“November 7.—Señor Castelar, the President of the Republic, was daily losing power in the Congress, where neither eloquence nor good sense seemed to have any sway over the turbulent spirits.”
When the Corporation of the city became disaffected from the Government, it seemed to the Governor of Madrid that it was time for him to assert the power of military rule.
So on December 2, when the chamber of the Congress was nothing but a scene of riot and disorder, each deputy striving by his loud voice and violent actions to overpower his fellow, the cultured Castelar, the head of the republic, whose orations would have reflected honour on the Areopagus of old, was met by a vote of want of confidence.
Then was the time for General Pavia’s action. Arthur Houghton, correspondent to The Times at Madrid, gives, in his “French History of the Restoration of the Bourbons,” the account of this coup in the General’s own words; for, favoured by the soldiers’ friendship, Mr. Houghton had the opportunity of hearing the story first-hand, and the smart General, looking spruce and trim in his well-cut black frock, would often talk to the Englishman, when he met him in the salons of Madrid, of the way he took matters into his own hand when the republican Parliament could not manage the Congress.
“No, no,” said the former Governor of Madrid, “I admitted nobody into my counsel, but, under the stress of circumstances, I took all the responsibility upon myself. When I heard how the Assembly had given voice to a vote of want of confidence in Castelar, I thought the hour had come; and as the session the next day increased in force and disorder, whilst the hours of early dawn succeeded those of the evening and the night in fruitless and violent discussion, I called a company of the Civil Guard, and another of the Cazadores, and, to their surprise, I led them to the square in front of the Congress, and stationed them all round the building. Then, entering the Parliament with a few picked men, I surprised the deputies by ordering them to leave the House. A few shots were fired in the corridor on those who sought to defy the military order, so the members did not long resist, and by four o’clock in the morning I found myself in complete command of the House. I called a Committee, with the power to form a Ministry, of which General Serrano was once more elected President, and thus ensued the second period of the republic.”
This brilliant and successful coup reminds one of that of our Oliver Cromwell when he freed the country of a particular Government; but in this case of military sway in Spain General Pavia acted from no aims of self-interest, but only for the restoration of order, which it was his duty as Governor of the city to preserve.
During the second period of the republic, which lasted from January 4, 1874, till December 30 of the same year, Serrano had his hands weighted with two civil wars—the never-ceasing one of Carlism in the Peninsula, as well as that of Cuba—and, as Francisco Paréja de Alarcon says, in the criticism which he publishes in the above-mentioned work on this period, the Government formed under Serrano proved unable to restore order and save Spain from the dishonour which was threatening it.
So when the Ministers heard of the rising at Sagunto, on December 29, 1874, for the restoration of the monarchy, they knew that the movement was really supported by leading military men, who had been inspired thereto by the ladies of the land, who resented the irreligion and disorder of the republic; and, as they saw that resistance would only lead to another disastrous civil war, they resigned their posts peacefully.
It was thus that the son of Isabella II. was raised to the throne. And Alarcon says: “The hypocritical banner of ‘the country’s honour’ was set aside; for had it not meant the support of a foreign monarchy, destitute of prestige; and then an unbridled, antisocial, impious, and anarchical republic, which was a blot on the history of our unhappy Spain in these latter days, which have been so full of misfortunes under the government of the ambitious parties which harrowed and exploited under different names and banners?”
The Circulo Hispano Ultramarino in Barcelona, agitating continually for the restoration of Alfonso XII., was a strong agent in the monarchical movement. Figuerola Ferretti worked strenuously as secretary of the society, and this officer is the possessor of the only escutcheon signed by Alfonso XII., in which he paid tribute to the Colonel’s valiant conduct in the Cuban War of 1872.