474 CONVERSATIONS WITH A SPANISH LIBERAL. 



of the Portuguese people is, perhaps, the best that could for the pre- 

 sent be adopted." 



" I am sorry to see/' said the Don, " that you share in that popular 

 fallacy that political sophism, which maintains that the rational en- 

 joyment of freedom requires the exercise of such consummate sagacity 

 and ripened intelligence. What is there, let me ask of you, either in 

 the theory or in the practice of a constitutional form of government 

 which the sound common sense of mankind cannot easily master ? 

 The obstacle in Spain and Portugal, and almost every where, lies 

 not in the ignorance of the people, but in the venality and corruption 

 of the higher classes. Of the aristocracy of rank, of the aristocracy 

 of wealth, to whom may be so justly applied these remarkable words 

 of General Foy, ' L' aristocrat ie au 19 me siecle, c'est la ligue, c'est la 

 coalition de ceux qui veulent consumer sans produire vivresa?is travailler 

 tout savoir sans rien avoir appris ; envahir tons les honneurs sans les 

 avoir merites occuper toutes les places sans etre en etat de les remplir.' 

 If there are any elements of political regeneration left in the Spanish 

 Peninsula, they will be found among the peasantry I fear among 

 that class alone. With Palmella at the head of affairs, the march of 

 regeneration will be slow ; it will encounter at every step, from this 

 temporising master of expedients, a treacherous support, more dan- 

 gerous far than open opposition. Palmella, however he may assume 

 the tone of a liberal, is an absolutist at heart." 



" The hope of the country then," I said, '* are in Jose da Silva 

 Carvalho ?" 



" Most unquestionably," said the Spaniard ; " Jose da Silva Car- 

 valho, the modern Pombol of Portugal, is a man of vast and com- 

 prehensive genius, and perhaps the only one in that kingdom capable 

 of regenerating her. He is a lawyer by profession, was a distin- 

 guished member of the Cortes in 1821, and the author of several 

 political works written in a style of great elegance, and remarkable 

 for their bold and enlightened views. He was long in exile, and 

 latterly, I have been told, reduced to great distress." 



" In which," I replied, " he was not singular ; one and all of your 

 Spanish and Portuguese leading liberals have drank deeply of the 

 cup of adversity. Torreno, reduced to beggary in Paris, was re- 

 lieved by the romantic generosity of a courtezan, formerly a favourite 

 of Napoleon's. Palmella, so long accustomed to the luxurious pro- 

 fusion of our Tory patricians, was latterly, to use a sporting phrase, 

 ' without a dump,' and as no credit is ever given at the ' Travellers,' 

 was reduced to do penance dining it cannot be called at a little 

 restaurant kept by a Frenchman, who was formerly his cook ; 

 while Silva Carvalho, it is said, was actually obliged to dispose of 

 part of his wardrobe, pour se mettre en route for Oporto." 



" Well," said the Spaniard with a smile, " tempora mutantur ; 

 Torreno has become a millionaire by his recent operations in the funds* 

 Palmella also, it is said, has pocketed from thirty to forty thou- 

 sand pounds by his speculations bursales, and has moreover received 

 confiscated conventual property, to the amount of two hundred contos, 

 to indemnify him for his losses in the sacred cause of liberty and his 

 country. And I hope Silva Carvalho, too, has also taken care of 

 himself." 



