People

The decimal coinage was driven Post Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 22:44:45 +0000
The Code Napoleon ceased to be the law of the land; the oldoppressive distinctions of caste, with the special courts for theprivileged orders, came again into force, in defiance of the spirit of theage. The feudal burdens of the peasantry were revived, the purchasers ofState-lands compelled to relinquish the land without receiving back any oftheir purchase-money. The decimal coinage was driven out of the country.

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The very pigtails and powder Post Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 22:57:11 +0000
The old system of taxation, with its iniquitous exemptions, was renewed.All promotions, all grants of rank made by Jerome's Government wereannulled: every officer, every public servant resumed the station which hehad occupied on the 1st of November, 1806. The very pigtails and powder ofthe common soldier under the old regime were revived.

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Ferdinand of Spain had no Post Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 23:10:36 +0000
[200]The Hessians and their neighbours in North-Western Germany had from of oldbeen treated with very little ceremony by their rulers; and if theywelcomed back a family which had been accustomed to hire them out at somuch a head to fight against the Hindoos or by the side of the NorthAmerican Indians, it only proved that they preferred their nativetaskmasters to Jerome Bonaparte and his French crew of revellers andusurers. The next scene in the European reaction was a far more mournfulone. Ferdinand of Spain had no sooner re-crossed the Pyrenees in the springof 1814, than, convinced of his power by the transports of popularenthusiasm that attended his progress through Northern Spain, he determinedto overthrow the Constitution of 1812, and to re-establish the absolutemonarchy which had existed before the war.

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On theentry of the King Post Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 23:22:58 +0000
The courtiers and ecclesiasticswho gathered round the King dispelled any scruples that he might have feltin lifting his hand against a settlement accepted by the nation. Theyrepresented to him that the Cortes of 1812-which, whatever their faults,had been recognised as the legitimate Government of Spain by both Englandand Russia-consisted of a handful of desperate men, collected from thestreets of Cadiz, who had taken upon themselves to insult the Crown, to robthe Church, and to imperil the existence of the Catholic Faith. On theentry of the King into Valencia, the cathedral clergy expressed the wishesof their order in the address of homage which they offered to Ferdinand.

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" [201]The victory of the clergy Post Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 23:35:19 +0000
"We beg your Majesty," their spokesman concluded, "to take the mostvigorous measures for the restoration of the Inquisition, and of theecclesiastical system that existed in Spain before your Majesty'sdeparture." "These," replied the King, "are my own wishes, and I will notrest until they are fulfilled." [201]The victory of the clergy was soon declared.

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The King pledgedhimself to summon Post Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 23:50:33 +0000
On the 11th of May the Kingissued a manifesto at Valencia, proclaiming the Constitution of 1812 andevery decree of the Cortes null and void, and denouncing the penalties ofhigh treason against everyone who should defend the Constitution by act,word, or writing. A variety of promises, made only to be broken,accompanied this assertion of the rights of the Crown. The King pledgedhimself to summon new Cortes as soon as public order should be restored, tosubmit the expenditure to the control of the nation, and to maintaininviolate the security of person and property.

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The samestorm of wild, unreasoning Post Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 0:02:10 +0000
It was a significant commentupon Ferdinand's professions of Liberalism that on the very day on whichthe proclamation was issued the censorship of the Press was restored. Butthe King had not miscalculated his power over the Spanish people. The samestorm of wild, unreasoning loyalty which had followed Ferdinand'sreappearance in Spain followed the overthrow of the Constitution.

Autor of the post: Undefined

Mobs,headed by priests bearing Post Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 0:16:27 +0000
The massof the Spaniards were ignorant of the very meaning of political liberty:they adored the King as a savage adores his fetish: their passions were atthe call of a priesthood as brutish and unscrupulous as that which in 1798had excited the Lazzaroni of Naples against the Republicans of SouthernItaly. No sooner had Ferdinand set the example, by arresting thirty of themost distinguished of the Liberals, than tumults broke out in every part ofthe country against Constitutionalist magistrates and citizens. Mobs,headed by priests bearing the standard of the Inquisition, destroyed thetablets erected in honour of the Constitution of 1812, and burned Liberalwritings in bonfires in the market-places.

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A wise and energetic sovereign Post Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 0:27:17 +0000
The prisons were filled with menwho, but a short time before, had been the objects of popular adulation.Whatever pledges of allegiance had been given to the Constitution of 1812,it was clear that this Constitution had no real hold on the nation, andthat Ferdinand fulfilled the wish of the majority of Spaniards inoverthrowing it. A wise and energetic sovereign would perhaps have allowedhimself to use this outburst of religious fanaticism for the purpose ofsubstituting some better order for the imprudent arrangements of 1812.

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[202] The clergy were masters Post Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 0:38:22 +0000
Ferdinand, an ignorant, hypocritical buffoon, with no more notion ofpolitical justice or generosity than the beasts of the field, could onlysubstitute for the fallen Cortes a government by palace-favourites andconfessors. It was in vain, that the representatives of Great Britain urgedthe King to fulfil his constitutional promises, and to liberate the personswho had unjustly been thrown into prison. [202] The clergy were masters ofSpain and of the King: their influence daily outweighed even that ofFerdinand's own Ministers, when, under the pressure of financial necessity,the Ministers began to offer some resistance to the exorbitant demands ofthe priesthood.

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