III. was one of them.  The echo of the English revolution still vibrated through the world; the monarchs now wished to be loved and not feared, and in every country they struggled against the ignorance and brutality of the masses, bringing about progressive reforms by royal enactment and even by force.  But the great evil of the monarchical system was its heredity, the power settled in one family, for the son of a clever man with good intentions might be an imbecile.  After Charles III. came Charles IV., and as if this were not sufficient, in the year of his death the French revolution broke out, which made all the kings in Europe tremble, and the Bourbons of Spain quite lost their heads, which they were never able to recover.  They went astray, wandering from the right way, throwing themselves once more into the arms of the Church as the only means of avoiding the revolutionary danger, and they have not yet returned, nor will they, to the right track.  Jesuits, friars and bishops became once more the counsellors at the palace, as they still are, as in the times when Carlos II. concocted his military and political plans with a council of theologians.  We have had false revolutions which have dethroned people, but not ideas.  It is true we have advanced a little, but timidly, with halting footsteps and disorderly retreats, like one who advances fearfully, and suddenly, at the slightest noise, rushes back to the point of departure.  The transformation has been more exterior than interior.  The minds of the people are still in the seventeenth century; they still feel the fear and cowardice engendered by the inquisitorial bonfires.  The Spaniards are slaves to their very marrow; their pride and their energies are all on the surface; they have not lived through three centuries of ecclesiastical servitude for nothing.  They have made revolutions, they are capable of rebelling, but they will always stop short at the threshold of the Church, who was their mistress by force and remains so still, even though its power has vanished.  There is no fear of them entering here.  You may remain quite easy, Don Antolin, though in justice many accounts might be required of her from the past.  Is it because they are as religious as formerly?  You know that this is not the case, though they complain with reason of the way in which the ancient grandeur of the Church has been extinguished without popular aid.”

[Footnote 1:  In 1897 an Act was passed “to colonise derelict land in Spain.”]

“That is true,” said Silver Stick; “there is no faith.  No one is capable of making any sacrifice for the house of God.  Only in the hour of death, when fear comes in, do some of them remember to assist us with their fortune.”