The fact of the Provisional Government having appointed Olozaga guardian of the young Queen showed that he was known to have great influence over her, and whilst holding that appointment he had been flattered by the grant of the decoration of the Golden Fleece. This distinction was declared by some to have been the outcome of his own astuteness, and it certainly made him unpopular.
The decree for the dissolution of the Parliament was promptly followed by incriminating whispers against the President of the Council.
Mysterious allusions were made to Olozaga having been so wanting in respect to his Queen that he insisted with undue force on the dissolution of the Parliament, and when she objected and wished to quit the apartment, he locked the door, and forcibly drew her back to the table, where he made her sign the document.
“There are,” says Don Juan Rico y Amat, “those who say that this report was got up by the Moderates on the exaggerated story of the young Queen, as they wished to get him out of power; but this theory is opposed by the difficulty of believing that a story which tended to lessen the dignity of the Crown could have arisen only through Isabella herself, and those acquainted with the Minister knew the story was in accordance with his imperious, impetuous nature, well known in the palace. It had, moreover, often been noticed that the Prime Minister had entered the royal apartments with a freedom unbefitting the respect due to royalty.”
Olozaga wrote to General Serrano, saying that the fact of the Queen sending him a letter saying she would be glad to have the decree, granted at the instance of Olozaga, returned to her, for the rectification of the first lines, saying, “For grave reason of my own I have just dissolved,” etc., showed the absurdity of the invention that it had been obtained from her by force. “But if anybody,” continued Olozaga, “still insists on such an idea, I will have the honour of suggesting a means whereby the truth will be declared in my presence.”
None of the Moderates surrounding the Queen had the courage to seize the reins of government at this time of confusion, and Narvaez himself, whose power in the palace was well known, and whose position as Captain-General of Madrid would have assured him of a large number of followers, hesitated to take the rudder of the deserted ship.
Whilst all was hesitation in the audience chamber, a young man suddenly made his appearance, and passed with fearless step and bold bearing through the assembly of timorous people, right up to within two steps to the throne in the Salon of Ambassadors, and there assumed the leadership which was shunned by those who could have claimed it, by exclaiming in a loud, commanding tone: “The Queen before all! A revolution or I....” And thus by this splendid coup the premiership was taken by Gonzalez Brabo, a man almost unknown in Madrid, except for his talent as a journalist.
His paper, El Guirigay, had been prohibited for its gross attacks on the Queen-mother, and his Liberal ideas were well known. The splendid coolness and courage with which this young man thus contravened the storm of revolution in the very palace itself was calculated to arouse the hatred of the populace, who had looked to a revolution as a reform in all the conditions which make life burdensome.
Thus three days later, when Gonzalez Brabo crossed the Plaza de Oriente for his audience with the Queen at the palace, his coach was stopped by a mob, and the threatening attitude of the people would have checked anyone less cool and determined in his course.
The day of the reopening of the Congress after its suspension for the formation of the new Cabinet was a very anxious one, for it was clearly seen that the Queen had either been treated with flagrant disrespect or her report of the Minister’s conduct had been untrue.