The news brought by the Asia yesterday, though later by three
days than our previous advices, contains nothing to indicate a
speedy conclusion of the civil war in Spain. O’Donnell’s coup
d'état, although victorious at Madrid,'’’ cannot yet be said to have
finally succeeded. The French Moniteur, which at first put down
the insurrection at Barcelona as a mere riot,” is now obliged to
confess that j |

“the conflict there was very keen, but that the success of the Queen’s troops may
be considered as secured.” ¢

According to the version of that official journal the combat at
Barcelona lasted from 5 o’clock in the afternoon of July 18 till the
same hour on the 21st—exactly three days—when the “insurgents” are said to have been dislodged from their quarters, and
fled into the country, pursued by cavalry. It is, however, averred
that the insurgents still hold several towns in Catalonia, including
Gerona, Junquera, and some smaller places. It also appears that
Murcia, Valencia and Seville have made their pronunciamientos*
against the coup d’état; that a battalion of the garrison of
Pampeluna, directed by the Governor of that town on Soria, had
pronounced against the Government on the road, and marched to
join the insurrection at Saragossa; and lastly that at Saragossa,

a Le Moniteur universel, No. 203, July 21, 1856, “Partie non officielle” .:— Ed.
b Isabella I1.— Ed.

© Le Moniteur universel, No. 206, July 24, 1856, “Partie non officielle” — Ed.
4d Mutinies.— Ed.

from the beginning the acknowledged center of resistance, Gen.
Falcon had passed in review 16,000 soldiers of the line, reinforced
by 15,000 militia and peasants from the environs.

At all events, the French Government considers the “insurrection” in Spain as not quelled, and Bonaparte, far from contenting
himself with the sending of a batch of battalions to line the
frontier, has ordered one brigade to advance to the Bidassoa,
which brigade is being completed to a division by reinforcements
from Montpellier and Toulouse. It seems, also, that a second
division has been detached immediately from the army of Lyons,
according to orders sent direct from Plombiéres on the 23d ult.,
and is now marching toward the Pyrenees, where, by this time,
there is assembled a full corps d’observation of 25,000 men. Should
the resistance to the O’Donnell government be able to hold its
ground; should it prove formidable enough to inveigle Bonaparte
into an armed invasion of the Peninsula, then the coup d’état of
Madrid may have given the signal for the downfall of the coup
d’état of Paris.'*!

If we consider the general plot and the dramatis personae, this
Spanish conspiracy of 1856 appears as the simple revival of the
similar attempt of 1843,'*? with some slight alterations of course.
Then, as now, Isabella at Madrid and Christina at Paris; Louis
Philippe, instead of Louis Bonaparte, directing the movement
from the Tuileries; on the one side, Espartero and _ his
Ayacuchos'**; on the other, O’Donnell, Serrano, Concha, with
Narvaez then in the proscenium, now in the background. In 1843,
Louis Philippe sent two millions of gold by land and Narvaez and
his friends by sea, the compact of the Spanish marriages being
settled between himself and Madame Munoz.'** The complicity of
Bonaparte in the Spanish coup d’état—who has, perhaps, settled
the marriage of his cousin Prince Napoleon with a Mdlle. Munoz,
or who, at all events, must continue his mission of mimicking his
uncle*—that complicity is not only indicated by the denunciations
hurled by the Moniteur for the last two months at the communist
conspiracies in Castile and Navarre, by the behavior before,
during and after the coup d’état of M. de Turgot, the French
Embassador at Madrid, the same man who was the Foreign
Minister of Bonaparte during his own coup d’état; by the Duke of
Alba, Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, turning up as the President of
the new ayuntamiento” at Madrid, immediately after the victory of

* Napoleon I.— Ed.
b Municipal Council.— Ed.

O’Donnell; by Ros de Olano, an old member of the French party,
being the first man offered a place in O’Donnell’s Ministry; and by
Narvaez being dispatched to Bayonne by Bonaparte as soon as the
first news of the affair reached Paris. That complicity was
suggested beforehand by the forwarding of large quantities of
ammunition from Bordeaux to Bayonne a fortnight in advance of
the actual crisis at Madrid. Above all, it is suggested by the plan of
operations followed by O’Donnell in his razzia against the people
of that city. At the very outset he announced that he would not
shrink from blowing up Madrid, and during the fighting he acted
up to his word. Now, although a daring fellow, O’Donnell has
never ventured upon a bold step without securing a safe retreat.
Like his notorious uncle,’ the hero of treason, he never burnt the
bridge when he passed the Rubicon. The organ of combativeness
is singularly checked in the O’Donnells by the organs of
cautiousness and secretiveness. It is plain that any general who
should hold forth the threat of laying the capital in ashes, and fail
in his attempt, would forfeit his head. How then did O’Donnell
venture upon such delicate ground? The secret is betrayed by the
Journal des Débats, the special organ of Queen Christina.

“O'Donnell expected a great battle, and at the most a victory hotly disputed.
Into his provisions there entered the possibility of defeat. If such a misfortune had
happened, the Marshal would have abandoned Madrid with the rest of his army,
escorting the Queen, and turning toward the northern provinces, with a view to
approach the French frontier.”>

Does not all this look as if he had laid his plan with Bonaparte?
Exactly the same plan had been settled between Louis Philippe
and Narvaez in 1843, which, again, was copied from the secret
convention between Louis XVIII and Ferdinand VII, in 1823.'°

This plausible parallel between the Spanish conspiracies of 1843
and 1856 once admitted, there are still sufficiently distinct features
in the two movements to indicate the immense strides made by the
Spanish people within so brief an epoch. These features are: the
political character of the last struggle at Madrid; its military
importance; and finally, the respective position of Espartero and
O’Donnell in 1856 compared with those of Espartero and Narvaez
in 1843. In 1843 all parties had become tired of Espartero. To get
‘rid of him a powerful coalition was formed between the Moderados
and Progresistas.’°° Revolutionary juntas springing up like mush-

#4 Enrique Jose O’Donnell.— Ed.
b Journal des Débats, July 22, 1856, “France’”.— Ed.

rooms in all the towns, paved the way for Narvaez and his
retainers. In 1856 we have not only the court and army on the
one side against the people on the other, but within the ranks of
the people we have the same divisions as in the rest of Western
Europe. On the 13th of July the Ministry of Espartero offered its
forced resignation; in the night of the 13th and 14th the Cabinet
of O’Donnell was constituted; on the morning of the 14th the
rumor spread that O’Donnell, charged with the formation of a
cabinet, had invited Ryos y Rosas, the ill-omened Minister of the
bloody days of July, 1854,'°’ to join him. At 11 a.m. the Gaceta
confirmed the rumor. Then the Cortes assembled, 93 deputies
being present. According to the rules of that body, 20 members
suffice to call a meeting, and 50 to form a quorum. Besides, the
Cortes had not been formally prorogued. Gen. Infante, the
President, could not but comply with the universal wish to hold a
regular sitting. A proposition was submitted to the effect that the
new Cabinet did not enjoy the confidence of the Cortes, and that
her Majesty* should be informed of this resolution. At the same
time, the Cortes summoned the National Guard to be ready for
action. Their Committee, bearing the resolution of want of
confidence, went to the Queen, escorted by a detachment of
National Militia. While endeavoring to enter the palace they were
driven back by the troops of the line, who fired upon them and
their escort. This incident gave the signal for the insurrection. The
order to commence the building of barricades was given at 7 in
the evening by the Cortes, whose ni¢eting was dispersed immediately afterward by the troops of O’Donnell. The battle
commenced the same night, only one battalion of the National
Militia joining the Royal troops. It should be noted that as early as
the morning of the 13th, Senor Escosura, the Esparterist Minister
of the Interior, had telegraphed to Barcelona and Saragossa that a
coup d’état was at hand, and that they must prepare to resist it. At
_the head of the Madrid insurgents were Senor.Madoz and Gen.
Valdez, the brother of Escosura. In short, there can be no doubt
that the resistance to the coup d’état originated with the
Esparterists, the citizens and Liberals in general. While they, with
the militia, engaged the line across Madrid from east to west, the
workmen under Pucheta occupied the south and part of the north
side of the town.

On the morning of the 15th, O’Donnell took the initiative. Even

4 Isabella II.— Ed.

by the partial testimony of the Débats,* O’Donnell obtained no
marked advantage during the first half of the day. Suddenly, at
about 1 o’clock, without any perceptible reason, the ranks of the
National Militia were broken; at 2 o’clock they were still more
thinned, and at 6 o’clock they had completely disappeared from
the scene of action, leaving the whole brunt of the battle to be
borne by the workmen, who fought it out till 4 in the afternoon
of the 16th. Thus there were, in these three days of carnage, two
distinct battles—the one of the Liberal Militia of the middle class,
supported by the workmen against the army, and the other of the
army against the workmen deserted by the militia. As Heine has it:

“Tt is an old story, but is always new.” >

Espartero deserts the Cortes; the Cortes desert the leaders of
the National Guard; the leaders desert their men, and the men
desert the people. On the 15th, however, the Cortes assembled
again, when Espartero appeared for a moment. He was reminded
by Senor Assensio and viher members of his reiterated protestations to draw his grand sword of Luchana '** on the first day when
the liberty of.the country should be endangered. Espartero called
Heaven to witness his unswerving patriotism, and when he left, it
was fully expected that he would soon be seen at the head of the
insurrection. Instead of this, he went to the house of Gen. Gurrea,
where he buried himself in a bomb-proof cellar, a la Palafox, and
was heard of no more. The commandants of the militia, who, on
the evening before, had employed every means to excite the
militiamen to take up arms, now proved as eager to retire to their
private houses. At 2'/y p.m. Gen. Valdez, who for some hours had
usurped the command of the militia, convoked the soldiers under
his direct command on the Plaza Mayor, and told them that the
man who naturally ought to be at their head would not come
forward, and that consequently everybody was at liberty to
withdraw. Hereupon the National Guards rushed to their homes
and hastened to get rid of their uniforms and hide their arms.
Such is the substance of the account furnished by one wellinformed authority. Another gives as the reason for this sudden
act of submission to the conspiracy, that it was considered that the
triumph of the National Guard was likely to entail the ruin of the
throne and the absolute preponderance of the Republican

a Journal des Débats, July 22, 1856, “France”.— Ed.
b H. Heine, “Lyrisches Intermezzo” .— Ed.

Democracy. The Presse of Paris also gives us to understand that
Marshal Espartero, seeing the turn given to things in the Congress
by the Democrats, did ‘not wish to sacrifice the throne, or launch
into the hazards of anarchy and civil war, and in consequence did
all he could to produce submission to O’Donnell.

It is true that the details as to the time, circumstances, and
break-down of the resistance to the coup d’état, are given
differently by different writers; but all agree on the one principal
point, that Espartero deserted the Cortes, the Cortes the leaders,
the leaders the middle class, and that class the people. This
furnishes a new illustration of the character of most of the
European struggles of 1848-49, and of those hereafter to take
place in the Western portion of that continent. On the one hand
there are modern industry and trade, the natural chiefs of which,
the middle classes, are averse to the military despotism; on the
other hand, when they begin the battle against this same
despotism, in step the workmen themselves, the product of the
modern organization of labor, to claim their due share of the
result of victory. Frightened by the consequences of an alliance
thus imposed on their unwilling shoulders, the middle classes
shrink back again under the protecting batteries of the hated
despotism. This is the secret of the standing armies of Europe,
which otherwise will be incomprehensible to the future historian.
The middle classes of Europe are thus made to understand that
they must either surrender to a political power which they detest,
and renounce the advantages of modern industry and trade, and
the social relations based upon them, or forego the privileges
which the modern organization of the productive powers of
society, in its primary phase, has vested in an exclusive class. That
this lesson should be taught even from Spain is something equally
striking and unexpected.

Written on July 25, 1856 Reproduced from the New-York

; ; : : Daily Tribune

Tribune, No. 4775, August 8, 1856 as a
leading article; reprinted in the New-York
Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 1170, August
12, 1856 and the New-York Weekly
Tribune, No. 779, August 16, 1856 under
the title “The Spanish Coup d’Etat”