CASTEL, LOUIS BERTRAND (1688-1757), French mathematician, was born at Montpellier on the 11th of November 1688, and entered the order of the Jesuits in 1703. Having studied literature, he afterwards devoted himself entirely to mathematics and natural philosophy. He wrote several scientific works, that which attracted most attention at the time being his Optique des couleurs (1740), or treatise on the melody of colours. He endeavoured to illustrate the subject by a clavecin oculaire, or ocular harpsichord; but the treatise and the illustration were quickly forgotten. He also wrote Mathématique universelle (1728) and Traité de physique sur la pesanteur universelle des corps (1724). He also published a critical account of the system of Sir Isaac Newton in French in 1743.
CASTELAR Y RIPOLL, EMILIO (1832-1899), Spanish statesman, was born at Cadiz on the 8th of September 1832. At the age of seven he lost his father, who had taken an active part in the progressist agitations during the reign of Ferdinand VII., and had passed several years as an exile in England. He attended a grammar-school at Sax. In 1848 he began to study law in Madrid, but soon elected to compete for admittance at the school of philosophy and letters, where he took the degree of doctor in 1853. He was an obscure republican student when the Spanish revolutionary movement of 1854 took place, and the young liberals and democrats of that epoch decided to hold a meeting in the largest theatre of the capital. On that occasion Castelar delivered his maiden speech, which at once placed him in the van of the advanced politicians of the reign of Queen Isabella. From that moment he took an active part in politics, radical journalism, literary and historical pursuits. Castelar was compromised in the first rising of June 1866, which was concerted by Marshal Prim, and crushed, after much bloodshed, in the streets by Marshals O’Donnell and Serrano. A court-martial condemned him in contumaciam to death by “garote vil,” and he had to hide in the house of a friend until he escaped to France. There he lived two years until the successful revolution of 1868 allowed him to return and enter the Cortes for the first time—as deputy for Saragossa. At the same time he resumed the professorship of history at the Madrid university. Castelar soon became famous by his rhetorical speeches in the Constituent Cortes of 1869, where he led the republican minority in advocating a federal republic as the logical outcome of the recent revolution. He thus gave much trouble to men like Serrano, Topete and Prim, who had never harboured the idea of drifting into advanced democracy, and who had each his own scheme for re-establishing the monarchy with certain constitutional restrictions. Hence arose Castelar’s constant and vigorous criticisms of the successive plans mooted to place a Hohenzollern, a Portuguese, the duke of Montpensier, Espartero and finally Amadeus of Savoy on the throne. He attacked with relentless vigour the short-lived monarchy of Amadeus, and contributed to its downfall.
The abdication of Amadeus led to the proclamation of the federal republic. The senate and congress, very largely composed of monarchists, permitted themselves to be dragged along into democracy by the republican minority headed by Salmeron, Figueras, Pi y Margall and Castelar. The short-lived federal republic from the 11th of February 1873 to the 3rd of January 1874 was the culminating point of the career of Castelar, and his conduct during those eleven months was much praised by the wiser portion of his fellow-countrymen, though it alienated from him the sympathies of the majority of his quondam friends in the republican ranks.
Before the revolution of 1868, Castelar had begun to dissent from the doctrines of the more advanced republicans, and particularly as to the means to be employed for their success. He abhorred bloodshed, he disliked mob rule, he did not approve of military pronunciamientos. His idea would have been a parliamentary republic on the American lines, with some traits of the Swiss constitution to keep in touch with the regionalist and provincialist inclinations of many parts of the peninsula. He would have placed at the head of his commonwealth a president and Cortes freely elected by the people, ruling the country in a liberal spirit and with due respect for conservative principles, religious traditions and national unity. Such a statesman was sure to clash with the doctrinaires, like Salmeron, who wanted to imitate French methods; with Pi y Margall, who wanted a federal republic after purely Spanish ideas of decentralization; and above all with the intransigent and gloomy fanatics who became the leaders of the cantonal insurrections at Cadiz, Seville, Valencia, Malaga and Cartagena in 1873.
At first Castelar did his best to work with the other republican members of the first government of the federal republic. He accepted the post of minister for foreign affairs. He even went so far as to side with his colleagues, when serious difficulties arose between the new government and the president of the Cortes, Señor Martos, who was backed by a very imposing commission composed of the most influential conservative members of the last parliament of the Savoyard king, which had suspended its sittings shortly after proclaiming the federal republic. A sharp struggle was carried on for weeks between the executive and this commission, at first presided over by Martos, and, when he resigned, by Salmeron. In the background Marshal Serrano and many politicians and military men steadily advocated a coup d’état in order to avert the triumph of the republicans. The adversaries of the executive were prompted by the captain-general of Madrid, Pavia, who promised the co-operation of the garrison of the capital. The president, Salmeron, and Marshal Serrano himself lacked decision at the last moment, and lost time and many opportunities by which the republican ministers profited. The federal republicans became masters of the situation in the last fortnight of April 1873, and turned the tables on their adversaries by making a pacific bloodless pronunciamiento.
The battalions of the militia that had assembled in the bull-ring near Marshal Serrano’s house to assist the anti-democratic movement were disarmed, and their leaders, the politicians and generals, were allowed to escape to France or Portugal. The Cortes were dissolved, and the federal and constituent Cortes of the republic convened, but they only sat during the summer of 1873, long enough to show their absolute incapacity, and to convince the executive that the safest policy was to suspend the session for several months.
This was the darkest period of the annals of the Spanish revolution of 1873-1874. Matters got to such a climax of disorder, disturbance and confusion, from the highest to the lowest strata of Spanish society, that the president of the executive, Figueras, deserted his post and fled the country. Pi y Margall and Salmeron, in successive attempts to govern, found no support in the really important and influential elements of Spanish society. Salmeron had even to appeal to such well-known reactionary generals as Pavia, Sanchez, Bregna and Moriones, to assume the command of the armies in the south and in the north of Spain. Fortunately these officers responded to the call of the executive. In less than five weeks a few thousand men properly handled sufficed to quell the cantonal risings in Cordoba, Sevilla, Cadiz and Malaga, and the whole of the south might have been soon pacified, if the federal republican ministers had not once more given way to the pressure of the majority of the Cortes, composed of “Intransigentes” and radical republicans. The president, Salmeron, after showing much indecision, resigned, but not until he had recalled the general in command in Andalusia, Pavia. This resignation was not an unfortunate event for the country, as the federal Cortes not only made Castelar chief of the executive, though his partisans were in a minority in the Parliament, but they gave him much liberty to act, as they decided to suspend the sittings of the house until 2nd January 1874. This was the turning-point of the Spanish revolution, as from that day the tide set in towards the successive developments that led to the restoration of the Bourbons.
On becoming the ruler of Spain at the beginning of September 1873, Castelar at once devoted his attention to the reorganization of the army, whose numbers had dwindled down to about 70,000 men. This force, though aided by considerable bodies of local militia and volunteers in the northern and western provinces, was insufficient to cope with the 60,000 Carlists in arms, and with the still formidable nucleus of cantonalists around Alcoy and Cartagena. To supply the deficiencies Castelar called out more than 100,000 conscripts, who joined the colours in less than six weeks. He selected his generals without respect of politics, sending Moriones to the Basque provinces and Navarre at the head of 20,000 men, Martinez Campos to Catalonia with several thousand, and Lopez Dominguez, the nephew of Marshal Serrano, to begin the land blockade of the last stronghold of the cantonal insurgents, Cartagena, where the crews of Spain’s only fleet had joined the revolt.