But it was not to poetry alone that Saavedra gave his attention at Malta. He continued also his application to painting, not having forgotten his original intention of adopting this art professionally. Notwithstanding the advantages he enjoyed there, however, he was anxious to be nearer his own country, and sought permission to go to France, for which purpose he had an English vessel of war assigned to take him to Marseilles. On arriving there, instead of being allowed to go to Paris as he desired, he was directed to fix his residence at Orleans, where, having exhausted the means afforded him for subsistence, he found it necessary to establish a school for drawing. In this he met with some success, having obtained various pupils and commissions for portraits, and a painting which he had finished with care and ability having been bought at a high price for the museum of the city. Four others of his paintings are in the choir of the cathedral at Seville. After a few months’ residence at Orleans, the revolution of July, 1830, allowed him to go to Paris, where he found his valued friends Isturitz and Galiano, both, like himself, having moderated the warmth of early opinions by the effect of observation as well as of time. Instead of interfering in political questions therefore, he continued his artistic labours. Several portraits he had painted appeared in the Exhibition of 1831 at the Louvre, and his name is to be found in the list for that year of professional artists established in Paris. In consequence of the cholera having broken out there, Saavedra soon after retired to Tours, where he finished his poem, the ‘Moro Esposito,’ and the Tragedy, ‘Don Alvaro,’ publishing the former at Paris in two volumes, in 1833. On the death of Ferdinand VII., under the milder sway of Queen Christina, the emigrants hitherto excluded from Spain were allowed to return to their country. Angel Saavedra hastened to take advantage of the amnesty, and arrived in Spain the 1st of January, 1834, to take the oaths required; after which he took up his residence at Madrid, and gave his adhesion to the government over which Martinez de la Rosa then presided. Now, however, an important change came over his fortunes, which brought him still more prominently before the world, and involved him again in the vicissitudes of public life.