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]
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]
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]
QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH