There remained therefore only the third plan for creating a supreme government in Spain--that which proposed that the various existing Juntas should each send deputies to some convenient spot, and that the union of these representatives should constitute a central authority for the whole realm. This scheme was not so clearly constitutional as the summoning of the Cortes would have been, nor did it provide for real unity of direction in so complete a way as would have been secured by the appointment of a single Regent. But it had the practical advantage of conciliating the various provincial Juntas: though they sacrificed their local sovereignty, they obtained at least the power of nominating their own masters. In each of them the more active and ambitious members hoped that they might secure for themselves the places of delegates to the new supreme assembly. Accordingly the Juntas were induced, one after another, to consent to the scheme. Public opinion ran so strongly in favour of unity, and the existing administrative chaos was so clearly undesirable, that it was impossible to protest against the creation of a Supreme Central Junta. Some of the provinces--notably Murcia, Valencia, and Granada--showed a patriotic spirit of self-abnegation and favoured the project from the first. Even Galicia and Seville, where the spirit of particularism was strongest, dared not openly resist the movement. There were malcontents who suggested that a federal constitution was preferable to a centralized one, and that it would suffice for the provinces to bind themselves together by treaties of alliance, instead of handing themselves over to a newly created executive. But even in Aragon, where federal union with Castile seemed more attractive to many than complete incorporation, the obvious necessity for common military action determined the situation[358]. Every province of Spain at last adhered to the project for constructing a Supreme Central Junta. Even the narrow-minded politicians at Seville had to assume an attitude of hearty consent. But their reluctance peeped out in the suggestion which they made that the Junta should meet, not at Madrid, but at Ciudad Real or Almagro in La Mancha, places convenient to themselves, but obscure and remote in the eyes of inhabitants of Asturias or Galicia. Their aversion to Madrid was partly caused by its remoteness from their own borders, but much more by jealousy of the Council of Castile, which still hung together and exercised local authority in the capital. Other Juntas showed their aversion for the Council in the same way, and ultimately the place selected for the gathering of the new government was the royal residence of Aranjuez, which stands to Madrid much as do Versailles or Windsor to Paris and London. This choice was an obvious mistake: the central government of a country loses in dignity when it does not reside in the national capital. It seems to distrust its own power or