THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
and authority capable of placing the institutions of the country upon a solid basis. It might, for instance, give new strength and a new impulse to the conservative party in Mexico, and enable it to establish a strong government.
At the same period General Miramon, the leader of the Clerical (or conservative) party in Mexico, having been exiled from his country, was in Madrid. He had interviews with the Prime Minister, General O'Donnell, with Calderon Collantes, with General Narvaez, and other prominent statesmen, and was treated with great distinction. He expressed himself frankly about the impossibility of maintaining a republic in Mexico, and advocated the convention of a constituent Congress in Mexico for the purpose of establishing a constitutional monarchy, and electing a king.
Meanwhile the Madrid newspapers declaimed eloquently about the new “mission of Spain” in the New World, and assiduously stirred the popular imagination with glowing predictions of the restoration of ancient glories. The man to do it was also found in the person of General Don Juan Prim, Count of Reus and Marquis de los Castillejos. He was one of the most picturesque characters of his time. At the outbreak of the Carlist War, in 1833, he entered the army of Queen Christina, and so distinguished himself by his skill and bravery that in a few years he rose to the rank of general. In 1843, his vigorous action contributed greatly to the suppression of an insurrection in Catalonia, and he was rewarded with the title of Count of Reus. In politics he had been a Progresista, but his enmity to Espartero led him into the ranks of the Moderados. When these, in the possession of power, adopted vindictive measures against the Progresistas, he became a Progresista again, and in 1844 he was accused of having participated in a plot to assassinate General Narvaez,
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