Señor Canovas had overworked himself during the last session of the Cortes, and this, combined with the worry of Cuban affairs, had broken down his health.
In the hope of regaining his strength he had gone to the baths of Santa Aguada, at Guesalibar, on the Bay of Biscay, not far from San Sebastian, where the court is summering.
He was sitting reading his paper in the grounds of the bath-house when he was shot and killed by an Italian ruffian.
In Señor Canovas, Spain has lost one of her greatest statesmen. It was he who put Alfonso XII., the father of the present king, on the throne of Spain.
During his whole career Spain has been the scene of many stormy trials.
In 1868 the people forced the old Queen, Isabella II., to resign the throne. She was a very wicked woman, and did so many bad things that the people would not be disgraced by her any longer. They rose against her, and she was obliged to flee to France to seek the protection of Napoleon III.
On her departure a council was appointed to choose a new sovereign. There were several claimants, among them Alfonso, the son of the deposed Isabella, and Don Carlos, the grandson of Don Carlos I. (See p. 563.)
The council rejected all the candidates, and chose a German prince. Napoleon III. objected on Queen Isabella's account; the Germans were incensed at his interference, and the argument that followed gave rise to the Franco-German War in 1870.