were afloat all over Europe in the early days of the French Revolution. He represented modern liberalism in the shape which it took in Spain. For this reason he had suffered many things at the hands of Godoy, and emerged from a long period of imprisonment and obscurity to take his place in the councils of the nation. Unhappily he was to find that his ideas were still those of a minority, and that bureaucracy and obscurantism were deeply rooted in Spain. [360] He was born in 1743. Of the other members[361] of the Supreme Junta, the Bailiff Valdez and Francisco Palafox, fresh from his brother’s triumphs at Saragossa, were perhaps the best known. Among the rest we note a considerable number of clergy--two archbishops, a prior, and three canons--but not more than might have been expected in a country where the Church was so powerful. Military men were not so strongly represented, being only five in number, and three of these were militia colonels. The rest were mainly local notables--grandees, marquises, and counts predominated over mere commoners. Some of them were blind particularists, and a few--like the disreputable Conde de Tilly--were intriguers with doubtful antecedents. The whole body represented Spain well enough, but Spain with her weaknesses as well as her strong points. It was not a very promising instrument with which to achieve the liberation of the Peninsula, or to resist the greatest general in Europe. Considered as a government of national defence, it had far too little military knowledge: a haphazard assembly of priests, politicians, and grandees is not adapted for the conduct of a war of independence. Hence came the incredible blindness which led it to refuse to appoint a single commander-in-chief, and the obstinacy with which it buried itself in constitutional debates of the most futile sort when Napoleon was thundering at the gates of Spain. [361] For a complete list of the names and professions of the members of the Junta, see the Appendix.