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LITERATURE] cortes met, on the 29th of September, the opposition accused King Carlos of complicity in grave financial scandals. It was admitted that he had borrowed largely from the treasury, on the security of his civil list, and the Republican deputies accused him of endeavouring to assign the tobacco monopoly to one of his own foreign creditors, in settlement of the debt. Franco organized a coalition in defence of the Crown, but in January 1907 business in the cortes was brought to a standstill and many sittings ended in uproar. The attacks on the king were repeated at the trial of the poet Guerra Junqueiro, who was indicted for lese-majesté. All parties believed that the ministry would fall, and the rotations prepared once more to divide the spoils of office, when, on the 2nd of May 1907, João Franco reconstructed his cabinet, secured the dissolution of the cortes and announced that certain bills still under discussion would receive the force of law. His partisans in the press hailed the advent of a second Pombal, and their enthusiasm was shared by many enlightened Portuguese, who had previously held aloof from politics but now rallied to the support of an honest dictator. Backed by these forces, as well as by the king and the army, Franco effected some useful reforms. But his opponents included not only the Republicans, the professional politicians and those officials who feared inquiry, but also the magistracy, the district and municipal councils, and the large body of citizens who still believed in parliamentary government. The existing debt owed by D. Carlos to the nation was assessed at £154,000. This sum was ostensibly paid by the transference to the treasury of the royal yacht “Amelia” and certain palaces; but the cost and upkeep of the “Amelia” had been paid with public money, while the palaces had long been maintained as state property. These transactions, though perhaps necessary to save the credit of the sovereign at the least possible cost, infuriated the opposition. Newspapers and politicians openly advocated rebellion; Franco had recourse to coercion. Seditious journals were suppressed; gaols and fortresses were crowded with prisoners; the upper house, which was hostile to the dictator, was deprived of its judicial powers and reconstituted on a less democratic basis (as in 1826); the district and municipal councils were dissolved and replaced by administrative commissions nominated by the Crown (Jan. 1, 1908).

The ministerial press from time to time announced the discovery of sensational plots against the king and the dictator. It is, however, uncertain whether the assassination of King Carlos and the crown prince (see ), on the 1st of February 1908, was part of a widely organized conspiracy; or whether it was the act of an isolated band of fanatics, unconnected with any political party. The republican press applauded the murder; the professional politicians benefited by it. But the regicide Buica and his associates probably acted on their own initiative. The immediate results were the accession of Prince Manoel or Manuel (Emanuel II.) to the throne and the resignation of Franco, who sailed for Genoa. A coalition ministry, representing all the monarchist parties, was formed under the presidency of Admiral Ferreira do Amaral. The administrative commissions appointed by Franco were dissolved; the civil list was reduced; the upper house was reconstituted. A general election took place; in April the cortes met and the balance of power between Progressives and Regenerators was restored. On the 6th of May 1908 D. Manoel swore to uphold the constitution and was acclaimed king by the cortes. His uncle D. Affonso (b. 1865) took a similar oath as crown prince on the 22nd of March 1910.

The failure of the dictatorship and the inability of the monarchists to agree upon any common policy had discredited the existing régime, and at the general election of August 1910 the Republican candidates in Lisbon and Oporto were returned by large majorities. On the 3rd of October the murder of a distinguished Republican physician, Dr Miguel Bombarda, precipitated the revolution which had been organized to take place in Lisbon ten days later. The Republican soldiers in Lisbon, aided by armed civilians and by the warships in the Tagus, attacked the loyal

garrison and municipal guards, shelled the Necessidades Palace, and after severe street-fighting (Oct. 4th-6th) became masters of the capital. The king escaped to Ericeira, and thence, with the other members of the royal family, to Gibraltar. Soon afterwards they travelled undisturbed to England, where the king was received by the duke of Orleans. Throughout Portugal the proclamation of a republic was either welcomed or accepted without further resistance. A provisional government was formed under the presidency of Dr Theophilo Braga (b. 1843), a native of the Azores, who had since 1865 been prominent among Portuguese men of letters (see Literature, below). The new government undertook to carry out part of the Republican programme before summoning a constituent assembly to remodel the constitution. Among its most important acts were the expulsion of the religious congregations which had returned after 1834, the nationalization of their property, and the abolition, by decree, of the council of state, the upper house and all hereditary titles or privileges. The Republ ican programme also included the separation of Church and State, and the concession of local autonomy (on federal lines, if possible) to the provinces and colonies of Portugal.

The Portuguese language can be most conveniently described in relation to the other languages of the Peninsula (see : Language). Portuguese literature is distinguished by the wealth and variety of its lyric poetry, by its primacy in bucolic verse and prose, by the number of its epics and historical books, by the relative slightness of the epistolary element, and by the almost complete absence of the memoir. Rich as its romanceiro is, its volume is far less than the Spanish, but the cancioneiros