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 214 SPAIN But the failure of Napoleon in Russia was soon followed by a retreat of the French from Spain. Soult with 30,000 French troops was recalled ; the brilliant victory of Wellington at Vitoria (June 21, 1813) forced the French army to fall back to the other side of the Pyrenees. Only a few strong places remained in their posses- sion, until the bloody victory of Wellington at Toulouse (April 10, 1814) and the capture of that city successfully terminated the Spanish war of independence. The cortes, which in January, 1810, had fled from Seville to Cadiz, completed a new constitution, March 18, 1812. The regency, which was recognized by Eng- land and Russia, at once took the oath to ac- knowledge it. After the termination of the war, the cortes invited Ferdinand VII., who had been set free by Napoleon, to return to Spain and take an oath to support the consti- tution. Ferdinand returned, but went to Va- lencia, and declared the constitution null and void. He announced at the same time his in- tention, not to restore despotism, but to intro- duce another constitution on a liberal basis. This promise was not fulfilled ; the inquisition was revived, despotism was restored, and most of the reforms introduced under Charles III. were annulled. Florida was sold for $5,000, 000 to the United States, and the attempts to recon- quer the revolted colonies in America proved miserable failures. On Jan. 1, 1820, a military insurrection, under Riego, broke out for the purpose of restoring the constitution of 1812. It spread with great rapidity ; several generals, as O'Donnell and Freyre, who were sent out for its suppression, joined the insurrectionists ; and in March the king was compelled to pro- claim the constitution of 1812, and to convoke the cortes. A new ministry was formed, the press declared free, the inquisition abolished, and within a few days the new order of things was acknowledged throughout Spain. The suppression of a part of the convents and other resolutions passed by the cortes, which met in July, provoked the formation of an " apos- tolical junta," which demanded the restoration of the absolute power of the king, of the con- vents, and of feudal institutions. Even a re- gency was appointed by the apostolical party at Seo de Urgel, in Catalonia ; but the troops of the government drove the regency into France in November, 1822, and dispersed all the gue- rilla bands in the northern provinces in Feb- ruary, 1823. In the mean time France, at the congress of Verona (1822), agreed with the courts of eastern Europe upon an armed intervention in Spain. The Spanish govern- ment was called upon to restore the royal sov- ereignty and to change the constitution; and compliance being refused, a French army of 100,000 men, under the duke of Angouleme, marched into Spain in April, 1823. The Span- ish government opposed to them four corps un- <K-r Ballesteros, Mina, O'Donnell, and Morillo, but most of them were soon overpowered and capitulated; Riego, who maintained himself longer than most of the other generals in tho field, was made prisoner and hanged. The king was compelled to follow the cortes to Seville, and from thence to Cadiz ; but a new regency at Madrid, in the name of the "imprisoned king," restored political absolutism, together with the convents. When Cadiz was closely invested and bombarded by the French, the cortes restored to the king his absolute power, Sept. 28. Ferdinand VII. at once revoked all the decrees of the constitutional government from March 7, 1820, to Oct. 1, 1823, and con- firmed those of the regency. All persons sus- pected of liberalism were persecuted with great rigor ; the municipal rights of the communities were abolished; and a treaty was concluded with France, which provided for a continu- ance of the French occupation. Still a great part of the absolutist party considered the king as not sufficiently energetic, and formed a co- alition for elevating to the throne his brother Don Carlos. Several insurrections broke out in 1825 and 1826, but they were soon quelled. At the same time Spain was compelled to aban- don its last position on the mainland of Amer- ica, Jan. 22, 1826. In 1830 Ferdinand was prevailed upon by his wife, Maria Christina, a Neapolitan princess, to abolish by the prag- matic sanction of March 29 the Salic law of the Bourbon family. In consequence of this change his daughter, the infanta Isabella (born Oct. 10, 1830), became heir to the throne, in place of his brother Don Carlos. In Septem- ber, 1832, the apostolic party extorted from the king, who was dangerously ill, a revocation of the pragmatic sanction of 1830; but the intrigue was soon discovered, the influence of the party broken, and Maria Christina ap- pointed regent of Spain for the time of the king's illness (October, 1832). She surrounded herself with a ministry of moderados, and tried to effect a reconciliation with the liberals in order to break the power of the Carlists. Don Carlos himself entered a protest against his exclusion from the throne, which was sus- tained by the Bourbonic courts of Italy. The death of Ferdinand VII., Sept. 29, 1833, was the signal for a general civil war. Don Carlos was proclaimed in the Basque provinces as Charles V., and was supported by a majority of the clergy and the country people through- out the kingdom ; Maria Christina had the joint support of the moderados and the liber- als. At first the Carlists, under the command of Zumalacarreguy, were successful, and the government of Christina implored the aid of England and France, which allowed recruiting within their states for the Spanish army. Soon afterward an army of 10,000 men was enlisted in England to join the royal troops. The cause of the Carlists began to decline with the un- expected death of Zumalacarreguy, June 25, 1835, and still more when Espartero in 1836 assumed command of the royal army in the northern provinces. Tho government, in the mean while, was compelled to make new con-