Year after year in Monterey were great fêtes, the laughter of beautifully gowned women, the melody of troubadours, the click of castanets, the trampling of horsemen in gay attire, the triumphs of governors and captains, and the booming of guns in the walled presidio. Here at this capital titled officials sat at the receipt of customs; here galleons from Manila put in for repairs and departed with cargoes of furs, and hither came fragatas and paquebotes from the Mexican coast and imposing craft from the four corners of the earth. Over picturesque adobe consulates in Monterey floated the flags of foreign nations when the only standard reared in San Francisco was a desolate wooden cross in the Mission Dolores. And the road through the mountain pines to Junípero's spiritual capital, his cabecera, three miles away, over which governors followed by glittering retinues marched to solemnize their oaths of office and whither they were borne for sepulture, was worn to its primal rocks long before the path from the San Francisco Mission to the bay became more than a shifting trail. San Francisco now can stand these invidious comparisons, for when glory finally sailed through the Golden Gate, fame departed from Monterey. The genius of Junípero gave to Monterey an impetus that long survived his death. As unconscious trustee, Spain, centring power at Monterey, was holding the coast for the larger destiny to follow. The shadow of new events crept toward Portala's cross. In a winter month in the third decade of the nineteenth century an unprecedented happening awakened the fears of the Franciscans at Carmel,--the holy water in the baptismal font in the San Carlos Mission was found to be frozen. This unparalleled thing in that bland clime could not, they believed, but portend some unhappy fate. In confirmation of their worst fears came the news that the Viceroy had repudiated allegiance to the King. The eagle of Mexico had soared above the lion of Castile, and a rebel had supplanted the King in the litany of prayers. The conerstone of the mission system had been broken; the crumbling process was at hand. Then came Fernandez, the Canónigo, the most exalted ecclesiastical dignitary that had ever set foot in Monterey. Junípero was a Puritan of humble and contrite virtue. The Canónigo was a swaggering roysterer, pledging the revenues of the Church in games of chance. On the occasions of Junípero's journeyings from his capital, the tears of his neophytes, the sound of mission bells, and the prayers of his comrades attested the reverence he had won. Races, revels, and bull-fights in Monterey celebrated the convivial departure of Fernandez.