Finally, in 1821, the Directorial party, aristocratic and Unitarian, was victorious. Bernardino Rivadavia was the representative figure of the period. Secretary in the government of Rodriguez from 1821 to 1824, President from 1826 to 1827, a civil dictator like Portales in Chili, a remarkable statesman, a reformer like Moreno and Belgrano, he presided over a premature realisation of the democratic ideal, and symbolised the Unitarian principles in all their force: the supremacy of Buenos-Ayres, constitutionalism, European civilisation, and the ideal Republic. He was the pupil of Lamartine and Benjamin Constant in a barbarous democracy. He had every gift--physical arrogance, oratorical power, honesty, enthusiasm, patriotism. He divined the elements of Argentine greatness: immigration, the navigability of the rivers, the stability of the banks, and external trade. But Buenos-Ayres was then a plebiscitary republic, in which the _cabildo_ and the people resolved all problems of politics, and Rivadavia suffered ostracism, as he had enjoyed the unstable popularity with which democracies endow their leaders. He was, according to the expression of {136} M. Groussac, a vigorous forger of Utopias. He granted all political rights; he wished to see a republic with a free suffrage; he 'doubled the number of the representatives of the people, and suppressed the municipalities which had prepared the way for the revolution. The executive power renounced its extraordinary attributes and submitted to the legislative power. Was this wise, in a revolutionary country, face to face with the disunited provinces? Rivadavia organised the judiciary as a supreme and autonomous entity. He declared, in messages dealing with the doctrine of high politics, that property and the person were inviolable; he proclaimed the liberty of the press, and recognised the liberty of the conscience. He commenced the campaign against the Church, suppressing convents, seizing their possessions by mortmain, ignoring the ecclesiastic charter, and secularising the cemeteries. He aspired, like Guzman-Blanco, to found a national and democratic religion upon the traditional elements. A great educator, he had faith in the benefits of popular instruction, erected buildings for the use of schools and colleges, attracted foreign teachers, and promulgated a plan of study in which the physical sciences and mathematics, forgotten under the old system, occupied the first rank. He founded numerous pedagogic institutions: the Faculty of Medicine, the Museum, the Library, special technical and agricultural schools, and colleges for young girls.