In the meantime the Holy Father's demand that the obnoxious laws be suspended until the consultation in regard to the Concordat should be ended, was received as an ultimatum at Madrid. In answer thereto, Canalejas determined to recall the Ambassador accredited to the Holy See. In consequence he directed a telegram to that effect to Senor Ojeda, who at once set out from the Eternal City without fixing any day for his return, leaving the First Secretary of the Embassy as his representative. The Papal Secretary of State was informed that "The Ambassador had been recalled to Madrid to receive directions."
This event, however, did not cause any great surprise in Catholic circles. It was well known that the mere recall of an ambassador does not in itself always signify a definite rupture, although in this case it constituted at least a very serious step.
FERRER AND THE BARCELONA RIOTS.
For a long time Spain, like Portugal, had been made the camping ground of so-called "progressives," men and women who set out with the theory that the world was wrong and they, the prophets appointed by "destiny" to set it right. Among these self-constituted prophets of a new order was a certain Francisco Ferrer of Guardia, the son of a Catalonian farmer, who had acquired some wealth and influence by means that were shown to be disreputable. Fired with an unholy hatred of country and Church, his whole history is one of conspiracy and revolution. He had been actively connected with every effort to overturn established government since 1883. On every occasion he was known to be in active correspondence with the leaders of those revolutions, and was connected with everything they did. 1885, 1892, 1895, 1898 were years that stand out clearly marked in his career of disorder, down to the time when the anarchist Morral attempted to assassinate King Alphonsus XIII.
After the movement of 1885 he fled to Paris where he chose for his friends men like the Jew, Nacquet, who has the unsavory honor of introducing divorce into the French code. An enemy to the sacred institution of marriage, he soon abandoned his wife and three children, and shortly after sealed his desertion by a divorce. To support himself he devoted his time to the teaching of Spanish, in which occupation he made the acquaintance of a middle-aged spinster named Meunier. Out of this friendship Ferrer gained some pecuniary profit, for this woman on her deathbed left him a fortune amounting to $150,000.
With this fortune, after he had become affiliated with the Grand Orient of Paris, Ferrer returned to Barcelona. It was here, in 1901, that he inaugurated his notorious scheme of "the Modern School," while at the same time he increased his fortune by gambling, and lived in a scandalous companionship with a woman of ill fame.
In his "Modern School" Ferrer advocated every doctrine of disorder and insurrection. He chose for his teachers men well known for their anarchistic ideas. His object was to eliminate from the minds of the children every idea of religion, patriotism, and morality. It was not Catholicity alone that he assailed, but everything that society stands for: the flag, country, marriage, property, family, and State. His school-books contained such teachings as these: "The flag is nothing but three yards of cloth stitched upon a pole;" or "The family is one of the principal obstacles to the enlightenment of men." Other doctrines contained in his teaching are too indecent for reproduction. His principal of the girls' school was Madame Jacquinet, an anarchist who had been driven out of Egypt, and who described herself as "an atheist, a scientific materialist, an anti-militarist, and an anarchist." Another of his professors was that Mateo Morral who attempted to kill the King on his wedding day. Another was Leon Fabre, one of the leaders in the Barcelona riots.
The schools of Ferrer increased in various districts of Catalonia, until about 1906, nearly 2000 children were receiving his instructions. In the spring of 1909, he went to London, where he lived in company with the ex-school mistress. It was while in England that the first signs of discontent in Catalonia began to manifest themselves. The war in Morocco demanded soldiers for its prosecution, and on hearing that the Government was about to make a requisition in Catalonia, Ferrer, on June 11, suddenly left England and hurried back to Barcelona. There he again entered upon his campaign of revolutionary teaching, inflaming the minds of the people against the Government which had the hardihood to ask soldiers for a foreign war.
His teaching had its effect. On July 26, Barcelona broke out into open revolt. There were only 1600 soldiers in the town to meet the assaults of the rioters. The general strike ordered by the workingmen's associations crippled all means of trade and commerce. The mobs first assailed the banks and stores, but finding them too strongly guarded turned their attention elsewhere. The city was placed under martial law, and the small detachment of troops were divided where the danger seemed most imminent. There was no thought of the churches, convents, and religious houses.
Mr. Andrew Shipman, in his exposé of the case for McClure's Magazine, describes the horrors of the few days that followed. "The day of July 27 was a ghastly one, filled with smoke, murder, and terror. The kerosene can was used after looting had secured every valuable article, and before midnight the mob had attacked and burned some twenty-two institutions in the newer and outer part of Barcelona. The police pursued them as best they could; but the revolutionists were divided by their leaders into sections, attacking churches, schools, and houses simultaneously at remote distances from one another. During the night the King and ministry, who were communicated with by cable—for all telegraph lines were cut—suspended the constitutional guarantees, leaving the city and province in an actual state of war.