When the administration of Las Casas came to an end, the municipality of Havana called a testimonial meeting for the sixteenth of December, 1796, which gave proof of the high esteem in which the extraordinary man was held by the people. Four years after his retirement, on the nineteenth of November, 1800, he died of poison. He had not escaped criticism by those who saw in his enforcement of forgotten laws and in many of his new ordinances the manifestation of an arbitrary spirit; but it was universally conceded that during his government Cuba reached a high-water mark in her development. Though the corruption and degradation of the court at Madrid had a baneful influence upon the Spanish colonies, the island which had enjoyed the blessings of his rule and caught a breath of the spirit of such men as Arango and Montalvo could never again be contented unquestioningly to accept the dictates of that court. The flood of new liberal ideas which, coming from France, swept over the whole world, could not be turned back at el Morro. They found their way into the hearts and the minds of the people and slowly but surely taught them to see where their ultimate salvation lay. CHAPTER XII The French Revolution set the pace for the world's movements in the last decade of the eighteenth century and spread the seeds of many more in the century to come. Pamphlets, books and proclamations coming to Spain from France opened the eyes of the people to evils, which in their loyalty to the throne and to the traditions of the country they had never dared to perceive. The corruption of her court, the ruin of her finances, the incompetency of her statesmen and her generals were revealed to the population and stirred sullen resentment. Demoralization seemed to have set in and threatened to dismember the once all-powerful kingdom. To the profligate Godoy was in a great measure attributed the degradation of the country and an atmosphere of conspiracy pervaded even the royal palace, from which patriotic plotters, resentful of Spain's humiliation, hoped soon to chase the favorite of the queen, who with supreme unconcern continued to fill his pockets from the royal treasury and to live in his wonted extravagance and dissipation. The forces of the French Republic had occupied the frontier forts and seemed to find little or no resistance. The fate of the royal Bourbons of France struck terror in the souls of the royal Bourbons of Spain, and the flight of the king and his family from Madrid was daily expected.