Moret took office in 1909 against his own better judgment, for he would have preferred that the Conservatives should bear the responsibility of their own misdeeds, and solve the many difficulties resulting from Maura’s “policy of repression.” But the country had been brought to such a pitch of irritation and unrest by the reactionaries that the situation was becoming dangerous. The Riff question was attracting the unfriendly attention of foreign diplomatists; Barcelona was impatient under a rigid application of martial law, and the Ferrer incident had called forth a storm of condemnation from all the countries where the assumption that a prisoner is innocent until he has been proved guilty is an axiom of criminal law, while the advanced parties in the State were getting out of hand and had begun to defy the Government, as, _e.g._, in the matter of the demonstrations already referred to. From the moment that Moret accepted office he was assailed by a stream of the most virulent abuse, not only by the Carlist but also by the Conservative and Ultramontane newspapers. He was “the destruction of Spain,” “the ruin of the nation,” “the arch-priest of irreligion and immorality,” and not only was his policy attacked in terms of unmeasured vilification, but the editors of these papers, which are owned and supported by some of the best born and wealthiest men in the country, did not hesitate to descend to vulgar personal abuse. His “grey hair,” for instance, was a favourite subject of their ridicule, and his “vacillation,” “infirmity of purpose,” and “inability to keep his party together” were accounted for by jeers at his “senile decay,” his “failing intellect,” his “body bent double by the weight of years,” and so forth, while the party led by him are usually spoken of in the clericalist organs as _canaille_.