THE PRESENT CRISIS OF SPAIN. 313 



despots to relieve him from the control of the nation. A natural ca- 

 lamity, the plague, unfortunately broke out at this time in Spain > 

 which made great ravages in the peninsula, and the superstitious 

 monks purposely ascribed it to the wrath of heaven, which was averse 

 to the constitution, and thus the ignorant Spaniards were led to be- 

 lieve the existing state of things to be against the will of God. Then 

 Villele was charged by Metternich, Nesselrode, and Ancillon, to put 

 an end to the Spanish popular constitution and to liberate the martyr 

 king from the Cortes ; and thus the unjust French invasion of 1823 

 took place, and Ferdinand VII. was again restored to his absolute 

 despotism, when all those who had relied on the oaths of their king 

 fell victims to his tyranny and revenge. This new French crusade 

 aggravated the evils of Spain; new ruinous loans were contracted by 

 the king to defray the expenses of his French liberators, and in con 

 sequence the Spanish credit was greatly involved ; but the monarch, 

 his satellites, and the contracting Jews, gained immense wealth from 

 the losses of the imprudent speculators. Aguado alone, the agent of 

 Ferdinand, realized thirty millions of francs for his share. 



When in 1830 France expelled from the throne the elder branch 

 of Bourbon, and Paris foolishly gave the crown to the bastard branch of 

 Valois, Ferdinand VII. was again threatened with a general reaction, 

 and his throne was tottering under his feet, because the Spanish pa- 

 triots, in imitation of the French, had decided on re-establishing their 

 popular constitution. The frontiers of Spain were soon visited by 

 the principal military and civil Spanish exiles, and patriotic corps of 

 Gallo-Spanish troops were forming in order to cross the Bidossoa, 

 and thus kindle again in the breasts of the oppressed Spaniards the 

 sacred fire of liberty and national independence. 



Louis Philippe, however, and \i\$ juste milieu tools, [under the ap- 

 pearance of forwarding the success of the Spanish patriots, indirectly 

 paralysed all their operations, and ultimately frustrated their most 

 sanguine hopes. Casimir Perier, Guizot, Mole, Sebastiani, and 

 Gerard, with the citizen-king at their head, advised Ferdinand to 

 make some concessions, and to mitigate his tyrannical despotism, but 

 as for their urging the turn-coat king of Spain to re-establish the con- 

 stitution it was a thing not to be expected from such mediators, who, 

 on the contrary, would have been greatly displeased had a popular 

 government been introduced in the Spanish peninsula. 



In 1832, Ferdinand having been suddenly taken very dangerously 



