With these strong conservative elements, Portales constructed an austere nation. He was born in 1793, and was thirty-seven years old at the time of his first intervention in political life. He was a "new" man, a merchant, with precise ideas. He had the suggestive power of the _caudillos_, a concrete intelligence, a moderate education, a strong will, some power of reflection and authority. He might well become the leader of a race that knew nothing of lyric enthusiasms nor enticing dreams--the sensible {166} director of a practical people. Minister under Ovalle in 1830, he profited by the victory of General Prieto over the _pipiolos_. His conservative, authoritative ideas carried him into power. He never wished to be President, but a powerful minister, like Disraeli or Bismarck. Three or four simple and concrete ideas guided him in politics; in the first place, the organisation of Chili against anarchy. Religion is one of the forces of order, and Portales, like Garcia-Moreno, utilised it without going so far as theocracy; the principle of authority is necessary in order to organise a country, and the leader of the _pelucones_ demanded a strong executive with extraordinary faculties. Between two excesses--autocracy and demagogy--he inclined rather toward the former, and became a minister-dictator. Portales governed against disorder; he dismissed the revolutionary leaders, and men he divided into good and bad. He surrounded himself with "good" men: they were, naturally, conservatives. He hated _sargentadas_ (barrack mutinies); he educated the soldiers, and founded a national guard as a counter-check to militarism. He destroyed the bandits who infested the country. Primary and normal schools were opened, in which he favoured religious instruction. A severe economy was introduced into the national finances. His work was given legal and economic form by a Peruvian jurist, Juan Egana, and a Minister of Finance, Tocornal. The minister wished his work to share the majesty of things eternal; his personal and passing influence on life was not enough to satisfy him. He had thoughts of a statute, an inflexible mould for the future. The Constitution of 1833, which others promulgated under his sovereign ægis, so to speak, was his political legacy.