At the opening of the twentieth century, Dom Carlos was in the twelfth year of his reign, and Senhor Hintze Ribeiro (d. 1st August, 1907) was his Prime Minister. The Parliamentary system copied from England was in use, with the difference that whereas in England the political views of the Government depend on the result of the elections, in Portugal the result of the elections depended on the political views of the Government which “made” them, after the Government itself had been made for personal or party reasons at Lisbon. The two principal parties, were the Regenerador or Conservative, under the leadership of Senhor Hintze Ribeiro, and the Progressista or Liberal, under the leadership of Senhor José Luciano de Castro (d. 9th March, 1914). These continued to alternate in power by a system of connivance and compromise known as Rotativism. The Regenerador Ministry of Senhor Hintze Ribeiro lasted from 25th June, 1900, till 1904. In an earlier Regenerador Ministry under Senhor Hintze Ribeiro the Minister of the Interior had been Senhor João Franco, who in 1901 separated himself from the Regenerador party. In 1903 he formed a new party entitled Regenerador Liberal. With the resignation of Senhor Hintze Ribeiro in 1904, Senhor José Luciano de Castro came into office, and held the elections in the following year. In March, 1906, Senhor Hintze Ribeiro was again Premier, but only for a few weeks, during which he held another general election. The election as a Republican deputy of Senhor Bernardino Machado gave the populace of Lisbon an opportunity to show its Republican leanings, and the severe repression of the demonstration made on his arrival at Lisbon led indirectly to the fall of the Government. Both the great parties had now met with such resistance in Parliament or in public opinion that they found it impossible to govern.

On the 18th of May, King Carlos, breaking through the Rotativism which has been so frequently attacked, turned to the Regenerador Liberal party, and its leader, Senhor João Franco, became Premier. The King considered that he had found the “man of character” to put the political house in order, and he openly said so, thereby giving great offence to all the other politicians who amazingly fitted on the cap, and said: “He accuses us of political corruption.” Senhor Franco had come into office with the support of the Progressistas, under Senhor José Luciano de Castro, without which, indeed, it would have been impossible for him to control the Parliamentary situation. In the new Parliament, elected in August, four Republicans were elected, including Dr. Antonio José de Almeida and Dr. Affonso Costa; Senhor Hintze Ribeiro’s party (the Regenerador) was represented by thirty deputies, Senhor Castro’s by over forty, while the Government secured for itself only seventy. So long as the new Premier could count on the votes of the forty-three Progressista deputies, he was able to face the noisy scenes of the Chamber, but when that support was withdrawn a few months later it only remained for him to resign or to dissolve Parliament. Since the leaders of the Regeneradores and of the Progressistas had both within the last few months come to a similar dilemma, and there was no likelihood of finding a statesman of stronger character and greater ability than Senhor Franco, the King accepted the latter alternative and on 10th May, 1907, Parliament was dissolved.

Henceforth Senhor Franco stood alone, the best-hated and most calumniated man in Lisbon. It was in Lisbon that the Republicans had principally spread their doctrines, by gossip, pamphlets, and newspapers among the half-educated classes, who received with scandalised anger whatever accounts of Royal extravagance and of the wickedness of the Jesuits were furnished to them. If Senhor Franco was hated in Lisbon, the King was not much more popular. He himself had summed up the situation as “a Monarchy without Monarchists,” and the last Premier of the Monarchy, Senhor Teixeira de Sousa, declared that the Monarchy fell because it had against it the passion of many and the indifference of the majority. “There are no Royalists in Portugal,” said Senhor João Chagas, a good instance of the bad habit of calling Lisbon Portugal. The passions were concentrated in Lisbon, and the indifference in the provinces only served to throw the lurid politics of the capital into stronger relief.

The adeantamentos, that is, sums advanced by the Treasury for the King’s expenses, were a favourite catchword of the Republicans, and a frequent motive of calumny. But when Senhor Franco proposed to increase the Civil List, which had remained stationary for the last three-quarters of a century at a conto (about £200) a day, and do away with the adeantamentos, the storm of opposition and abuse only increased.

Here was a firm and able statesman, anxious to carry through financial, political and social reforms, and it might have been expected that he would have received some support from those who had the interests of the country at heart. Perhaps the Republicans considered the reforms too late, or rather a little too early, since for them the first, the chief, reform was now a change of régime: reforms did not please them unless they could be carried out by themselves. But it was not the Republicans alone who were to blame for the loss of this great opportunity of restoring order and stable government in Portugal. If the Republicans shrieked, the Royalist parties were no less clamorous against Senhor Franco. All those whose interests were menaced by the proposed reforms, all the comfortable rotativists and political hypocrites, all those who wished to gain credit by themselves initiating the reforms, and hated them when coming from another, were united against Senhor Franco. Senhor Franco, however, did not lose his head but continued his work with calmness and courage. He succeeded in decreasing the deficit and giving some hope of gradually abolishing it altogether. But as the opposition increased he was obliged to increase the rigour of his dictatorship. Various newspapers were suspended and the censorship became very strict. The fact that the suspended newspapers included O Dia, then the organ of the Alpoimistas (that is, the Progressistas Dissidentes, under the leadership of Snr. José Alpoim), O Mundo, a Republican newspaper then in its eighth year, the Progressista Correio da Noite and the Regenerador Populo suffices to show the force of the opposition with which the hated “Dictator” had to contend, and also how impartial he was in his efforts to effect reforms which most disinterested persons acknowledged to be excellent and necessary. He had not begun by employing arbitrary methods. “The Republican party,” wrote a Portuguese journalist, “asked above all for liberty, and the first thing the Government of João Franco did was to give it liberty. He gave it liberty of the Press and of association; he allowed it to demonstrate noisily in streets and squares. What was the result? The Republicans declared in the newspapers that they did not want the liberty given them by the Government, and one newspaper even wrote: ‘The more liberty they give us the more we will require; we must force them to compromising violence or disgraceful compromise.’”

Never have party passions so blinded all the politicians of a country to that country’s interests as in the violent and, one may well add, cowardly attacks on Senhor Franco. There was even a plot to kidnap him, and place him on a man-of-war in the Tagus. It is scarcely surprising that Senhor Franco should have been obliged to resort to methods more arbitrary, which of course drew scandalised cries of rage from those who had made them necessary. In Lisbon the lowest interpretation was placed on all his actions. Senhor Franco had no delight in violence, but he considered that it was the duty of a Government to govern, and that if this was rendered impossible for it by constitutional means it must govern as best it might. The dictatorship was only temporary, in fact the elections were fixed for April of the following year (1908). But with the extraordinary respect for convention and nice superficial scruples about formalities that characterises Portuguese politics (which sometimes seems to be a game to see who has the skill to govern most constitutionally and worst), a certain number of Royalists preferred to go over to the Republic than to acquiesce in anything so unconstitutional (and opposed to their interests) as the dictatorship.

Could Senhor Franco have counted on the support of public opinion outside Lisbon he might have mastered the situation, but the mass of the people continued as usual remote and apathetic, and it only remained for him to order the arrest of those whose avowed object was to make government impossible. Never under the Monarchy was a Republican arrested because he was a Republican. Republicans were allowed to retain high office in the army and in the civil service. But the men now arrested were known to have entered into a definite conspiracy to overthrow the Government and to seize the person of the Premier, if not to kill him. In January, not for the first time, a turbulent Republican journalist, Snr. João Chagas, was arrested, as also a more dangerous because more underhand Republican, Snr. França Borges, of the Mundo. The arrest of the Republican deputy, Snr. Affonso Costa and of the Visconde de Ribeira Brava, followed a week later (28th January, 1908). Dr. Antonio José de Almeida had been arrested a few days before. These were the darlings of a certain and not the most orderly section of the Lisbon people, and on their arrest disturbances occurred which were suppressed by the Civil Guard. And here it may be remarked that while Snr. Franco held the perfectly legitimate view that order must be maintained at all costs, he could scarcely be held responsible for the way in which his orders were carried out in detail. The methods of the Lisbon police and soldiers of the Guard are strange and ill calculated to lessen the anger of a crowd. Even under the Republic mounted soldiers of the Guard have been known to slash with their naked swords at innocent persons standing on the pavement who did not amount in all to a dozen, and were not dreaming of revolt or rebellion, being armed only with the not very warlike weapons known as umbrellas. The suppression of riots in January, 1908, was no doubt characterised by the same methods. A decree of January 31st (anniversary of the rising at Oporto in 1891, from which the Republican movement really dates) came to set a fine edge on the indignation of the Lisbon Republicans, who had been schooled to believe the worst of Snr. Franco and the King. By a decree of the preceding November political crimes were to come before three judges, the Juge d’Instruction Criminelle and two coadjutors, their verdict to be without appeal. The new decree allowed the Government to interfere and banish the accused. (Not for a moment was there any idea of imprisoning these confessed conspirators in the Penitenciaria.)

Like lightning the news spread through Lisbon, exaggerated into the announcement that all the Republican leaders were to be deported to Africa. King Carlos was, with the Queen and the Crown Prince, at Villa Viçosa, to the south of the Tagus, but was returning to Lisbon on the following day. The report was diligently circulated that he was coming in order to sign a decree deporting Snr. Affonso Costa and the other leaders. The King was met at the quay of the Terreiro do Paço, or “Black Horse Square,” by Prince Manoel, and the Premier, Snr. Franco, and entered an open carriage with Queen Amélie, the Crown Prince, and Prince Manoel. The carriage was about to leave the spacious Terreiro do Paço when several men sprang towards it, and in an instant Dom Carlos and the Crown Prince fell back mortally wounded by several bullets. The Queen was seen standing up in the carriage waving her bouquet of flowers in order to deflect the aim of the assassins. The Infante Manoel was slightly wounded in the arm. The first words spoken by Queen Amélie and Queen Maria Pia, mother of Dom Carlos, when they met, have been thus recorded: “They have killed my son”—“And mine.” The murder was followed in Lisbon by no wave of generous feeling, and if sadness was felt by many it was in the words of Camões, an apagada e vil tristeza.

Was this peculiarly hideous and dastardly crime the work of the Republicans? They denied it at first for the sake of foreign opinion, but subsequently they have accepted it as one of the glorious deeds of Portuguese history. Thousands of Republicans defiled past the graves of the murderers, Buiça and Costa, who had been cut down by the police, and the procession to their graves has been continued on each anniversary of this cowardly deed. The Democrats have now erected a costly mausoleum in honour of its authors. On the first anniversary of the Republic their names appeared written up in one of the principal streets of Lisbon among the heroes of the nation. Even while King Manoel was still on the throne Snr. João Chagas addressed one of his Cartas politicas to the shade of Manoel Buiça: “You did something great,” he says, “very great. You rehabilitated, you dignified the people.” Yet a people so “rehabilitated” could only be a despicable rabble. It will be seen that the Republicans, or at least the Democrats, have accepted and glory in this crime as their own. If at the time they repudiated it for the sake of appearances (since it was evident that a Republic ostensibly based on a deed of the kind could have little chance of winning the sympathy of foreign nations), in fact the Republican leaders and the Lisbon shopkeepers who supported them gave it their hearty approval, with that strange callousness which appears more repulsive when combined with sentimentalism and vague humanity. The more enlightened Republicans knew, of course, that the King was not responsible for the dishonesty or incapacity prevailing in Portuguese politics, and that his interference in politics was strictly defined and limited by the Constitution. There was no reason why honest and able men should not rise to a prominent place in politics, and if the Republicans held a monopoly of such men they would have been well advised to reform the Monarchy from within, by pocketing their Republicanism and rising to high office under the Monarchy. The very fact that the King chose and stuck to Snr. Franco in the face of all opposition shows that he was far from being anxious to encourage corruption and incompetence.

No sensible critic has accused Snr. Franco of either incompetence or corruption. But the King’s death naturally caused the fall of Snr. Franco, and the Monarchy was left to attempt to carry out reforms, but without the only politician disinterested enough or of firm enough character to make the attempt successful. The situation in the new reign, especially during its last Ministry, with its sincere programme of reform, was similar to that under Snr. Franco’s dictatorship, except that the strong will had departed. The weakness and lenience displayed towards the Republicans did not for a moment disarm them; the reforms proposed only served to infuriate them. It was considered that the strong hand had been tried and failed, and an opposite policy was adopted. Almost the new king might have been expected to go and lay a wreath on the tombs of the assassins, so conciliatory was the Government. The Republican leaders were released, the basest insults and calumnies and active conspiracies were allowed to go on unchecked. “Conspiracy proceeded on all sides” (“Conspiravase por toda a parte”), says Snr. João Chagas, and he ought to know. The Republicans looked forward to a Portugal so different from that of the Monarchy that it would scarcely be recognised. They had no reforms to offer other than those advocated by the Royalists and they were finally reduced to saying that what they wanted was—a revolution. “Only a revolution could satisfy the thirst for justice of Portuguese society: a revolution to punish the crimes of the dictatorship and definitely expel the old politicians from power.”[60] But it was not yet too late for the velhos politicos to stave off the revolution. Unhappily, however, after the death of Dom Carlos they appeared in all their worst faults, with no strong directing hand to restrain them. Dom Manoel, thus at the age of eighteen suddenly raised to the throne beyond all expectation, was in an extraordinarily difficult position. His tastes inclined rather to letters and music than to the art of government. He soon found, moreover, that the party leaders were thinking not of his interests, or the interests of Portugal, but of their own.

The Ministers rose and fell at intervals of a few weeks. At first Admiral Ferreira do Amaral formed a coalition ministry, which naturally pleased nobody, while its weakness towards the Republicans excited criticism. Had the Republicans been as unconnected with the murder of the King as for the sake of appearances they at the time pretended, they would have been the first to demand an instant and searching inquiry; as it was, the government, in order to conciliate the Republicans, allowed the investigations to be rather a matter of form than anything else, and the exact truth will now never be established, although the inference is clear. Admiral Ferreira do Amaral was succeeded by Snr. Campos Henriques, who, however, had the support of neither the Vilhenistas (Snr. Julio de Vilhena had succeeded to the leadership of the Regenerador party on the death of Snr. Hintze Ribeiro), nor of the Progressistas. Snr. José Luciano de Castro, although himself in retirement, continued to command the situation and pull the political wires, occupying much the same rôle of Cabinet-maker as Señor Montero Rios in Spain. Snr. Campos Henriques was speedily succeeded in the Premiership by his War Minister, Snr. Sebastião Telles, whose ministry did not last a month, and who was in turn succeeded by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the preceding Cabinet, Snr. Wenceslao de Lima. Snr. Wenceslao de Lima occupied a somewhat similar position to that of a Republican Premier, Dr. Bernardino Machado, four years later. His Ministry was formed with the support of the Regeneradores or Vilhenistas and the Progressistas dissidentes or Alpoimistas (whose leader, Dr. José d’Alpoim, was the personal enemy of the veteran Snr. José Luciano de Castro). But he wished to please also Snr. Castro’s Progressistas by maintaining the Civil Governors and Mayors appointed by them. This is, of course, an all-important matter after the constitution of a Portuguese Ministry, for as these officials will make the elections it is a bone of contention to which party they shall belong. The difficulty of a non-party Ministry of Concentration or Coalition is to find a sufficient number of non-party persons to fill these posts. In 1914 Snr. Bernardino Machado was accused of favouring the officials of Dr. Affonso Costa as in 1909 Snr. Wenceslao de Lima was accused of favouring those of Snr. Castro. And, like the Almeidistas and Camachistas of the later day, the Alpoimistas and Vilhenistas combined to overthrow the Government. On 21st December (1909) a new Cabinet was formed under Snr. Francisco Beirão. It lasted for six months. It was a Progressista Ministry, and had to face the unflagging opposition of both Alpoimistas and Vilhenistas, and of the Republicans. No stone was left unturned to discredit the Government. The sugar monopoly “scandal” was exploited to the utmost, and Dr. Affonso Costa sought to implicate persons of the Court in it. It seemed indeed that honesty was only dear to Portuguese politicians when they were able to unearth something damaging to their opponents. The Ministry fell on the 19th of June, and after a crisis lasting a fortnight Snr. Teixeira de Sousa agreed to form a Regenerador Ministry.

In the new Cabinet Snr. Anselmo de Andrade was Minister of Finance and Dr. José de Azevedo Castello Branco Minister for Foreign Affairs. It was this Regenerador, or nominally Conservative, Government which proposed reforms that should have satisfied the most ardent reformers. They included the alteration of certain clauses in the Carta Constitucional, the reorganisation of the House of Peers, the reform of the electoral law (allowing proportional representation to Lisbon and Oporto) of the administrative code (re-establishing the juntas geraes and so diminishing centralisation),[61] of education, of justice. It was proposed to make civil registration compulsory. The contract between the State and the Bank of Portugal was to be revised. Customs duties were to be paid in gold.[62] Roads and irrigation were to receive especial attention. Other measures were to affect the Army, the Navy, the colonies. These are some of the reforms sketched in the speech from the Throne read by King Manoel at the opening of Parliament on the 23rd of September, 1910. Mere words? But it only depended on the opponents of the Government to translate some of them at least into reality. The Government was only too willing but, apart from the opposition of the Monarchical parties, the Republicans did not want reform—they wanted a revolution. Had angels from Heaven drawn up a programme of reforms the Republicans would still have cried for a revolution. They did not allow Snr. Teixeira de Sousa a breathing space to carry out some of these reforms any more than they had allowed it to Snr. João Franco.

The elections had been held on 28th August, and resulted in the return of 89 Ministerialists, 41 opposition Bloquistas, and 14 Republicans. Ten of the latter were returned by Lisbon (where the voting was proportional). With 10,000 votes apiece, the Eastern section of the capital returned Dr. Bernardino Machado, Dr. Antonio José de Almeida, Dr. Affonso Costa, Dr. Alfredo de Magalhães and Dr. Miguel Bombarda, and the Western section Snr. João de Menezes, Admiral Candido dos Reis, Dr. Theophilo Braga, Snr. Alexandre Braga and Snr. Antonio Luis Gomes. The Government was in the seven thousands in both districts, while the candidates of the Monarchical Opposition Bloco received 5,000 votes apiece in the Circulo Occidental and 2,000 in the Circulo Oriental. The King, in obedience to the natural wishes of Queen Amélie, had not left the Palace for some months after the assassination of the 1st of February, 1908, but in the spring of that year he opened Parliament in State, and read the Speech from the Throne. In 1910 he was present at King Edward’s funeral, and in the same year made a journey through the North of Portugal, which in some districts became a triumphal progress, the peasants pressing eagerly to welcome their King.

After the opening of Parliament (which was then adjourned till the end of the year), the King proceeded to Bussaco to celebrate the anniversary of the battle in which, on the 27th of September, 1810, Wellington checked the advance of Masséna. The Duke of Wellington was present (as also, according to O Seculo, “Sir Olman, the historian”). The King held a great military review. It is reported that the sentiments of the Army towards the King were expressed in the words: “They killed the other [Dom Carlos], but if they touch this one they will have us to deal with.” A week later the Republic had been proclaimed. On the 3rd of October, O Seculo in its weekly summary of events could write, “Correu serena a semana—without anything worthy of mention.” On that very day the Revolution was hastened by the act of a madman, who shot one of the Republican deputies, Dr. Miguel Bombarda. The crime was, of course, attributed to the Royalists, but the Republicans have not shown that clemency towards opponents which hushed up the details of King Carlos’ murder, and had the death of Dr. Bombarda been due to something more than the act of a single individual, the world would have heard of it. Dr. Bombarda had earlier sat in Parliament as a Royalist, but he had recently joined the Republican party. On the 8th of August he had been the chief organiser of an anti-clerical demonstration described as “the greatest demonstration ever held in Lisbon,” and on the 28th of August was elected one of the ten Republican deputies for Lisbon. The Carbonarios had been carefully organised, and had done their work well, so that everything was prepared for a revolutionary movement now or later. Mutinies had already occurred on men-of-war, the marines having been won over to very advanced views, and the loyalty of the First Artillery and Sixteenth Infantry Regiments had been undermined. These regiments, and marines from men-of-war in the Tagus, under the command first of Admiral Candido dos Reis (who, under the impression, it is said, that the movement was a failure, committed suicide during the night of the 3rd), and then of the Carbonario Lieutenant Machado Santos, were able in a few hours to bring the Revolution to a successful conclusion, in the face of the greater part of the Army, which was loyal to the King: a signal example of the slowness and apathy which have always permitted a handful of men of energetic action to impose themselves temporarily in Portugal. According to the Lisbon Press, the total casualties of the Revolution were a little over 100 killed and 500 wounded. At eleven o’clock on the morning of the 5th of October the Republic was formally proclaimed at Lisbon, and Dr. Theophilo Braga installed as President of the Provisional Government. The provinces followed suit without a murmur. “If Lisbon turns Turk to-morrow,” Eça de Queiroz had written, “all Portugal will wear the turban.” Lisbon had now turned Turk, and the three other towns of Portugal, Oporto, almost exclusively Royalist, conservative Coimbra and clerical Braga, proceeded to don the turban. The rest of the country docilely did as it was bidden, and in its ignorance was as much affected by the recent change from Monarchy to Republic as it has been by recent changes of Ministry. The King had been entertaining the President-Elect of the Brazilian Republic, Marshal Hermes de Fonseca at dinner in the Necessidades Palace, on the evening of the 3rd. During the night the fire from two men-of-war in the river below was directed against the palace. Early on the morning of the 4th the King, accompanied by a small escort, left the palace, and subsequently embarked on the Royal yacht at the little fishing village of Ericeira, to the north of Cintra (the same which in the sixteenth century gave its name, “King of Ericeira,” to one of the Sebastianist impostors), with Queen Amélie, Queen Maria Pia, and his uncle, the Duke of Oporto.

The field lay open to the Republicans—professors who dreamed that they would soon see their doctrines become realities, professional politicians who had waited long for their turn, Carbonarios who had been skilfully trained as spies. The doctrinaires were rapidly disillusioned, and soon retired from active politics, leaving the more practical politicians to go hand in hand with the Carbonarios if they wished to maintain themselves in office. For the moment, amid the Utopian dreams of a new Portugal, moderation prevailed.

On the 5th a proclamation was issued to the Portuguese people, marked by that abstract and bombastic style which disfigures the literary work of the President of the Provisional Government: “The maleficent dynasty of Bragança, wilful disturber of social peace, has now been proscribed for ever.... Now at length terminates the slavery of our country, and, luminous in its virginal essence, rises the beneficent aspiration of a régime of liberty.” The good bourgeois of Lisbon were delighted. They felt that now at last they had a head of the State who knew how to speak. A more practical proclamation was that of the 7th to the effect that, “Since to-day there can be no foolish attempts or hopes on the part of a régime which has shamefully ended in a moral overthrow that adds greater humiliation to the tremendous lesson taught it by the Republican arms ... there is no reason for citizens to keep in their possession the arms of which they made such heroic use.” Throughout the country was posted up the decree declaring the family of Bragança proscribed for ever, and the orders of nobility extinct—bringing to many a village the first inkling that such a thing as a revolution had occurred. In Lisbon the Republicans had triumphed by sounding persistently two notes, that of the adeantamentos, to prove that the fall of the Monarchy would fill the Exchequer, that of anti-clericalism, to show that the religious orders were withholding the wealth of the nation.

Thus, apart from the dreams of the doctrinaires, the movement was essentially materialistic, and what support the Republicans had won in the country was obtained by promises of cheaper food and cheaper houses. Had the revolution been a proof that the Portuguese nation was alive, it might have been welcomed at whatever cost; but unfortunately it was the outcome of the nation’s apathy, which gave a free hand to a comparatively small body of politicians imbued with foreign ideas. And had the Republicans been as practical as they were materialistic, the Revolution might, again, have been welcomed; but they looked rather to abstract principles—positivism, liberty, humanity—than to the actual conditions in Portugal. How materialistic was the creed of the Republicans may be gathered from the following quotation from O Seculo a few days after the Revolution: “The Court is not wanted because with the exception of two or three noble houses of large fortune, it consisted of persons without money.... The bourgeoisie is the safe of the nation, and it is nearly all on the side of the Republic.” Rarely has franker expression been given to the unmannerly creed that families in which civilisation is a tradition of centuries, and which have often done signal service to their country, should be cast aside if they happen to be poor. How naïf was the Republican idea of Monarchy is shown by the remark in the same leading article of the same newspaper: “The man who presides over the destinies of the nation is now no longer a man in high boots and flowing robe with a little stick in his right hand; he is a man dressed like any other.”

And the new President, Dr. Theophilo Braga, declared on the 15th of October that “Science tells us that monarchies have no raison d’être because they humiliate the men who accept them.” Thus in a brief sentence all the nations of the North of Europe are dismissed humiliated. It was a moment of pardonable excitement, and some sincere Republicans believed that a new era of peace and prosperity had dawned for Portugal.