on each of them a pension of 60,000 reals (£600). To allay the tempest he had so imprudently conjured up, the king requested the Cortes to furnish him with a list of the persons whom they deemed fit for the situation; but they refused to do so, alleging that the responsibility of choosing his ministers rested with the king. At length iv.441,445; Martignac, he made his choice, and he was compelled to choose them i. 278, 281. among the Liberal leaders.2 Among them was Don Ramon * Ann. Hist. XI. 1821. CHAP. Felix, who had long been imprisoned (since 1814) for his violent conduct, who was appointed Minister of the Transmarine Provinces; and Don Eusebio Bardaxi, who had been Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Cortes at Cadiz, was reinstated in the same office. 30. Effect pro duced in Spain by the crushing of the in Italy. It was now evident that the king had not in reality the choice of his ministers; and in order to conciliate the majority, he addressed a message of condolence to them on the overthrow of the revolution in Naples and Piedmont, revolution which soon after ensued, and promised the fugitives from these countries a safe asylum in Spain, where, in effect, great numbers of them soon after arrived, and were very hospitably received. These external events produced a very deep impression in Spain; for the hopes of the Liberals had been unbounded upon the first outbreak of these convulsions, and their depression was proportionally great upon their overthrow. They produced, as usual in such cases, a fresh burst of the revolutionary passion over the whole country. Terror, as it had done in France when the advances of the Duke of Brunswick into Champagne induced the massacre in the prisons of Paris, produced cruelty; and the actions of the secret societies occasioned a measure so extraordinary, and of such extent, that nothing in the whole annals of history is to be compared to it. 31. nary out At once, and at the same moment, in all places, a vast Extraordi- number of individuals, of both sexes, and of all ranks and classes of society, chiefly on the east coast of Spain, who ary fury in were suspected of a leaning to the monarchical party, were the east of arrested, chiefly during the night, hurried to the nearest break of revolution Spain. seaport by bands of armed men acting under the orders of self-constituted societies, and put on shipboard, from whence they were conveyed, some to the Balearic Islands, and some to the Canaries, according to the caprice of the imperious executors of the popular will. There was no trial, no legal warrant of arrest, no conviction, no con |