Affairs quieted down in Portugal. Dom Pedro summoned the cortes and restored the Constitution of 1826; monastic and knightly orders and various abuses were abolished; the Jesuits had to leave the country; but the establishment of the new order of things was completed with moderation and without revenge, and above all the law was treated with respect. On the 18th of September in that year the estates declared the queen, though only fifteen, to be of age, since the state of the regent’s health did not permit of his attending to business. On the 24th Dom Pedro died at the age of thirty-seven.[b]
MARIA II (1834-1853 A.D.)
Donna Maria was sixteen years old at her father’s death. The cortes believed nevertheless that it ought to declare the majority of the queen, which she would not have attained according to the charter until her eighteenth year. Donna Maria hastened to put all her confidence in the duke of Palmella. Senhor de Palmella and his friends, while they brought great support to the government, did not make up for the strength of which it had been deprived by Dom Pedro’s death, and did not disarm any adversary. The position of the entire Portuguese ministry with regard to England was truly intolerable; placed between an imperious national sentiment and unconquerable necessities it was at all times accused by the opposition of sacrificing the country’s interests to those of an insatiable ally. The question of customs duties and the renewal of the treaties furnished the enemies of the ministry with national weapons, for nothing was so unpopular in Portugal as the lowering of the tariff and free trade.
In spite of the enormous expenditure due to civil war and the general ruin, the raising of loans contracted in London easily covered at first the deficit in the treasury. The abundance of money was such that they even foolishly employed specie to retire a paper currency in circulation since the time of João V. This false prosperity had no other result than to close all eyes to the dangers of the future. At the beginning of 1835 the minister of finance was compelled to admit an enormous deficit. The government was unable to borrow any longer nor even increase their taxes. It became necessary to have recourse to expedients and to set out on the deplorable road of anticipations.
Officials’ salaries and officers’ pay were no longer regularly paid, and the number of malcontents grew in proportion to the impossibility of satisfying them. The army and the national guard of Lisbon were entirely in the clutches of the secret societies. The internal dissensions among the ministers led several of them to associate themselves with clubs and to seek in the anarchist party a passing point of support against their colleagues; for, while all attacks were directed against Palmella, and especially Carvalho, there were in the space of one year eight changes of cabinet. The motives of these changes were always of a personal nature, and were to be found in the intrigues of the clubs which often crossed and clashed with those of other clubs.
[1835-1837 A.D.]
Upon this state of affairs there broke the revolt of La Granja, which served as a signal for a similar movement in Portugal. For more than a year alarming symptoms had been showing themselves. The chamber of deputies had refused the chief command of the army to the queen’s first husband, Prince Augustus of Leuchtenberg. After four months of marriage he succumbed to a short illness.[c] In less than a year the queen remarried. Her second husband was Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, nephew of the Belgian king. He obtained the chief command of the army, which made matters more difficult as he was unpopular.[a]
Then the queen ordered the dissolution of the cortes at the moment when all the Spanish juntas were in insurrection. The government was playing with the frivolity and light-mindedness of the people when, on the 9th of September, 1836, the newly elected deputies from Oporto arrived in Lisbon. They all belonged to the radical party. A band of musicians advanced to meet them, the city was illuminated, and enthusiastic cheers filled the streets and byways. By the end of the evening the ministers became alarmed at the demonstration and sent out a battalion to restore order. The soldiers fraternised with the people and all cried, “Down with the ministers; long live the Constitution of 1822.” This excited mob, really more joyous than hostile, made its way to the palace and sent the surprised queen a deputation ordering her to dismiss the ministers and adhere to the constitution.
The queen refused to obey, and rejected the revolutionists’ commands. A little later she resigned herself to the necessity, and she burst into tears. The count of Lumiares, Bernardo de Sá da Bandeira, and Passos were named ministers, and the queen promised to convoke the cortes according to the forms of the Constitution of 1822, in order that they might recast the fundamental law of the kingdom.
Passos planned out a pantheon, issued a thousand regulations relating to libraries and museums, and abolished bull-fights through motives of philanthropy. Bernardo de Sá destroyed all that he could, his principle being that things would arrange themselves afterward as well as they could and what was once overthrown would never be re-established.