“They are saying that this Ferrer, whoever he may be, paid Morral to throw the bomb at the King and Queen. If that is true he deserved to be shot. But others say that the Jesuits themselves paid Morral, and others again say that Don Carlos employed him.[14] What do _I_ know about it? The only thing certain is that the Jesuits had a hand in this Barcelona business, for they have a hand in everything that is bad for the country. Where the Jesuits are, there are the Carlists also. As for this Ferrer, who is he? We never heard of him till Maura shot him.” This commentary on “the execution of an anarchist” or “the martyrdom of an enthusiast” is, of course, that of the peasantry alone, not that of the Republicans and Socialists, to whom he was well known long before the Barcelona riots took place. But let it be remembered that the unlettered peasant forms the great majority of the working classes in Spain. The calm with which the mass of the nation regarded the affair was, however, shaken when a report got about that Ferrer was denounced by or at the instigation of a Dominican monk--even a name being given--who, having quarrelled with him some years before, had determined to contrive his destruction. I do not say that there was any foundation for this vague story. But its ready acceptance as exculpating [Illustration: SEÑOR MAURA. Leader of the Ultramontanes. [To face page 149.]] Ferrer, by those who had previously been indifferent or hostile to him, shows how the people twist everything to the prejudice of the Religious Orders, and believe all evil possible to them. Had the Liberal papers lent themselves to agitation then, the result might have been serious. No better incitement to riot could have been found than the story of the Dominican. The death of Ferrer in itself left the mass of the people unmoved, but the ease with which churches and monasteries were destroyed in Barcelona had already set many aggrieved people thinking how easy it would be to follow Barcelona’s example in other towns where the Jesuits are numerous, and only a leader and a party-cry were needed to raise the working classes against the Religious Orders. The whole of the Opposition Press, however, in spite of great provocation, as usual stuck to its guns and steadily, continued to condemn violence and to point out that the duty of the nation, unjustly deprived of its constitutional rights, was to prove by its self-restraint and moderation how entirely it was worthy to be trusted.